National

And what I know from the national news media, including a front page New York Times story on Wednesday, is that Paul Ryan is practically joined at the hip with Todd Akin when it comes to extreme positions on abortion.  Ryan is prominently mentioned throughout the article, and in other national coverage.

In the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel?  Nada.

The Paul Ryan Watch has the story.

The fact that Bob Dylan got a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama Tuesday obscured my vision, and it wasn't until I read the full list in the NY Times this morning that I realized a Wisconsin native, John Doar, was also a recipient.

I can't claim to know Doar personallly, but I do recall writing about him for the Wisconsin State Journal when he was named to head the House impeachment investigation of Richard Nixon in December 1973.

I'm going to be the nominee. It's very hard not to look at the recent polls and think that the odds are very high I'm going to be the nominee." -- Newt Gingrich, Dec. 1, 2011.

The early reviews of Paul Ryan's 2012 budget plan were dreadful, and the second round isn't any better.

The graphic here is a clue. You'll find a roundup at The Paul Ryan Watch.

"I love it that women are upset, too, that women are talking about the economy, I love that. Women are talking about jobs, women are talking about deficit spending. Thank you, women.” -- Ann Romney, working on the women's vote for her husband in Illinois.

That should wrap it up,  now that they've recognized that women have a brain.

An earlier version of this post incorrectly attributed the quote to Mitt Romney. His wife saying it isn't quite as much fun, but just as dumb.

Howie Klein, of the Down With Tyranny blog and Blue America PAC, calls out the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for failing to help Rob Zerban in his underdog campaign to defeat Paul Ryan:

"Pity poor zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan. There he was, being a serious man of ideas and being all policy intellectualish, and dying to lay out a precise plan for two decades of granny-starving, and suddenly, all anybody wanted to talk about [on CBS This Morning] was lady parts and what should be done about them..."  --  Charles Pierce of The Politics Blog.

More at The Paul Ryan Watch

"I was the perfect candidate." -- Michelle Bachmann, of course.

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