Politics

Rick Perry, corn dog champion ( Iowa Politics )   So Rick Perry caught a big break Tuesday: He took a shellacking from his own party’s establishment for accusing Ben Bernanke of treason and threatening to deliver a Texas-style beatdown should the Fed Chairman ever set foot in the state. Karl Rove and gang are leading the way in umbrage-taking, saying Perry’s comments were irresponsible and unpresidential.

Tonight, Mitt Romney makes his first debate appearance of the 2012 GOP primary season, and yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Tim Pawlenty made it clear he plans to go on the attack over Romney’s health care reform plan. WALLACE: What do you make of Romney’s argument that there’s a fundamental difference between an individual mandate at the federal level, that everyone must get health insurance, and individual mandate at the state level? Do you see a difference in principle between — on that point between Obamacare and Romneycare?

JUNEAU, Alaska — There are no bombshells, no “gotcha” moments. The emails of Sarah Palin – more than 24,000 pages of them released Friday by the state of Alaska from her first two years as governor – paint a picture of an image-conscious, driven leader, closely involved with the day-to-day duties of running the state and riding herd on the signature issues of her administration. Read More… More on Politics

By Sarah Audelo and Gregory Cendana We were surprised to learn from Gary Bauer (” Obama’s Anti-Youth Agenda ,” Politico, July 9) that Obama’s agenda has thus far failed young people in America. We were more surprised that Mr. Bauer, at age 63, considers himself a viable spokesperson for the millennial generation. Obama’s record on youth issues certainly worthy of examination, but it’s hardly the disaster portrayed by Mr. Bauer, who seems intent on cramming every conceivable right wing talking point into his critique.

The NAACP pulled its punch and did not flatly condemn the tea party as racist. The resolution it proposed at its national convention condemned what it called “racist elements” in the party. This was both a tactful and crucial distinction that the NAACP was right to make. Tea party leaders though incensed at the NAACP for calling the party out on racism admitted that some of those who have turned up at tea party events have spouted racist slurs. The leaders also say that they have denounced them.

California voters face a clash between corporate cash vs. progressive populism. Nothing less than the biggest statehouse, the biggest Senate seat, and the future presidency of America is at stake here in the Golden State. Corporate cash vs. progressive populism Can corporate cash always beat progressive populism? Absolutely not - but it will be spent at historic levels over the next 5 months. Corporate cash funded the nominations of Meg Whitman (R-eBay) for governor and Carly Fiorina (R-Hewlett Packard) for senator.

Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics Marc J. Hetherington, Jonathan D. Weiler Cambridge University Press Paperback, 234 pages, $23.16 Kindle edition 9.99 August, 2009 Money quote: Considering our story up to now, we believe we have adduced powerful evidence for the increasingly central role that authoritarianism has come to play in structuring party competition, mass preferences and the relevant issue agenda of the past forty years.

The student who faces decades in jail for guessing a password.

Judge them by their enemies. More evidence that Barack Obama might be shaping up as a good president is that Norman Podhoretz hates him so much. In a Wall Street Journal column Monday the guru of the neoconservatives declared: “I would rather be ruled by the Tea Party than by the Democratic Party, and I would rather have Sarah Palin sitting in the Oval Office than Barack Obama.” I know that does not properly address all of the serious questions raised about the Obama presidency by progressives, myself included, and as of today we must now add offshore oil drilling to the list.

A year and a half ago, a few weeks before the presidential election, Google CEO Eric Schmidt made a bold claim about the impact of the internet on our public life: “We are witnessing the end of Rovian politics,” he declared to Arianna Huffington .