From the Pork Barrel: Recession Regression

* Ben Bernanke promises a hungry nation: No chickens in any pot! (Also, gimme that pot.)

* For Rick Perry so loved the country that he decided to run for President at great personal sacrifice to himself even though he totally doesn't actually want the job. Amen.

* Mitt Romney blows circuit after human person asks question that wasn't submitted via punch card.

* Newt Gingrich takes break from busy Tiffany's shopping schedule to explain that media, government and academic "elites" are responsible for loss of manufacturing jobs in U.S.

* Republican voters now slightly less disappointed in their primary choices.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Ben Bernanke, Economy, Federal Reserve, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Pork Barrel, Primaries, Recession, Republicans, Rick Perry

Stephen Colbert on Rick Perry's New Treasurer/Colbert Super PAC's Old Treasurer

The Colbert Super PAC shouldn't think of it as losing a treasurer, so much as gaining the lack of a treasurer. You know, silver lining and all.

The Colbert Report airs Monday through Thursday at 11:30pm / 10:30c.

Tags: Ben Bernanke, Colbert Super PAC, EPA, Federal Reserve, Primaries, Republicans, Rick Perry, South Carolina, Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, Video

Rick Perry Kinda Sorta Maybe Threatens Ben Bernanke with Violence

Wow! Looks like Texas Gov. Rick Perry is even less of a fan of the Fed than Ron Paul is. I mean, unless Ron Paul has as some point implied that he would beat the hell out of it with a cattle prod…

 

"If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion."

First of all, just so we're all on the same page, when Perry talks about "print[ing] more money between now and the election," he's talking about Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's plan for quantitative easing, which people who are smarter than I am explain as "creating massive amounts of money out of thin air with the hope of getting the economy back on track." That action is, to Perry's mind, "treasonous," as in a "violation or betrayal of the allegiance that a person owes his sovereign or his country." (As opposed to threatening to lead a state to secede from the union, which is just good ol' fashioned common sense.)

Anyway, all that said, Perry was probably just letting his Texas-sized mouth get the better of him, right? I'm sure that his campaign would welcome a chance to walk back the comment at their first available opportunity…

[Perry] spokesman, Mark Miner, emailed [Greg Sargent] this: "The Governor was expressing his frustration with the current economic situation and the out of control spending that persists in Washington. Most Americans would agree that spending more money is not the answer to the economic issues facing the country."

The important thing here is that this is the Perry camp's official considered response — and he is not disavowing the implied threat in his original remarks. Instead, the campaign's position seems to be that this was a legitimate expression of "frustration" with runaway Washington spending — one that other Americans surely share.

Okay, then. I guess they're not walking it back.

I remain confident, however, that common sense Republicans will repudiate Perry's brand of bullying politics…

[A] new national Rasmussen survey has him taking the lead in the GOP primary, far outside the margin of error. The poll shows that Perry is now the first choice of 29 percent of the GOP voters surveyed, with former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney with 18 percent, and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) in third with 13 percent.

I said, "I remain confident," goddamnit!

Tags: Ben Bernanke, Economy, Federal Reserve, Iowa, Money, Rick Perry, Texas

Rep. Bob Inglis Somehow Didn't Know That We Are All Just "Collateral for the Banks"

Rep. Bob Inglis — a Republican congressperson with "a 93 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union" — will not be returning to Congress next year. That's because he lost his primary campaign to  Teapproved candidate Trey Gowdy. That is because he is a stinking liberal who thinks that maybe God is not speaking through the mouth of Glenn Beck.

So, he lost his spot on the Tea Party Express. ("Next stop, the side of that mountain!"). But he'll always have the memories of dealing with his constituents…

"They were upset with me," Inglis recalls. "They are all Glenn Beck watchers." About 90 minutes into the meeting, as he remembers it, "They say, 'Bob, what don't you get? Barack Obama is a socialist, communist Marxist who wants to destroy the American economy so he can take over as dictator. Health care is part of that. And he wants to open up the Mexican border and turn [the US] into a Muslim nation.'" Inglis didn't know how to respond…

Shortly before the runoff primary election, Inglis met with about a dozen tea party activists at the modest ranch-style home of one of them. Here's what took place: "I sat down, and they said on the back of your Social Security card, there's a number. That number indicates the bank that bought you when you were born based on a projection of your life's earnings, and you are collateral. We are all collateral for the banks.

"I have this look like, 'What the heck are you talking about?' I'm trying to hide that look and look clueless. I figured clueless was better than argumentative. So they said, 'You don't know this?! You are a member of Congress, and you don't know this?!' And I said, 'Please forgive me. I'm just ignorant of these things.' And then of course, it turned into something about the Federal Reserve and the Bilderbergers and all that stuff. And now you have the feeling of anti-Semitism here coming in, mixing in. Wow."

You gotta admit, it does seem kinda silly that a member of Congress doesn't know all this stuff about the banks harvesting our organs to make gold bricks out of our spleens, but this guy holding up the picture of Barack Obama's butt with Hitler's mustache under the anus does.

Just goes to show you what's wrong with this country. Shame on you, Rep. Inglis, for being so willfully blind to Obama's spirit agents that live inside our oil lamps.

Tags: Barack Obama, Federal Reserve, Glenn Beck, House of Representatives, Republicans, Social Security, South Carolina, Tea Party

Senate Unanimously Votes to Taunt the Mysterious Demon-Beast That Is the Federal Reserve

Contrary to conventional wisdom, there seems to be something on which all U.S. senators can agree: Fuck the Federal Reserve!

Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) Audit the Fed amendment to Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) financial regulatory reform bill just passed the Senate in a bipartisan landslide, 96-0 — with every Senator present on board with the populist amendment. The Sanders amendment requires the Government Accountability Office to audit most of the Federal Reserve’s books since Sept. 2008 by Dec. 2010.

Speaking just before the vote, Sanders said that people now "recognize the immense power of the Fed, and people are demanding transparency of the Fed."… He also promised: "This is not the end. This is the beginning. We are beginning to lift the veil of secrecy on what is perhaps the most important agency in the United States government."

Unfortunately, I've seen the last reel of this movie before. After devouring Sanders whole, the monstrous, gelatinous banking system smashes its way across the country while an embittered, frizzy-haired Ron Paul laments that the government should have listened to him all along. When will senators learn to stop seeking to understand the un-understandable?

On the plus side, though, we do get to see Chris Dodd's boobs.

Tags: Bernie Sanders, Chris Dodd, Federal Reserve, Money, Senate