Nevada to reprise Freaks and Geeks

In the four-ring circus that is the GOP primary, here comes the bearded lady and the combover in the clown car for a couple more meaningless endorsements.

Former Nevada Senate hopeful and tea party favorite Sharron Angle is endorsing Rick Santorum, according to reports from NRO's Robert Costa and Fox News's Greta Van Susteren.

"Rick Santorum and I have known each other for years," Angle told Van Susteren in a statement she read on "On The Record. "He is a strong fiscal and social conservative," she said, who puts "principles above politics."

She added he is a "perfect fit ... (for the) tea party movement."

And...

Word started leaking out in Las Vegas earlier that Donald Trump's "major announcement" is to back Newt Gingrich, and sources are confirming it to POLITICO.

The announcement is expected to come at an 12:30 p.m. press conference tomorrow that The Donald is holding.

Mitt Romney: Inartful dodger

If he wasn't a millionaire a couple hundred times over, maybe the jerkface quotient on this comment wouldn't be so high. As it is, remarks like this one only further the impression that Romney lacks a human touch.

It's Working? - Sub-Zero

Another 100 bite the dust.

Sub-Zero said 100 workers at its Madison plant will lose their jobs by the end of June.

The privately owned company, which makes upscale refrigerators and stoves, sent a letter to state and city officials Tuesday saying it will close operations at 4717 Hammersley Road on June 29.

(It's Working? is a counter to our friends at the MacIver Institute who believe that Scott Walker's proposals are succeeding by simply telling themselves over and over again that the numbers are lying and that, in fact, It's Working!)

Newt Gingrich campaign paid own company, self

Nothing classier than a millionaire candidate cutting himself reimbursement checks out of his campaign account.

Still, even as the (Gingrich) campaign professionalized, it continued to lean on the network of companies and non-profits Gingrich built after leaving Congress.

For instance, it paid $67,000 for web hosting to Gingrich Productions, which had previously received payments for web development totaling $8,400.

The campaign also paid Gingrich himself $47,000 for a list of supporters, plus another $206,000 for travel.

It’s not unusual for for campaigns to pay rent or buy lists from political committees or non-profits affiliated with the candidate, and it’s fairly common for campaigns to reimburse staffers for travel or other expenses.

But it’s unusual for a presidential candidate personally to be paid significant amounts for travel or lists — both because candidates can contribute an unlimited amount in cash or services to their own campaigns and because campaigns typically foot travel costs directly. And the Gingrich campaign did not immediately respond to questions about the payments.

Who knew that being a bold Reagan conservative meant padding your wallet with your donors' money?

Arizona Candidate Challenged Over English Skills

Barring a citizen from holding public office because a judge doesn't think her English is good enough?  Yikes.

SAN LUIS, Ariz. — When Alejandrina Cabrera speaks English, her face takes on an expression somewhere between deep discomfort and outright despair. Her tongue, which darts around her mouth in her native Spanish, slows to a crawl.

“I speak little English,” she said in a hesitant and heavily accented interview in her lawyer’s office. “But my English is fine for San Luis.”

Mrs. Cabrera may be able to get her point across in English, but whether she is proficient enough in the language to serve on the governing board of this bilingual border city has deeply divided the 25,000 residents.

What began as an effort by political opponents to block Mrs. Cabrera from the ballot for a seat on the City Council has mushroomed into an uncomfortable discussion of just how fluent Arizona officeholders need to be. Like many other states, Arizona has long required politicians at all levels to speak, read and write English, but the law fails to spell out just what that means. Is grade-school knowledge enough? Must one speak flawlessly? Who is to decide?

For the record, Arizona law states that "the ability to read, write, speak, and understand the English language sufficiently well to conduct the duties of the office without aid of an interpreter shall be a necessary qualification for all state officers and members of the state legislature."

Can't wait to watch a lawyer defend this in court.

Why I'm okay with Rick Santorum.

I don't agree with Rick Santorum on a lot of things. I respect his opinions on most social issues since it's easy to tell that they're sincerely held and, unlike a lot of people who express those feelings, Santorum is more than willing to walk his talk. But I disagree with those opinions all the same and that alone would likely preclude my ever voting for him.

However, there have been a number of times in the debates where I have spoken to friends afterwards and said something that I never thought I would say: Rick Santorum is the smartest guy up there. Whether it's defending the fundamental fairness of a progressive system of taxation, or his belief that corporate tax breaks are best when targeted at those businesses actually capable of leaving the U.S., Santorum sounds like he's actually put some care and thought into his proposals.

If you put aside the positions on social issues which are dictated by his faith, Rick Santorum comes off as being pretty reasonable. At least, as reasonable as it seems to get in the GOP these days.  He's the Mike Huckabee of the 2012 cycle. He won't win, but the process will have been better for his participation. And that's something we can't say about too many of the others.

Cain endorses Gingrich; America shrugs

Does this make Gingrich more electable or less electable?

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Businessman Herman Cain threw his support to Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich late Saturday.

The move by the former GOP candidate and tea-party favorite comes three days before the Florida primary, at a moment when Gingrich is badly in need of something to rekindle the momentum he gained in the wake of his South Carolina primary victory.

Since then, polls have shown that he is losing ground against former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in this state, even as Gingrich has gained a lead in national surveys.

“I had it in my heart and mind a long time,” Cain said of his endorsement, appearing with Gingrich at a Republican fundraiser. “Speaker Gingrich is a patriot. Speaker Gingrich is not afraid of bold ideas.”

Herman Cain, Rick Perry, the Wasilla Grifter and her husband - the list of Gingrich endorsements looks less like one filled with competent, capable leaders and more like the roll call for the Island of Misfit Toys.

Update: How could I have forgotten to include World's Worst Presidential Candidate® Fred Thompson on this list?  He took some time away from swindling seniors with reverse mortgages a few weeks ago to endorse Newt and temporarily become the World's Worst Surrogate®.

Pay what you owe.

The first step towards revenue stability is creating a tax system that your government is capable of enforcing.

Evading taxes is almost a national pastime in European nations such as Greece, Spain and Italy, and for years their governments largely looked the other way.

On Monday, the 27 nations of the EU will meet in Brussels to focus on how to boost growth and jobs. But as the southern European nations struggle with a debt crisis that threatens to overwhelm the European Union, their recently installed governments feel they must become more like their more solvent northern neighbors, where the crime of tax evasion is taken seriously.

Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and other countries are raising taxes and clamping down on those who have found creative ways not to pay them. Many people admit they cheat, but the wealthy say they are being unfairly singled out to cover for government overspending — and people in the middle class, who have seen their household incomes crumble, are bitter about losing even more to taxes.

As a former resident of Spain, it didn't take long to figure out that cash was king - or why.  Southern Europe is Northern Europe's deadbeat friend.  It wants all the nice things but is always looking for a way to cheat on the bill at the end of the night.

Farewell to the Wasilla Grifter

So delightful watching Sarah Palin's relevance disappear over the last year.  Now she's fighting a losing battle trying to prop up Newt Gingrich's self-destructive campaign and forcing her husband to endorse the guy because she's too big of a coward to do so herself.

What does this even mean?

“I think what Rick Perry having dropped out and that patriot having done well for the front-runner, whom I will call Newt Gingrich now, being the front-runner, having endorsed him, was a good smart move.  He kind of took one for the team there, the conservative team, when he dropped out.”

 Paging Miss South Carolina Teen USA...

When's Brett Davis getting thrown under the bus?

In response to the criminal complaint filed against Brett Davis' former fundraiser Kelly Rindfleisch, that's the question I've heard asked more than any other in the last 24 hours.

If Davis was paying Rindfleisch a meager $1,000 a month, and he seemingly had unfettered access to her during regular office hours, are we really supposed to believe that Davis had no idea how she was spending her weekday mornings and afternoons?  Did he think she was working third shift at a Kwik Trip to pay her bills?

Brett Davis is a smart guy.  He's too smart to be that stupid.  The fact that his fundraiser was allegedly doing her work out of an office that wasn't even 25 feet away from where Scott Walker was doing his work as County Executive is a big problem.  Perhaps not for Walker, yet.  I think it's too soon to presuppose what Walker knew of the coordinated campaign activity that was going on underneath his nose.

But surely, Brett Davis is now a political liability, and Scott Walker is not in a position to coddle people who were either breaking the law or aware of people who were.  Especially when those people are serving in his administration.  And given the abundance of written evidence that Rindfleisch left behind for prosecutors, there's zero doubt that her case is ending in either a conviction or a plea deal.

There is no benefit of the doubt to give Davis.

Newt Gingrich, downballot disaster

It was only a matter of time before GOP Members of Congress began raising these concerns more publicly.

Newt Gingrich’s former Republican colleagues in the House are more than a little nervous about the prospects of sharing a ticket with him in November.

They think he’d run weakly in the suburbs. And among women. And independents. And especially in the Northeast.

To some of them, he’s a disaster in the making, a potentially combustible nominee who could, in a worst case scenario, cost the GOP its newly minted majority.

The concern is serious enough, one freshman Republican told POLITICO, that on the bus ride back from the House GOP retreat in Baltimore last week, Gingrich’s electability was the prime subject of discussion among nearly a dozen members — many of them first-termers.

Worst. Negoation. Strategy. Ever.

If anyone ever wonders how Madison obtains a reputation outstate for being arrogant and a little clueless, look no further than the current negotiations with the WIAA over the state high school basketball tournaments.

(Madison Mayor Paul) Soglin, UW senior associate athletic director Tim Wise, Dane County Coliseum executive director Bill DiCarlo and Greater Madison Convention & Visitors Bureau officials Deb Archer and Bill Haight spent about 45 minutes trying to convince WIAA officials to keep the tournaments in Madison. The city has been home to the boys tournament for 90 of the last 91 years and the girls have played their state tournament in Madison every year since it debuted as a WIAA sport in 1976.

WIAA executive director Dave Anderson told the representatives he is looking for a long-term commitment to hold the girls and boys tournaments on the second and third weekends of March, respectively. Anderson said the UW Field House and the Dane County Coliseum are the only Madison venues available those weekends and that the Kohl Center, even if UW works out its hockey issues with the Big Ten, would be unavailable in 2013 and 2014 due to possible WCHA and NCAA events.

It also appeared UW made no promise of improvements to the Field House. Asked if anyone in the Madison party spoke to the idea of renovating Madison's two aging buildings, Wise referred that question to Soglin.

Soglin said Dane County "long-term is committed to making significant improvements to the ... Coliseum" and that the city is "very supportive of that." However, Anderson said afterward that the Madison group did not share details of any planned renovations to the Coliseum in their presentation.

Allow me to translate.

"We would love for the WIAA high school basketball tournaments to stay in Madison.  The University of Wisconsin is unwilling to give you the Kohl Center in 2013 and 2014.  It's also not willing to renovate the ages-old Field House, which would've been broadsided with a wrecking ball years ago if it weren't for the nostalgic value.  And while we recognize that the Dane County Coliseum is outdated and has no adjacent dining or entertainment options, we don't have any plans to fix that either.  Perhaps the state will give fans access to the cafeteria at the Department of Revenue building across the street.  In summary, stay in Madison because we're so much cooler than everyone else."

I grew up in Green Bay and spent most of my twenties in Madison.  Given a choice of moving back to either, I would choose Madison, hands down.  But Madison really needs to get over itself sometimes.

Do State of the ____ speeches have any relevance?

In a modern world with a 24/7 news cycle, is there any purpose to bringing executives into a legislative chamber and allowing them to bloviate?