January 27

More evidence that all those undecided voters we hear about every four years are some of the dumbest people on earth.

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Even though the entire Republican Party got its ass lady-kicked in the 2012 election because lady voters don't usually flock to the party that tells them how stupid they are, some Republicans are still utterly shellshocked by, you know, how stupid lady voters are.

Take, for example, billionaire conservative and Rick "Kiss the dead fetus, kids!" Santorum fanboy Foster Friess, who kindly explained to us dumb broads that we don't need actual birth control, because an aspirin between the knees will do the trick just fine.

Apparently, he has yet to recover from his shock:

"I am absolutely stunned how the Democrats were able to somehow say that the Republicans had a war on women. … What was the war on women? They tried convince that somehow Santorum was going to do this, that Republicans were against contraception," he said. "Hugh Hefner said, this guy Friess wants to reverse the sexual revolution. Well, I have four kids. They're two years apart. And contraception's been very, very good to me." [...]

"And so how the Democrats got away with this, I think, is another indication of a flaw of the Republicans. No one confronted that. No one confronted that and said this is a bald-faced demagoguery. But a lot of the women out there, they, you know, they were, I guess — what's the proper word I want to use — seduced — that this a war on women." [...]

"That message," said Friess, "took advantage of all the low-information women voters out there who just follow Joy Behar, and had no idea that Rick Santorum — and Mother Theresa — believe that contraception goes against the Bible's teaching."

Hard to believe women didn't vote for Republicans, isn't it?

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It's party time again for the rich

by David Atkins

The job creators are doing fabulously well again. Everyone else? Not so much:

Those at the top are seeing their wages rebound quite strongly in the recovery. Following a 15.6 percent decline from 2007 to 2009, real annual wages of the top 1.0 percent of earners grew 8.2 percent from 2009 to 2011.

The real annual wages of the bottom 90 percent have continued to decline in the recovery, eroding by 1.2 percent between 2009 and 2011.

Wage inequality grew substantially over 1979–2007, lessened in the 2007–2009 downturn, and began expanding again in the 2009–2011 recovery. Trends over the next few years will determine whether wage inequality returns to or exceeds the heights reached in 2007 or 2000—or simply remains far higher than at any time in the 1980s and 1990s.

Given the strong stock market recovery and wage growth at the top, the top 1.0 percent's overall incomes (which include wages, capital gains, and other returns on financial assets) probably grew strongly in 2011, thereby increasing income inequality.

Since they're doing so well, I would ask the "job creators" where all the jobs are. But that would be funny, and these dreary statistics don't lend themselves to humor.

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If I got a message from Facebook or Instagram telling me I had to upload a picture of my drivers license to regain access I think I'd be sure it was some sort of phishing scam. And if anyone actually complied I'd think they were web rubes, like folks who think the dude in Nigeria really needs them to dicreetly move his 5 million dollars from America to Luxembourg. But the joke would be on me because Facebook and Instagram are really doing this.

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Tyranny in chart form courtesy of New York Magazine.

President Obama has some catching up to do if he wishes to rival the tyrannical menace of Ronald Reagan.

Note: this does not include the executive orders the president signed on gun control, however that would barely move the needle.

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"I think it is the awsomest time I've ever had in my whole entire life."