Political and social humor.

Democratic candidates in Utah must feel as if they’re facing an impossible task. The state is often considered the most far-right Republican stronghold in the United States. Winning Utah is akin to slaying a mighty dragon with only a bow as one’s chosen weapon.

Like all dragons, however, Utah has a weak spot. The year 2012 may be a ripe time for Obama to shoot an arrow through it.

If this year’s CPAC straw poll is any indication, things might get very interesting in the run-up to the 2012 Republican primaries: Ron Paul has ended Mitt Romney’s three-year run as conservatives’ favorite for president, taking 31 percent of the vote in the Conservative Political Action Conference’s annual straw poll. Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas [...]

Lost in the chaos of recent political debates was an unexpected and unreported schism in the hard core anti-choice movement fueling the state “personhood” ballot drives.

Written by Wendy Norris for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

A deconstruction of Neoconservative William Kristol’s assumption the the G.O.P. will move further to the right.

In the early stages of the race for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2012, eight names are mentioned most frequently: Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Haley Barbour, Bobby Jindal and Dick Cheney.

Of these eight early contenders, five outright deny or question climate science, while the remaining three are opposed to all meaningful action.

If Gingrich, Jindal or Barbour wish to claim they are not opposed to all meaningful action, they’ll have to present plans that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the extent scientists say is necessary, which is on the order of an 80+ percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2050. An ‘All of the Above’ strategy of increased domestic oil and gas development and incentives for nuclear plants that will never be built does not even come close.

Today, Representative Ed Markey pushed this story back to the forefront with a Huffington Post piece. After setting the record straight on Romney’s falsehood and explaining the urgency of clean energy legislation, Markey finishes strong:

So the next time you hear Mitt Romney or other opponents of clean energy and climate legislation railing about the costs of action, you should multiply your suspicion by whatever number they are attempting to sell. Odds are, it is far from even-handed.

While this is a solid piece, and Representative Markey makes his case well, he barely mentions the other Republican politicians who have repeated this lie. I understand the value of pegging this on a potential 2012 Presidential candidate, but there are over a dozen current elected officials in the Republican party who have repeated this lie as well.

Since I last updated the count a few weeks ago, eight additional Republican politicians and party organizations have repeated the lie, bringing the total to 20.

I noted yesterday that Mitt Romney had picked up on the $1,761 cap and trade lie over the weekend, telling a starstruck audience at the hyper-conservative value voters summit that cap and trade legislation would “would cost the average American family $1,761 a year.”

Evidence has now surfaced that Romney told the $1,761 lie at least once before the summit began, in this interview with Human Events on Friday the 18th. Note the difficultly with which Romney struggles to explain not only how this is supposedly a 15% tax, but also the exact purpose of cap and trade legislation.

I mentioned last week that both CBS and Politico were forced to issue corrections on pieces they published citing inflated cost-estimates of a version of climate legislation that was never considered by Congress.

Despite immediate and forceful pushback from the Treasury Department, the Congressional Budget Office and environmental groups, solid reporting by the Wonk Room and the Washington Post, and thorough debunkings by Media Matters and Politifact, several leading GOP elected officials have begun citing the highly misleading figure.

Jessica McBride (39) admits she had an affair Chief Edward Flynn (61).