Top Headline Comments 4-25-12

Happy Wednesday.

The President lied his little pointy head off yesterday when he claimed to quote---"I'm just quoting here. I'm just quoting . . . I didn’t make this up"---from Republican Congresswoman Virginia Fox on irresponsible student loan debt. He claimed she said she had "very little tolerance for people who tell me they graduate with debt because there’s no reason for that." In fact, she said she had "very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt because there’s no reason for that."

351 small banks can't repay $15 billion in TARP loans.

"It was like a shootout in the movies!" said one neighbor after two NYPD officers unloaded 84 bullets at a man last night. The man shot once at the NYPD officers and they returned fire. Both police officers reloaded twice during the barrage. The man was hit fourteen times. He lived.

The Supreme Court will hear argument today in the case of United States v. Arizona. It's the Arizona immigration law case. The high court is also expected to release at least one opinion later this morning.

With respect to the primaries last night, Romney secured 146 delegates last night. Paul got 4. Gingrich got 0. Romney also took every single county in each of the five states.

I guarantee you there will be pundits today wringing their hands about voter turnout last night. They'll be pretending that turnout (which I assume was low, but didn't bother to check because any moron could tell you it'll be low) is an indicator of how dedicated Romney's voters really are. They'll be pretending this because pundits have to pundit about something and their pulpy little parietal lobes don't have a lot of punditry primed for a primary with only pro forma polls pending.

Newsflash: the GOP candidate will be Romney; not only does everyone know it, but everyone has known it for over a week now. So obsessing over the turnout last night is stupid for a few obvious reasons:

(1) Incentives matter. What's the incentive to vote if your vote isn't going to affect the outcome of the race?
(2) Disincentives also matter. Why vote if your preferred candidate has dropped out and you're left with candidates you'd really not pull the lever for?
(3) Obama ate a dog. Last night's contests in no way reflect the incentives and disincentives of participating in the general election.

First person to tweet me a link to a pundit moaning about turnout last night gets my undying gratitude and a free year's subscription to the HQ, but mostly just a free year's subscription to the HQ.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 06:53 AM

| Access Comments