Things that Don't Compute

1. Echidne of the Snakes on campaigning v. governing:

   The point I wanted to make in this context is this: A politician's ability to get elected may have little or no correlation with that politician's ability to do the actual job well.
   
   Telegenic applicants do well. Applicants who look like someone you'd like to get drunk with do well. Applicants who speak well do well. Applicants who understand the mass psychology of politics do well. None of those test the applicants' ability to govern.  

2. Southern Beale points at more "You don't want me to vote" in Tennessee.
3. Two from Republic of T:
• On the GOP tax "plan:"

  That’s why the $30 million a year the government spends in welfare for those who earn $1 million or more a year never gets mentioned. It’s why the tax expenditures for the wealthy — which cost more than what we spend on defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and all the other non-defense discretionary programs is never addressed, and is thus sacrosanct while all the other programs above are targeted for cuts.
  
  It all boils down to the Randian notion that the one percent contribute the most to the real wealth of society, while the other 99 contributes nothing and merely “leeches” off the mythically “self-made” one percent. But they’re the ones who’ve been getting a free ride for the last decade or so, at great cost to the other 99 percent of us. The one percent is largely made up of Wall Streeters, hedge fund mangers and other financial sector types — who arguably create nothing of social value, but have instead destroyed more wealth than they’ve created, and caused more misery in a quest to suck even more out of the rest of us.

• On dysfunctional family dynamics and Newt Gingrich:

  But Newt says, “Don’t talk about it.”
  
  After all, that’s the first rule of dysfunctional politics. The problem with the first rule of dysfunctional politics is identical to the problem with the first rule of dysfunctional families: It guarantees that everything stays dysfunctional, because problems that don’t get talked about don’t get solved.
  
  When it comes to conservatives like Gingrich, however, that seems to be the whole point.

Both articles are link-rich.