What If The Government Shrank And Nothing Bad Happened?

Interesting idea here. Can it be that all the fearmongering and predicted chaos regarding a 'shutdown' of the federal government is actually just meant to prevent one thing - a government shutdown where things just sort of keep on keeping on with much less bureaucracy and many fewer bureaucrats?

In other words, what if we saw what the USA would look like with a smaller government, the one desired by conservatives and derided by liberals, actually happened in real time - and nothing bad happened?

Man, how do you sell a trillion dollar deficit after that?

Gas Prices Giving Us Gas, Pleasing To Obama

Isn't it maybe time to start using some of our oil?

Oil has surged to 2 1/2-year highs as the chaos in Libya chokes that nation's exports. Yet among the "full range of options" the Obama administration is considering as the Libyan crisis festers, and the lit match of discontent gets perilously close to Saudi oilfields, ordering the full resumption of domestic oil and gas production is not one of them. Why?..

Before he was appointed energy secretary, Chu expressed a fondness for high European gas prices as a means of reducing consumption of fossil fuels. In September 2008, he told the Wall Street Journal: "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." Gas prices in Europe then averaged about $8 a gallon.

Certainly every administration energy decision has had the effect of raising energy prices. The Deepwater Horizon disaster gave the administration the excuse for a drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico, one that a federal judge overturned. When the administration reinstated the ban, it was found in contempt of court.

A virtual regulatory ban continues today. At least 103 drilling permits await approval by a federal government that has not approved a single new permit since the moratorium was allegedly lifted last October.

The administration has announced that the eastern Gulf and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts will be off-limits for the next seven years. The Interior Department has canceled four pending lease sales in Alaska.

Drilling in that state's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is prohibited, and oil-rich offshore areas have been designated as critical polar bear habitat despite a booming bear population...

The day before President Obama was inaugurated, the average price of a gallon of gas was $1.83, the Heritage Foundation notes. Today it's well over $3 and on the way to $4. Prices for this February and last December were the highest ever for those months...

Albany's Official Protest Bullhorn?

Saturday in Albany:I thought it looked familiar...That's the rally in support of the Egypt uprisings from the end of January.

(sorry, those aren't videos, they're captures from the paused YNN.com videos that I linked to)

So, who owns what appears to be the official Albany class warfare bullhorn? Anybody know?

Your Random Saturday

Hey, look! Death panels!

The nation's organ-transplant network may give younger, healthier people preference over older, sicker patients for the best kidneys, the Washington Post reported on Thursday...

Andreoni chairs the committee that is reviewing possible changes for the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a private nonprofit group contracted by the federal government to coordinate organ allocation. "It's an effort to get the most out of a scarce resource."...

According to one bioethicist, if the changes are adopted, they could have implications for other decisions about how to allocate scarce medical resources...

David Limbaugh:

Attorney General Eric Holder announced that President Obama had concluded that the administration would no longer defend Section 3 of DOMA...

To understand the magnitude of Obama's action, we must again consider the above-cited fact that both chambers of Congress passed DOMA by overwhelming majorities reflecting the will of the people that marriage be defined, for legal and policy purposes, as it always had been. Also, no federal appellate court has ruled the statute unconstitutional.

As he has in so many other areas (EPA, the offshore drilling ban, IMF), Obama has usurped the authority of the other two coequal branches of government to make himself, in effect, not just chief executive but super-legislator and a supreme judicial authority...

So now we have an imperial president who is refusing to enforce a law passed by powerful congressional majorities while persisting in enforcing a law (Obamacare) that two federal courts have already invalidated.

Seems Holder's Dept could use a little more budget cutting if they've got less work to do.

Howard Rich:

Unfortunately, Obama has proposed trimming just $30 billion from a $3.66 trillion budget, while Boehner’s cuts total a mere $61 billion...

Equally troubling are the unrealistic revenue assumptions contained in Obama’s budget — forecasts which form the basis for future deficit projections. According to Obama’s numbers, total gross receipts will climb from $2.17 trillion this year to $3.58 trillion by 2015 — a 65% increase. Does anyone expect our economy to support such a dramatic expansion of federal tax receipts so soon?

Double-digit annual revenue growth has occurred just three times over the last two decades. And yet Obama is counting on this rate of growth to take place in five consecutive budget years?

No wonder one economist recently referred to his revenue estimates as “something approaching the realm of Greek myth.”

I linked to a source for that quote - in case the link dies, the guy is "Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at BNY ConvergEx Group"

Oh, by the way, rumors from the media of the economy's life have been greatly exaggerated:

The willingness to return to riskier trades has come in the face of a significant downward revision to fourth quarter GDP. Fourth quarter GDP had been expected to show a 3.3% increase after the advance reading showed 3.2% growth, but instead it showed growth of just 2.8%.

The final Consumer Sentiment Survey for February from the University of Michigan proved stronger than expected, though. It came in at 77.5, which is the best reading since January 2008.

(briefing.com) Gee, maybe the consumer sentiment was higher than expected because the administration and it's communications wing (the media) have been falsely claiming the economy is recovering...ya think?

Changing lanes - in the most recent reported year, 2008, taxpayers gave Planned Parenthood over $1 million for every abortion they performed.

In its most recent annual report, Planned Parenthood said it took in $349.6 million in government funds in fiscal 2008. That same year, Planned Parenthood says it performed 324,008 abortions.

And to think, people have the nerve to be outraged about a billboard that claims black babies are endangered by abortion. By my estimates, they're outraged by the wrong things. I can't seem to quickly nail down the % of abortions of black children, but it looks like it's in the 30-40% range (incidentally, I was shocked to see them breaking out abortions on "women aged 14 and younger"). I'll be conservative and say 30%, that means that PP alone, not counting other abortionists, would have aborted almost 100,000 blacks in a year. Meanwhile, deaths by guns is, what, in the hundreds per year? Somehow I doubt that even figuring in the less-violent age groups and murders by less-lethal methods, I don't think we're talking about 100,000 a year. Misplace your outrage much?

Class

Makin' us proud, George.

Taking a stand.

Walking the talk.

Dare I say...leadership? Remember when we had that?

Fleeing Is All The Rage, Including In NY

Editorial: New York Prices Itself Out Of The Market

Anyone who believes high tax rates bring prosperity need only look at New York. Soak-the-rich rates there contribute to a wealth and talent drain the state can't afford.

To help their state weather the recession, New York lawmakers in 2009 adopted a surcharge on personal income taxes for those making more than $200,000.

Called a "millionaire's tax" even though 76% of those who pay it are not millionaires, the levy lifted the top rate by 31%. It was intended to be temporary.

But according to a report by the Partnership for New York City, a group of 200 CEOs, "interest groups that depend on state spending are pressing for permanent extension of the surcharge."...

"Between 1998 and 2008, a net total of more than 1.7 million New Yorkers chose to relocate, taking with them their wealth and talent," it says. "More income has left New York than any other state in the nation — $71.7 billion from 1993 to 2008."...

As profound as the exodus from New York has been since 1993, it actually picked up after the "millionaire's tax" was imposed in 2009. The number of New York taxpayers worth $1 million or more fell 9.4% from 2007 to 2009, from 381,786 to 345,892. It will only grow worse if the surcharge is made permanent.

Some wealth did move into New York between 1993 and 2008, but it was not enough to replace what was lost. For every dollar the state gained, $1.71 left. No other state had a worse ratio...

Here We Go Again

Remember this story - About That Solar House:

It was supposed to be a shining example of the green movement -- a completely independent solar-powered house with no gas or electrical hookups.

Seven months ago, officials gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the $900,000 house owned by the city of Troy that was to be used as an educational tool and meeting spot.

But it never opened to the public. And it remains closed.

Frozen pipes during the winter caused $16,000 in damage to floors, and city officials aren't sure when the house at the Troy Community Center will open...

Here we go again - Foiled by the winter: The £25,000 eco-classroom that can't be used because solar panels don't provide enough heat (source):

Eco-campaigners who built a classroom powered by the sun believed they were paving the way for the future.

Instead they have been taught a valuable lesson - there is not enough sun in North London to sufficiently heat their building.

The much feted zero-carbon Living Ark classroom was opened three months ago to great fanfare.

It boasts laudable green credentials and is made from sustainable wood, sheep’s wool and soil. The roof is made of mud and grass and it has its own ‘rain pod’ and solar panels.

But there is snag - its solar panels only provide enough energy to power a few lightbulbs.

As a result the classroom is bitterly cold and uninhabitable for lessons.

Parents have branded it ‘useless’, an ‘expensive piece of wood’ and a ‘great idea for the Caribbean’.

The Living Ark was built at Muswell Hill Primary School, North London, at the cost of £25,000...

Charlotte Linacre, Campaign Manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, accused the council of wasting money on pet projects which do not benefit pupils.

She said: ‘It’s an awful waste that so much money has been ploughed into this eco-mistake.

‘This project fails to meet the needs of staff and pupils by giving them a classroom that is most useful when the kids are on their summer holidays.

If you build it, they will come...and freeze.

$40,000 for a chiller. Studentcicle anyone? Remember, the UK is being accused of cutting funds to deal with winter weather because they're relying on 'global warming' to turn them into Bermuda any minute now - so they're vastly underresourced to deal with the past 2 harsh winters there. Who needs heated classrooms in Aruba?

Fear Mongering

Budget cuts could increase risk of nuke terror attack

Oh give me a freakin' break. If we cut budgets back to where they were a couple of years ago suddenly we're going to be more at risk? You mean places like North Korea, Pakistan, and Libya might get nukes? OOPS! OH YEAH! What a load of horsesplat. Just say - If we don't keep budgets at the overinflated levels that even those doing the spending say is unsustainable (that is, will bankrupt and destroy the country), then the country will be destroyed.

We had to destroy the country to save the country.

More specifically, we had to definitely destroy the country to save the country from vague potential threats.

The budget passed last week by the House of Representatives cut total funding (pdf) for nuclear security programs by more than $600 million.

Horsesh**. These dipwads even link to the appropriation pdf that shows in black and white that the proposed cut is less than $100 million. Lie much?

Page 71: Defense nuclear nonproliferation budget:

2008: $1,334,922,000
2009: $1,482,350,000 (11% increase)
2010: $2,131,382,000 (~44% increase)

2011: $2,034,282,000 (proposed GOP figure - a ~4.6% cut following a 44% increase, still $551,932,000 higher than 2009 - or more than 37% higher than 2009 levels. Yet, suddenly, despite still spending more than 37% more than 2 years ago:

"These cuts make it easier and more likely that a terrorist is going to acquire a nuclear weapon, and attack the United States," Jim Walsh, a nuclear proliferation expert at MIT's Security Studies Program, told The Lookout. The human and economic cost of such an attack, Walsh added, would be "off the charts." Experts say that if terrorists detonated a nuclear device in a high-density area like Times Square, the attack could ultimately kill hundreds of thousands of people and do tens of billions of dollars worth of damage.

Horses**t. WWDC? Nothing. There is absolutely nothing that democrats will cut. We are going to see, daily, rolled out stories about how every single item slated for cuts is going to doom us. Don't buy this horse**it anymore, that's all it is.

WWDC?

Isn't it high time that this be asked?

For years the left/media has been demanding that the GOP/conservatives would cut from the federal budget if they had their druthers.

Well, the GOP just put their cards on the table. True, it needs to be just their opening bid, but regardless, it's a list of exactly what they would cut.

The left objects. Strenuously. Even violently. Well, the deficits are real. The debts are real. What would Democrats cut?

Of course we all know the answer. The answer is nothing. Because when they had their chance they just upped spending about 24% across the board. Their proclaimed 'cuts' are to simply not spend more.

I don't recall hearing any radio ads touting the latest exciting get-out-of-debt solution - just don't spend more than you are now! In no time you'll be debt free! Spending above your means? Stop increasing it! Just keep spending what you're spending now! That'll do it.

Yup. Why doesn't the press ask them that...WWDC?

Name That Party!

And the party the Congressman belongs to?

Yes, that's right...it's not important. Therefore you can effortless tell which party he belongs to.

Did A Judge Really Just Rule That The Government Can Regulate "Mental Activity"?

It certainly seems that way. For years people have complained about 'hate crime' laws as being punishment of 'thought crime' - that is, the government assumes it knows what is going on in someone's head when they commit a crime.

But this...this is a bit shocking.

As previous Commerce Clause cases have all involved physical activity, as opposed to mental activity, i.e. decision-making, there is little judicial guidance on whether the latter falls within Congress’s power...However, this Court finds the distinction, which Plaintiffs rely on heavily, to be of little significance. It is pure semantics to argue that an individual who makes a choice to forgo health insurance is not “acting,” especially given the serious economic and health-related consequences to every individual of that choice. Making a choice is an affirmative action, whether one decides to do something or not do something. They are two sides of the same coin. To pretend otherwise is to ignore reality.

Unless I've got the tortured reasoning incorrect, the judge appears to be arguing (yes, arguing, not deciding facts) that the government has every right to not only regulate what people do, but also what they do not do, because they're just aspects of the same thing. Anybody else just see Tom Cruise fly by with a sick stick?

Let's cut right to the chase, what this judge has done is clarify that they believe that the government is in fact constitutionally enabled to do whatever it wants, that there are no limits on its power. Do something - the government can control it. Don't do something - the government can control it.

For a while now the right has been arguing that the left thinks that the government can do anything - very few on the left had admitted that they think this way. Now this judge has put in writing that very belief - that the government can do anything it wants, whether it's something you do or decide not to do. Obama just removed the right of medical professionals to refuse to do things that contradict their faith, their first amendment right to freedom of religion if we get right down to it - but at least they still have the right to quit and not do that job anymore. What this judge is saying is that the government actually has the right to punish you for not doing what they tell you to, that you can't walk away - because walking away is really no different than doing it.

Man, this sh** has to stop. The Republic cannot stand if run by people that believe these things. Whatever happened to the 'blessings of liberty'? Isn't liberty (the quality or state of being free: a : the power to do as one pleases b : freedom from physical restraint c : freedom from arbitrary or despotic control d : the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges e : the power of choice) the right to not be a slave to government, not buy broccoli if you don't want to (while Michelle Obama scarfs burgers and ice cream), and being free to follow your conscience (even if it means referring an abortion to another doctor)?


(there's more all over the place, basically with everyone reaching the same conclusion)

Media Bias Roundup

It's like a media bias explosion around here...

I guess the press is too busy breathlessly covering 45 year old homosexual sexual abuse by priests to worry about right here and now sexual abuse by teachers and school employees. I guess, though, that this is the EXACT WRONG TIME for the press to be running stories about a principal sexually assaulting students, would really do NOTHING to help out those poor oppressed union members in Wisconsin:

A former principal of Firebaugh High School in Lynwood was sentenced Friday to eight years in prison for molesting four teenage girls.

Jonas Vital Silverio, 41, who resigned shortly before his 2009 arrest, sat in a Compton courtroom as his victims and their mothers tearfully recounted the shame and trauma they endured at the hands of a man they once trusted.

Silverio pleaded no contest in June to 10 counts of lewd acts on a child 14 or 15 years old. All but one of his victims played on the school's volleyball teams, which he coached. The molestation occurred mostly on a school campus, sometimes in his office, and stretched from 1996 to 2007...

But then he began trying to touch her inappropriately. "I went to him for help in his office once," she said. "I ended up on the floor with him lying on top trying to kiss me."...

Prosecutor Stephanie Chavez said Silverio had a history of sexual misconduct.

In 1995, Silverio was placed on probation for a misdemeanor conviction of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor...

According to court documents, students interviewed at several schools where Silverio was previously employed alleged that he engaged in lewd behavior, including "buttock slapping," "rubbing thighs" and persistent attempts at kissing...

Since Silverio had never received U.S. citizenship, Levine said, he is likely to be deported to the Philippines upon release from prison.

Yes, a non-US citizen with a 10+ year history of "buttock slapping", "rubbing thighs", and "persistent attempts at kissing", not to mention a conviction for "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor" was made principal and coach of the volleyball team. Now don't get me wrong, I think some regulations and laws concerning sex offenders are absolutely nuts and I am against them, but c'mon, people - a principal with a history that includes a conviction for sex with a minor? Are you kidding me??

**

Over in this corner we have Chris Matthews confused and agitated by a state Senator on concealed carry on public college campuses in Texas because none of his weird fantasy scenarios are affected by the proposed bill. I suggest reading the whole thing, it's pretty funny, but I've just trimmed out some of the slapdowns like a movie trailer showing you the best stuff:

MATTHEWS: You know, back in the old days, we all watched, you and I watched television probably at the same age. We watched old movies and we would know what it was like in the Old West. They apparently had a, put their guns at the city limits, they couldn't carry them into saloons with them and places like that. Do you think it's okay for a 21-year-old kid or a 22-year-old grad student to be walking into a campus bar or something and, and when you got alcohol involved, there are guys and girls together with the usual kind of competition that goes on there, social competition, with booze, and guns? You think that's a healthy combination?

WENTWORTH: Well, that hypothetical you gave doesn't happen in-

MATTHEWS: It's not a hypothetical at all, sir!

WENTWORTH: Yes, yes-

MATTHEWS: You can walk into a bar with a gun, under your law.

WENTWORTH: No, you cannot. That's not, that's a misrepresentation of the fact. You cannot go in Texas legally with a concealed carry license with a gun. Now people do it illegally all the time. But this bill would not allow that.

MATTHEWS: No, but a campus - you said, but you said campuses would be allowed to have kids carrying guns. What about a bar on campus?

WENTWORTH: We don't have bars on campus in Texas.

MATTHEWS: You don't?!

WENTWORTH: It's against, it's against the law in Texas. That's exactly right.

MATTHEWS: It is?!

WENTWORTH: Yes, sir. No alcohol allowed-

MATTHEWS: You can't have a bar - on private college campuses you can't have a bar?

WENTWORTH: No you, now you flipped it. We're talking about public-

MATTHEWS: Well I didn't flip it. I'm...

WENTWORTH: We're talking about public universities. We're not talking about private universities...

MATTHEWS: Okay. Okay, where I went to college and a lot of colleges I know they have campus bars. They have them right on campus.

WENTWORTH: Well they don't in Texas, they don't in Texas.

MATTHEWS: Okay so-

WENTWORTH: We're talking about Texas...

MATTHEWS: Well you imagine a meeting between - it just seems odd that if I were a professor and had a student who was armed when we're having our tutorial, we're talking about the grades or anything, it just seems odd to know that you're looking into a classroom and you're seeing men and women with guns in the classroom. Doesn't that seem odd to you?

WENTWORTH: No, no you're not. In Texas you cannot display your weapon.

MATTHEWS: Okay you got guns in your pocket.

WENTWORTH: That's why they call it the concealed...

**

And the mysterious disappearing terrorist threat:

USA Today's Wednesday cover story ("Killings Escalate Piracy Crisis"), has this reference to a quote obtained by the Associated Press:

Killing hostages "has now become part of our rules," said a pirate who identified himself as Muse Abdi in a statement to the Associated Press. "From now on, anyone who tries to rescue the hostages in our hands will only collect dead bodies," Abdi said. "It will never, ever happen that hostages are rescued and we are hauled to prison."

Pretty provocative, right? In fact, it resembles a declaration of war without the rules of war. You might even call it a declaration of t-t-t-t ... terrorism.

The problem is, Abdi's quote is no longer in any story at the Associated Press's home web site, and is rarely present in other Internet news reports.

A search at the AP's home site on "Muse Abdi" (in quotes) returns no results.

They Had To Stop Democracy To Save Democracy

I've held a belief for a long time that, when you're engaging in something wrong, or want to engage in something wrong, and get caught, the first thing you do is accuse your target of doing it or wanting to do it.(*)

If you catch a kid throwing rocks at someone, they'll claim the other person did it first, even if they didn't. Somebody hits someone else, they'll inevitably claim they were hit first, or the person was going to hit them.

Remember when the left was screeching that "Emperor" Bush was going to cancel the 2004 2006 2008 elections to hold power and that he would claim it was the 'war on terror' that made him do it - that he had to maintain power to preserve democracy?

Yeah, that happened.

Check this out:

One of the missing Democrats, Minority Leader Mark Miller, delivered a response from Illinois.

"The only action available to us to slow this down and allow democracy to work was to take us out of the Capitol," he said.

We had to flee the state and avoid voting to preserve democracy.

"Can you hear that?" Rep. Tamara Grigsby, D-Milwaukee, screamed into her microphone. "Can you hear the cheers? Can you hear the chants? Can you hear the voices of the people who elected you? How can you not hear that?"

I'm pretty sure the unions that vehemently opposed the Republicans and the majority of Wisconsin that elected them aren't the "people who elected" them, dearie. And since when is screeching into your microphone a part of 'civilized debate'?

--

(*) Projection - that's the term I was looking for! David Limbaugh:

The left's ideas continue to fail in the real world, and the majority of the people reject them, which is why their proponents so often disguise their true intentions. Partially because they can't prevail on a level playing field, they use whatever means they can to advance their agenda. One of those means is to pre-emptively strike their political opponents by falsely condemning them for behavior that they -- leftists -- actually engage in. It's called "projection."

Times, They Are A-Changin'

Remember when guys like Rahm used to be the ones fighting City Hall and eluding the Feds?

Supreme Court Essentially Invents A New Right

Some weirdness here. I popped over the Supreme Court's website to check out an opinion that just came out about vaccines and also glanced at the other recent slip opinions and one of those that caught my eye was one about NASA. Basically some employees of NASA contractors objected to the fact that, although NASA employees have background checks, contractor employees didn't until recently. They didn't like now being subject to being asked about drug use and claimed it violated some kind of right to "informational privacy". Anyway, I didn't even read the majority opinion (the Court voted unanimously to reverse - wait for it - the 9th Circuit) but skipped straight to Scalia's concurring opinion for giggles.

Myth Busted

A summary of the destruction of the 'Walker created the deficit/there is no deficit' myth can be found at Newbusters.

I Used To Vote Republican

Hi. I'd just like take a moment to tell the world that I am now voting Democrat. I have been so moved by the brave actions of the Democrats in TX, WI, and IL in fleeing their states in order to avoid doing their job and supporting democracy that they have won me over. Swoon-city. I just cannot vote anymore for a party that shows up and votes whether they lose elections or not. I want to be a part of something bigger than all that. I only want to be associated with a party that, when they don't get their way, flee the scene and hide so as to cripple the government and attempt to shut it down. I want it to be my way or the highway. Elections only have consequences if my side wins from now on. If we win, we get a mandate to do whatever we want. If we lose it's some kind of mistake or aberration or disgrace or accident or perhaps even some sort of crime. Therefore, in order to not lose fake votes to criminals that represent a small fraction of astroturf fake people that didn't even vote for them to begin with, I can only support the Democrat party from now on.

You've won me over. What a success. I bet every day that goes by with governments grinding to a halt because Democrats cannot bear being in the minority (since it's just a mistake) more and more people that voted for Republicans last November are going to realize that they really love Democrats and cannot wait to get a chance to correct the 2010 mistake and get the Democrats back in power so we can vote for 'Cookie Tuesdays!' for public employee unions. In fact I think I just saw a flock of Independents scurrying to town hall to change their registration to Democrat in support of this brilliant tactic. Oh, man, people are gonna love this!

Democracy is unfair, sexist, and - vote Democrat!

Stop democracy in its tracks before it can hurt any more poor women and children - vote Democrat!

Stop democracy before it takes any more money from the hands of the middle class and puts in the pockets of fat cats - vote Democrat!

STOP DEMOCRACY BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

Where's Waldo?

As soon as people started protesting a US ally in Egypt, Obama couldn't get in front of a camera fast enough to demand he step down (instead of quietly arranging for such to happen in an orderly fashion as another ally, Saudi Arabia, urged).

But when an enemy regime in Iran is murdering protesters in the streets Obama is eating ice cream.

When an enemy regime in Libya is murdering protesters in the streets Obama is interfering with a state matter in Wisconsin.

Etc.

Good thing the grownups are in charge, isn't it? Good thing we have 'the right' foreign policy in place, now, isn't it?

Polling: Americans Support Gov. Shutdown

I was just thinking recently why we hadn't seen any polls on this - instead we just get liberal talking heads telling us, gleefully, it would destroy the GOP. Hogwash.

It sounds harsh and cruel, but U.S. House Speaker John Boehner's threat to shut down all but essential federal government services if the Democrats on Capitol Hill can't actually reign in spending is not only the fiscally responsible approach, it is also one that would be popular with the public...

In January, InsiderAdvantage conducted a national survey of voters who identified themselves as either Republicans or independent voters. Those two demographic segments make up the majority of the nation's current electorate. In the survey, we recited in a very straightforward manner the shutdown of government that House Republicans imposed in November 1995 and then again from Dec. 16, 1995, until Jan. 6, 1996.

Then we asked, "What is your opinion of the actions the Republican-led majority took in temporarily shutting down nonessential services for short periods of time to, in the words of their leader, 'prove to the president we were serious about a balanced budget?'" Seventy-one percent had a favorable opinion of that shutdown, and 59 percent said they had a "very favorable" opinion of it. (We polled more than 1,000 respondents, for a margin of error of plus or minus three percent.)...

Having ridden one of these shutdowns out with a former Republican speaker, I can already prepare folks for what they know already will happen. The media establishment in New York and Washington will skewer Boehner and the Republicans. They'll claim that the speaker is caving in to the "tea party" element of his Republican House membership.

Then the stories will pop up about some poor souls who didn't get some services or entitlements that government usually delivers. There will be stories of government workers, stuck in their freezing houses without a job. Hearts will bleed, and those brilliant women on "The View" will probably work themselves up into such frenzy that, save the show's one conservative token host, they will all stomp off the stage in protest, or at least we can only hope so...

The GOP must stand its ground on the budget deficit, regardless of what the so-called "mainstream media" thinks about their efforts. It only took two short shutdowns before former President Bill Clinton started working toward deficit reductions and a balanced budget. Let's see if President Obama will learn the same lesson, and by the same hard way.

Things Sure Have Changed In The House

Boy, the resolve of Americans to vote for CHANGE is already paying dividends. In control of the House of Representatives for less than two months, the Republican majority has already rolled back the backroom dealing days of the past 4 years of Democrat rule. Instead of crafting thousand-page unconstitutional expansions of government power in a back room with lobbyists and Republicans locked out, only to be asked to vote on said bill before even seeing the bill, let alone having time to read and digest it, the GOP has triggered a robust, public debate about the fiscal mess Obama and his liberal Debt-i Knights have created with their Debt-i money tricks.

Instead of 'Cornhusker Kickbacks' and 'Louisiana Purchases', the GOP has allowed freeflowing and open debate on the start of budget trimming to rein in crippling debts and put in a 'stop' on the checks Obey-Won's been cashing - right on C-SPAN. For days the debate has gone on for all to see. Nothing was deemed to require the kind of secrecy that Pelosi and her minions relied upon. Cutting off federal funds for abortion mill Planned Parenthood? Debate open and welcomed. Cutting off unnecessary and illogical funding for CPB? Open and free debate - Democrats even brought puppets. Military? Heating aid? WIC? Debate. Debate. Debate. In the open.

Sunlight, disinfectant, etc.

(And, boy, if CPB funding doesn't prove an old conservative saw I don't know what does. Something put in place to allow for more media outlets in an age with just a couple of TV channels that has grown and grown into what it is today, in an age when damned near every kid has a smartphone (it seems) and just about everyone that wants it has cable with a bazillion channels (with nothing on), the one or two public stations carrying liberal talk shows and such nonsense just shows that any government program is all but immortal and will only grow and grow. It does what no one else will do? Bullspit. Children's programming? Ever heard of Nickelodeon? Disney? Science-y shows? Ever heard of the Discovery Channel and such? News? Please, how many more news shows do we need? British comedies? Somehow I get the feeling BBC America would gladly add a channel showing such. Like everything else, it's just another 'temporary/emergency' thing done that somehow can never be cut...which is why Obama and the Dems raised spending on everything by 40% or so because 'it's an emergency/it's the recession' - yeah, well, they now claim to have 'fixed' the recession, yet they're still claiming we can't go back to previous spending levels. And next week they'll have a nice bridge to sell you.)

Oh, Hell

Carp. Well, now I have to rethink my whole position...Joe Klein agrees with me.

Revolutions everywhere--in the middle east, in the middle west. But there is a difference: in the middle east, the protesters are marching for democracy; in the middle west, they're protesting against it. I mean, Isn't it, well, a bit ironic that the protesters in Madison, blocking the state senate chamber, are chanting "Freedom, Democracy, Union" while trying to prevent a vote? Isn't it ironic that the Democratic Senators have fled the democratic process?

What's the world coming to?

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At least Larry Kudlow's got my back:

The Democratic/government-union days of rage in Madison, Wis., are a disgrace. Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan calls it Cairo coming to Madison. But the protesters in Egypt were pro-democracy. The government-union protesters in Madison are anti-democracy; they are trying to prevent a vote in the legislature. In fact, Democratic legislators themselves are fleeing the state so as not to vote on Gov. Scott Walker’s budget cuts.

That’s not democracy.

D'uh

Seems like a lot of people are awakening from their daze.

Kristin Voss, a social studies teacher at Memorial High School, said she attended planning to vote to return Monday because she worried that public opinion was turning against teachers.

Yeah, that was like last Wednesday - unless you count the way people have been desperately searching for alternatives like home schooling and charter schools for years now to escape the liberal bastions of declining standards and performance and the celebrations of diversity and mediocrity that public schools have become since, oh, about when the Dept. of Education was put in place.

Madison Teachers Inc. urged its members to call in sick last Wednesday to attend rallies at the Capitol, which resulted in the district canceling school. The sick-out continued Thursday and Friday as other districts around the state faced similar action from employees.

Gee, you think the union telling teachers to not come to work to instead go to a protest is a "strike"?

But in general, Davis said, a strike includes any concerted work stoppage by municipal employees, any concerted interruption of operation of services, or any concerted refusal to work or perform normal duties for the purpose of enforcing demands on a municipal employer.

Concerted? Well, they all did it on the same day and then went to the same place. Check.

Municipal employees? Check.

Refusal to perform normal duties? Unless their work plan calls for making up Hitler signs and behaving badly at the capital I'd say that's a big ole check.

For the purpose of enforcing demands on a municipal employer? 'Don't pass this bill because we don't like it'? Yup, that would be a demand, backed up with threats to keep not working.

Walker is beyond correct - the so-called 'silent majority' are thoroughly on his side and not the side of the teachers that are illegally striking and causing them to need to find day care (because they can't just not show up to their jobs) or the Democrats that actually fled the state in order to avoid doing their democratic duty or supporting the people they claim to be on the side of by voting the way their labor masters tell them to.

The costs are starting to be added up - it's about time for that. Walker should make it the first line every time he talks to the press.

By the MacIver Institute’s estimate, public school union members who have participated in the ruthless “sick-in’ campaign across Wisconsin may cost taxpayers at least an estimated $6 million.

It's about time, there's some pushback against the quacks handing out 'doctor's notes' for the illegal strikers:

University of Wisconsin Health is now looking into the quack doctors who handed out fake notes like Pez candy to non-sick teachers looking for excuses.

Good. Any serious regulatory body needs to strip these people of any license or certification they hold - they're either giving out fraudulent notes in order to defraud the public (with a note the teachers get paid for illegally striking) or they're breaking HIPAA rules. One way or the other they're breaking the law.

And some people have finally taken the proper action to recall their senators that have chosen to abdicate their office and move to another state instead of representing them:

Two of the Dem state senators who have apparently left the state to prevent a vote on Gov. Walker's budget repair bill could be the subject of recall efforts, according to statements issued Friday.

Daniel Hunt of Kenosha announced that a group to recall Sen. Robert Wirch of Pleasant Prairie would file papers with the Government Accountability Board next week.

“We need to inform Robert Wirch that his hiding in Illinois is unacceptable to the voters in his district, and that we are taking the first steps to remove him from office," Hunt said in a statement.

Meanwhile, an Eagle River-based group said it expected to file with the GAB by the close of business today. The group's statement alleges Holperin "has failed to carry out his official duties in the state Senate," and committee leader Kim Simac said activists would evaluate the recall effort over the weekend.

Good. More people getting paid to avoid doing their job.

Meanwhile, FoxNews has this report out (that blends in some AP reporting) - and I have to wonder how many things that are clearly laid out in this story are absent from leftstream media reports? Stuff like what I've underlined here:

Protesters and Democratic lawmakers have likened Walker to a dictator, and demonstrators protesting the budget bill have waived signs comparing him to ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and Adolf Hitler...

While union workers say they've been blindsided by the governor's plan, which he campaigned on through the midterm election...

"We expected concessions, but we just didn't think there was a mandate for this. We didn't see him getting rid of collective bargaining," said Gary Steffen, president of the Wisconsin Science Professionals, the union that represents state scientists, including crime lab analysts, biologists, chemists and foresters.

Walker called that a "red herring," one he repeatedly witnessed while serving as the Milwaukee County executive before becoming governor.

"If you want to have democracy, if you want to have the American way, which is allowing people to have a choice, that's exactly what we're allowing there. People see the value, they see the work, they can continue to vote to certify that union and they can continue to voluntarily have those union dues, and write the check out and give it to the union to make their case, but they shouldn't be forced to be a part of this if that's not what they want to do," he said.

President Obama, whose group Organizing for America, has bused in some of the nearly 70,000 protesters Saturday, last week called the bill "an assault on unions."

Walker said the president should stay focused on fixing the federal budget, which is $1.5 trillion in deficit this year. The president's plan, rolled out last week, proposes $1.65 trillion in deficits next year.

Under the governor's proposal, unions still could represent workers, but they could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold annual votes to stay organized. Only wages below the Consumer Price Index would be subject to collective bargaining, anything higher would have to be approved by referendum.

Something's Missing

Yahoo has, at the time of posting, 137 wire service photos of the Wisconsin protests, etc. here: link.

The worst sign I see is one that calls Walker a "snake". In these 137 photos (not all show protest signs), the press manages not to capture any of the socialist organization signs, death threat signs, or any of the many signs comparing Gov. Walker to Hitler or other dictators. In other words, they found the same number of signs calling for Walker's death and comparisons to Hitler that they found held by TEA partiers - zero.

Except, of course, they didn't find any at TEA party rallies is because there weren't any other than those held by supporters of leftwing Lyndon Larouche, whereas there were plenty of them on display, as you can see at the blogs I've linked to and show examples of here.

Budget Puppetry

Why are the Democrats wasting time holding press conferences with puppets instead of working on fixing the fiscal mess they've put us in?

If you wonder why it's hard to cut spending, consider the throng of U.S congressmen lining up with Arthur the Aardvark to defend PBS funding from budget cutters. A $14 trillion deficit doesn't tickle us, Elmo.

It wasn't an episode of "Sesame Street," but it might have been. There on the Capitol steps was Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., accompanied by fellow Democratic Reps. Paul Tonko, Bill Owens and Nita Lowey of New York and Betty McCollum of Minnesota, with a bevy of Muppets to fight against cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's budget.

"This is an ideological attack on public broadcasting," Markey said. "Arthur, you're silence is eloquent."

We are not making this up. A U.S. congressman was discussing public policy with Arthur the Aardvark.

He's a puppet, Ed...

From 2003 to 2006, DeMint notes, "Sesame Street" made $211 million from toy and product sales.

Yet taxpayers are being asked to subsidize the salary of Sesame Workshop President and CEO Gary Knell, who received $956,513 — nearly a million dollars — in compensation in 2008.

"The GOP should be less preoccupied with silencing Cookie Monster and more focused on reviving the economy," Rep. Lowey proclaimed. "How long will it take for some people to learn that people want Congress to focus on creating jobs, not laying off Bert and Ernie."

Again, we are not making this up.

It was Lowey who brought Bert and Ernie to testify on Capitol Hill in 1995, the last time the GOP took control of Congress and allegedly tried to throw Big Bird out in the street.

Your Random Saturday

Coulter tears it up:

The major new development is that NOW liberals want to get rid of a dictator in the Middle East! Where were they when we were taking out the guy with the rape rooms?...

Why did they want to keep Saddam Hussein in power again? Yes, that's right -- because he didn't have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Their big argument was that Saddam was five long years away from developing them.

By my calculations, that means as of March 2008, Israel would have been gone and Saddam would have been in total control of the Middle East.

Thanks, liberals!...

Mubarak supported U.S. policy, used his military to fight Muslim extremists and recognized Israel's right to exist. Or as the left calls it, three strikes and you're out...

You know another country where Obama wasn't interested in democracy? (I mean, besides the U.S. when it comes to health care reform?) That's right -- Iran.

Iran is ideal for democracy: It has a young, highly educated, pro-Western population, and happens to be led by a messianic, Holocaust-denying lunatic.

Liberals say: Why upset that apple cart? Much better to support tumult and riots against our allies than our sworn enemies...

When it came to Iran, however, the flame of democracy didn't burn so brightly in liberal hearts. Even when the Iranian protester, Neda, was shot dead while standing peacefully on a street in Tehran, Obama responded by ... going out for an ice cream cone.

But a mob of Egyptians start decapitating mummies, and Obama was on the horn telling Mubarak he had to leave. Obama didn't acknowledge Neda's existence, but the moment Egyptians started rioting, Obama said, "We hear your voices."

He can hear their voices? He couldn't hear the voices of the tea partiers, and they were protesting on the streets of Washington, D.C.

What A Pathetic Mess

This whole thing is disgraceful - unable to contend with democracy the Democrat cowards in Wisconsin that fled the state to avoid doing their job (like the teachers protesting instead of doing their jobs), I wonder if they're getting paid, incidentally, instead think what they're doing is comparable to the uprisings in the middle east. Hey, morons - the people there are rallying FOR democracy - you're rallying for mob rule instead of democracy! And these are teachers?? No wonder our kids isn't learning. Pro-democracy protesters should spit in the eye of these people that want mob rule to override the work of a duly-democratically-elected government. Look at this carp:

The Wisconsin State Patrol was dispatched Friday to find a Democratic state senator who fled the Capitol to delay the near-certain passage of a bill...

Fitzgerald said he spoke with Miller by phone late Thursday night and asked him to bring his caucus back to Madison for a vote on Friday morning, but Miller refused. Meanwhile, the protests are growing so large that Capitol workers and lawmakers' staff cannot safely move through the halls, he said...

Where's the fire marshal? He should be ordering the clearing of said halls and if he won't he should be fired and replaced with someone that will.

Several hundred protesters were in the building early in the morning. The ranks grew as the day progressed. Many of them spent the night in the Capitol and another large rally was planned around noon. As many as 25,000 students, teachers and prison guards have turned out at the Capitol this week to protest, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the building's hallways, sitting cross-legged across the floor and making it difficult to move from room to room. Some brought along sleeping bags and stayed through the night...

I wonder if MSNBC will be interviewing them and demanding to know if they paid for their lodging there.

The protesters chants of "Kill the Bill!" and "Recall Walker Now!" could be heard throughout the day and long past dark. They beat on drums and carried signs deriding Walker and his plan to end collective bargaining for state, county and local workers, except for police, firefighters and the state patrol.

Except, of course, that's not what it would do.

Some signs seen at the Capitol compared the governor to former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, who stepped down last week after weeks of mass protests against his three-decade rule. On read, "Impeach Scott Mubarak!" and another said, "Walker like an Egyptian." Others compared to Walker and his supporters to boy wizard Harry Potter's nemesis and his evil minions, calling them "Governor Voldemort and his DeathEater Legislators."...

Then, of course, there is the parade of signs comparing him to Hitler and Mussolini and calling for him to be hanged, etc. Funny, no TEA partiers bring Hitler signs and the press claims they do...leftist protesters skipping out on work bring many such signs and the press can't seem to see them. Interesting all right. (Actually, the Voldemort one is pretty funny)

"I always expect the worst, but at the least I figure this would lead to such larger strikes that it would be a bad move for Republicans and Scott Walker," Graupner said...

Of course strikes are illegal in Wisconsin. If you're going to ignore the democratic process, no reason not to ignore the law.

"We left the state so we were out of the reach of the Wisconsin state patrol, which has the authority to round us up and bring us back to the legislature," state Sen. Mark Miller told ABC's "Good Morning America" from an undisclosed location Friday.

Brave Sir Robin ran away.
Bravely ran away, away!
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!

Some Democrats elsewhere applauded the developments as a long-awaited sign that their party was fighting back against the Republican wave created by November's midterm election.

"I am glad to see some Democrats, for a change, with a backbone. I'm really proud to hear that they did that," said Democratic state Sen. Judy Eason-McIntyre of Oklahoma, another state where Republicans won the governorship in November and also control both legislative chambers...

Think she said the same thing about the TEA party protesters finally standing up to Obey-Won's Debt-i Knights bankrupting America?

In addition to eliminating collective-bargaining rights...

It doesn't. It stops the process of forcing employees to be part of a union (collective-bargaining unit) - it doesn't prevent them actively acting to join one, which can then collectively bargain for those employees.

Definitely A Religion

More evidence on the already overwhelming pile that the cult of global warming is nothing more than a (phony) religion.

Today's example? Temperature swings in Oklahoma (not quite 'the south', not quite 'the midwest') are the result of global warming...and always have been!

Climate scientists note that extreme swings in weather are associated with the gradual warming of the earth's climate...

But broader climate trends notwithstanding, Oklahoma has long been known for its unpredictable weather.

It's been like this as long as we can remember...and it's because of global warming in the past few decades. Retroactively. Yeah. That's it.

Easy

Wisconsin Democrats could stay away for weeks

Democrats on the run in Wisconsin avoided state troopers Friday and threatened to stay in hiding for weeks, potentially paralyzing a state government they no longer control.

Well, that solves that problem. They've fled the state, so they're basically saying they're no longer residents, and refuse to show up for work, not because of illness or whatever but admittedly to avoid doing their job?

Piece of cake, they've abdicated their offices, resigned, and the governor or legislature (however it works in WI, they may even have some sort of rule where the governor can put people in there on an interim basis so they can have a quorum) should immediately call for special elections to fill the vacant slots of senators that refuse to come to work and have admittedly left the state, not for vacation, but specifically and precisely in order to avoid having to do their job.

Cripes that was simple. Get on it.

Closing Schools

Look, obviously it's a shame that kids that are going to a school have to change when a district needs to close a school, but it's not the end of the world. And, really, it's not like there isn't a solution. All the Boards really need to do is but a box on the table at the back of the room where the meeting is and tell all the parents crying about the school closing how much their share is, divided evenly by the number of children that would be attending the school, to keep the school open. Tell them that if every parent chips in the whatever number of thousands it is to keep that school open, then the school will be kept open. If not their check will be returned to them. Heck, if it's such a desirable school let parents from other districts swap their kid's spot (if they don't want to pay for attending that school) with someone that wants to go there. Everybody wins.

Reuters Just Doesn't Get It

This is the foolish headline tied to a report noting that unemployment claims went up again after a brief snowstorm-inspired dip: "Unemployment rises despite recovery"

Back in the real world that headline should read: Unemployment rises because there is no recovery

AP Full Pivot To Attacking GOP Complete

Annnnnnd there we go. The AP has now fully turned its fire from Obama and trained it on the GOP. Like I said, we'll be seeing a LOT of this sort of thing in the days ahead:

The GOP legislation would make sweeping cuts to domestic programs ranging from education and science to agriculture and the Peace Corps. It slashes the Environmental Protection Agency, a favorite target of Republicans, by 29 percent from last year's levels, and would eliminate federal funding for public broadcasting, the AmeriCorps national service program, police hiring grants and family planning programs unpopular with conservatives.

The Food and Drug Administration budget would decline by 10 percent, and spending also would fall by 10 percent for a food program for pregnant women and mothers and their children.

The WIC thing is pure BS, I showed that earlier, the cut is less than 5%. If Obama had proposed a WIC budget 100% larger than their previous budget and the GOP proposed a cut equal to that increase, then by this media logic, they would be calling for a cut of 50%. This is, naturally, nonsense.

So today let's focus on the EPA line. Notice the very careful language - "29 percent from last year's levels". I won't go into as much detail as with the WIC items, but I think with 2 very simple pieces of information I can make this very careful assertion look foolish.

The first is the opening line of the EPA's 2010 budget request:

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 Budget request represents the highest level of funding for EPA in its 39-year history.

So recall that wording - "from last year's levels", which just happen to be the highest levels ever.

Well, that by itself isn't much evidence! After all, budgets almost always go up with inflation and all! Yup. That's why I need that 2nd piece of information to put that other "highest...in...history" price really into perspective:

There it is. Basically, the proposed cuts would return the EPA to the pre-EPA-on-Obama-Pelosi-Reid-steroids levels.

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Update: see Charles Krauthammer make this point here: link

Soros: Blame Israel For Egyptian Confusion

Looking for the right word here...despicable comes to mind. George Soros recently conspired with the Washington Post to produce a column blaming, of all things, Israel for the failure of an immediate and simple transformation in Egypt to a peaceful, puppy-loving western-style democracy headed by, of course, the Muslim Brotherhood. That, but for Israel, Egypt would even now be sweeping forward to its first free democratic elections, proudly and loudly supported by the flag waving patriot extraordinaire - Barack Obama:

Some have articulated fears of adverse consequences of free elections, suggesting that the Egyptian military may seek to falsify the results; that Israel may be adamantly opposed to a regime change; that the domino effect of extremist politics spreading to other countries must be avoided; and that the supply of oil from the region could be disrupted. These notions constitute the old conventional wisdom about the Middle East - and need to be changed, lest Washington incorrectly put up resistance to or hesitate in supporting transition in Egypt.

That would be regrettable. President Obama personally and the United States as a country have much to gain by moving out in front and siding with the public demand for dignity and democracy. This would help rebuild America's leadership and remove a lingering structural weakness in our alliances that comes from being associated with unpopular and repressive regimes. Most important, doing so would open the way to peaceful progress in the region. The Muslim Brotherhood's cooperation with Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel laureate who is seeking to run for president, is a hopeful sign that it intends to play a constructive role in a democratic political system. As regards contagion, it is more likely to endanger the enemies of the United States - Syria and Iran - than our allies, provided that they are willing to move out ahead of the avalanche.

The main stumbling block is Israel. In reality, Israel has as much to gain from the spread of democracy in the Middle East as the United States has. But Israel is unlikely to recognize its own best interests because the change is too sudden and carries too many risks. And some U.S. supporters of Israel are more rigid and ideological than Israelis themselves. Fortunately, Obama is not beholden to the religious right, which has carried on a veritable vendetta against him.

Just nemyoumind the Muslim Brotherhood's commitment to wiping Israel off the map. It's in their "best interests" for them to take over the country next to theirs. They just don't realize yet how much their lot would be improved by being neighbors with people determined to kill them. I guess while they're enjoying that they can hope they're as dumb as the crocs living next to their "zeeba" neighbors. Damned lucky for those Israelis that Obama doesn't listen to the disgraceful "religious right" that think the Jews actually deserve to exist, okay, George?

Hey, just remember, Capital Region - every time you go to the Dinosaur BBQ in Troy you're putting money in the pocket of this anti-semite.

AP Has Re-Elect Obama Fever!

How else to explain this baloney headline: Obama Wins Engine Showdown Vote

As if unable to choke down that thick a slab of the mystery meat bias, the headline was quickly revised to: Obama, GOP budget hawks win on jet engine

Of course, only one of that pair actually did anything by actually voting. Here's a hint, it ain't the Won. Nevertheless, the AP is furiously thrusting Obama out in front of the parade on this one despite the truth they bury in their own reporting:

Former President George W. Bush had also tried to kill the second engine.

So, in other words, Bush couldn't get it done with a Democrat Congress, but it finally got passed when the people actually voting for the cutting are Republicans. Tells you everything you need to know and strips the skin off the baloney, leaving it naked.

(ewwww)

Myth Busted

Maybe now we can put to rest the 'still-racist South' myth and, along with it, the asinine accusation that any time a Republican campaigns in the South or tries to get votes in the South that automatically means they're 'pandering to racists' or want to 'turn back the clock' or 'making veiled appeals to those longing for the days of Jim Crow'.

The Southern U.S. region — primarily metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Miami and Charlotte, N.C. — accounted for roughly 75 percent of the population gains among blacks since 2000, up from 65 percent in the 1990s, according to the latest census estimates. The gains came primarily at the expense of Northern metro areas such as New York and Chicago, which posted their first declines in black population since at least 1980...

In all, about 57 percent of U.S. blacks now live in the South, a jump from the 53 percent share in the 1970s, according to an analysis of census data by William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. It was the surest sign yet of a sustained reverse migration to the South following the exodus of millions of blacks to the Midwest, Northeast and West in the Great Migration from 1910 to 1970.

Using the perverted logic of mindless race baiters, a Democrat glad handing in the liberal bastion cities of the North are the ones seeking the votes of racists, since blacks are fleeing those areas.

$6?

As potentially good as the news from the Middle East sounds with all the (relatively) peaceful protesting and demands for more freedoms and such (or so it appears from afar) - as the protests spread to countries that are less and less westernized (now Libya is getting in on the action) it seems appropriate to ask what this is going to do to oil prices this summer. $4 seems a given, which, coupled with ongoing ridiculously high unemployment and failed mortgage bailout after failed mortgage bailout program by the failure-in-chief, seems like a prime recipe for the double-dip recession that we almost avoided. $5 seems not unreasonable, which would be a recipe for possibly desperate times. Travel and tourism would be disastrous, even Obama couldn't take enough vacations to make up for the lost revenue. $6? Personally I don't see how that's out of the question. Of course it's not the $7 or $8 that Obama and his advisors would prefer, but it would still be a nightmare. On the plus side, if you have an old spare bike in the garage, now would be the time to get it out, dust it off, and bring it in to be tuned up, you might be able to get a small fortune for it this summer.

AP Keeps Hitting Obama, Starts In On GOP

So the AP appears to be trying to regain its footing after thoroughly shredding Obama's budget right after it came out. They're continuing to be honest about how bad it is (probably a nod to their shrinking consumer base and acknowledgment of what happened in November - so they're ahead of Obama there), but they're trying to keep up their liberal media cred by mindlessly going after the GOP, also:

"In our nation's most pressing fiscal challenges, the president has abdicated his leadership role," said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. "When his own commission put forward a set of fundamental entitlement and tax reforms ... he ignored them."...

Eager to please their conservative tea party supporters, Republicans are championing $61 billion in cuts to hundreds of programs for the remaining seven months of this federal fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, under a bill the House planned to debate Tuesday. AmeriCorps and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be completely erased, while deep cuts would be carved from programs for feeding poor women and children, training people for jobs and cleaning the Great Lakes.

Reductions of that magnitude this late in a fiscal year would have a jarring impact on many programs. The GOP-run House planned to approve the measure Thursday...

Despite its savings, Obama's budget projects a record $1.65 trillion deficit this year, falling to $1.1 trillion next year and easing thereafter. Even so, it stands to generate a mammoth $7.2 trillion sea of red ink over the next 10 years, a number that would be even larger had the president not claimed over $1 trillion in 10-year savings by winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Glaringly missing from the president's budget was a substantial reshaping of Social Security, Medicare and other massive, automatically paid benefit programs that bipartisan members of his deficit-reduction commission had recommended last year. That leaves the nation under a black fiscal cloud as its aging population, prolonged lifespans and ever costlier medical procedures leave the government with enormous I.O.U.'s...

You saw this coming, right? As they demonize the GOP you'll see more of this: "deep cuts would be carved from programs for feeding poor women and children, training people for jobs" (ignore the fact that just about everything in the budget is to help the 'needy', if they weren't 'needy' they wouldn't need the funding).

The 'job training' that they're cutting is a program that preferentially gives certain people the equivalent of extra years of unemployment if they claim that their jobs were lost due to 'offshoring'. Reportedly studies have shown that the pay from new jobs was the same whether you got this 'job training' bonus or not.

And, of course, the WIC nonsense. At least that's what I can only assume they mean when they say those evil conservatives are going to slash funding for poor women and children. You can see the "deep cuts" here: appropriations. This shows a proposed cut to WIC of $758 million. I don't really have the resources to track this down to the penny, but recall that these are cuts from Obama's proposed total, not from any actual, real life budget. The budget is here: link. You'll see the budget is $8.1 billion. That means a "deep cut" of $758 million is of 9.3%. But wait, as they say, there's more. $8.1 billion is just the proposed level. The proposed level is actually $400 million higher than 2010. That means the actual "deep cut" (that is, a cut from a previous amount) is $358 million. Assuming that that means that the 2010 total was $7.7 billion, then a "deep cut" of $358 million is 4.6%.

And if you dare look even a little further, you'll see that total "Food and Nutrition Service" spending for the Dept. of Agriculture would be $82.4 billion, vs. $78.4 billion in 2010 and $66.2 billion in 2009. So, long story short, this "deep cut" that will snatch food from the mouths of "poor women and children" will still leave funding for WIC and related programs at $81.635 billion dollars, or $15,425 billion higher than just 2 years ago - an increase of 23.3% in just two years. Did your pay go up 23% in two years? Your benefits? Obama's spending did. Yes, the "deep cuts" killing poor women and torturing children would still leave the funding massively higher than it was in 2009.

Which, of course, is the game plan Obama has chosen to enact, assuming we're all stupid, ignorant, and uninformed. Except we're not. We have blogs, talk radio, FoxNews, etc etc. The plan to massively hike spending by 25% and then griping when his new hikes are stymied must not pass unchallenged.

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Oh yeah, forgot to mention that the WIC cut is a whopping 1% of the proposed cuts.

AP Punches Obama, Itself

The big AP analysis of Obama's budget (I'd guess he called it 'eat your way thin!' or perhaps 'spend your way out of debt!') rips the administration a new one as it assesses a budget that breaks its own record set last year and sees a pumped up deficit that we haven't seen since WW2. Of course, in so doing, it pummels Obey-Won for not cutting the stuff that it will shortly be hammering the GOP for proposing cutting:

President Barack Obama sent Congress a $3.73 trillion budget Monday that holds out the prospect of eventually bringing deficits under control through spending cuts and tax increases. But the fiscal blueprint largely ignores his own deficit commission's view that the nation is imperiled unless huge entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare are slashed.

Obama called his new budget one of "tough choices and sacrifices," but most of those cuts would be held off until after the next presidential election...

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said the president's investment plans missed the simple point that "we don't have the money" to finance Obama's vision of "trains and windmills" in the future...

Even some Democrats complained that Obama needed a more vigorous attack on future budget deficits.

"We need a much more robust package of deficit and debt reduction over the medium- and long-term. It is not enough to focus primarily on cutting the non-security discretionary part of the budget," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., who called for a budget presentation matching the ambition of Obama's deficit commission...

Obama's deficit commission made a host of painful recommendations...Obama included none of these proposals in his new budget...

Obama also proposes raising taxes on energy companies. [Remember - this is the guy that said, "Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."]

The president's projected $1.65 trillion deficit for the current year would be the highest dollar amount ever, surpassing the $1.41 trillion deficit hit in 2009. It would also represent 10.8 percent of the total economy, the highest level since the deficit stood at 21.5 percent of gross domestic product in 1945, reflecting heavy borrowing to fight World War II.

The president's 2012 budget projects that the deficits will total $7.21 trillion over the next decade with the imbalances never falling below $607 billion. Even then that would exceed the deficit record before Obama took office of $458.6 billion in 2008, President George W. Bush's last year in office...

However, to achieve the lower deficits required the administration to assume the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would plummet to $50 billion annually after 2012. The budget also fails to pay for the cost of keeping Medicare payments for doctors from being cut after 2013. Obama's budget also makes assumptions about economic growth that are more optimistic that those offered by many private economists...

The surge in deficits reflect the deep 2007-2009 recession, the worst since the Great Depression, which cut into government tax revenues as millions were thrown out of work and prompted massive government spending to jump-start economic growth and stabilize the banking system.

Republicans point to still-elevated unemployment levels and charge the stimulus programs were a failure. The administration contends the spending was needed to keep the country from falling into an even deeper slump.

Sure, go ahead, fail to mention that it didn't do what they said it would and things ended up worse, they're still worse than what they were supposed to be without the Stimulus porkery.

It's good that they brought in the fact that the complaints about Obama's spending sprees are now bipartisan. I'm also glad they point out that, even with their rosiest predictions, they don't project a single year's deficit matching the last year of Bush's term - after, of course, Bush met his oft-derided plan to cut the deficit in half and did so ahead of schedule.

Of course Obama is again trying to shaft charities out of donations from the rich, which they rely on...what better way to get more people to rely on government handouts than by ensuring that there are fewer private charitable options.

What Success Looks Like

In the 'not rocket science' department, how can the average person on the street discern successful economic policies? I'm not talking the average economist or Wall Street trader, I mean the type of person that can successfully navigate the Clorox 'which sock is brighter' stumper.

Here's a test for you - two administrations took office during deep and deepening recessions characterized by potentially catastrophic economic scenarios. One "put private-sector free-enterprise at the center" of the recovery effort and one chose "a massive expansion of government power". There's your background - now can you tell which sock is brighter?

So far, real GDP has averaged only 3 percent annually for Obama. Employment as defined by nonfarm payrolls has increased by a paltry 121,000.

On the other hand, going back to Reagan’s first six recovery quarters, real GDP averaged 7.7 percent annually while nonfarm payrolls rose by 5.3 million.

Almost 40% slower growth and 2.3% of the jobs added during the same period.

Pretty simple, right? And yet the left still denies that lower taxes and a lighter regulatory hand (fist?) incentivize the economy and claim that government overspending trumps the Laffer curve. No wonder they believe that 'global warming' causes more storms, less storms, colder temperatures, warmer temperatures, unchanging temperatures, receding glaciers, advancing glaciers, more arctic sea ice, and less arctic sea ice. When reality is no barrier to your thoughts and history guides none of your actions it's easy to believe these things.

Your Random Saturday

Jeff Jacoby on manufacturing myths:

There's just one problem with all the gloom and doom about American manufacturing. It's wrong.

Americans make more "stuff" than any other nation on earth, and by a wide margin. According to the UN's comprehensive database of international economic data, America's manufacturing output in 2009 (expressed in constant 2005 dollars) was $2.15 trillion. That surpassed China's output of $1.48 trillion by nearly 46 percent. China's industries may be booming, but the United States still accounted for 20 percent of the world's manufacturing output in 2009 -- only a hair below its 1990 share of 21 percent...

Perceptions also feed the gloom and doom. In its story on Americans' economic anxiety, National Journal quotes a Florida teacher who says, "It seems like everything I pick up says 'Made in China' on it." To someone shopping for toys, shoes, or sporting equipment, it often can seem that way. But that's because Chinese factories tend to specialize in low-tech, labor-intensive goods -- items that typically don't require the more advanced and sophisticated manufacturing capabilities of modern American plants.

A vast amount of "stuff" is still made in the USA, albeit not the inexpensive consumer goods that fill the shelves in Target or Walgreen's. American factories make fighter jets and air conditioners, automobiles and pharmaceuticals, industrial lathes and semiconductors. Not the sort of things on your weekly shopping list?

Real Reagan:

What about black-owned businesses? In 1982, according to the Census Bureau, there were 308,000 black-owned businesses. By 1987, the number had increased to 424,000, up 38 percent. The number of all U.S. businesses was up "only" 14 percent. Receipts for black-owned businesses went from less than $10 billion to nearly $20 billion -- a 100 percent increase.

But didn't Reagan apply the "racist" so-called "Southern Strategy" to get elected? And weren't the Southern Republicans on whom Reagan relied merely racist former Dixiecrats chased into the GOP's open arms on the issue of civil rights?

Pat Buchanan, former Richard Nixon speechwriter, invented the term "Southern strategy." "We would build our Republican Party," he said, "on a foundation of states' rights, human rights, small government and a strong national defense, and leave it to the 'party of (Democratic Georgia Gov. Lester) Maddox, (1966 Democratic challenger against Spiro Agnew for Maryland governor George) Mahoney and (Democratic Alabama Gov. George) Wallace to squeeze the last ounces of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice.'"...

Then came the modern civil rights movement, followed by the civil rights acts of the '60s. Southern whites knew their world had forever changed. Racism -- legally, politically and morally -- was in full retreat. With segregation as a dying issue, Southerners turned their attention to other matter: low taxes, smaller government and support for the Vietnam War and a strong national defense. The Republican Party fit their political views and cultural values more than did the Democratic Party. How could the GOP serve as a refuge for bigots when the party's House and Senate members voted for the civil rights acts, by percentage, more than did their Democratic counterparts?

But didn't Reagan appeal to Southern racism by giving a "states' rights" speech in Philadelphia, Miss., a town immortalized in the movie "Mississippi Burning"? In 1964, three civil rights workers were murdered there. To the left, "states' rights" is code for preferred parking at a Klan rally.

Reagan spoke for 15 minutes at the Neshoba County Fair, about seven miles outside of Philadelphia, in that politically "in-play" state carried by Jimmy Carter four years earlier by 14,000 votes...

Here's what Reagan said at the fair about "states' rights": "Programs like education and others that should be turned back to the states and the local communities with the tax sources to fund them. I believe in states' rights. I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and the private level."

Not exactly, "Turn back the clock!" And immediately following his speech, Reagan headed to New York, where he spoke before the Urban League, one of the nation's oldest black civil rights organizations...

Reagan hired future Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and future Secretary of State Colin Powell. He signed legislation making Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday and signed an extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act for another 25 years. He granted amnesty to nearly 3 million illegal aliens.

Those Darned Egyptians!

Don't they know any better?

Just when the press is joyously kicking off their campaign to re-elect Obama in 2012 - distorting employment reports to make it look like Obama's foolhardy policies are 'working', talking about minor economic improvements (vs. the skyrocketing improvements that historically have followed recessions), and his amazing shows of cost-cutting (0.01%) and bipartisanship (smiling while telling conservatives to pound sand)...

along comes the Egyptians dumping all over the parade. Talk about bad timing! Just when Obey-Won was ramping up his campaigning with speeches hither and yon and a fresh batch of pandering interviews...blam, there goes Egypt.

Now, of all times, they think it's appropriate to follow in the footsteps of other middle eastern nations with struggling masses yearning to breathe free...

and in the process upsetting the media's carefully arranged apple cart. Obama's handpicked CIA ignoramus, Leon Panetta, making proclamations about what's going to happen based on his twitter feed and CNN. Advisors proclaiming that the Muslim Brotherhood, of all groups, is largely secular and pretty much no different than Anytown, USA's Rotarians. Demands, public demands, that a key ally in the muslim world step down while it is exposed that other allies in the region had plead with our ignorant and incompetent Obey-Won shut the hell up and not embarrass him in front of everyone and instead work privately to ensure the same outcome, peacefully, allowing for a transfer of power that is orderly instead of chaotic (see: Carter, Jimmy and Iran) with a disastrous outcome.

Here they were, kicking off Hope and No Change 2012 when along come the Egyptians showing again how, after 2 years, Obama remains foolishly, dangerously incompetent, undiplomatic, inexperienced, and surrounded by people that share not just their farflung leftism with Obama, but these other qualities as well.

Moderate Democrats On The Outs

Shoe, meet other foot:

Political pundits of a certain stripe have been lamenting the disappearance of Republican moderates for years. It's time now to lament the disappearance of moderate Democrats.

Last month, Sen. Joseph Lieberman announced he wouldn't seek re-election. He lost the Democratic primary in Connecticut in 2006 because of his support of the Iraq war, but won in November as an independent...

Then last week, Rep. Jane Harman announced she would resign soon to become head of Washington's Woodrow Wilson Center. Harman, who voted for the Iraq war resolution and supported robust foreign and defense policies, was conspicuously passed over by Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee when Democrats won control of the House in 2006...

Harman and Lieberman were both Democrats in the JFK and FDR mold -- liberal on most domestic issues (Lieberman almost single-handedly pushed through repeal of the ban on open gays in the military in December) and supporters of the use of American military power to expand freedom and democracy in the world. But there doesn't seem to be much room for them in the Democratic Party today...

The political philosopher James Carville wrote a book predicting Democratic dominance for 40 years. Daily Kos bloggers, spewing hatred, argued that the party could afford to purge the likes of Joe Lieberman and Jane Harman and the Blue Dog Democratic moderates in the House. Better off without them!

Maybe not. Of the 53 blue dogs in the 111th Congress, only 26 (including Harman) were re-elected in 2010. Another 21 were defeated for re-election, and all six Blue Dogs who retired were replaced by Republicans. If Democrats had held those 27 seats, they would still have a majority in the House.

I'm guessing the local rags won't be making this connection.

Blind Squirrel Finds Nut

Wow, never expected this to be a web portal front page story...note that it's from a Yahoo blog, though, and not a major news outlet. Here's hoping they pick up on it and give America a dose of reality:

Since 2008, the American labor force--that is, the number of people either working or actively working for work--hasn't grown at all, The Economist reports, looking at Labor Department numbers...

But things usually turn around during the recovery. This time, however, that's not happening: Since the Great Recession officially ended in mid 2009, the "participation rate"--the share of the population in the labor force--has continued to decline, especially among the young...

Taken together, the slow growth of the labor force and the low participation rate mean that the offiical [sic] unemployment rate, now at an already high 9 percent, underplays the actual rate of joblessness even more than such official figures usually do. That's because the official rate doesn't include workers who have grown discouraged and stopped looking for work--and that number appears to be unusually high.

What The *Bleep*

With a shoe on his hand?? WTF?

Deception

(See update below)

What does this headline imply?

Dick Cheney heckled in surprise appearance at CPAC

It implies exactly one thing - that Cheney made an appearance a conservative conference and was heckled by the conservative attendees.

Except that's not what happened.

Unlabeled (but surely unhinged leftist) "protesters" who were clearly not part of nor attending the conference were the ones doing the "heckling".

As far as I know, Dick Cheney retains his standing with conservatives, so it seems very unlikely that those attending honestly would have been calling him a "war criminal".

More media nonsense.

*

(2-14-11 Update)

I apologize. I screwed up. I didn't realize that CPAC had denigrated into a nutball conference that has little-to-no relation to mainstream conservatism or the GOP. It was, indeed, more a gathering of the unhinged that call themselves 'libertarians' but are more correctly better-groomed and less-violent cousins of the nutball anarchist wing of the Democrat party, people that don't even vote Republican. Sorry, I jumped the gun, the actual flaw in the media's representation of this event wasn't that it was the attendees that heckled Cheney and Rumsfeld, but the portrayal of those attendees as representative of Republicans or conservatives. I guess we should thank those guys for showing up and exposing this event for what it is so that next year respectable conservatives ignore the event so the media can stop misrepresenting it. I mean really, these people want Ron Paul to be president. Just stay away.

--
more:

Many people asked me over the last week whether I would be going to the annual CPAC convocation taking place at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington. I explained that while I have covered the event in the past, I stopped maybe a decade or so ago because most of the people who attend the CPAC meeting are in no way representative of the Republican Party as a whole...

But let’s face it. Any group that holds a straw poll that Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, wins in back-to-back years by definition isn’t representative of much of anything beyond maybe the most extreme slice of one party.