More tid-bits for your right-wing brother-in-law

This is another example of Romney feeling the urgent need to reach extremes in order to appease the far-right contingent of the GOP base, in this case the neocon segment. By continually courting the fringe at this point in the campaign is a prolonged act of desperation, one that is soaked with flop-sweat. He should already have the base locked-up and put to bed, more than confident in their intent to vote for him. However, his actions continue to hint otherwise and make one seriously question whether internal polling is flashing panic signals. I mean what he's doing and continues to do, pandering to the kooks, is party primary stuff. By now Romney should be looking to tack to the middle, given the general electorate is much more moderate than the core of the GOP. Needless to say, the longer his campaign remains in this base-seeking mode, the better it is for Obama.

"A survey of forty economists from across the ideological and partisan spectrum has concluded that on some of its most cherished issues, the Republican Party has simply taken leave of economic reality. For instance, economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers noted that one of the results from the survey — run by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, which is hardly known for a left-wing slant — is an overwhelming agreement that the 2009 Recovery Act (i.e. the stimulus) brought down unemployment. But GOP leaders have spent years roundly denouncing the stimulus as a failure."

Rasmussen polls can't be trusted: "After the 2010 elections, the New York Times statistics wizard, Nate Silver, analyzed the polls produced by various polling organizations, including Rasmussen Reports, which is the house pollster for Fox News. Silver's analysis covered only polls taken during the final three weeks of the campaign and compared them to the actual election results....Silver analyzed 105 polls released by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, for Senate and gubernatorial races in numerous states across the country. The bottom line is that on average, Rasmussen's polls were off by 5.8% with a bias of 3.9% in favor of the Republican candidates."

"During the 1950s and ’60s, financial institutions were tightly regulated. Bankers did not make money by trading for their own account but instead earned fees for providing advice to their customers and serving as a go-between for companies raising capital. Their goal was to get to know their clients well, understand their problems, and act in their best interests—somewhat like family doctors. They were not compensated absurd amounts. Wall Street was viewed as a place not for high flyers but for sober, cautious people who were perhaps a little boring. Meanwhile, the economy boomed and we had very few financial crises."

Financial Scandal Scorecard.