1. RedState Rules

2. Marginalizing Jim DeMint: Are Senate Republicans Trying to Get Tom Coburn to Be Judas to Conservatives?

3. Let Dead, Defunct Economists Stay Dead

4. Democrats Try Riding Two Horses With One A** On Union Anti-Choice Bill

5. Dick Blumenthal’s Countrywide problem.

6. The Hill: Voters find Democratic party more extremist.

1. RedState Rules

Time Magazine has released its 40 Under 40 list for the year. Question number two is “What’s your go-to political blog?”Among Republicans on the list, RedState.com is the most consistent answer. Those listing RedState as their go-to blog include Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, George P. Bush, Sean Duffy, Nick Ayers, and Mike Lee.Surprisingly, among the Democrats, not a single person listed Daily Kos as a go-to blog.Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. Marginalizing Jim DeMint: Are Senate Republicans Trying to Get Tom Coburn to Be Judas to Conservatives?

As you know, Senate Republicans are more than a little unhappy with Jim DeMint. The Senate GOP will see an influx of DeMint backed candidates after November. Consequently, the Senate GOP has become more fixated with marginalized Jim DeMint than fighting Barack Obama.For perspective, Mitch McConnell won’t even campaign against or speak ill of Harry Reid to help Sharron Angle. But his minion are all over Washington newspapers badmouthing Jim DeMint.The latest story coming out of the Senate GOP Conference is that the Senate GOP has decided to ignore Jim DeMint.”‘Jim DeMint isn’t the most effective legislator, so he has to gain power by driving headlines. His Achilles’ heel is everyone saying, ‘no comment,” a Republican said.”That’s from one Republican who, not being identified as a staffer, may be a Senator. Another, a staffer, said, “It’s like a piece of fruit. If you leave it on the counter long enough, it will spoil and go rotten on its own. I feel like that’s what’s going to happen with Jim DeMint.”With the coming wins by DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund, these Republican whiners are much like a boxer talking smack at the weigh in only to get knocked out in the first round.So they’ll talk about him and then say no comment. But there is something more and it is more troubling. It appears the Senate GOP is trying to set up Tom Coburn to be Jim DeMint’s Brutus and conservatives’ Judas. Thank God Coburn will have none of it.Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. Let Dead, Defunct Economists Stay Dead

I gave a talk at the Heritage Foundation and the subject of economics and policy came up. I’ve been dwelling on this 2009 article in the New Zealand Centre for Political Research Weekly and I think it is relevant today too.I stumbled onto it a couple of weeks ago and think it makes a worthwhile point — we keep digging up these dead and defunct economists like Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes and we need to put them back in the grave and keep them there. . . .We keep having the problems we’re having because people forget. They forget just how terrible the economic policies of Keynes and Marx actually are and inevitably after a twenty year gap or so they come back in full force and screw things up again.They’re zombies.Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. Democrats Try Riding Two Horses With One A** On Union Anti-Choice Bill

The job-destroying Employee Free Anti-Choice Act (EFCA) is becoming a topic this week in the political races leading up to November 2nd, as it should. Given that EFCA, in addition to card-check, lets a government ‘arbitrator’ dictate wages and benefits on private-sector businesses and their workers, it’s been estimated that 4.5 million jobs would be lost if EFCA ever does get signed into law.Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. Dick Blumenthal’s Countrywide problem.

It’s not often that you’ll see a conservative site link approvingly to a Nation article, but these are odd days. The executive summary: in 2008 Countrywide Financial/Bank of America – yes, the same Countrywide that gave sweetheart loans to Senator Dodd of Connecticut, who completely non-coincidentally decided not to run for re-election this year – entered into a 8.6 billion dollar settlement with those of its borrowers currently in financial trouble. The Nation has a variety of opinions – generally unfavorable, to put it mildly – on how well that settlement is working; but the part of the article that should really be drilled down from our point of view is the bit about how this is all being paid for. You see, in that announcement Blumenthal indicated “This settlement will cost BofA as much as $8.6 billion, but no cost, not a dime, to taxpayers.”The Nation calls that a flat lie.Please click here for the rest of the post.

6. The Hill: Voters find Democratic party more extremist.

This was one of their questions in their recent poll of ten open-seats (details here): 44% of likely voters think that the Democratic party is too extreme, as opposed to 37% who think that the GOP is too extreme. According to this poll, in fact, 22% of Democrats think that their own party is too extreme (11% of Republicans think the same of their own party)… and the breakdown of independent voters is virtually identical (43/37) to that of likely voters.Please click here for the rest of the post.