For all the stiffness and the flip-flopping, what has really gotten Mitt Romney into trouble with the Republican primary electorate is when he says something that shades too close to the truth. We saw another example of that yesterday, when Romney committed the sin of explaining that austerity can worsen the economy in a recession.

If we see military action in Iran in the next several months, you can trace part of the reason back to a redistricting quirk in the San Fernando Valley and a debate between Democratic House Representatives Howard Berman and Brad Sherman, redrawn into the same district. They spend most of the night trying to be the most belligerent to Iran and most solicitous to whatever Israel wants.

A new round of campaign finance disclosures by the Republican campaigns for President showed once again how SuperPAC spending has driven the race almost entirely this year. At most, a few dozen extremely rich people are paying for most of the GOP campaigns, and they’re making no apologies for essentially buying the nominating process.

Mitt Romney, struggling to regain the lead from Rick Santorum in national polls and facing a serious deficit in the key primary state of Michigan, has doubled down on his position against the auto industry rescue, arguing that the industry should have gone through a “managed bankruptcy,” mainly to squeeze out the United Auto Workers.

Andy Cobb’s version of the Clint Eastwood peptalk Super Bowl ad.

An energized and battle-tested Planned Parenthood will issue a call to action to their members today to defend the President’s birth control policy and urge the White House not to give in to the fierce lobbying from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops by altering the policy in any way detrimental to universal access. The organization will send a message from Cecile Richards to all its members on the issue today, FDL News has leaned.

Administration officials are preparing the ground for some kind of rollback on universal access for birth control, after the US Conference of Catholic Bishops turned the issue into a major controversy. Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney hinted at changes to the regulations and other Admin sources dropped hints.

Ron Jeremy is more honest than most of the candidates running for president! And a far more wholesome candidate than Mitt, Newt or Randall Terry.

Mitt Romney has been quoted, out of context he claims, that he’s not concerned about the poor, only because the safety net takes care of them. But what he really means is he plans to block-grant Medicaid, which will drastically reduce spending their health care, cuts to the budget that includes housing vouchers and food stamps, and cuts to the federal workforce administering those programs. He literally means, “not concerned.”

The Hill reports a strange story in which NBC and its former evening news anchorman, Tom Brokaw, are demanding that Mitt Romney’s campaign take down an ad in Florida that features Tom Brokaw delivering the news. The news Tom is delivering is that the House found Speaker Gingrich guilty of unethical behavior and fined him.

So, you may ask, what exactly is wrong with a candidate using a segment of a newscast to present a piece of relevant history it wants voters to learn from the ad?