At the Big Rock Café...

... watch out for the snakes.

What about Paul Ryan's wife and kids?

First, I love all the Wisconsin football clothes. Only the daughter isn't wearing a football shirt. I can see that's a Packers sweatshirt that Janna Ryan, the wife, has on. We've got 10 electoral votes here in Wisconsin, you know. And people love football. (Are Americans more excited about the campaign season or the football season? I say the football season, in part because campaigning never goes away, so there's no season anymore to look forward to — other than to look forward to its ending.)

So, here's a lovely, wholesome family. Janna, looks a bit like Ann Romney to me, but the 2 women are distinctly different:

Janna Little, the future Mrs. Paul Ryan, was a Washington tax attorney living in Arlington, Va., when she met him. The Oklahoma native graduated from Wellesley College and George Washington University Law School.

Despite some Googling, I can't figure out if she still works or if she became a full-time homemaker.

Speaking of Googling, CNN can't bother to do the most basic Googling. I just heard it say that Ryan is from a "small town" in Wisconsin. Janesville isn't a small town! It's a small city, with a population over 60,000. It takes 2 seconds to discover that. If you don't bother to get the little, easy things right, why should we ever trust you? Of course, we don't. Speaking of small... CNN ratings are way down.

"R and R, Romney and Ryan — Republicans will like that."

Says Meade, and I say: "The military?" (R&R is military slang.)

"RR," he prompts, and I think of railroad, but don't bother to say it, even though in 2010 I voted for a Republican (Scott Walker) on the single-issue of the railroad.

"RR — Ronald Reagan!"

Let the Romney/Ryan logos use the double R to remind us of the party's greatest modern-day hero, Ronald Reagan.

"Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan."

That's my post title from April 1st, and it was not an April Fool's joke. I attended a rally here in Wisconsin, where the 2 men appeared together, and that's what I felt I was looking at.

[T]he team of Romney and Ryan was excellent. They answered questions from people as equal partners — some deference to Romney, but basically equals. Ryan is a terrific speaker, and he got more applause than Romney a couple times. Hearing them answer the same question, one after the other, I kept thinking Ryan is the stronger of the 2. And that's not to say Romney was unappealing, just less intense.

Surely, Romney will pick Ryan as his VP. Right?

I had the feeling there were 2 future Presidents in the room.

Here's my photograph of them (in the overflow room):



Sitting down to write this post, I asked Meade, "So what does this mean?" He said: "The economy." The election is/must be about the economy.

Signs point to Paul Ryan.

As Romney will name his VP tomorrow.

UPDATE: The signs were correct!

At the Busted Nut Bar & Grill...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

"The right to work for a living in the common occupations of the community is of the very essence of the personal freedom and opportunity that the Constitution was designed to protect."

Wrote the federal judge who struck down Utah's requirement that you need a cosmetology license to work as a hair braider.

This is a sharply libertarian result, so I find it amusing to see NPR and Matthew Yglesias celebrating the decision. Why would liberals love a decision second-guessing the legislature's judgment about the extent of government regulation in the economic realm? Click on the links and see if you too are amused.

Fareed Zakaria plagiarism screwup.

How is it possible for someone in his position to make a mistake of that kind?

The risk far outweighs any convenience in copying material like this. It can't be deliberate. It's easy these days to copy something for your notes and later simply mistake it for something you've written. It's also possible that someone else, someone untrustworthy, ghostwrites for him. Or perhaps there are talking points floating around in email and both LePore and Zakaria cut and pasted the same thing.

"Can Zimmerman win 'stand your ground' hearing?"

"Central Florida lawyers predicted that, based on the evidence released so far by prosecutors, Zimmerman has a strong chance of winning."

"It's Jon Huntsman Sr, right Harry?"

Kos points the finger.

Or should I not have blogged this? Should Kos be getting traffic for dropping this rumor? How is what he's doing different from what Reid did? We shouldn't be feeding off rumors like this...

Sorry. I know I don't need to post this. It's silly for me to say "Or should I not have blogged this?," since obviously I haven't hit "publish."

Yet.

ADDED: Huntsman denies it, but says Romney should release more tax records.

This matters, because Huntsman is a longtime backer of Romney — he has long been close to Romney; he supported his early campaigns; he was the national finance chairman of Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign; and he has raised a lot of money for him over the years. (He backed his own son in the latest GOP primary.)

Obama's slightly ahead in most polls...

... by he's actually in serious trouble, for 4 reasons. I'll just highlight reason #3: Money.

Romney has been outraising Obama for the last three months; in July, the GOP candidate and his party took in $101 million to Obama and the DNC's $75 million. Obama also has been spending his campaign cash faster than it's coming in, investing up front in staff, field offices, and the early ad blitz they hope will define Romney. That means the Republicans also now have more cash on hand to spend down the stretch, $170 million to the Democrats' $144 million as of the end of June. And then there's all the pro-Romney super PACs, which are expected to far outgun their Democratic counterparts, possibly spending as much as $1 billion. As Obama himself complained at a campaign stop in Colorado Thursday: "Over the next three months, you will see more negative ads, more money spent than you've ever seen in your life. I mean, these super PACs, these guys are writing $10 million checks and giving them to Mr. Romney's supporters."

Funny that he's complaining about the next 3 months. He's gone heavily negative in the past 3 months, spending a disproportionate amount of money early, betting that he can win by planting it in everyone's head that Romney's an evil rich guy. If that gamble were working, Obama would be doing better in the polls. Now, Romney has much more money. It's scarcely unfair! Obama and his people made a decision about how to campaign, and they should own it, not whine about it.

And I don't trust the polls. I'd like to see the internal polls, which are not about spinning public opinion. Presumably, these displays of desperation tell us something about what they're looking at in the secret, honest polls.

"A veteran US law-enforcement official has filed a blockbuster discrimination lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano..."

"... charging she pushed him aside to make way for a less-qualified woman who’s 'enjoyed a long-standing relationship' with the anti-terror chief."

The lawsuit... identifies the woman as Dora Schriro, who was later appointed by Mayor Bloomberg as commissioner of the city Department of Correction, a post she still holds.

The court papers also allege that Suzanne Barr, Napolitano’s chief of staff at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has engaged in “numerous” acts of “sexually offensive behavior” intended to “humiliate and intimidate male employees.

Barr’s alleged acts include calling one man “in his hotel room and screaming at him that she wanted his ‘c--k in the back of [her] throat.’ "

ADDED: Blogger Debbie Schlussel broke the story — and is irked that major newspapers didn't credit her.

David Rakoff has died.

I'm really sorry to read about the death of this wonderful writer, who was only 47. Over and over, I've listened to his gentle, humorous voice reading his brilliant essays in "Don't Get Too Comfortable" and "Half Empty" and "Fraud."

Mr. Rakoff’s cancer had first appeared when he was 22 and recently reappeared as a tumor in his left shoulder.

The return of his cancer, and the possibility that his arm and shoulder would have to be amputated, were the subjects of the concluding essay in Mr. Rakoff’s most recent collection, “Half Empty” (2010), a darkly comic paean to negativity.

"What was the best part of working at Bain?"/"I’m not sure people would think of me in this light, but..."

"... frankly what I enjoyed most about Bain & Company, the consulting firm, was the analytical process of solving tough problems."

If a client invites you in and is ready to pay a lot of money for your counsel, it is not because you know their business better than they do. Of course, they know their business better than I ever would. But they’re looking for someone to understand their business challenges in a new light. And that presents an analytical challenge which is steep and exciting. And I love the thinking and the analyzing as much as anything. 

Does America want to be Mitt Romney's client? Should we submit our tough problems to him for analysis? Well, if that's his thing, we should right now be looking at his analysis of our tough problems. There should be some amazing solutions laid out of the table for us to look at. Are we seeing that?

Romney back on top in the Rasmussen Daily Tracking Poll.

47% to 43%.

That was odd. Romney had been ahead, then after the weekend, Obama went up, then fell back, a point each day. Who knows why? When Obama went ahead, we were experiencing that idiocy with Harry Reid telling us he'd heard that Romney hadn't paid any taxes for 10 years. If that was effective, why hasn't it been effective to say Romney killed a lady? There are lies and there are lies...

"Social issues are far down the priorities list, and I think that’s the trend."

"That’s where it needs to go if the Republican Party is going to be successful."

So say the young party members.

I'm old, and I'm not a member of any political party, but I agree.