Michele Bachmann's speech at CPAC 2012 wasn't quite the start turn that her appearance in 2011 — when Americas Bachmannia infection started spreading. I guess that's the difference between being a newly-announced presidential candidate and being a newly-dropped-out presidential candidate. (She was asked to leave. Twice. So, did she drop out or was she dismissed? A little from Column A, and a little from Column B?)

Bachman scored some laughs about the three things she learned as a presidential candidate

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), free from the constraints of running for president, opened her speech at the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference with a joke.

"Running for President of the United States is really one series of humiliations after another, but it's also a very educational experience," she said.

"I know where John Wayne was born."

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"Producers" and "parasites." Cruel language justifying extreme greed seems to be mainstream now. Even Presidential candidates feel free to disparage 99% of us! In today's right-wing folklore government by We, the People is an evil thing that takes from "producers" and gives to "moochers," "freeloaders," and "losers." Government and taxes "take money out of the economy." Decision-making by We, the People is "collectivism" and "mob rule." And those of us who think the insanely wealthy should pay fair taxes suffer from "envy."

In today's discourse wealthy elites receiving $20 million a year in “capital gains” while paying almost no taxes are “producers,” while janitors or nursing home workers, working two jobs and not making enough to pay rent and feed themselves, are “moochers” and “freeloaders.” Right.

This email came in to CAF yesterday, (see also Richard Eskow's take on it, John Galt Is A Crybaby And So Are You)

I am really curios to know what motivates the mind of a socialist. Why do you think its fair to penalize those of us who produce while rewarding those who do not? If healthcare should be a right then where does it stop?

Could one not use the same argument that everyone has a right to free housing? A free car? Perhaps free air travel? Who will pay for all this?

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I knew it was going to be a good day when the first thing I saw at CPAC was Herman Cain's bus.

I'm going to give Herman the benefit of the doubt that he sat in the front of the bus this time.

I got my laptop open just in time to catch the "It's the Spending, Stupid! Why Is It So Hard To Cut a Trillion Dollars," and Sen. Mike Lee (UT) was trotting out that hoary adage about digging a hole: "The first law of holes is: if you are in one, stop digging." Lee pointed to our national debt to make the point that America is in a hole, and — naturally — accused President Obama and the Democratic party of digging the hole, and refusing to allow or help Republicans to fill it.

*Sigh*. Not that the CPAC audience would notice, but Lee was digging himself into a hole with that argument. They don't see the hole any more than Lee does. I see it, and I've got some "shovel-ready" facts. So I'm going to fill it.

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The Federal government and the Attorneys General from 49 states have signed a deal with five major banks over charges of fraud, including reported acts of widespread perjury and forgery, in the so-called “robo-signing” scandal.

A few days ago we suggested that any deal be scored against five basic principles: openness, justice, restitution, deterrence, and reconciliation. It's clear that this deal falls short in every category. The best thing that can be said about it is that, thanks to a few tough holdouts led by New York AG Eric Schneiderman, it now allows additional civil and criminal investigations to proceed.

That's far from nothing, and it could be a big deal. But it will only be a big deal if the Administration stops coddling banks and devotes a lot more resources to helping homeowners and upholding justice.

Up to now, the fight has been to prevent the Administration from doing another cushy bank deal. Now that the door's been left open to further action, there's a new fight: to demand that they devote the Federal government's resources to investigating Wall Street crime.

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The bank settlement of $25 billion over three years from five major banks for robo-signing forgeries is being hailed in Washington and scoured by leading bank critics.

It is hard not to be suspicious of any settlement that the banks would agree to. I’m reminded of Groucho Marx who said upon being invited to join a country club: “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have me.”

But the deal should be seen for what it is – a relatively small ante by the banks handed out before the real cards are seen.

What’s clear is that the banks trampled the law in their wilding while blowing up the housing bubble. They abused homeowners, committed routine forgery and perjury before the courts, and defrauded investors. When the bubble burst and the housing market collapsed, homeowners were left about $700 billion underwater (owing that much more on their mortgages than their houses are worth).

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Christina D. Romer, the former chairwoman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, took U.S. manufacturing to task recently in a New York Times op-ed.  Headlined “Do Manufacturers Need Special Treatment?” Romer suggests that support for manufacturing needs to “go beyond the feeling that it’s better to produce ‘real things’ than services.”

She’s asking the wrong question. Manufacturers don’t need special treatment. But what they do require is a level playing field. 

Romer is taking the academic view of manufacturing, and that’s a problem.  In the comfortable confines of a dusty textbook, her views may be fine.  But in a cutthroat real world filled with competition, cheating, and harsh mercantilism, the textbook view is very limiting.  Unfortunately, Romer sides with the safe, mathematical view, which means she’s added her name to the long list of economists who just don’t “get it.”

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• MORNING MESSAGE: At CPAC, Inequality Dare Not Speak Its Name
• Cranky Conservatives Convene At CPAC
• Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Expected Today
• GOP Moves Anti-Transit Transportation Bill
• War On Contraception Targets Workers
• Breakfast Sides

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In my previous post, I wrote that I'm likely to hear an old favorite conservative talking point repeated over and over again while I'm at CPAC: Married cures poverty, economic inequality, and just about any other economic complaint you can name — especially for black folks. The 9th circuit court's ruling that California's Proposition 8 — which prohibited same-sex marriage in the state — is unconstitutional guarantees I'll hear a lot about same-sex marriage while I'm at CPAC.

What I won't hear at CPAC, besides any specific plans for job creation, is how declining marriage rates are not to blame for economic decline, but economic decline is really to blame for declining marriage rates. I won't hear that the best way to increase marriage rates is improve Americans' economic prospects by growing the economy and putting people back to work. I probably also won't hear that marriage would actually improve the economic standings of one group of Americans: gay couples.

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"You gotta have a J-O-B, if you wanna be with me."

- Gwen Guthrie, "Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But The Rent"

I'm off to cover CPAC tomorrow, where — in light of a federal court ruling California's Proposition 8 unconstitutional — I'm likely to hear a favorite conservative talking point repeated: Marriage cures poverty, unemployment, and another economic problem. Ask any conservative, and they'll tell you as much — even though that particular talking point has no basis in reality.

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PBS NewsHour took a look at why Germany's economy is doing so well, while much of the rest of Europe is not doing so well.

Here are a few notable excerpts from the transcript:

With just a quarter of America's population and a quarter of its GDP, Germany exports more than the United States in total, notes Norbert Walter, the former chief economist of Deutsche Bank.

[CEO] NICOLA LEIBINGER-KAMMULLER: It's just a terrible thought having to lay off people, because we like our employees and we need them. And they are well-trained, and they're loyal. And they have been working for us for decades, some of them, or many of them have. And it's just a terrible thought to have to send them away.

MARGARET WARNER: Instead, Trumpf turned to a new German program called Kurzarbeit, or short work, cutting its employees' work hours and pay. The government made up part of the difference. And they got extra training on their off-days.

... MARGARET WARNER: Nicola's brother, Peter Leibinger, vice chairman of Trumpf, said the short work program, readily accepted by the German workers, positioned industry to restart quickly after the downturn, and it paid off big-time for Trumpf.

PBS NewsHour: Amid Eurozone Crisis, How Germany Became Europe's Richest Country

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Dear Self-Described "Producer": I received your hate mail this morning. Thank you for emerging from your self-creating illusion long enough to write it.. I particularly enjoyed your oblique references to the John Galt character in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, who isn't acknowledged enough nowadays for his special role: Galt may be the most long-winded and incoherent crybaby in literary history.

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Funny how things change. When Herman Cain and Rick Perry imploded in one week last November, Jon Stewart called Mitt Romney "the luckiest motherfudger on Earth." That was before last night's "shellacking," when Rick Santorum trounced Romney in Minnessota, Missouri, and Colorado — three states that Romney won in 2008. Whupped by the same guy who snatched away his Iowa caucus victory, it safe to say Romney is no longer "the luckiest motherfudger on Earth." That title may pass to another 2012 presidential candidate.

To his credit, Romney isn't taking this latest humiliation lying down. He's hitting Santorum with the "Washington Insider" label — and it's likely to stick.

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It was just one month ago when conservatives were complaining that ABC's George Stephanopoulos was displaying his "bias" while moderating a Republican presidential debate by being "obsessed" with contraception and asking Mitt Romney a "gotcha question" about whether the Constitution has a right to privacy that extends to obtaining contraception.

Last month, Romney handled the question by saying "Contraception—it's working just fine. Just leave it alone."

But now, after conservatives began obsessing over the Obama administration's decision requiring insurance companies to include contraception in the preventative services covered for free under the Affordable Care Act, Romney has become a little obsessed himself, falsely claiming, "President Obama orders religious organizations to violate their conscience."

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• MORNING MESSAGE: CSI Missouri -- Foreclosure Fraud Indictments
• Settlement Status Murky
• Santorum Punctures Romney Inevitability
• GOP Refusing Simple Deal On Payroll Tax Cut
• Fed To Keep Rates Low
• Outsourcing Firm Scandal In Mexico
• Breakfast Sides

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As Election Day nears, President Obama is regaining his populist mojo. His State of the Union speech was mostly pitch perfect, evoking core American themes of opportunity and optimism, and calling for “an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”

But the President has repeatedly hit a wrong note in talking about the foreclosure crisis. Not only is his story inaccurate, but he is promoting a harmful narrative that will make it harder to fix the problem.

The President said in his State of the Union address that “we’ve all paid the price for lenders who sold mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them and buyers who knew they couldn’t afford them.” He repeated that theme a week later at a speech in Falls Church, VA, contending that people who did the “right and the responsible thing” were hurt by “lenders who sold loans to people who they knew couldn’t afford the mortgages; and buyers who bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford; and banks that packaged those mortgages up and traded them to reap phantom profits, knowing that they were building a house of cards.”

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