Thursday, April 26, 2012

Weekly Initial Jobless Claims:

Revised upward.... again.
In the week ending April 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 388,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 389,000. The 4-week moving average was 381,750, an increase of 6,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 375,500.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6 percent for the week ending April 14, unchanged from the prior week.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 14 was 3,315,000, an increase of 3,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,312,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,311,750, a decrease of 9,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,321,500.

That makes 59 of the last 60 weeks where the initial jobless claims has been revised upward. Of course, by putting out a lower number initially and then revising it upward the very next the Labor Department, and by extension the Obama Administration, is able to claim that initial jobless numbers are declining week in and week out.

Over the last five weeks initial jobless claims have increased by approximately 30,000 but the Labor Department has reported that number as declining week in and week out. Jon Corzine, the criminal and Obama fundraising bundler, did the same thing in New Jersey in the months leading up to his race against Christie.

I know that the initial numbers are never going to be spot on but over the course of 60 weeks you should see upward, and downward revisions. Yet, we consistently see upward revisions with the administration claiming that the new numbers are a "decrease." There is something fishy going on and Obama needs to be called on it.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Latest DCCC Fundraising Pitch

The DCCC sent this out last night after Mitt Romney's killer speech.
Did tonight’s Mitt Romney speech make you want to throw your remote at the TV?

He must think he can distract voters from his extreme agenda by lying about President Obama. And he could be right.

If Romney and the Republicans can erase their radical record and attack President Obama with enough secret SuperPAC-funded smears, then they will win in 2012.

Mitt made his case. Now, it’s time for us to make ours.

Contribute $3 right now to make sure no one forgets what radical Republicans have in store for America >>

Mitt called his speech, “A Better America Begins Tonight.”

He should’ve named it, “Forget All That Stuff I Said Yesterday.”

Now that the Republican primary race is over, Romney is trying to etch-a-sketch away his “severely conservative” policy positions. Republicans nationwide won’t be far behind. Don’t let them get away with it.

http://dccc.org/Stand-with-Obama

Thanks,

Kelly

Kelly Ward DCCC Political Director

My favorite part is the letter claiming that Romney is simply lying about Barack Obama's record. Of course, they can't actually point to where Romney was lying they simply say he was. Nothing Romney said in his speech was a lie about Obama's record
Is it easier to make ends meet? Is it easier to sell your home or buy a new one? Have you saved what you needed for retirement? Are you making more in your job? Do you have a better chance to get a better job? Do you pay less at the pump?.....

We know that this election is about the kind of America we will live in and the kind of America we will leave to future generations. When it comes to the character of America, President Obama and I have very different visions.

Government is at the center of his vision. It dispenses the benefits, borrows what it cannot take, and consumes a greater and greater share of the economy. With Obamacare fully installed, government will come to control half the economy, and we will have effectively ceased to be a free enterprise society.

This President is putting us on a path where our lives will be ruled by bureaucrats and boards, commissions and czars. He’s asking us to accept that Washington knows best – and can provide all.

Median Income is down significantly from 2009 to 2012 - Falling 6.7% In fact, Obama's policies have led to incomes falling more during the 2 year "recovery" period than they did during the actual recession under Bush.

New Homes sold are down from 374,000 a year in 2009 to 328,000 last month. With new homes for sale is down 34% since 2009.

The unemployment rate was at 7.7% when Obama took office and today is at 8.2%, and if the labor participation force was the same as when he took office the actual unemployment rate would be above 10.5%.

What about gas prices? From $1.87 the day Obama was inaugurated to $3.88 on April 23, 2012.

Clearly everything that Mitt Romney said last night about Obama's policies was true. America is not better off today than we were 4 years ago. Unemployment is up, labor participation is down, gas prices are up, incomes are down. The Obama campaign will continue to claim Romney is lying about Obama's record - just remember if Romney really was lying the Obama campaign would actually refute him with hard facts.

Stay informed and let's kick Obama out of the White House this November.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Did Bill Ayers write "Dreams From my Father"

Google books seems to think so. For some background on this particular joke, read this great multi-part article over at American Thinker
Evidence continues to mount that Barack Obama had substantial help from Bill Ayers in the creation of his 1995 book, Dreams From My Father, a book that Time Magazine has called "the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician." The evidence falls into five general categories, here summarized.

•The discovery of new matching nautical metaphors from both Ayers and Obama that almost assuredly came from the same source: Ayers, a former merchant seaman.
•The discovery of a Bill Ayers' essay on memoir writing, whose postmodern themes and phrases are echoed throughout Dreams.
•A newly discovered book chapter from 1990 that shows clearly and painfully the limits of Obama's prose style the year he received a contract to write Dreams.
•The revelation by radical Islamicist Rashid Khalidi that Ayers made his "dining room table" available for neighborhood writers who needed help.
•A refined timeline that shows Ayers had the means, the motive and the time to help Obama when he needed it most.

It's a long read but it is a good one.

Romney/Rubio 2012?

For someone who has said multiple times that he isn't going to be the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Marco Rubio sure has spent a lot of time campaigning with Romney in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney dodged mounting speculation Monday about a potential running mate, even with Senator Marco Rubio, the man now in the VP spotlight, standing right beside him...

It had the looks of a running mate audition, with the two men striding together through the Mustang Expediting delivery company's warehouse, and Romney occasionally stepping back to let Rubio handle some questions

And now Rubio has scheduled a major foreign policy speech. We still have at least 3 months of speculation on who the VP pick will be but I hope it is Marco Rubio just so I can see a bunch of birthers heads explode.

"If I Wanted America to Fail"

Powerful powerful video about how Obama, and liberal political policies, are harming America.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

The federal deficit in the first three months of 2012 is higher than 6 out of 8 yearly deficits under Bush

That's right. In the first. three. months of 2012 the federal deficit is an astounding $454.2 billion dollars. That is higher than the annual deficits (caution, it's an excel file) in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. And it is only $4 billion less than the entire deficit in 2008, the first budget written by the Congressional Democrats.

Obama: Winning the Future through financial destruction.

Do corporations in America have a historical right to free speech?

You're damned right they do. With the Democrats starting to push the DISCLOSE Act, again I, and with Nancy Pelosi declaring that those who exercise their freedom of association should lose their right to free speech, I decided to take a look at how the Supreme Court has historically ruled on the subject of Corporations and free speech.

First up is NAACP v Patterson (1958)
"It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the "liberty" assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech. ... Of course, it is immaterial whether the beliefs sought to be advanced by association pertain to political, economic, religious or cultural matters,

Gitlow v New York (1925)
For present purposes we may and do assume that freedom of speech and of the press-which are protected by the First Amendment from abridgment by Congress-are among the fundamental personal rights and 'liberties' protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States.

Staub v City of Baxley (1958)
It is undeniable that the ordinance authorized the Mayor and Council of the City of Baxley to grant "or refuse to grant" the required permit in their uncontrolled discretion. It thus makes enjoyment of speech contingent upon the will of the Mayor and Council of the City, although that fundamental right is made free from congressional abridgment by the First Amendment and is protected by the Fourteenth from invasion by state action. For these reasons, the ordinance, on its face, imposes an unconstitutional prior restraint upon the enjoyment of First Amendment freedoms and lays "a forbidden burden upon the exercise of liberty protected by the Constitution." Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, at 307. Therefore, the judgment of conviction must fall.

Buckley v Valeo (1976)
A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached. [Footnote 18] This is because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society requires the expenditure of money. The distribution of the humblest handbill or leaflet entails printing, paper, and circulation costs. Speeches and rallies generally necessitate hiring a hall and publicizing the event. The electorate's increasing dependence on television, radio, and other mass media for news and information has made these expensive modes of communication indispensable instruments of effective political speech.

These are just a few of the Supreme Court case decisions that prove that America has historically affirmed you don't lose your freedom of speech because you exercise your freedom of association.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Politifact: Shills for Obama and House Democrats

Politifact has long described itself as a neutral arbiter of truth in politics but is that true? After today's dust up in which they refused to issue a rating in the claim that Obama ate dog when he was younger I decided to take a deeper look.


Let's start by looking at the Obamater, a handy way to track Obama's campaign promises. It shows 63 promises "broken" 67 "stalled" Looking through that list I noticed something interesting - many of those classified as such are should be rated as "failed" promises. For example

Eliminate all oil and gas tax loopholes - Failed in the Senate multiple times.

Close loopholes in the corporate tax deductibility of CEO pay - No action at all by Obama on this. Broken promise

Lift the payroll tax cap on earnings above $250,000 - No Action, not even a proposal = promise broken


The list goes on. In fact on the first page alone 18 of the 20 listed are actually failed promises. I could go on but the first 3 on page 2 are also actually broken promises so I think it is clear virtually everything listed under "stalled" is actually a broken promise.


Now let's look at how they rate House Republican promises. 5 promises are rated as "stalled" is that true?

Repeal the Healthcare Bill - The House GOP promised to "immediately take action to repeal" and they did. The House voted overwhelmingly to repeal Obamacare. Promise kept.

Increase access to domestic energy sources - The House passed 3 separate bills. Promise Kept


So 2 of the 5 rated as stalled were actually promises kept, 1 I would consider failed (the no earmarks promise), and 2 actually stalled. That brings us to the "In the Works" claim. Of the 14 rated as in the works, 10 are actually promises kept.


Politifact is a joke and nothing more than a shill for Obama and House Democrats.

Disability Claims Skyrocket Under Obama

If you're a fan of discouraged workers giving up hope and signing up to get on the government dole then Obama is the President for you. To the other 90% of America Obama has shown himself to be an abject failure.
A record 5.4 million workers and their dependents have signed up to collect federal disability checks since President Obama took office, according to the latest official government data, as discouraged workers increasingly give up looking for jobs and take advantage of the federal program

Obama's policies simply aren't working. Massive unemployment, huge spikes in food stamp recipients, and now a record number of workers who have given up looking for a job and now depend on the government to provide for them. Obama is a SCOAMF.

The Food Stamp President

Under Obama the number of people on food stamps has risen by 70%
The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that 45 million people in 2011 received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a 70% increase from 2007. It said the number of people receiving the benefits, commonly known as food stamps, would continue growing until 2014.

Ladies and gentlemen, President SCOAMF has failed us again.

Mitt Romney Versus Reality

That is the title of Obama's newest web ad. It should be called "Barack Obama Versus Truth"

If you don't want to watch the ad, and I don't blame you if you don't, I'll break it down for you. First it starts off with a statement by Romney and then it cuts to something Obama has said that "contradicts" Romney. For instance:
Romney: He went around the world and apologized for America
ObamaWe will not apologize for our way of life.

So who is correct in this instance? Why Romney of course. Here is a short list of the times Obama has apologized for America... all within months of his taking office.
1. Apology to Europe: Speech in Strasbourg, France, April 3. “In America, there’s a failure to appreciate Europe‘s leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

7. Apology for America before the Turkish Parliament: Speech to the Turkish Parliament, Ankara, Turkey, April 6. “The United States is still working through some of our own darker periods in our history. Facing the Washington Monument that I spoke of is a memorial of Abraham Lincoln, the man who freed those who were enslaved even after Washington led our Revolution. Our country still struggles with the legacies of slavery and segregation, the past treatment of Native Americans.”

8. Apology for U.S. Policy toward the Americas: Editorial “Choosing a Better Future in the Americas,” April 16. “Too often, the United States has not pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors. We have been too easily distracted by other priorities, and have failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to progress throughout the Americas.”

Another part of the video has Romney correctly claiming that we have high energy prices because Obama stopped drilling in the gulf. Obama hits back "under my administration we have a near record number of oil rigs operating" In truth, in 2011 oil production in America was down almost 275,000 barrels a day and much of the expansion in 2009 and 2010 came from leases made under both the Clinton and Bush administrations that were just coming online.

There is a reason that ad doesn't use anything but statements from Obama - because flowery rhetoric is all they have. If they had hard facts rebutting Romney they would've used them similar to the hard hitting ad from Romney attacking Obama's failed administration.

The Obama campaign will continue using nothing but flowery rhetoric because it works to convince the segment of the population that isn't engaged in politics. Obama has been a Stuttering Clusterf*** of a Miserable Failure and we need to make sure the facts are out there so that Obama can't lie his way to another four years.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Nancy Pelosi: Democrats want to amend the First Amendment

The only protected speech should be speech that Democrats approve.
“We have a clear agenda in this regard: Disclose, reform the system reducing the role of money in campaigns, and amend the Constitution to rid it of this ability for special interests to use secret, unlimited, huge amounts of money flowing to campaigns,” Pelosi said at her Thursday press briefing.

“I think one of the presenters [at a Democratic forum on amending the Constitution] yesterday said that the Supreme Court had unleashed a predator that was oozing slime into the political system, and that, indeed, is not an exaggeration,” said Pelosi. “Our Founders had an idea. It was called democracy. It said elections are determined by the people, the voice and the vote of the people, not by the bankrolls of the privileged few. This Supreme Court decision flies in the face of our Founders’ vision and we want to reverse it.”

That's exactly why the Founders included the little known clause in the First Amendment that says "when you exercise your freedom of association you lose your right to free speech."

First off, our Founders didn't create a Democracy they established a constitutional republic - there is a huge difference between the two. Second, Nancy doesn't believe in Freedom of Speech or the sanctity of the Constitution. She, and the rest of her ilk, only believe in a liberals Freedom of Speech. Too bad for her that the Supreme Court has found, time and again, that you don't lose your Freedom of Speech because you exercise your Freedom of Association. NAACP v Patterson found:
"It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the "liberty" assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech. See Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 268 U. S. 666; Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 302 U. S. 324; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 310 U. S. 303; Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U. S. 313, 355 U. S. 321. Of course, it is immaterial whether the beliefs sought to be advanced by association pertain to political, economic, religious or cultural matters,

There is no fundamental difference between a business owner choosing to use company money to run a political ad or engage in political advocacy and a bunch of friends and I pooling our money to air a political ad in support of Mitt Romney or low taxes.

Of course everything Nancy Pelosi said could be summed up in 7 words - "Free speech for me but not for thee."

Age Old Mystery Solved

The Chicken came first.
A Sri Lanka hen has given birth to a chick without an egg, in a new twist on the age-old question of whether the chicken or the egg came first.

Instead of passing out of the hen's body and being incubated outside, the egg was incubated in the hen for 21 days and then hatched inside the hen.

The chick is fully formed and healthy, although the mother has died.

The government veterinary officer in the area said he had never seen anything like it before.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Worst song ever written?

Yes. Yes it is.



Rep. Issa to finally move forward with contempt charges with AG Eric Holder

Looks like the House Oversight Committee Chairman, Darrell Issa, is once again threatening to hold lawbreaker, Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. To that, I can only say thank God he's finally going to do it.
In response to numerous critics who have claimed that Congressman Darrell Issa and the Republican leadership in the House have dragged their feet in holding accountable those who have lied to and stonewalled Congress in the Fast and Furious scandal, Rep. Issa told the Washington Times today that he is moving forward with contempt charges against Attorney General Eric Holder.

This is especially interesting because CBS news now says that they have obtained documents that prove the ATF discussed giving guns to Mexican cartels so that they could then impose new restrictions on the second amendment.
Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales

If that CBS article turns out to be true then we need to disband the ATF, impeach Holder, and hold every single person involved criminally responsible.
If I woke up tomorrow and the GOP decided to nominate a random homeless guy as their Presidential candidate I wouldn't think twice about voting for him.

Good News: Chinese $5 trillion richer thanks to Obama policies

Debt Has Increased Under Obama by $5,027,761,476,484.56. And he hasn't even been in office for a full 4 years yet. Since he has taken office, Obama has increased the debt by $1.54 trillion dollars a year and one hundred and twenty five billion dollars a month. If that keeps up Obama is due to add another trillion to the debt by the end of the year.

The man needs to go.

CBS/NYT Poll: Romney 46% Obama 46%

The good news continues to roll in for Republicans and Mitt Romney. This time in the form of the CBS/NYT poll that shows a dead heat between President Obama and Mitt Romney.

The best news for Romney is found later on in the poll. It shows that a small number of Republicans have yet to rally That is to be expected among those most dedicated to a particular candidate but as soon as Gingrich drops out I'd wager that those supporting him will come around on Mitt. While those who support Paul Mitt can expect 50-75% of them to swallow their pride and cast a ballot for him.
Following the end of Santorum's bid for the presidency, Republican primary voters have rallied behind Romney, with 54 percent saying they want him to lead Republicans into the fall campaign season. That's a significant difference from March, when only 30 percent wanted him to be the nominee.

Gingrich was preferred among 20 percent of Republican primary voters; Paul received support from 12 percent. Nine percent picked "someone else." When asked if Santorum should have suspended his campaign, 63 percent of those polled said yes; 30 percent said no

I won't turn this into a 24/7 poll blog but these first ones coming out after Mitt has effectively sewn up the nomination is showing that Obama is in a much weaker position than a lot of people were thinking.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Obama: Smartest President Ever.

Ladies and Gentlemen the smartest President ever.
Yesterday Barack Obama addressed the Summit of the Americas in Colombia and spoke about the conflict between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the Falklands. Obama seemed to tilt toward Argentina by calling the islands the “Malvinas” rather than the Falklands, which Argentina insists is their proper name.

Only Obama didn’t say Malvinas, he said Maldives–an entirely different group of islands located thousands of miles from the Falklands in the Indian Ocean:

I can't wait till November.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Good News, Democratic Senate laziest in 20 years.

Sounds like good news to me the fewer laws Congress can pass the better off we all are.
On the passage of public laws, arguably its most important job, the Senate notched just 90, the second lowest in 20 years, and it passed a total of 402 measures, also the second lowest. And as the president has been complaining about, the chamber confirmed a 20-year low of 19,815 judicial and other nominations

It's too bad the Democratic Congress from 09-10 wasn't this lazy.

More good poll news

On top of the recent gallup poll showing Romney ahead of Obama two more polls have recently come out with good news for conservatives.

First up is Wisconsin where PPP(d) has published the results of their recent recall election polling. Those results show Scott Walker with anywhere from a 5%-12% lead over his possible Democratic opponents. Walker also has the best favorable ratings and has a job approval rating above 50%. Unions have already spent millions of dollars to turn public opinion against Walker and his public employee union reforms but it seems that the success of those reforms has helped him weather that storm.

And Rasmussen shows the Generic Congressional Ballot as Republicans 46% Democrats 36%, the highest it's been since March 3rd of last year. This result also nearly matches the average margin between parties at the end of October 2010

If these numbers hold up, and I stress IF as it is only April, then conservatives are in for a very nice election season.

edit: whoops make that a 5-12% lead in wisconsin not 2-12%

Gallup: Romney 47% Obama 45%

Third national poll since Romney locked up the GOP nomination and it's the third one that shows him with a lead over Obama.

It's only April so take these polls with a grain of salt but it sure is nice to see Obama losing in so many polls recently.

Obama: Government is responsible for pretty much everything.

I always love listening to President Obama speak because his speeches are always full of lies and liberal history. This time he is claiming that Google and Facebook only exist because of the government.
I believe in investing in basic research and science because I understand that all these extraordinary companies that are these enormous wealth-generators -- many of them would have never been there; Google, Facebook would not exist, had it not been for investments that we made as a country in basic science and research,” Obama said. “I understand that makes us all better off.”

Of course that statement is ludicrous and makes a mockery of human ingenuity and the private sector but that is par for the course for Obama. In his view everything we have is thanks to the generosity of our betters in the government.

Like automobiles, the telephone, the lightbulb, petroleum refining, airplanes, television, and a whole host of other products we take for granted, there is no way the Internet would've been created without government intervention.

Clearly, the government is responsible for everything in our lives. Thank you Obama.

Obama takes swipe at Romney's Taxes

The class warfare continues....
"Mitt Romney opposes the Buffett Rule because he wants to protect tax loopholes and give millionaires like himself trillions of dollars in tax breaks paid for by either increasing the deficit or by cutting programs critical to the middle class and economic growth," the site charges.

Of course Obama blatantly lies about Romney's tax plan which will eliminate a lot of the deductions and credits that overwhelmingly benefit higher income Americans.
I'm going to probably eliminate for high income people the second home mortgage deduction," Romney said, adding that he would also likely eliminate deductions for state income and property taxes as well. "By virtue of doing that, we'll get the same tax revenue, but we'll have lower rates," Romney explained. "The nice thing about lower rates is that small businesses not get to keep a larger share of what they're earning and plow it back in to hire more people and expand their business."

But hey, since when has Obama let the truth stop him from doing anything?

I'm here to scout out vacation spots

....Part of My Job Is to Scout Out Where I May Want to Bring Michelle Back Later for Vacation’

Disgusting.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Yet another wealthy democratic woman says Ann Romney can't speak for women because she's wealthy

With the way the media keeps digging at this Ann Romney story they are gonna hit china soon.
And work as she may, that’s one place Ann Romney has never been. She has spent her life in the private precincts of the marital workplace, where emotional ties replace the financial norms of the factory or office.

Now, she has emerged to campaign for her husband and to explain to him what women want. “I’ve had the fun of being out with my wife the last several days on the campaign trail,” Mitt Romney told Fox Newsthis month. “And she points out that as she talks to women, they tell her that their number one concern is the economy.”

At a recent campaign event, Romney said he wished his wife were there to help answer a question about female voters. “She says that she’s going across the country and talking with women, and what they’re talking about is the debt that we’re leaving the next generation and the failure of this economy to put people back to work.”

When Ann Romney’s husband, who faces a gender gap in some polls, uses her experience and insight as a megaphone for women’s concern over fewer paid jobs, he mistakenly assumes that all women are fungible. Which was, I take it, Rosen’s original point.

That last part is rich coming from a woman who belongs to a party that believes not wanting to force religious institutions to violate their tenets is a "war on women" and other faux outrage over anything the GOP says about women that strays from liberal orthodoxy.

I guess these media shills will do anything to keep themselves from having to cover Obama's failures but this is doomed to backfire.

George Washington named Britian's greatest enemy

He'll save children but not the British children
The American was voted the winner in a contest run by the National Army Museum to identify the country's most outstanding military opponent.

He was one of a shortlist of five leaders who topped a public poll and on Saturday was selected as the ultimate winner by an audience of around 70 guests at a special event at the museum, in Chelsea, west London.

In second place was Michael Collins, the Irish leader, ahead of Napoleon Bonaparte, Erwin Rommel and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Obama Campaign Manager Endorses Mitt Romney

Looks like the Mitt Romney campaign is having a little fun with something David Axelrod said this morning on Fox News Sunday
The choice in this election is between an economy that produces a growing middle class and gives people the chance to get ahead.... and an economy that continues down the road we're on

Clearly, Axelrod just screwed up his talking points but gaffe aside he is absolutely right. There is a stark choice this election, on the one side you have President Obama who has presided over yearly trillion dollar deficits, ignored actual solutions to rising energy costs while giving billions of tax dollars to failed green energy companies, destroyed the used car market for lower income Americans by instituting the Cash for Clunkers program that required vehicles traded in to be destroyed, and who has no real economic plan other than to soak the rich with more taxes, even though the top 1% already pay close to 30% of all federal taxes in this country.

On the other side of the aisle stands Mitt Romney. A man who understands the economy because he's actually worked as an executive. A man who has created jobs. A man who has had to build, and maintain, a balanced budget.

Axelrod is absolutely correct we can't afford to continue down President Obama's path of high unemployment, outrageous deficits, and budget busting energy prices but the only way we can get off that path is to send Obama packing. I know a lot of conservatives aren't enthused about Romney but we have to get Obama out of Washington.

No accomplishments? No worries, just attack the other guy.

Great editorial over at the Washington Examiner this morning. Obama goes negative to sidestep his sorry record It's a short article, so I won't quote it here, but head on over there and read it.

In 2008 Obama didn't have to run a negative campaign because he was a blank slate upon which voters could think of him as being whatever they wanted him to be. Post partisan uniter, a real force for change, liberal agitator, someone who finally would make the dream of equality a reality. And it worked for him but now after four years with hundreds of thousands of Americans without jobs, the lowest labor participation rate in decades, massive deficits with no end in sight, gas prices already above $4.00 and climbing it won't work again.

Obama is still personally popular because despite his policy failings the general populace wants to see him succeed. They remember him as this great speech giver who inspired hope after 8 years of Bush but slowly that veneer is being stripped away. Will voters react to the horrible economy and bungled economic policy of Obama by voting him out in November? A couple new polls this week show that Mitt Romney leads Obama nationally but it is only April so while I will continue holding on to the dream that Obama will be a one termer only time will tell.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Obama Promises to Tackle Immigration Reform in 2nd Term

Is there a constituency this man won't shamelessly pander to?

Of course the answer to that is he won't pander to fiscal conservatives, budget hawks, supply-siders, people who have actually experience with creating jobs, conservative women, etc.

But today we see Obama going on univision, the nations largest spanish speaking network, and panders to Hispanics by promising to pass immigration reform in the first year of his second term.
“I can promise that I will try to do it in the first year of my second term,” Obama said in an interview with Univision set to air on Sunday. “I want to try this year. The challenge we’ve got on immigration reform is very simple. I’ve got a majority of Democrats who are prepared to vote for it, and I’ve got no Republicans who are prepared to vote for it. …

He made this same promise 4 years ago and for 2 years he had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate and a huge majority in the House yet he didn't bother trying to pass it then. Why? Well you and I both know the answer to that - because the vast majority of America opposes the sort of comprehensive immigration reform Obama wants to implement and it would have affected his reelection chances. Of course now he can say he wants to try to pass it but he can't because those evil, racist, immigrant hating GOPhers won't let him so he won't even try. This, ladies and gentlemen, is our post partisan President.

Now just for laughs let's take a look at what he said in 2008.
That’s the commitment I’m making to you. I marched with you in the streets of Chicago to meet our immigration challenge. I fought with you in the Senate for comprehensive immigration reform. And I will make it a top priority in my first year as President – not only because we have an obligation to secure our borders and get control of who comes in and out of our country. And not only because we have to crack down on employers who are abusing undocumented immigrants instead of hiring citizens. But because we have to finally bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows. Yes, they broke the law. And they should have to pay a fine, and learn English, and go to the back of the line. That’s how we’ll put them on a pathway to citizenship. That’s how we’ll finally fix our broken immigration system and avoid creating a servant class in our midst. It’s time to reconcile our values and principles as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. That’s what this election is all about.

So Mr. President, the nation wants to know. Why didn't you pursue immigration reform when your party overwhelmingly controlled Washington?

Why Hasn't Obama Called Ann Romney?

Inquisitive minds want to know.

Media Continues Attacking Ann Romney....Obama Hardest Hit

For, at least, the 4th time in 3 days there is another media piece out slamming Ann Romney for being unable to relate to "American women." This time it's arch-liberal Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast. He says Ann, because of her wealth, is unable to understand the plight of "American women" and then uses her Multiple Sclerosis and survival of breast cancer to launch into a full frontal attack on Mitt.
But what of the millions of women who share her bad luck health-wise but don’t share her good luck wealth-wise? We don’t know what she thinks, and maybe since she’s not the candidate she is under no obligation to tell us, interesting as it might be to find out. But we do know what her husband, her own presumed insurance provider, thinks. He thinks the hell with them. He used to care about them, when he passed a law giving them a fair shot at buying affordable coverage, but now he wants to repeal the law that does the same thing nationally, and the only reason is political calculation and cowardice. That’s his, not hers. But I do wonder whether she agrees with him that these women should be left on their own because to help them would be to hand a political victory to the enemy.

This doesn't surprise me at all as any sane person could've seen this coming from the moment it happened. Of course he then talks about how only his party can talk about women's issues and only liberals can sympathize with struggling mothers.

Now I wonder how much Michael Tomasky makes or who he feels can speak most strongly for these struggling women. Surely he can't mean Hilary Rosen or Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton or Teresa Heinz-Kerry or Hilda Solis or NOW President Terry O'Neill can he? Each one of them is far from struggling and has been far from struggling for a long time. Yet, of course that is what he means when he says Ann Romney can't connect with "American women" because she isn't just wealthy but an icky conservative.

There is an actual debate you can have on this issue but the moment those who think they are our betters start claiming that women with conservative beliefs aren't really women, but gender traitors, then that debate has died before it even started.

Of course this hurts Obama more than Romney. Tomasky, and his peers, can believe all they want that attacking Ann has more upside than risks but they are wrong. Not only does this help galvanize the conservative base behind Mitt, a base that has deep misgivings about him, but it will turn off independents both, right and left leaning. They will come to view Ann with a much more sympathetic view, especially when the portion of the public that doesn't pay much attention to politics finds out she has Multiple Sclerosis and survived breast cancer.

For that I say thank you Rosen for your Kinsleyan slip and thank you liberal media for continuing to attack a woman whose sole crime, in their eyes, is being wealthy.

Life on Mars

There is a great paper over at IJASS titled Complexity Analysis of the Viking Labeled Release Experiments that looked at data pulled from the Viking mission and comes to the conclusion that there is a strong suggestion of some sort of biological life on Mars. That link will bring you to the abstract of the paper but if you're interested take the time to read through the actual paper. It's only 13 pages long and fascinating.

We conclude that the complexity pattern seen in active experiments strongly suggests biology while the different pattern in the control responses is more likely to be non-biological. Control responses that exhibit relatively low initial order rapidly devolve into near-random noise, while the active experiments exhibit higher initial order which decays only slowly. This suggests a robust biological response. These analyses support the interpretation that the Viking LR experiment did detect extant microbial life on Mars.


Cigarette Taxes, Education Policy, and Government Creep.

Over the past few years we've seen a strong push by liberals, and those who believe they can live your our lives better than we can, to turn us all into wards of the state. Whereas the attempts to do so decades ago were much more transparent today their attempts are more subtle and thus much more insidious.

Fatty food bans, salt bans, government entities working with Hollywood to get cigarette smoking mentioned in movie ratings, and a whole host of other government prohibitions all designed to make the "correct" choice for us. I don't know about you but I don't the government living my life for me. If I want to make the wrong choices, guess what, that is my decision and no one in government has the right, constitutionally nor morally, to make them for me. Yet, time and again, we let those who think they are better than us get away with their actions because we express outrage for a week tops and then we forget about it. By the time elections roll around the issue is completely forgotten so we send the do-gooders we were once outraged at to continue their slow creep into our lives.

So why do governments want to make the "correct" choices for me? The answer always comes back to money. They push cigarette taxes ever higher under the guise of public health but if that was true they would just make the cigarette excise tax prohibitively expensive. Of course they would never do that because the do-gooders in government come to rely on that, and other sin tax, revenue to exert control over every single one of our lives. And when the tax increases do come they know the majority of voters won't care because, hey, that small tax increase doesn't affect me - I don't smoke (or drink or view porn, etc...) - but in reality every single action by the government affects every single one of us. Anytime we let government power grow we give them the implicit permission to creep further and further into our lives.

That's why I hate it when pro-life advocates talk about taxing abortions as a way to cut down on them. It's an absurd position that would make it nearly impossible for us to achieve our dream of eliminating abortions once and for all because the moment government has a financial stake in keeping abortions legal is the moment the pro-life movement dies.

But we don't just see attempts to run our lives when it comes to taxes. Perhaps the biggest example is the political push for every single person to go to college. They do so without regard to a persons actual intelligence, want to attend college, or financial ability to afford college. To those who think of themselves as our betters if you don't attend college you are a failure and your life will be one of hardship. Of course they do this not only because it is politically popular to push college for all but because to do so makes our government a ton of money.

The vast majority of students who attend college do so without any means to pay for it yet they are unable to receive any aid other than education loans - loans which net state and federal governments tens of thousands of dollars in interest payments. And what do those students, who have no interest in college and no way to pay for it, do once they get to college? They either drop out after wasting both their time and money or they get degrees in unemployable fields that will do nothing for their careers once they actually do graduate. Of course there is an easy fix for all of this - stop denigrating trade and vocational schools. But learning a trade is beneath the political aristocracy and allowing young adults to learn an employable trade that leads to a well paying career instead of being a ward of the state because you can't find a job is bad for those politicians who want to live our lives. Joe Biden recently summed this feeling up with a recent speech about "economic fairness." He said that we need to stop allowing our students to settle for trade schools. It's a joke and this policy of college or bust has screwed up an entire generation of Americans, just look at the Occupy Wall Street crowd. They were pushed into college by being promised jobs and a good life, where they didn't learn any actual skills, and now are angry not at the liberals who promised them a life of ease but at those who, if asked, probably would've told them that college isn't for everybody so make your own decisions.

We don't have to live with as wards of the state. We fought a revolutionary war and created a government with limited powers so that we would be free to live as choose. Since our foundation the cause of liberty has been dampened and tread on by those who think themselves our betters but that doesn't mean the cause of liberty is dead. In my next post I will detail some ways we can fight back against this government creep and restore the freedoms that have been incrementally stripped from us.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Buffett Rule: Political Gimmick or Genuine Deficit Reducer?

Verdict, political gimmick. Just check out this great graph from Politicalmath that shows just how little the Buffett rule actually raises.

Top 10 way Joe Biden has Beclowned himself.

Joe Biden recently said that Senator Al Franken is a "leading legal scholar" and it got me thinking about the number of hilarious and idiotic things our Vice President has said over the years. To list every single one of them would take quite a while so I have whittled it down to his 10 most humorous and idiotic things he has ever said.
10. Look, John's last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S. 
I think this speaks for itself.
9. When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed. He said, "look, here's what happened."
Interestingly enough FDR wasn't President during the stock market crash and the first time FDR spoke on a televised broadcast was the World's Fair in 1939.
8. I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.
Racism is apparently ok if you're a Democrat.
7. In Delaware, the largest growth of population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7/11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking. 
Biden racism rears its ugly head again.
 6. ''I think that I have a much higher IQ than you, I suspect.''
Only an idiot would dare question the genius that is Joe Biden.
5. ''His mom lived in Long Island for ten years or so. God rest her soul. And- although, she's- wait- your mom's still- your mom's still alive. Your dad passed. God bless her soul
4. ''If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there's still a 30% chance we're going to get it wrong.''
50% of the time it works every time.
3. ''Stand up, Chuck, let 'em see ya.'
The man he was speaking to was right in front of him and is wheelchair bound.
2. "Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me."
A homeless man is probably as qualified to be Vice President as Joe Biden is.
1. You can go back 500 years. You cannot find a more audacious plan. Never knowing for certain. We never had more than a 48 percent probability that he was there.
Speaking about the raid that killed Bin Laden. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 5. Washington crossing the Delaware, D-Day, the Son Tay Raid, Operation Entebee, Inchon.

I will say this for Biden, as unintelligent as he may be he is always entertaining and when Obama loses in 2012 I think I will miss him.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Hilary Rosen Beclowns Herself

If you've seen any cable news program in the past 15 or so hours then you've probably heard about Hilary Rosen beclowning herself while on AC360 last night and with an op-ed at CNN this morning. For those who haven't let me give you a quick recap of what happened. Link, relevant part from about 55 seconds to 1 minute but the whole thing is good, and if you don't want to watch the clip Rosen says "guess what [Ann Romney] has never worked a day in her life."

Rosen was saying this in the context that Ann Romney couldn't provide accurate information on the struggle of working mothers because she herself has never struggled to get by as a working mother so I honestly don't think she should get much flack for that comment, as stupid as it was. Where she really beclowns herself is with her op-ed at cnn.  The entire thing is pretty much just a giant rant from Rosen but let's break down the best parts of it.
Spare me the faux anger from the right who view the issue of women's rights and advancement as a way to score political points. When it comes to supporting policies that would actually help women, their silence has been deafening. I don't need lectures from the RNC on supporting women and fighting to increase opportunities for women; I've been doing it my whole career.
This is priceless coming from a strategist for the party that started the claim that the GOP has a "war on women" because we don't agree with forcing a Catholic Church to pay for abortifacients and contraceptive. And had the chairman of the Democratic Party make the news circuit to claim the GOP hates women because he said that the GOP "war on women" is as accurate as a GOP "war on caterpillars."

As Ruth Marcus noted in her column yesterday in the Washington Post, Romney, when asked last week about the gender gap, twice said he wished his wife could take the question.
"My wife has the occasion, as you know, to campaign on her own and also with me," Romney told newspaper editors, "and she reports to me regularly that the issue women care about most is the economy."
So it begs the question, is Ann Romney Mitt's touchstone for women who are struggling economically or not? Nothing in Ann Romney's history as we have heard it -- hardworking mom she may have been -- leads me to believe that Mitt has chosen the right expert to get feedback on this problem he professes to be so concerned about.
So Rosen somehow thinks that to be able to accurately relay information about the struggles of working mothers you yourself have to have been a struggling working mother at some point. Let's play her game for a moment, I wonder how many people know that Hilary Rosen was the President, then Chairman, and then Chief Executive of the RIAA for a period of 10 years. So Hilary Rosen's opinion on the plight of working mothers has no merit either - something i'm sure she doesn't believe.
I personally believe that women hate the way our health issues were made a political football by the Republicans in the last several months. But I am pragmatic enough to believe that the economic issues do matter greatly to women and men alike. But the only way that Mitt Romney will succeed in closing the wide gender gap between him and President Obama is if he stops pretending that it doesn't exist.
And she ends it by claiming the GOP has made women's health issues a political football. In reality it was President Obama and Congressional Democrats who decided to force religious institutions to ignore their tenets and pay for abortifacients and contraceptives for employees.  And, rightly so, Republicans came out in force against such a blatant violation of the Separation of Church and State.

It seems election 2012 is in full swing.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Bobby Petrino Fired

Wow, so the University of Arkansas fired Bobby Petrino today. I can't say i'm surprised but it sure is welcome news to me. I have a love-hate relationship with Petrino, I love the way he screwed the Atlanta Falcons by walking out on them before his first season as  head coach was even finished but I hate his arrogance, slimeball nature, and inability to take losses like a man. Case in point, his screaming "Frick you mother fricker" across the field during last seasons LSU vs Arkansas football game.

Of course his getting fired comes complete with a statement of his regret and sorrow.

I was informed in writing today at 5:45 p.m. that I was being terminated as head football coach at the University of Arkansas.

The simplest response I have is: I’m sorry. These two words seem very inadequate. But that is my heart. All I have been able to think about is the number of people I’ve let down by making selfish decisions. I’ve taken a lot of criticism in the past. Some deserved, some not deserved. This time, I have no one to blame but myself.

I chose to engage in an improper relationship. I also made several poor decisions following the end of that relationship and in the aftermath of the accident. I accept full responsibility for what has happened.

I’m sure you heard Jeff Long’s reasons for termination. There was a lot of information shared. Given the decision that has been made, this is not the place to debate Jeff’s view of what happened. In the end, I put him in the position of having to sort through my mistakes and that is my fault.

I have hurt my wife Becky and our four children. I’ve let down the University of Arkansas, my team, coaching staff and everyone associated with the Razorback football program. As a result of my personal mistakes, we will not get to finish our goal of building a championship program. I wish that I had been given the opportunity to meet with the players and staff prior to this evening’s press conference and hope that I will be given the opportunity to give my apologies and say my goodbyes in person. We have left the program in better shape than we found it and I want the Razorback Nation to know that it is my hope that the program achieves the success it deserves.

My sole focus at this point is trying to repair the damage I’ve done to my family. They did not ask for any of this and deserve better. I am committed to being a better husband, father and human being as a result of this and will work each and every day to prove that to my family, friends and others.

I love football. I love coaching. I of course hope I can find my way back to the profession I love. In the meantime, I will do everything I can to heal the wounds I have created.

I want to thank Chancellor Gearhart, Jeff Long, the Board of Trustees, the University administration, faculty, staff, students, alumni and fans for the opportunity to serve as the head football coach at the University of Arkansas for the past 4 years. I was not given an opportunity to continue in that position. I wish that had been the case, but that was not my decision. I wish nothing but the best for the Razorback football program, the University and the entire Razorback Nation.

The only thing Petrino is sorry about is that his ass got caught. If he hadn't wrecked his motorcycle he would still be cheating on his wife with an engaged girl half his age.  Look, Bobby, everyone knows you aren't sorry so save us the faux apologies and disappear for a while. Congrats to the University of Arkansas for taking a stand and not putting up with the slimeball that is Bobby Petrino any longer. It may mean they field a weaker football team next year but the universities integrity isn't worth winning a couple more games a year. 

Hello Everyone

Well, I've tried this once before and due to my laziness and lack of follow through it failed rather quickly. However, this time I am aiming to make it different and actually posting my thoughts regularly on the 2012 election, politics in general, random pop culture, sports (most notably LSU and Saints football), and whatever else crosses my mind.  I'll aim to do at least one post a day but often times it will probably be more so be sure to check back often. With that said I will leave you with a picture of the most amazing dog in the world.


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