I officially unmasked myself and started going by my real name but kept the “Southern Avenger” moniker. I toned down my rhetoric, even as I made many of the same arguments about illegal immigration and other issues. I began to focus on what might be done to rescue the Republican Party from the damage wrought by President George W. Bush, who put conservatives in the unfortunate position of defending unpopular wars and ignoring the largest government expansion in history.

via Confessions of a Right-Wing Shock Jock – Jack Hunter – POLITICO Magazine.

This, is, uh…probably the most damning paragraph in the piece (which as a whole is pretty dang damning).  It is so because of the part I bolded…

You see…this is the kind of cosmetic change these folks went through as the culture at large rejected their out and out racism.  It goes from “We need to end welfare because the lazy niggers are robbing us blind” to “We need to end welfare because libertarianism”.

And this is his apology piece.

“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world,” Pope Francis wrote. “This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.”

via Pope Francis rips capitalism and trickle-down economics to shreds in new policy statement | The Raw Story.

Look at that, Popes can do math too.

via A Dangerous, Wrongheaded Deal with Iran – By Ted Cruz | Foreign Policy.

Here’s a snarky general response to some of the idiocy put forth by Raffy.

>”Likewise, the mullahs in Tehran can now laugh all the way to the bank while they spend the time and money they have gained in Geneva pursuing nuclear capability. “

LOL…is this Palin-level understanding of other countries…or is Rafael just playing dumb for the rubes…inquiring minds want to know.

>”We should have demanded preconditions from the Iranians before any direct meetings took place”

LOL. Does that usually work for you? Where the other team forfeits before you start? How’d that work out for you in the government shutdown?*

>”We can start by reclaiming the moral high ground and demand the Iranian regime immediately and unconditionally release the three Americans they are unjustly detaining, Saeed Abedini, Amir Hekmati, and Robert Levinson. “

LOL….interesting concept of “claiming the moral high ground”….I notice you continue to block funding for closing Gitmo….

>”In addition, Iran should affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.”

LOL…yea…uh…when did you get elected to the Knesset and why is this another “pre-condition”….you just don’t really want to have actual talks, huh?

My lord….this is like…barely…college republican level. This reads like something Palin would write…seriously. Yikes.

*trick question…it was great for Rafael personally…bad for everyone else in the country.

The data here suggest that 1% of the 1% donors exert a conservative tug on American politics. Though we would be wise not to infer too much from correlations, especially without the benefit of over-time analysis, the results here are striking.

The parties are symmetrical in that more extreme members rely more on small donors than their moderate colleagues. But they are asymmetrical in that among Republicans, the most conservative members get more of their money from 1% of the 1% donors than their moderate colleagues, while among Democrats, the most moderate members on average get slightly more of their money from 1% of the 1% donors than their more liberal colleagues, all else being equal.

In other words, 1% of the 1% money appears to reward conservative Republicans as compared to moderate Republicans. And it may slightly reward moderate Democrats as compared to liberal Democrats.

via Are the 1% of the 1% pulling politics in a conservative direction? – Sunlight Foundation Blog.

Love the charts and graph and regression analysis and simple explanation of what regression analysis is and how it works.

You can see the real-world examples of this in the Tea Party, where most of their money comes from PAC’s that are funded by very small numbers of very wealthy conservatives.