Pun Salad

… the folks just called him yellow:

• The race for one of the seats in the New Hampshire Legislature in my very own district (Strafford 2) resulted in a recount which, in turn, resulted in a tie! But there are still disputed ballots. Grant Bosse has the story, with a picture of one of the disputed ballots from Pun Salad World Headquarters' town of Rollinsford.

  (As there's an X next to Carol Shea-Porter's name, you can rest assured the ballot isn't mine. I wasn't that drunk when I voted.)

• Is the newly-empowered Republican Party bravely attacking government spending? Find out in Michael Tanner's article, entitled "The GOP's Budget Cowardice".

  Well, I guess the title spoils the surprise somewhat. One problem is that GOP bigwigs are furiously backtracking on even the milquetoast promise to cut federal spending to (already profligate) 2008 levels. They're "clarifying" that to mean only domestic, discretionary spending. Tanner correctly deems that a drop in the bucket:

  In fact, it's less than 12 percent of the $853 billion that total federal spending has increased since President Obama took office. It would reduce government spending from 24.3 percent of GDP to 23.6 percent.

  Personally, I'm not too impressed with the choice between a huge-spending party and a slightly-less-huge-spending party.

• Mark Hemingway joins the crowd noticing that Politifact "is often more politics than facts." It's the same gripe Pun Salad made here. Hemingway concludes:

  I sincerely hope Politifact ups the facts to politics quotient in the future.

  I sincerely hope Hemingway is not holding his breath waiting for that to happen.