Your Random Saturday

Nick Rizzuto with some media bashing:

...Ultimately, the rise of the birther movement is the fault of a deficit of curiosity about Barack Obama on the part of the media...

Since day one Barack Obama has maintained an extreme amount of control over his image. One of the most important elements of that image has been the narrative of his past. To this end Mr. Obama has written two book that serve as the primary basis for this narrative. The media, whose very purpose is to be inquisitive, seems all too willing to accept it without question. Both Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of hope received scant scrutiny or fact checking. For comparison, the Associated Press devoted 11 reporters to pore over every word of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue.

Another example of the difference in inquisitiveness that the media has shown for this president as opposed to previous ones can be seen by the 2004 investigation of President George W. Bush's military records. The search for dirt on President Bush was so fevered that some seemed willing to throw journalistic standards to the wind in pursuit of something that would stick. Distinguished careers were destroyed in the attempt to uncover details about President Bush’s past...

Presuming the media’s love affair with President Obama continues, we can assume that their lack of curiosity will as well. For those who profess such admiration for the President but don’t seem to care much about whom he was prior to his emergence on the public stage though the question remains: Are you scared of what you'll find?

Thomas Sowell talks some sense to those that have little:

Take Wall Street "greed." Is there any evidence that people in Wall Street were any less interested in making money during all the decades and generations when investments in housing were among the safest investments around? If their greed did not bring on an economic disaster before, why would it bring it on now?

As for lenders, how could they have expected to satisfy their greed by lending to people who were not likely to repay them?...

Mortgages made in California were sold to nationwide financial institutions, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and to firms in Wall Street which bundled thousands of these mortgages into financial securities that were sold nationally and internationally. The problem was that, not only were these mortgages based on housing prices inflated by the Federal Reserve's low-interest rate policies, many of the home buyers had been granted mortgages under federal government pressures on lenders to lend to people who would not ordinarily qualify, whether because of low income, bad credit history or other factors likely to make them bigger credit risks.

This was not something that federal regulatory agencies permitted. It was something that federal regulatory agencies-- under pressure from politicians-- pressured and threatened lenders into doing in the name of "affordable housing."

Democrats Bring Down Paterson

So they finally got their quarry - Paterson won't challenge the anointment of Cuomo as our next liberal overlord.

Not that it wasn't inevitable - his defeat, that is. This just gets him out of the way without Cuomo having to dirty his hands in the matter (hmmm...funny, that - isn't it?)

Now there is nothing to stop a very liberal career politician from taking over in Albany - yeah, that's exactly what we need in NY, a big spending liberal that helped cause the recession we're still struggling with when he worked for Clinton.

Good thing they got rid of the fiscally responsible-ish democrat in the race. Bravo.

Democrats Bipartisanship Is Baloney

So what happened at the big "health care summit"? Remember, this was when Obama said both sides were going to present ideas and he was going to take any ideas that made sense.

The Democrats refused to accept any Republican ideas.

Obama scolded the Republicans for not just going along with him.

The Democrats lectured and made speeches, "telling stories" according to the press - in other words proving this was nothing more than a dog and pony show for the press and anyone with the intestinal fortitude to watch it.

And this morning the headlines are that the Democrats are prepared to push on with their own plans and no Republican input or support.

I can hardly wait for the editorials blaming Republicans for their lack of bipartisanship.

-

Unsurprisingly, the press this morning is lying about what happened in order to advance their and Obama's storyline about how Republicans don't have any ideas, blah blah blah. However, the initial reactions from the press put the lie to this:

CNN's David Gergen:

The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened

CNN's Gloria Borger:

The Republicans have been very effective today. They really did come to play. They were very smart.

They took on the substance of a very complex issue. ... But they really stuck to the substance of this issue and tried to get to the heart of it and I think did a very good job.

They came in with a plan. They mapped it out.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer:

It looks like the Republicans certainly showed up ready to play.

The Hill's A.B. Stoddard:

I think we need to start out by acknowledging Republicans brought their 'A Team.' They had doctors knowledgeable about the system, they brought substance to the table, and they, I thought, expressed interest in the reform. I thought in the lecture from Senator John McCain and on the issue of transparency, I thought today the Democrats were pretty much on their knees.

editoriaLIES

Seems like we just did this...oh well. Times Union on Feb. 15:

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the floodgates on political spending by corporations and unions...

Just out of curiosity, do you think liberals will ever learn that repeating a lie does not make it true? Lie #1, all the Supreme Court did was overturn an earlier decision that banned organizations from running at during particular times. It did not alter what they could spend from what it was the day before the ruling. It did not alter any spending limits. It did not alter any spending tracking. It affected spending not at all except it altered when they could spend. That's all. Really. That's it. The end. The whole thing. Hardly worth a constitutional amendment, don't you think?

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer seek to do that in separate proposals that at least would force companies to fully disclose how much they spend on elections, and to whose benefit.

This has nothing to do with the Citizens United ruling. They didn't have to do this the day before the ruling. Citizens affected this subject not a whit.

State and federal lawmakers could do even more to counter the court's move to further concentrate political influence in the hands of deep-pocketed corporations and unions.

Lie #2 and I'm just repeating myself at this point - the court did NOTHING to concentrate anything anywhere, they just struck down a 20 year old ban on advertising during certain time periods...if you want to make this argument you are actually arguing that the court re-concentrated political influence with corporations and unions who dominated elections 20 years ago - which is, of course, ludicrous.

Mr. DiNapoli has put up a resolution requiring American International Group -- in which the state pension fund he oversees holds stock -- to report annually to shareholders on its previous year's political spending. Shareholders would vote on whether to ratify the spending, although the vote would be retroactive and advisory only. Still, it would open AIG's political spending to shareholders, and consequently to the public.

It's an idea that every corporation should adopt, and that every shareholder who cares about the influence of money in our democratic system should insist on.

While DiNapoli's 'retroactive' plan sounds pretty stupid to me, I won't argue with private groups setting up their own rules to disclose where they're spending politically. Where the problem of people like me comes in is when you mandate what private companies have to do amongst themselves.

It's also fully compatible with the notion, if you buy it, that corporations -- as associations of people -- are essentially individuals who are free to express their views.

This is a distortion of their political opponent's argument. Corporations are associations of people who are individuals who are free to express their views. All along the media and the left has sought to make mock of this argument by distorting it, claiming that conservatives are saying that a corporation is the same as a person or an individual. Personally I haven't seen anyone making this argument on the right. It also perpetuates the fantasy that the First Amendment says something about individuals and individual rights...which it does not. This statement is merely meant to tarnish those with views other than their own and muddy the waters of factual evidence (for example, you can read the Bill of Right for yourself and see if it talks about the freedom of speech for individuals. Good luck with that.

All such a law would really require is that all the people who have chosen to associate in a corporation, union or other entity get to decide what they want to express and which candidates or issues they want their money to support.

Sounds very democratic to us.

No, not really. Can you imagine if a candidate suddenly comes out with some wacky program that would decimate an industry before an election and there's a law that requires a corporation to get a vote from their shareholders before they're allowed to respond? Exactly. It's nuts. The shareholders elect people to run the company and make those decisions. If they don't like their decisions they can replace them. What if I put it this way - what if there was a law the required your US representative to have a vote of the voters in their district to tell them how to vote on something before they cast their vote.

Exactly.

Obama's Health Plan Includes Sub-$250,000 Tax Hikes

“And I can make a firm pledge: Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase—not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.” I bet the nets and editorialists are gonna be all over this one...right?

Yeah, right.

Just like Clinton got a pass because, gosh darn it, he just couldn't figure out how to do a middle class tax hike that he'd promised (during a strong economy, no matter than Reagan, Bush, Kennedy, etc. managed it, with great success for everyone, during terrible economies).

President Obama presented a new health care plan on Monday that calls for raising the Medicare payroll tax on some households earning less than $250,000, an apparent breach of his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on families earning less than that amount. The president’s plan also calls for increasing taxes on interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents.

In a Sept. 12, 2008 campaign speech in Dover, N.H, Obama said: “And I can make a firm pledge: Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase—not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

But the new health care plan released in summary form yesterday by the White House specifically calls for increasing the Medicare payroll tax on “households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.”

Unless President Obama is prepared to say that the only type of “family” that qualifies as a “family” under his tax pledge is one that is formed around a "married couple filing jointly," then his new health care proposal violates his 2008 tax pledge on its face. The Internal Revenue Service, for example, makes clear that the “head of household” tax filing status is for “unmarried” taxpayers. A definition of the term “head of household” on the IRS Web site says: “Generally, you may claim head of household filing status on your tax return only if you are unmarried and pay more than 50% of the costs of keeping up a home for yourself and your dependent(s) or other qualifying individuals.”

The White House posted the president’s tax increase proposal as part of the summary of the new health-care reform bill he is proposing.

“Under current law, workers who earn a salary pay a flat tax of 1.45 percent of their wages to support the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund, but those who have substantial unearned income do not, raising issues of fairness,” says the summary of Title IX of the president’s proposal. “The Act will include an additional 0.9 percentage point Hospital Insurance tax for households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. In addition, it would add a 2.9 percent tax for such high-income households to unearned income including interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents (excluding income from active participation in S corporations).”...

When reporters pressed him on the issue, Gibbs said: “I am reiterating the president's clear commitment in the clearest terms possible, that he’s not raising taxes on those who make less than $250,000 a year.”

No wonder Americans increasingly want tea instead of Kool-Aid.

Unexpected Expectations

The joke continues and most of the right has caught on I think, IBD certainly has:

The media breathlessly report an "unexpectedly" large increase in unemployment applications with inflation rising "faster than expected." Given the wasteful spending spree we've been on, what do they expect?

The economic gurus at major media outlets such as Reuters are having a dickens of a time explaining why the economy is not responding to the massive doses of monetary steroids we've been injecting.

Last Thursday, after the Labor Department announced that claims for state unemployment benefits increased by 31,000 to 473,000, Reuters reported that the surge was "unexpected." The market, we were told, was looking for 430,000...

These analysts are shocked — shocked! — that this hopey-changey thing isn't working out. But when you have an economic policy that consists of taking money out of the economy to redistribute, after subtracting government overhead and borrowing the rest from places like China, these numbers should not be "unexpected."

Lending About Face?

Is this what we've come to? Have the Democrats so thoroughly pummeled the economy that, just as it was time to start talking about recovery and raising interest rates to stifle inflation it looks more like the other shoe is about to drop, that GDP is about to go negative again, and the Fed is on the tightrope of too much vs not enough money?

Sorta looks like it:

Yet, a look at key banking and monetary indicators is troubling. Money and credit are the fuel for economic expansion, but as Britain's Telegraph newspaper noted this week, U.S. bank lending is now falling at its fastest rate in history, at least in dollar terms...

Commercial and industrial loans, a key gauge of business activity, are declining at a yearly rate of 17.7%. After expanding at double- digit rates through the early part of last year, C&I loans have now declined for eight months in a row — and each month has seen a deeper drop than the month before...

M2 money supply, the most frequently used gauge for measuring the economy's demand for money, has fallen from solid 8% to 9% growth just last summer to growth of less than 2% since the start of the year. This level is often seen just before recessions, and thus may augur another downturn. Despite two quarters of GDP gains, no rule says we can't have a double dip...

All this suggests that attempts at stimulus by the government have not created a lasting recovery. And as long as loan demand falls, the recovery can't be sustained. Whether or not you agree with the Fed's moves over the past two years to keep the economy afloat, one thing's clear: With signs of financial distress still common in the economy, now isn't the time to tighten money and credit.

And yet, the Fed seems ready to do just that. Last week, Bernanke outlined how he'll go about removing the more than $1.3 trillion the Fed has put into the banking system to avoid a collapse...

Bernanke is a deep scholar of the Great Depression, and he knows better than most that the economic decline of the 1930s was made worse by a Fed that excessively shrank money supply.

Indeed, at a now famous 90th birthday tribute to Milton Friedman back in 2002, Bernanke told the world's leading economist: "Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again." We hope he meant it.

The Lying Liar Lies About The Stimulus Waste

IBD refuses to let Obey-Won revise and distort history, please join them and keep your friends, families, co-workers, and even people talking on the bus informed of reality:

Start with this: Stimulus didn't save us from an economic cataclysm. Obama himself said so back in March, noting that the economy was "not as bad as we think," and that he was "highly optimistic." It's clear he didn't think we were on the brink of a Depression.

He was right. In an editorial at the time, we pointed to 13 separate economic indicators signaling an imminent economic recovery — with all of them flashing before the stimulus was in place.

We knew at the time that our resilient private economy would climb out of its hole, and that politicians would try to claim credit. That's why we wrote: "No politician who voted for these job- and growth-killing measures should claim any credit for our eventual rebound." Following Wednesday's fact-bending dog-and-pony show, we think that bears repeating...

Worse is the administration's claim that stimulus is responsible for the fourth quarter's 5.7% spurt in GDP. This, too, is utterly false.

Two-thirds of that number was made up of inventories. Businesses had liquidated so much in inventories as Obama came into office, helping to make GDP declines last year deeper than expected, that when they finally stopped the economy appeared to be growing strongly. It wasn't.

Real final sales, a measure that excludes short-term inventory swings, rose just 2.2% in the fourth quarter — hardly a boom.

What bothered us most, however, was Obama's reference to a "lost decade" under President Bush — a now-popular insult Democrats use to imply Obama's predecessor is to blame for everything.

So, let's review the Bush record one more time.

As background, Bush's presidency began after the largest stock market crash in history, which destroyed nearly $8 trillion in national wealth. Business investment had collapsed, in part due to the Y2K debacle. The economy in early 2001 was already in recession. And within nine months we were hit by the 9/11 attacks.

Thanks to Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, the U.S. economy came back. From the end of 2000 to Bush's exit from office, 4.6 million jobs were created, industrial output rose 5%, productivity soared 25%, real after-tax income jumped 21% and net wealth grew by $8.6 trillion. And that includes last year's financial meltdown.

Calling this a "lost decade" is simply wrong. Curiously, the economy was far healthier before Democrats took over Congress in 2006. Is it just coincidence that the unraveling of our financial system took place just as they regained control?

Alan Reynolds piles on:

President Obama seized on the one-year anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) as an opportunity to take credit for the belated and tenuous economic recovery.

But the economy always recovered from recessions, long before anyone imagined that government borrowing could "create jobs." And we didn't used to have to wait nearly two years for signs of recovery, as we did this time...

How could the initial $200 billion have possibly had anything to do with the 5.7% rise in fourth-quarter GDP?

The Keynesian fable presumes that faster federal spending and consumers spending their federal benefit checks were the driving forces in the rebound.

Yet the GDP report clearly said the gain "reflected an increase in private inventory investment, a deceleration of imports and an upturn in nonresidential, fixed investment that was partly offset by decelerations in federal government (defense) spending and in personal consumption expenditures."...

The bill was launched last year amid grandiose promises of "shovel ready" make-work projects.

In reality, as the CBO explains, "five programs accounted for more than 80% of the outlays from ARRA in 2009: Medicaid, unemployment compensation, Social Security ... grants to state and local governments ... and student aid."...

As the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee minutes for January noted: "The several extensions of emergency unemployment insurance benefits appeared to have raised the measured unemployment rate, relative to levels recorded in past downturns, by encouraging some who have lost their jobs to remain in the labor force. ... Some estimates suggested it could account for 1 percentage point or more of the increase in the unemployment rate during this recession."

Eli Manning Gets A Gold Star On The Forehead

For a guy that I'm pretty sure I've heard negative things about in the press, this is a legitimate good deed that deserves an atta-boy:

Manning, who has done promotional work for St. Vincent, a Greenwich Village hospital, since 2006 has released the hospital from its contract, according to a report by the New York Post. St. Vincent faces $700 million in debt and has recently slashed salaries and, worse, jobs in order to remain open. Continuing to pay the Giants quarterback to be a pitch man would have been a problem for the hospital...

Manning has already earned at least $600,000 from the hospital and might be walking away from about that much. Manning and his wife Abby will continue to do some promotional work for the Eli & Abby Manning Birthday Center without compensation.

This Can Mean Only One Thing

(briefing.com) And when it looked as if stocks might start to trim some of their opening losses, sellers redoubled their efforts when it was learned that the February Consumer Confidence Index came in at a lower-than-expected 46.0, which is the lowest reading since April 2009.

Uh-oh, America! You know what this means...more speeches from Obey-Won! Why can't you just be happy doing what he tells you and working (well, 90% of you!)? Stop being so unhappy with the socialist utopia we are approaching! Don't worry, a few more speeches and you'll understand what a brilliant job the Democrats are doing.

The Rest Of The Story

You gotta love this headline in the TU today:

A new health care pitch

Obama likely to have to settle for much less than what he wants

Pretty funny. Let's make it more honest:

Same old Democrat health care pitch

Obama likely to have to settle for health care reform instead of what he wants - health care takeover

Let Me Know When America Wakes Up

Has it happened, yet?

During today's press briefing, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he hoped that Republicans would post their reform plans online.

"The president posted ideas of his on the White House website today. We hope Republicans will post their ideas either on their website, or we'd be happy to post them on ours, so that the American people could come to one location and find out the parameters of what will largely be discussed on Thursday," Gibbs said.

Turns out the House Republicans' plan has been online since October and already has its own link on the White House website.

Cripes, I hope we survive these people.

Obama's Phony Bipartisanship

Like a certain electric rabbit, Obama keeps on marching across the country blathering about 'bipartisanship' as he practices the exact opposite and accuses his opponents of being the ones refusing to work with him. The latest example?

Obama version of health reform expected Monday

That's right, he still hasn't had his big 'conference' with Republicans to share ideas and get their input, but he's rolling out his plan already, just like the Democrats rolled out the Stimulus prior to Obama meeting with the GOP for their input.

And the media will blame Republicans as sure as night follows day.

Your Random Saturday

Leaner and meaner? I'm tryin'.

Larry Kudlow:

The so-called $85 billion jobs program is not a jobs program at all. It is a spending bill. Temporary tax credits to hire new workers have virtually no permanent job-creating effect. In budget terms, these kinds of temporary tax credits are scored as tax expenditures, i.e. spending. Only a permanent reduction in the marginal business tax rate has the incentive effect for long-run job creation. Reducing the business tax rate makes firms more profitable after-tax. And it gives them more cash flow. Those incentives will work to expand investment and jobs.

And taxing capital is the worst idea of all. That’s why the capital-gains tax must not be increased. Plus, raising the top two income-tax brackets from 33 to 35 percent, and then from 35 to 40 percent, thereby penalizing those who own about half of the small-business income, is a job destroyer...

The stock market peak occurred about a month ago, with announcements of a bank tax hike, a corporate tax hike on foreign earnings, and a massive spending-and-borrowing federal budget. That’s not a coincidence, folks.

David Harsanyi:

Is partisanship, hyper or otherwise, destructive?

That's a matter of perspective, I suppose. For guidance, let's turn to Rep. Barney Frank, powerful chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who recently grumbled to a group of college students that partisanship is getting "out of control" in Congress.

Scary stuff. Yet in a 2004 piece written by Frank for The Gay & Lesbian Review, titled "In Praise of Partisanship," Frank asserted that "partisanship, properly understood, is not only a valid approach; it is in our current political climate the most effective way to fight for some very important values."

So, you see, partisanship is valid when "properly understood" and when "important values" are at stake in a "political climate" that is approved by ... well, the right people. The congressman wrote this when he was in the minority (the right "political climate," no doubt) and he was yearning for an influential chairmanship (what politicians refer to as an "important value").

Jonah Goldberg:

The Obama administration admits one mistake -- and one mistake only. It didn't explain itself better. In both his State of the Union address and interviews, Obama insisted he got all the policies right. It's just that the reportedly greatest orator in the history of the republic couldn't quite make himself clear enough.

The good news is that he recognizes his mistakes and is going to try again. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer told the Washington Post this week that "In 2010, the president will constantly be doing high-profile things to be the person driving the narrative."

The multiple trips to Copenhagen, the five-Sunday-shows-in-one-day marathon, the three joint session addresses to Congress in one year, the prime-time news conferences, the state dinner, the speech in Cairo: These don't add up to "constantly" doing "high-profile things"? I can't wait to hear what "high-profile" means. Explain health-care reform while parting the waters of the Potomac?

But even this explanation amounts to dodging blame. It's still code for "You stupid Americans, why can't you understand I'm right and you're wrong?"

That's certainly how Joe Klein, Obama's de facto press flack at Time magazine, sees things. In a piece titled "Too Dumb to Thrive," Klein argues that Americans are too stupid to understand how totally awesome the stimulus was...What's funny about this is that if nearly two-thirds of Americans are idiots, that means roughly half of Obama's voters were idiots, too. His election was once the epitome of American wisdom.

NOW Can We Drop It?

The AP reports:

Justice Department lawyers showed "poor judgment" but did not commit professional misconduct when they authorized CIA interrogators to use waterboarding and other harsh tactics at the height of the U.S. war on terrorism, an internal review released Friday found...

Margolis, the top nonpolitical Justice Department lawyer and a veteran of several administrations, called the legal memos "flawed" and said that, at every opportunity, they gave interrogators as much leeway as possible under U.S. torture laws. But he said Yoo and Bybee were not reckless and did not knowingly give incorrect advice, the standard for misconduct.

The memos have been embroiled in national security politics for years. The memos laid out a broad interpretation of executive power, one the previous administration also used to authorize warrantless wiretapping and secret prisons...

Obama has said CIA interrogators who relied on the memos will not face charges for their behavior.

Those would be the "secret prisons" that no one has ever found evidence of and seemingly never existed. And the "warrantless wiretapping" requires significantly more explanation than liberal buzzwordy accusations.

Incidentally, this is the headline: Review: Bush interrogation lawyers showed 'poor judgment', not "Review: Bush interrogation lawyers cleared of wrongdoing". Focusing on something other than the actual substance of the finding? That's bias.

==

update: maybe someone realized that - new headline? DOJ review finds no misconduct by memo authors. Much better.

Digging Romney

Couple of Romney digs from CPAC:

“When it comes to pinning the blame, let’s pin the blame on the donkey,” Romney told a supportive crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), in reference to the Democratic mascot...

“Of course, the president accuses us of being the party of ‘no.’ It’s as if he thinks that saying ‘no’ is by definition a bad thing,” Romney said. “In fact, it is right and praiseworthy to say no to bad things. It is right to say no to cap and trade, no to card check, no to government health care, and no to higher taxes. My party should never be a rubber stamp for rubber check spending.”

Romney continued that Democrats have said “no” on many things as well.

“But before we move away from this ‘no’ epithet the Democrats are fond of applying to us, let’s ask the Obama folks why they say ‘no’ —no to a balanced budget, no to reforming entitlements, no to malpractice reform, no to missile defense in Eastern Europe, no to prosecuting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a military tribunal, and no to tax cuts that create new jobs,” Romney said.

“You see, we conservatives don’t have a corner on saying no; we’re just the ones who say it when that’s the right thing to do,” he said.

Obama's Phony Bipartisanship

Dear mass media,

Obama's calls for "bipartisanship" and "cooperation" are clearly BS. The evidence is nearly everything he does. It's time for you to wake up and stop defending him and repeating his lies. How you run stories like this one and yet blame Republicans for partisan strife in your editorials simply defies reality:

Obama keeps all-Democratic health care option open

The White House signaled Thursday that an aggressive, all-Democratic strategy for overhauling the nation's health care system remains a serious option, even as President Barack Obama invites Republicans to next week's televised summit to seek possible compromises.

This is exactly why the Republican leaders will likely not attend Obama's phony "summit" and the Democrats are already rejecting what the Republicans might say if they did go. It's nothing but a phony baloney dog and pony show so that Obama can stand up and say "I tried" when he did no such thing and you defend him.

Look at Virginia. Look at New Jersey. Look at Massachusetts. We're not buying it and like the Democrats in those races that were heavily supported by Obama, you're hitching your cart to a fading horse.

If I May Be So Bold

Without commenting on the actual facts - because we don't have them, yet, let me simply point out, for your future use with discussions with the liberals that surround us in the northeast - that conservatives, as a group, are unhappy with excessive taxation as set by Congress and government intrusion as set by Congress - and do not advocate violence against government employees and particularly not against the IRS that is just doing the job Congress has given them.

It is unbalanced and disturbed individuals that take out their frustrations violently against individual government employees and particularly those that don't know them from a hole in the wall.

Unless they're simply terrorists like Obama's buddy William Ayers and his pals, who only blow themselves up by accident.

Shaun White & Usain Bolt

Every so often - I'm not enough of a sports follower to know if it happens at every Olympics - there is an athlete that so thoroughly demolishes the competition that there is no competition.

Now I'm not even talking about Michael Phelps-land here. Phelps is amazing, at least he certainly was in Beijing. A pile of gold and a set of world records proves that. But he leaned on his teammates in the relays. He barely won one of his races by almost a literal fingernail. His cumulative feat was, indeed, amazing. And, yes, unprecedented. But, again, it was cumulative. He didn't win his best race by a pool length.

No, I'm talking about the horse that crosses the finish line while the rest are still entering the final stretch. The pole vaulter that just keeps going higher while everyone else has failed.

I'm talking Usain Bolt-land. I'm talking about a guy that so thoroughly demolishes the competition that they're not even on the screen when he crosses the line and the only question is the silver.

Bolt so thoroughly dominated his races in Beijing that the other guys might as well have not showed up.

Which brings us to 2010. I will readily confess that I knew nothing about this Shaun White character coming into the Olympics. I've heard the name and just figured he was another flash-in-the-pan "alternative sport athlete". Whoopee.

But I'll admit that I got sucked in by the hype (and besides, you get what NBC gives you) and tuned in to the halfpipe. I was curious as to whether I would be able to tell how good this overhyped kid is. Most of these events it's like they all do about the same thing and somehow one guy gets 10 points higher than another guy and I've got no clue why. Like figure skating.

So I'm watching the early guys go. Some are good. They're clearly better than the others. They don't go face-first into the snow when they land. They get higher. They land cleaner. They're more polished. They don't struggle with their tricks. Ok, I'm thinking I can see why some guy does well and another struggles. After everyone else has gone Shaun White is up, going last in the first round. The announcers are spitting with excitement and I'm like, whatever. I expected him to be smooth, polished, nice tricks, ok, whatever.

Wow, was I wrong.

The Joke "Unexpectedly" Continues

I said before this was becoming a joke and it seems like the nail was squarely walloped on the head.

Another day, another unemployment report, another round of "unexpectedly" bad news:

(Reuters) The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for unemployment insurance unexpectedly surged last week, while producer prices increased sharply in January, raising potential hurdles for the economic recovery.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 31,000 to 473,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That compared to market expectations for 430,000.

This is getting ridiculous.

As for the news itself, the words "not good" spring to mind. Unemployment still high and showing no signs of improvement and now the inflation that conservative economists warned about might be rearing its head.

Thanks to Jimmy Carter who presided over the economy that spurred the last deep recession (don't be fooled by the 'depression' carp, the late 70s, early 80s economy was worse than today's in just about every significant way) they came up with a name for this situation -

high unemployment + recession + inflation = stagflation

In the words of Dee Snider - "Here it comes, baby!" Will Obama give his next speech in a sweater?

1 + 1 still = 3

If you ignore the hilariously optimistic "predictions" of these people and just concentrate on the numbers they report - you get this:

AS OF FEB 10 2010:
Allocated: $85,645,483,797; Advertised: $32,006,096,535; Awarded: $49,404,137,193
Totals: $167,055,717,525; Jobs Funded: 536,529

Let's round off, shall we?

Spent: $167 billion.

Jobs (temporarily) Funded: 537,000

Cost per job? $311,000.

The administration's take on spending over $300,000 per temporary job?

Vice President Joe Biden asserted in an interview Wednesday that taxpayers have "gotten their money's worth" out of the $787 billion stimulus program that Congress passed during the depths of the recession.

I don't know about you, but I don't feel like I've gotten my money's worth. Do you think private businesses would have spent over $300,000 per job to fund half a million temporary jobs? (oh, and did you catch that part about 'the depths of the recession'? they passed this when Bernanke and piles of Nobel laureates (in real subjects) were predicting we'd soon recover without porking America up - in other words, at the tail end of the recession)

Exactly.

Night is day. We have always been at war with Eastasia...

1 + 1 = 3

Fed: Unemployment will stay high over next 2 years

The Federal Reserve expects unemployment will stay high over the next two years because recession-scarred Americans are likely to stay cautious, making for only a moderate-paced economic recovery.

Fed policymakers said in a forecast released Wednesday that it will take "some time" for the economy and the jobs market to get back to normal. They did not spell out how long that would be. Previously they suggested it could take five or six years for economic conditions to return to full health. A "sizable minority," however, thinks it could take more than five or six years for the economy and the job market to return to normal.

Biden says stimulus good for Michigan, rest of US

"It's gonna take us a while to get us out of this ditch, but it's working. It's working," Biden said...

On anniversary, Obama defends economic stimulus

President Barack Obama vigorously defended his $787 billion stimulus on Wednesday, insisting it rescued Americans from the worst of the economic calamity and ripping Republican critics who called it a waste...

Obama, in a White House speech, said he believed the stimulus will save or create 1.5 million jobs in 2010 after saving or creating as many as 2 million jobs thus far...

A CBS News/New York Times poll last week found that only 6 percent of Americans believed the package had created jobs. Another poll by CNN/Opinion Research Corporation showed a majority opposed the stimulus program.

You can't argue with people that refuse to face reality...all you can do is try to stop them from doing more damage.

Bayh The Way

In their (seemingly) neverending quest to redefine the left as the center, Evan Bayh is the new poster boy for a 'moderate' or 'centrist'...despite an ACU rating of 20. IBD points out some rather inconvenient history of Mr. Moderate:

The conventional wisdom says Sen. Evan Bayh, Democrat from Indiana, isn't running again because moderates don't fit in the Democratic Party anymore. In truth, Bayh doesn't fit in Middle America...

Appearing on CBS' Early Show on Tuesday, Bayh fretted that "I wish Washington would work better" and insisted that "what we need to do is to come together as a people and solve the problems facing our country. And unfortunately Washington is just not doing enough of that these days."

But as National Review's Jay Nordlinger pointed out, Bayh wasn't thinking too much about both parties coming together when he voted against President George W. Bush's Supreme Court nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.

Nor did Bayh seem to be thinking about common middle ground when he voted against the confirmation of Attorney General John Ashcroft. "Bayh even voted against Condoleezza Rice for secretary of state, and she is a woman who might be counted moderation itself," Nordlinger remarked.

"Furthermore: Bayh gave a speech at the '08 Democratic National Convention that was obnoxious in its partisanship — even given that it was a convention speech."

Moreover, Bayh voted against the Bush tax cuts — although he now argues they shouldn't be allowed to expire, as President Obama wants...

It is very interesting, however, to take note of a remarkably candid shot he fired at Obama and the congressional Democratic leadership.

The outgoing senator, ruminating about what the future holds, told his CBS interviewer that "if I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months."

Obama's Version Of Bipartisanship

Yup, if only those damned Republican creeps would stop being all partisan and work with Obama, who only wants to be their buddy and keeps on tossing one olive branch after another at them while he whispers sweet words of bipartisanship (like: "I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don't mind cleaning up after them, but don't do a lot of talking."):

President Barack Obama vigorously defended his $787 billion stimulus on Wednesday, insisting it rescued Americans from the worst of the economic calamity and ripping Republican critics who called it a waste...

Obama used a portion of his speech to accuse Republicans of hypocrisy, saying they have enjoyed its benefits even as they criticized the plan.

"There are those, let's face it, across the aisle who have tried to score political points by attacking what we did, even as many of them show up at ribbon-cutting ceremonies for projects in their districts," Obama said.

Dear mass media - get a clue. He's been acting like this since day one and you accuse the GOP of not getting along. Pathetic. And tragic for our children.

Standards x 2

So the government will be demanding recalls and investigations into every Government Motors* and Chrysler* complaint any day now, right?

Right?

Any minute now...

-

* companies that comprise 80% of those that have failed to pay back their bailout money, by the way

NYT Suddenly Sensitive To Counter Terrorism White House Requests

Michelle Malkin has details on the abrupt about-face by the New York Times. When the Bush White House begged the Times to keep military/counterterrorism details secret, at least temporarily, they were rebuffed and the story went on the front page, usually crippling anti-terrorism operations.

But, suddenly, it seems that they're willing to hush stories up for a time when Obama asks.

Gee, I wonder why the change of heart?

Obama Has Lost Control Of The Message

Yesterday I asked whether a highly critical AP story might be evidence that Obama was losing the press (they have jobs, too, some of them!).

Earlier I had noted that his own top-ranking officials were starting to wander off the reservation.

You don't need me to relate how sick and tired everyone is of the ubiquitous Obama. You may have also noticed how the Professor came out of something like a 6-to-7-month cocoon to actually give an "impromptu" press conference the other day.

So what's going on?

What's going on is that Obama is losing control of the message and the messengers. That tends to happen when your approval rating is in the 40s and your negatives are heading for 60. You might also recall how the press was "managed" during his campaign. They were told what they could write, when they could write, who could write. They were told when they could take pictures and when they couldn't. They were told when they could have access and when they would be shut out. Some of them (I can think of maybe 3) spoke out, but they were hushed or covered up. In general when they were told to let Obama eat his waffle they let him waffle away. Amazingly enough (not really, if you understand our liberal media), he was praised for his handling of the press by the press. Maybe they like being told what to do?

Anyway...what's the answer to all this?

Clamp back down on the press.

Facing criticism that President Barack Obama isn't connecting with the American people(1), the White House is infusing its communications strategy with some of the ironclad discipline and outside-the-box thinking that made the Obama presidential campaign famous — and successful.

Sensitive about talk that the president was sometimes(2) overexposed during his first year in office, the administration now is more discriminating about how and when the president deals with media — and about whom he talks to when he does(3)...

• More direct, rapid response to criticism. Through blog postings on the White House Web site by a small cast of Obama aides and unsolicited e-mails from press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted to the White House's vast press list, the administration seeks to more quickly and widely counter perceived misinformation. And Gibbs has finally resorted to Twitter.(4)

• More events at which the president speaks directly to the public without the filter of the media, including town hall meetings around the country as well as such events as a recent online question-and-answer session streamed on YouTube and a televised live exchange with House Republicans.(5)

• Carefully choreographed interactions with the press. Instead of holding news conferences, which can cover many topics and put reporters in competition with the president for the spotlight, the Obama team is trying to place a premium on its media interactions(6)...

One senior White House official said aides increasingly are focused on using the president's time more efficiently and more strategically. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House discussions(7)...

Aides insist that the focus on high-impact interviews doesn't mean the president is avoiding the White House press corps. Several reporters from news organizations that regularly cover the White House, including The Associated Press, were among the 161 interviews Obama gave in his first year in office — more than three times the number granted by former President George W. Bush, for instance.(8)

But the White House has been willing to circumvent some of the traditional communications channels that long have defined the relationship between the president and the media. The president went nearly seven months without a formal news conference before making a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room last week. Obama also has been less willing of late to answer questions in informal settings. (9)

(1) The only people saying this are people that refuse to grasp that the American people know damned well what he is pushing and are saying quite vehemently that they aren't interested.

(2) Assuming 100% is "sometimes", I guess.

(3) This is new? This is the team that tried to ban FoxNews. I guess we should expect more hard-hitting interviews with Bryant Gumbel about who the fattest celebrity chick is.

(4) I can see it now...Gibbs is going to have to set up a macro to tweet "the vice-president misrepresented what the vice-president meant to say".

(5) That's what he needs, more staged and partisan "town halls" for Michelle Malkin to tear to pieces. Maybe they can exploit some more children while they're at it.

(6) Yeah, they need to seriously curtail them press conferences...after all, he had, what, 3 last year? And those were staged with planted questions. Like I said, Bryant Gumbel better clear his calendar.

(7) Is there anything funnier than an anonymous quote from an official discussing why and how the White House is trying to crack down on people not going through official channels with the press? Delicious.

(8) 161 interviews. Yes, clearly the problem is that Obama isn't getting his message across. Yeah, that's the ticket.

(9) I can't imagine why...it can't have anything to do with the fact that he sounds like an idiot when he's not reading off a teleprompter or starts insulting women or handicapped people can it?

It's Racism

Yup, all the opposition to Obama and his 'team' is just racism, everything's going swimmingly:

"It's gonna take us a while to get us out of this ditch, but it's working. It's working," Biden said...

Michigan has had the nation's highest unemployment rate for much of the past four years. It slightly improved in December for the third straight month, dropping slightly to 14.6 percent. But it still towers above the national rate of 10 percent.

The governor's office says $10.6 billion in Recovery Act funding has been invested in the state.

Yup, see there, "slightly improved" to 14.6% at a cost of only 10.6 BILLION dollars. Nobody can be against this except because they're racist.

Front Page Yahoo Story Is Riddled With Lies And Errors

As scary as it sounds, Yahoo really should go back to relying on the AP. Because stuff like this, from their "newsroom blog" is utter horsespit that makes leftwing Palin rumor blogs look well-informed.

First there's an ignorant riff on filibusters that ignores the fact that fact that the GOP for the past year (more or less) hasn't had the votes to filibuster anything - and to add insult to injury they use a graph that ends in 2008! As pointed out by Hugh Hewitt, 2008 figures be damned, there was not a SINGLE partisan filibuster mounted in 2009. That's gonna make the chart look different!

Then they slip in this asinine item:

Enhancing the concerns of many on the left and the right has been a recent Supreme Court decision to strike down the country's existing campaign finance laws. Put simply, the ruling opens the door for an even greater influence of money by allowing corporations to directly fund individual candidates.

What?! Who the hell let this nutjob write for something called a "newsroom"?? The Supreme Court did NO SUCH THING. They neither struck down the country's campaign finance laws (they struck down a ban on advertising that covered the period before elections and no other time) nor did they alter ANYTHING regarding candidate funding. I guess this is what passes for "news" for people that probably think Keith Olbermann knows what's going on in the world. "Put simply"??? What are you, freakin' joking? How about "Put completely wrong and made up..."? I mean, I don't expect them to have actually read the Citizens United ruling, but couldn't they at least rely on stories that summarized it that came from someone more in touch with reality than, I dunno, EJ Dionne? This has to be the worst description of Citizens United that I have come across, it's as far removed from the ruling as the latest bobsled times are.

I'd like to think that even Rex would refuse to print this pile of rubbish.

Biden Lies About His Lie, Obama Lies About Health Care (Again)

These guys are unreal, it's like they can't even be honest about the most obvious stuff. It doesn't matter if it's about resumes or Iraq, they just have no ability to be honest.

First Biden claims that he and Obama brought the Iraq War to a victorious conclusion (despite the fact that they opposed 'the surge' that 'won' the war, despite the fact that they said it would make things worse, that they proposed incredibly different and nutty plans of their own, and despite the fact that withdrawal agreements with the Iraqi government were made on Bush's watch). His exact words were that it would be a "great achievement" of Obama's administration.

Taken to task for such an asinine statement, itself a lie, this dipstick goes on to lie about what he said!

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this, Mister Vice President, you said the other night to Larry King in an interview that you thought Iraq could be one of the “great achievements” of this administration. And I must say a lot of people, when you said that, said their response was “what?” This administration didn’t have very much to do with Iraq and your friend, Dick Cheney had a thought about that, as well. So let’s listen to this.

JOE BIDEN: I bet he did.

DICK CHENEY, ON ABC’S THIS WEEK: For them to try to take credit for what’s happened in Iraq strikes me as little strange. If they’re going to take credit for, fair enough, for what they’ve done while they’re there. But it ought to go with a healthy dose of “thank you, George Bush,” upfront.

BOB SCHIEFFER: So, your response to that one.

JOE BIDEN: Look, we’re not, we’re not taking credit, we had to take responsibility.

Seriously, Joe? What the hell's the matter with this guy? Tell the frickin' truth for a change. You want us to believe that it's a "great accomplishment" but you're "not taking credit"? How the hell can it be an accomplishment if you don't take credit for it? What a load of horsecarp. Rush Limbaugh pretty well nailed it: “This is worse than chutzpah, folks. This is insulting everybody’s intelligence.”

Of course this isn't the first time the vice-president misrepresented what the vice-president meant to say, though. I'll give them this, though - if in a few years we can look back and see that withdrawing troops from an already-won war is one of their "great accomplishments", then I'll take that and be thrilled.

And in that press conference that had the press so giggly (the first one in months - remember when he was going to do these all the time and the press complained that Bush didn't do enough of them?), Obama makes this outrageous claim: "...for the first time...you saw more people getting health care from government than you did from the private sector."

Thankfully CNN pulled out the bullspit siren on that whopper:

CNN's Suzanne Simons and anchor Tony Harris both used the "pants on fire" expression to describe the President's statement. The AP, on the other hand, merely labeled it "hyperbole." President Obama delivered this line at his February 9, 2010 White House press conference. Harris played the sound bite of this statement 20 minutes into the 12 pm Eastern hour, and asked Simons, who is an executive producer with CNN's "Fact Check Desk," to verify its accuracy: "Tell us, is that an accurate statement from the President?"

The executive producer went beyond a simple "no" answer:

SIMONS: No, no, no.

HARRIS: Even close?

SIMONS: No.

HARRIS: Pants on fire?

SIMONS: No- pants on fire.

HARRIS: Pants on fire.

MRC goes on to note that they ran an internet news search for Obama's ludicrous claim and only found 2 hits, indicating the the media largely ignored this blatantly dishonest demagoguery.

Bravo, America. Bra-vo.

Just How Bad Is Refusing To Drill, Baby, Drill?

Well, a new study out has the answer...pretty doggone bad.

Now, before the howls of indignation start, this report was prepared by a consulting for energy companies (yes, energy companies) AND the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. So, before any panties become twisted, yes, energy companies (have I mentioned the involvement of energy companies?) were involved BUT so was the body of public officers in charge of regulating them. In other words, the backing appears a LOT sounder than the "report" that warranted press coverage (including a top of the fold, front page story in one of our local papers) in the past few days written by liberal and union advocacy groups.

So, that out of the way, what did they report finding if we continue to refuse to develop our own natural resources (that is, if the Democrats keep preventing us from doing so?):

The model projected negative effects on all national economic indicators:

• Energy Prices are projected to be higher:
o Annual average natural gas prices increase by 17 percent
o Annual average electricity prices increase by 5 percent
o Annual average motor gasoline prices increase by 3 percent

• Real Disposable Income is projected to decrease cumulatively by $2.34 trillion ($1.16 trillion NPV or $4,500 per capita) – an annual average decrease of 0.65 percent.

• Energy Costs to Consumers are projected to increase cumulatively by $2.35 trillion ($1.15 trillion NPV or $3,700 per capita) – an annual average increased cost of 5 percent...

• Import Costs for Crude Oil, Petroleum Products, and Natural Gas are projected to increase cumulatively by $1.6 trillion ($769 billion NPV) – an annual average increased cost of over 38 percent.

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is projected to decrease cumulatively by $2.36 trillion ($1.18 trillion NPV) – an annual average decrease of 0.52 percent in GDP.

• Real Consumption is projected to decrease cumulatively by $1.44 Trillion ($712 billion NPV) – an annual average decrease of 0.45 percent.

Drill, baby. Drill.

Let 'em Win Or Bring 'em Home

*sigh*

Some American and Afghan troops say they're fighting the latest offensive in Afghanistan with a handicap — strict rules that routinely force them to hold their fire.

Although details of the new guidelines are classified to keep insurgents from reading them, U.S. troops say the Taliban are keenly aware of the restrictions.

"I understand the reason behind it, but it's so hard to fight a war like this," said Lance Cpl. Travis Anderson, 20, of Altoona, Iowa. "They're using our rules of engagement against us," he said, adding that his platoon had repeatedly seen men drop their guns into ditches and walk away to blend in with civilians.

If a man emerges from a Taliban hideout after shooting erupts, U.S. troops say they cannot fire at him if he is not seen carrying a weapon — or if they did not personally watch him drop one.

What this means, some contend, is that a militant can fire at them, then set aside his weapon and walk freely out of a compound, possibly toward a weapons cache in another location. It was unclear how often this has happened. In another example, Marines pinned down by a barrage of insurgent bullets say they can't count on quick air support because it takes time to positively identify shooters.

"This is difficult," Lance Cpl. Michael Andrejczuk, 20, of Knoxville, Tenn., said Monday. "We are trained like when we see something, we obliterate it. But here, we have to see them and when we do, they don't have guns."

NATO and Afghan military officials say killing militants is not the goal of a 3-day-old attack to take control of this Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan. More important is to win public support.

They acknowledge that the rules entail risk to its troops, but maintain that civilian casualties or destruction of property can alienate the population and lead to more insurgent recruits, more homemade bombs and a prolonged conflict...

Col. Shrin Shah Kohbandi, commander of the new Afghan army corps in Helmand province, told reporters that his troops saw militants running away from the battlefield toward a village in Nad Ali district where they disappeared among villagers. "They hid their weapons so they became `civilians,'" under the rules, he said. "We didn't kill them and we weren't able to arrest them."

Let me get this straight...we are sending our men into a hotbed of terrorists, not letting them shoot the terrorists, and then telling us that it is a good thing that we're not killing terrorists because the goal of sending out troops into a hotbed of terrorists is not to kill the terrorists but is instead to gain public support. And then they have the nerve to make the same stupid claims they tried to make in Iraq that were no found to be true. They're not being used as a military, they've being used as policemen, even though they're in a place where the fighting is still hot.

God help them.

Breaking News! Sun To Rise In East Tomorrow!

This article probably means 1 of 2 things - either the Democrats are even starting to lose the press (albeit the skeptical fringe first) or an AP writer just wrote himself out of a job:

For the U.S., the crushing weight of its debt threatens to overwhelm everything the federal government does, even in the short-term, best-case financial scenario -- a full recovery and a return to prerecession employment levels.

The government already has made so many promises to so many expanding "mandatory" programs. Just keeping these commitments, without major changes in taxing and spending, will lead to deficits that cannot be sustained.

Take Social Security, Medicare and other benefits. Add in interest payments on a national debt that now exceeds $12.3 trillion. It all will gobble up 80 percent of all federal revenues by 2020, government economists project.

That doesn't leave room for much else. What's left is the entire rest of the government, including military and homeland security spending, which has been protected and nurtured by the White House and Congress, regardless of the party in power...

Moody's Investors Service recently warned that Washington's credit rating could be in jeopardy if the nation's finances didn't improve...

Proposed belt-tightening steps by President Barack Obama, including a freeze on some nondefense, nonentitlement spending, would make only a small dent in the mountain of debt.

The budget he submitted to Congress this month proposes record spending of $3.8 trillion for 2011. Taxes in next year's budget will support only $2.5 trillion of that spending, leaving $1.3 trillion to be borrowed.

The president's budget is a best-case outlook, from the administration's vantage point.

It doesn't take into account future liabilities from the growth of entitlement benefits and is based on projected economic growth that depends on a solid recovery. It assumes Congress will pass all of Obama's initiatives, including spending cuts and tax increases previously rejected by Congress...

Obama's call for fiscal austerity came at the same time he signed legislation lifting the cap on government debt from $12.4 trillion -- which is close to being breached -- to $14.3 trillion to permit more borrowing...

The Social Security system, the biggest social spending program, has begun paying out more in benefits than it collects in payroll taxes. For the past quarter-century, Social Security had produced a surplus that helped finance the rest of the government.

Medicare, the health care program that now covers 45 million elderly and disabled people, is in worse shape. It's been paying out more than it takes in since 2008 and its trust fund is projected to run out of money in 2017.

Olympics Officials Blame Luger For Not Being Able To Handle Ultra-Fast Track

Let's be perfectly clear here. What happened - what quite obviously happened - is that another luger crashed on this insanely fast course - going like 95 mph...on ice...surrounded by steel beams...in aerodynamic underwear. And was killed when he slammed into a steel pole at 90 mph. He joined about a dozen other lugers crashing and going out of control on a course a good 5 mph faster than any before it.

The official explanation? It was his own fault. Check this out:

Concerns about the lightning-fast course had been raised for months. There were worries that the $100 million-plus venue was too technically difficult, and a lack of significant practice time by everyone but the host nation’s sliders would result in a rash of accidents.

But the International Luge Federation and Vancouver Olympic officials said their investigation showed that the crash was the result of human error and that “there was no indication that the accident was caused by deficiencies in the track.”

In a joint statement they said Kumaritashvili was late coming out of the next-to-last turn and failed to compensate. “This resulted in a late entrance into curve 16 and although the athlete worked to correct the problem, he eventually lost control of the sled, resulting in the tragic accident.”

Roll that around a bit in your mind.

1. The course is known to be really fast.

2. Sledders have not adequate prep time on the fastest track they've ever encountered.

3. A luger was killed.

4. The luger was killed apparently because of a 'late entrance' to a turn and the inability to correct.

Don't they realize how asinine that sounds? It was his fault because he was apparently unable to correct at the never-before-experienced speed on a course he had too-little time to get familiar with.

What a joke. Anybody want to bet that someone else won't be seriously injured or killed on live TV at this course?

==

UPDATE


Soooooo...

Not the course, eh? The course is fine, eh?

But the just decided to make changes to it anyways?

Changes that shaved the top speed by about TEN MPH?

Right.

Your Random Saturday

I'm thinking of sharply curtailing these...they're just too long sometimes. I've been upfront, I use these for data storage, future reference, etc. I may move them to my other (mostly inactive) blog or simply put them totally 'below the fold' from now on. On the off chance that anyone reads them and cares and has another thought about them, please comment.

Hugh Hewitt:

[Obama recently] told the senators that "they needed to get out there, get out of Washington, out of the echo chamber." This is laughable when this past August is recalled. Democrats went home to their states and districts and found town halls jammed with Obamacare opponents. Then the president urged them to disregard the voters. They did so, and their political peril is palpable. Now the president is telling them to hold more town halls...

President Obama does seem to realize that blaming President Bush, which was never very Presidential to begin with, has become almost a sign of adolescence. The new president is thus pivoting from blaming his predecessor to blaming the Congressional GOP. The president told the senators that they had had to face more filibusters in a single year than all of the filibusters of the 1950s and 1960s combined, and blamed the Republicans for obstructionism. Of course this is nonsense. Not a single successful partisan filibuster was mounted in 2009, which is not surprising because after Arlen Specter’s switch, the GOP totaled 40 votes.

Byron York on media bias:

Two weeks before the 2008 Iowa caucuses, the National Enquirer published a detailed story reporting that Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards had had an affair, and that the woman involved -- campaign videographer Rielle Hunter -- was pregnant, and that Edwards had arranged for an aide to falsely claim to be the father, and that Hunter and the aide and the aide's family were being taken care of financially by a wealthy Edwards supporter...

Although Edwards could not have known it at the time, it turned out that many journalists just didn't want to report the news and didn't try very hard to uncover the facts...

By mid-December 2007, Edwards knew the Enquirer story was coming. With Iowa fast approaching, he came up with an I'm-not-the-father cover-up scheme, believing that having Young claim paternity would deflect blame away from the candidate himself...

"To our relief, no serious newspaper or TV network picked up the story because they couldn't find a source to confirm it," Young wrote. The damage was confined to a few Web sites. "We began to think that perhaps our strategy had worked," Young said.

What followed was a bizarre series of events in which Fred Baron, the wealthy Edwards supporter, paid enormous sums of money to fly Hunter and the Youngs around the country to keep them out of sight until after the Iowa caucuses, and then the New Hampshire primary, and then, when the campaign fizzled but Edwards still had hopes of making it onto the Democratic presidential ticket, until after Hunter had the baby.

Still no word of it in the press. But the Enquirer was not finished. In July 2008, the tabloid published a detailed account of Edwards' visit with Hunter and the baby at a Los Angeles hotel.

"Andrew, they caught me," a tearful Edwards is quoted as telling Young in a phone conversation. "It's all over."

Surely now, Young thought, the media would jump on the story. But it didn't happen. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the broadcast networks and the cable-news outlets -- none reported the story. This time, though, it finally bubbled up, from the blogs to talk radio to late-night television...

Of course, in the end the story came out anyway -- but only after the sheer weight of Edwards' corruption made the facts impossible to ignore, even for sympathetic journalists.

Think This Is What They Wanted?

Say it with me - THANK YOU, DEMOCRATS!

If you have bad credit in the new era of credit card regulation, be prepared to pay -- dearly -- for the privilege of using credit. That's the message underlying recent credit card offers that feature jaw-dropping interest rates of up to 79.9 percent.

The sky-high rates may be a sign of things to come in the market for so-called subprime credit cards as issuers who lend to the riskiest of borrowers try to figure out how to stay in business and comply with the new credit card reform law...

The high interest rate offers may add urgency to an ongoing debate on Capitol Hill over reinstituting nationwide usury rates that cap credit card interest rates. On Dec. 11, a lawmaker introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to cap credit card rates at 16 percent -- the latest attempt among several in recent years to limit rates. The powerful and well-financed banking lobby has successfully quashed those efforts...

Has First Premier gotten any takers on the 79.9 percent cards? Beacom called the response "phenomenal," adding 2 percent of people receiving the offers have applied for the cards. Their normal response rates is 1 percent to 1.2 percent, he says. "It's double what our normal product was."

Government...is there anything it can do?

Remains

Without going into the man's character, comments, or allegations of corruption and without going into the blatant omissions in mass media obituaries (which would never have occurred if a conservative died) -

Do you think John Murtha would be happy knowing that the media, with their laser-like focus on Bush and Iraq, would boil the man's life, his political and military career, and everything else to the headline that seemingly every press outlet used a basic variation of:

John Murtha, Iraq war critic, dies

That's it. All the years, everything he did...just an "Iraq war critic".

Can It Be? The Worst Letter Yet?

Now don't get me wrong, I've noted some really bad letters to the editor in my brief time as your humble, uh...watchdog? Whatever it is that I am.

But a letter in today's Gazette just might take the cake. Wow. I mean...wow. The letter from Howard Mittleman (and that sounds familiar - ah yes, a little searching reveals it's not a new name at all for hardcore left-wing letter writing) of Schenectady is like a full blown carnival of dishonesty and ignorance. Before I begin, you can reference these links on the case: link, link

Let's hit it:

The recent Supreme Court decision declaring that corporations are essentially people, and have the same rights to free speech as humans, is not only absurd, but dangerous to our democracy [Jan. 31 Gazette].

And it's not what they ruled, not essentially or factually.

This decision gives corporations with huge budgets the right to pay for so much advertising that the voices of individuals will be completely drowned out.

They could do that before, just not at certain times. Were individuals drowned out? Oh, and even that restriction was only in place since the 90s...were individuals drowned out before that?

Even worse, they made no distinction between domestic and foreign-owned corporations, which leaves the door open to Chinese or Iranian (or whichever) corporations to spend millions of dollars influencing American elections.

This is so incredibly ignorant, stupid, wrong, foolish, misguided, and laughable that he must be channeling Obama.

At their confirmation hearings, two of these justices (Roberts and Alito) promised to uphold "stare decisis," which means to honor the interpretations of previous Supreme Court decisions. Here they have dumped 100 years of established law, and made up justifications based on their political agenda.

Yup, channeling Obama. They overturned a case from the 90's. No the 1890's, no, no...just the 1990's. My math ain't super, but I think that's a wee bit shy of 100 years. And what they did was restore Court precedent to that set years ago, which the case they overturned had removed. In other words, they abided by stare decisis. It must take a lot of effort, and a lot of tinfoil, to be so completely misguided.

I worry now whether we are seeing the end of true democracy in America. To save it we must pressure Congress to pass legislation that will limit the damage of this decision, and work on a constitutional amendment to put corporations back under the control of the individual states that supposedly grant them their right to exist.

We have to violate the Constitution to save the Constitution?

Heh.

Wow. Doesn't get much worse than this one, hardly a true statement in the whole letter.

Way Too Much Ado About Less Than Nothing

Seriously, Rex?

Really?

Front page, top of the page headline treatment for this??

Really?

Damn, Rex, this sort of thing makes even me question the Times Union's integrity and decision making...and that's sayin' quite a bit.

I mean, just look at the very beginning of this tripe that turns the front page to instant fish wrap:

As the nation struggled last year with rising health care costs and a recession, the five largest health- insurance companies racked up combined profits of $12.2 billion — up 56 percent over 2008, according to a new report by liberal health care activists...

Prepared by Health Care for America Now, a coalition of liberal advocacy groups and labor unions...

What a head-shakingly bad decision. Is this the best you can do? Yeesh! Isn't this the same mainstream media that wets themselves whenever a *gasp* conservative blogger breaks a story? And they're generating front page news off of "reports" by liberal agitator groups?? Wow. How embarrassing.

Where's The Investigation?

Isn't anyone else concerned about this blonde socialite drifting from job to job over the years, never excelling at any of them, seemingly without the proper qualifications based on past experience, but somehow able to land one high-profile gig after another anyway?

How's she getting these jobs? Isn't anyone checking her references? Don't any potential employers care about how she just seems to wander off from previous posts whenever she tires of them?

Praise For A Local Union

I'd just like to give some praise where praise is due. In light of the recent violent (not to mention racist) behavior by unions at health care protests and meetings as well as the ludicrous resistance to letting a scout clear a walking trail in PA, I wanted to make sure this perhaps-overlooked item got some play.

Locals may have seen some of the brouhaha in Schenectady about the pond in Central Park not being cleared of snow this year for skating. I'm guessing most of those complaining have conveniently forgotten about the way two trucks in recent years plunged through the ice trying to plow it, costing who knows how much money and endangering lives (not to mention ruining the ice). Some people have apparently realized that they could actually go out and clean it off themselves! What a concept! Especially with the very light snowfall we've had this year.

Well, the Commissioner of Public Services, instead of rushing out to buy a lighter plow just to plow the pond, thought maybe he could get some inmates to do it. Of course this would potentially set off howls of frustration from unions that are supposed to be paid to do all that sort of thing. I am extraordinarily pleased to reiterate that the representative for the city workers' union agreed to allow them to use inmates to clean off the ice. The Daily Gazette reports that this ties in with new Sheriff Dagostino's plan to restore "inmate-powered community service work details".

Seems like a win-win all around and I am pleased as punch to see the union making the right call on this one.

He expects inmates to benefit from community service, although his main purpose is to help nonprofits stretch their limited dollars.

"It gives them an opportunity to help the community they'll be re-entering," Dagostino said. "Maybe it gives them something to be a little proud of."

The inmates work for free. They have volunteered for community service and have already been screened for security risks.

Dagostino said only medium-security inmates serving sentences in the county jail would be allowed to participate. Each inmate will be nearing the end of his or her sentence. Corrections officers will accompany them.

"We've taken the appropriate measures," he said.

Democrats Turn Backs On Bipartisanship

I'm glad to see this being reported honestly - making it ultra-clear that it is the DEMOCRATS that have no interest in trying to work in a bipartisan manner and not the GOP. The press and talking heads won't be able to spin this one:

Senate Dems ax bipartisan jobs bill

Senate Democrats scrapped a bipartisan jobs bill in favor of one they say is leaner and focused solely on putting Americans back to work, and they're all but daring Republicans to vote against it.

The new, stripped-down proposal followed criticism that the bipartisan version wouldn't create many jobs.

The switch brought sharp accusations of reneging from Republicans who thought they had a deal, jeopardizing a brief attempt at bipartisan lawmaking...

The surprise blew apart an agreement with key Republicans like Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who worked with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., for weeks to produce a bill containing the extra provisions.

The original bill had won support from across the political spectrum, from President Barack Obama as well as conservative Republicans in the Senate, offering the promise of a rare bipartisan package in a Congress that has been gripped by partisan fights. To get that support, however, the package had morphed into a 361-page grab bag of provisions that included extending benefits to the unemployed and tax breaks for businesses.

Now, the bipartisan agreement is off...

Republicans said they were blind-sided by Reid's about-face.

I'm abstaining from commenting on either version of the bill at this time, they're probably both terrible.

==

update:

I note that neither the Gazette nor the Times Union used any sort of title that indicated what the story was about - namely Democrats working out a bipartisan bill then tossing it in the trash and daring Republicans to vote against a new bill that they, again, wrote completely without Republican input.

Wouldn't want to upset any liberal eyes 'round these parts, I guess.

I Don't Get It

Most of you know what this is, right?

You know how to use it? Of course you do, if you're reading this blog I know you're smart ;)

I'm convinced that people have a basic idea of what it is and what they're supposed to do with it...

So how is it that when so many people approach a curve, just a gentle curve, let alone an actual turn, they suddenly react as if this is in front of them:

It's not that hard, people.

Obama's Really In Trouble - His Top Advisors Are Telling The Truth

Yipes, looks like Obey-Won is having trouble with the little people, even his top advisors may be starting to pull back the curtain on the emperor with no clothes (ewww!).

Check this out: WH: Unemployment will get worse in 2010

With Writers Like This How Can Their Circulation Be Suffering?

Seriously, with such powerful writing as this, how could newspapers and newsmedia be suffering?

Now, I'm no grammatical genius, but I've underlined the sentences with obvious grammatical flaws (italics around the flaw itself) and there's not much left of the piece:

The reversal of a controversial opinion that links childhood vaccines to autism, directly affects a parents decision about disease prevention. The original study, published in a popular medical journal caused a stir and leaves parents wondering, ‘What’s right?’

Some parents worry if you get the vaccine to prevent Measles, Mumps or Rubella, that child may get Autism. If you don’t vaccinate, doctors worry the child may contract the illnesses the vaccine is supposed to prevent. This recent news suggests, there’s no connection, but it doesn’t ease concerns.

“I think the mercury that’s in these vaccines is very toxic to their brains,” said parent, Cindy Bacot.

The popular medical journal lancet published of the flawed information in 1998, many parents decided to abandon the vaccine.

That’s exactly what Bacot did with her other two children.

“In our case, you know with one child having Autism, we obviously felt like the risk out weighed the benefits, and you know they’re 6 now, and they haven’t had any vaccines and they are perfectly healthy,” said Bacot.

Many parents are weary of the shots, even after subsequent studies found no proof that the vaccine is linked to Autism. Though the exact cause of the disorder is still unclear.

“The truth is, we don’t really know,” said FSU PC’s director of the Early Childhood Austim Program, Sarah Lechago.

Lechago does not believe in the link published, but see’s why parents might choose to avoid the vaccine.

“It’s very understandable, why parents would look to an authority, a doctor, someone who is doing research, to make those decisions, and I don’t blame parents in the least. I mean, it’s very scary,” said Lechago.

Even so, the vaccine is a requirement for public school. Last year, nearly 1,500 kids received the Measles, Mumps, Rubella vaccine at the Bay County Health Department.

Pro or Anti vaccine, it’s hoped the discredited study can help raise awareness about Autism.

editoriaLIES

One of two editorials in Sunday's (2/7 - They won't join, so fight 'em) Daily Gazette failed the laugh test...and the lie detector.

Rather than fight or call the Republicans' bluff, filibuster-fearing Democrats have been caving

For the majority of the past year the Democrats have held a filibuster-proof majority, clearly they had no fear of a filibuster when a simple vote would make it go away. This is a lie. What Democrats feared was passing things with 30-40 percent approval ratings and feared having enough Democrat votes to pass them.

Obama's biggest political mistake, regarding health care reform plan as well as other initiatives, has been in holding out for bipartisan support. His desire to have at least some members of the opposition party on board was admirable, and politically defensible, but it's been clear for months that Republicans were determined to obstruct him at any cost.

Lie #2 and logically indefensible. With no need for bipartisan support (unless he couldn't lock up all the Democrats), there was no way for Republicans to obstruct Obama. NONE. Republicans pretty much spend 2009 saying 'You don't need our votes, why don't you just pass the bills?' And they didn't. It is a flat-out lie to claim that Obama "held out for bipartisan support". Proof? Gladly. Statements like "I don't want them to do a lot of talking" and "I won" and from the Democrats statements like "We won, we write the bills". This is nothing but dishonest water carrying for an administration that has failed to work with the minority party from day one. More proof? Gladly. The House Republicans implored Obama to meet with them for months and months on health care. He refused. They asked to meet on the "stimulus". He only talked about meeting with them after the Democrats had finished their bill. Jonah Goldberg summarizes the facts that put the lie to the Gazette editorialists' claims.

Perhaps now that the Democrats can no longer stop a Republican filibuster, they'll realize the futility in trying. If the Republicans are determined to bring the process in Washington to a standstill, let them. Then let's see how voters react.

Well, considering the voters are in the GOP's corner by about 60% and they've elected guys in NJ, VA, and MA that explicitly said they would fight Obama and the Democrats, well, I guess it's a good idea to see how the voters react. And it's extremely disingenuous to claim the Republicans are for a "standstill" when Obama has refused to meet with them and the Democrats have locked them out of negotiations. Let's be clear - the Democrats held an unstoppable majority and failed to get anything done. They didn't need any GOP votes. But they got nothing done. So, which party is determined to bring things to a standstill? Hmmm?

The Republicans' behavior toward Obama has been most unsettling. It's certainly not the way Democrats treated Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush in their early years; both were allowed to implement their bold agendas, and did so without filibuster-proof Senate majorities.

Lie #3. Both Reagan and Bush worked with the Democrats. Reagan agreed to increased domestic spending to get liberals to go along with him. He did not bully them. He did not get in the face and say "I won". He practiced bipartisanship. Bush invited ultra-liberal Ted Kennedy to the White House to write No Child Left Behind. When did Obama invite conservatives to the White House to work on legislation? Exactly. The situations are not comparable and the claim is unsupportable. And, of course, after 9-11 Bush continued to work with Democrats on increasing defense, defeating terrorists and their sponsors, increasing intelligence, and such things - before the Democrats decided to start lying about Iraq to take over Congress (see remarks of Kanjorski). A better example would be Clinton. Clinton tried to rule without bipartisanship and tried to ram through socialized health care. The voters, when we saw "how they react" kicked out the 40-year Democrat majority and elected Newt and his team with their Contract with America. Then Clinton had to work in a bipartisan manner. He signed the historic welfare reform that Obama has since demolished. He worked with the GOP to balance the budget and actually produce a surplus - sort of.

If the GOP won't ease up on the president, the Democrats might consider changing its rules governing filibuster (as was done as recently as 1975). Why not just allow a straight-up, majority-rules vote on legislation, the way the House does?

Sure, let's see how the "voters react" to that. Why not guarantee the GOP takes the Senate in 2011.

Controlling The News

Let's use an older example from the Albany Times Union to see how the media twists and distorts arguments to 1) make anyone that disagrees with their meme look stupid, naive, or foolish; and 2) attempt to control the message.

Let's go back to August 2nd of last year while a huge Democrat majority in the House and a filibuster-proof Democrat majority in the Senate and a signing pen ready Democrat in the White House were somehow being obstructed by the GOP from taking over our health care.

The front page story was called 'Plain talk about care' and was written by the TU's Charles J. Lewis. From the beginning, check out the title..."Plain talk". As if they're not spinning anything, they're just speaking "plainly" with facts. False, but typical. Let's explore how the media 'works' the meme in this front page story...

How Embarrassing

I'm sure the Gazette was all thinking they were being all "smarter and holier than thou" about this abstinence thing...except in reality all they are is a day late and a dollar short.

They wrote today:

Conservatives are jumping all over a new, peer-reviewed study showing that abstinence education helped delay initiation of sex among middle-school students. But while encouraging -- and liberals as well as conservatives should be encouraged -- caution is in order.

For one thing, this was just one study...

Finally, this was a limited group of sixth- and seventh-grade (average age 12) African-American kids. Would the results be the same for other racial groups, or for older, more socially active and sexually mature kids? Indeed, would the results be the same even for these same kids as they get older?

The problem? Conservatives "jumping all over" this study have already made these exact same points...a week ago. For example, Maggie Gallagher:

I know this is only one study, no matter how high quality. Can it be replicated? Do other abstinence-only approaches work equally well? Do they work with older teens or middle-class teens? Would similar clinical trials support the efficacy of some other types of abstinence-plus programs? There is much to be learned.

Nice try, liberal editors. You're only running a week behind conservative columnists, now.

The Left - Now With More Stupid!

First they freaked out because Palin put a couple of notes on her hand for a speech that she otherwise gave without an army of teleprompters like, uh, well, you know who. Apparently it is "cheating" to put 3 broad themes on your hand.

Now they're freaking out because they claim she's "disrespecting" the military. Yeah, that's likely. Nothing like getting accused of being anti-military by the left wing fever swamp dwellers at kos.

Now, complete with more stupid.