A lot happened this week, but of course the big news was that Miss Wisconsin is now Miss America! She's also from Kenosha, which is home to Tenuta's deli and grocery store.
So now there are three good things that have come out of Kenosha: Tenuta's; my friend Larry Martin, who among other accomplishments has memorized the entire script of White Christmas; and now, Laura Kaeppeler (a.k.a. Miss America).
Laura has an unusual Miss America platform. See, her dad spent time in federal prison for mail fraud, so she wants to use the $50,000 she gets in scholarship money to go to law school so she can learn to help the children of parents who are in the joint. Not clear to me why you need to be a lawyer to do that, but I'm sure details will follow.
Just when you thought the race for the Republican presidential nomination was all over, the presumed nominee had a bad week. It started off okay with Jon Huntsman dropping out and endorsing Mitt Romney.
This is significant because it means that a rich, white, Mormon, former governor is now backing a rich, white, Mormon former governor, expanding Romney's base exponentially to rich, white, Mormons who speak fluent Mandarin (as Huntsman does) and way beyond just rich, white Mormons who speak fluent French (as Romney does). Meanwhile, all across America people could be heard saying: "Who is Jon Huntsman?"
But then things turned south for Mitt. He revealed that he made a little extra cash in speaking fees last year, but "it wasn't very much." Not very much turned out to be $374,000, which in fact, wasn't very much when you consider that his overall family income was at least $9.6 million. So, $374,000 to Mitt is kind of like getting a few extra bucks from the neighbors for shoveling the snow or cutting the grass. I do not know how this man gets by, needing to scrimp and save as he does.
As if his low income from speaking fees wasn't enough, Rick Perry dropped out of the race, and instead of following Huntsman's lead, decided to throw his support behind New Gingrich. Perry was running behind Steven Colbert, whose name isn't even on the ballot, so it's not immediately clear how many actual votes this will deliver to the Newt.
One vote we know Gingrich won't get is from his second wife, who accused him of asking her to share him and all his Newtness with another woman. When she refused, he dumped wife number two to marry wife number three, though he seemed perfectly willing to have marriages two and three be coincidental. Now wait a minute here. Isn't this just the kind of thing the evangelicals are worried Romney and Huntsman might do?
Anyway, now the GOP is down to four candidates, and things are getting really exciting as they head into this Saturday's South Carolina primary, which has a reputation for just bringing out the best in everyone.
But, as noted earlier, Romney does speak French, and speaking of the French, they finally got their comeuppance for being so snooty all these centuries when Moody's downgraded their credit rating. This caused some trouble in President Nicolas Sarkozy's household. His supermodel wife, Carla Bruni, had been planning a restoration of the palace at Versailles, and now with the credit card getting pinched and all the expense of bailing out Greece, Sarkozy has had to tell the Mrs. to cut back.
"You mean we can't even get a decent sofa in this place?" Bruni reportedly asked Sarkozy in a private moment somehow captured by WikiLeaks. "We wouldn't be in this mess if you and your gal-pal Angela Merkel hadn't messed up the world economy. And why are you spending so much time in Berlin anyway? Impressed with her big economy, Nicolas? Huh? Answer me!"
Speaking of affairs, in state news the plot thickens in the Vetgate Affair. Former Walker aide Tim Russell and Walker appointee Kevin Kavanaugh have been charged with taking at least $42,000 intended for vets and their families and spending it on trips for themselves to places like Hawaii. Russell allegedly even used vets' money to fly to Atlanta to meet with Herman Cain. Remember Herman Cain? No? He was the pizza man who wanted to be president until his wife found out that he wanted other stuff too.
Anyway, back to Vetgate. Turns out Scott Walker turned over the checkbook for the veterans program to his pal Kavanaugh for no apparent reason, even though an American Legion Post had handled the money in an exemplary fashion. Then Kavanaugh and Russell ripped off the vets some more.
I don't know. Seems to me between this, all the union busting stuff, and his bad record on the economy, maybe somebody should try to recall Scott Walker. Anybody working on that? Haven't seen anything about that recently.
And, of course, the big news in sports this week is that Miss America is from Wisconsin!
That's all I've got for now. Have a good weekend kids.
