Jonah Goldberg: It's Obama's economy, stupid
No president 'runs' the U.S. economy, but President Obama talks like he does more than any in recent memory — yet none of his economic promises or job predictions have panned out.
"Now, my administration has a job to do as well, and that job is to get this economy back on its feet," President Obama declared on July 14, 2009, in Warren, Mich. "THAT'S MY JOB, AND IT'S A JOB I GLADLY ACCEPT. I LOVE THESE FOLKS WHO HELPED GET US IN THIS MESS AND THEN SUDDENLY SAY, WELL, THIS IS OBAMA'S ECONOMY. THAT'S FINE. GIVE IT TO ME."
The unemployment rate then was 9.5%. It's now 9.1%, well above the 8% cap that the administration advisors projected under the stimulus bill. But that's not the amazing part. ACCORDING TO A WHITE HOUSE REPORT WRITTEN BY ECONOMIC ADVISORS JARED BERNSTEIN AND CHRISTINA ROMER IN JANUARY 2009 IN SUPPORT OF THE BILL, IF WE HAD PASSED NO STIMULUS PACKAGE AT ALL, THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE WOULD HAVE TOPPED OUT AT AROUND 8.8% IN THE LAST QUARTER OF 2010.
If only.
Instead, we got Obama's vital "investments." Since his speech in Warren, WE'VE SPENT ANOTHER $2.8 TRILLION IN BORROWED MONEY.
Presumably, we could have cut the unemployment rate by four-tenths of a percentage point more cheaply than that?
Meanwhile, WE'VE ACCRUED A TOTAL OF $3.7 TRILLION IN DEBT ON OBAMA'S WATCH, WHILE LOSING 2.8 MILLION JOBS. That doesn't sound ideal either….
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg-economy-20110607,0,1192445.column
I don’t think you’ll hear the Democrats or Obama own up to accepting the economy. Is this his mission accomplished moment?
And in the meantime, Obama goes into denial and blaming Bush.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/07/its-not-the-economy-its-you-says-obama/
Morning in America or Later than you think
….Now the numbers are so bad — and November 2012 so close — that the Obama campaign has decided it must, as Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown and Glenn Thrush put it, “TEMPER SOME OF THE MORNING-IN-AMERICA OPTIMISM HE’D HOPED TO RUN ON.”
This is truly shocking. Not that the president’s team realizes its “Morning-in-America” parade is getting rained on, but that marching under that banner was ever considered in the first place. Even if the jobs numbers had come in as expected, at 150,000 — or even if they’d come in higher than expected at, say, 200,000, and stayed there for several months, we’re nowhere near Morning in America. UNFORTUNATELY, TOO MUCH OF THE COUNTRY APPEARS TO BE CLOSER TO A PERMANENT MIDNIGHT.
As our Business Editor Peter Goodman puts it, the conditions underlying these numbers are “already familiar beyond the realm of professional economists and policymakers.” This is what most Americans, Goodman writes, “know in their bones, not from government reports and the abstract musings of economists, but from the everyday fears that accompany glancing at their checkbooks and their latest credit card bills: THERE IS NO RELIEF IN SIGHT.”…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/something-we-can-say-with_b_872912.html
Another nail in the Obama reelection coffin.
One law for us, another for you
The California state Senate voted 28-8 Wednesday to EXEMPT ITSELF FROM THE POINTLESS GUN-CONTROL LAWS THAT APPLY TO THE REST OF THE POPULACE. Legislators apparently think they alone are worthy to pack heat on the streets for personal protection, and the masses ought to wait until the police arrive.
This is just one of many bills Golden State politicians used this legislative session to set themselves apart from the little people, the ones who pay their inflated salaries. Annual compensation for legislators averages about $140,000, not counting luxurious perks such as taxpayer-funded cars and free gasoline. By comparison, the average Californian earns $50,000 a year, and the unemployment rate is 11.9 percent - far above the national average. EXACT SALARIES FOR STATE ASSEMBLYMEN AND SENATORS ARE OBSCURED BY THE USE OF A “PER DIEM” PAYMENT SCHEME THAT SHELTERS A SIGNIFICANT CHUNK OF INCOME FROM TAXATION....
....The arrogance of the political class is certainly not limited to California. FEDERAL LAW PROHIBITS PRIVATE COMPANIES FROM PESTERING THE PUBLIC WITH UNWANTED TELEMARKETING CALLS FROM BUSINESSES, BUT CONGRESS EXEMPTED “POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS” - I.E., THEMSELVES - FROM ITS PROVISIONS. In Sacramento, an attempt failed to establish a special Do Not Call list for people who don’t want to listen to automated calls from California pols....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/6/one-law-for-us-another-for-you/
While people on the left see private industry as ruled by greed, they seem to forget that government workers are still human.
Ed Schultz to Moonbat Guests: 'You People are in Denial!'
When Ed Schultz is the sanest member of a panel, you know the left is in trouble.
http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2011/06/ed-schultz-to-moonbat-guests-you-people.html
Weinergate reminds us not to give these clowns more power
Ah, Weinergate, you are the gift that keeps on giving, the crotch-shot that launched a thousand puns. Yet, sadly, SOME PEOPLE FANCY THEMSELVES FAR TOO SERIOUS TO EMBRACE THE HILARITY.
"JUST PATHETIC," AN EXAMPLE OF "AMERICAN PURITANISM," JOURNALISM PROFESSOR JEFF JARVIS PRONOUNCED THE MEDIA FOCUS ON REP. ANTHONY WEINER'S, D-N.Y., alleged boxer-brief malfunction.
Spare me. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a good old-fashioned political sex scandal. THEY'RE ENTERTAINING, AND THEY MAY EVEN BE EDIFYING -- REMINDING US THAT SELF-STYLED "PUBLIC SERVANTS" ARE OFTEN LESS RESPONSIBLE, MORE VENAL, AND JUST PLAIN DUMBER THAN THOSE THEY SEEK TO RULE....
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/06/lets-not-give-these-clowns-more-power#ixzz1Ogi4mBoh
It is good to remember that anointed politicos are simply humans too with human greed, passion and stupidity. Just another reason not to give them too much power.
Just another disgraced, delusional creep on the Hill
When weepy Anthony D. Weiner stood in front of a New York hotel ballroom and exposed himself, he also laid bare the U.S. Congress for the childish, seedy and dishonest behavior for which it has become known.
With his infantile, self-loving worldview, sleazy treatment of voters and effortless dishonesty, MR. WEINER BECOMES THE LATEST POSTER CHILD FOR WHAT MOST GOOD AMERICANS SADLY THINK OF WASHINGTON AND PARTICULARLY CONGRESS.
IT IS A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN SAY 13 TIMES IN ONE ORATION THAT YOU TAKE “FULL RESPONSIBILITY” FOR LEWD, LASCIVIOUS AND PREDATORY BEHAVIOR - YET PAY NO PRICE.
Is it any wonder that these are the same people who, when they get into a fiscal jam, just print more money? Or steal more from grandchildren they will never know and certainly don’t care about to pay for their self-aggrandizing boondoggles?
One of Mr. Weiner’s victims, a 26-year-old single mother who served in the U.S. Army, made the mistake of commenting approvingly on a strong position Mr. Weiner had taken on an issue she cared about. For Mr. Weiner, that was a pants-off green light.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/7/hurt-just-another-disgraced-delusional-creep-on-th/
About the only thing you can say in his defense, is that he really didn’t think he would get caught. Of course that is also something you can say in his condemnation. How stupid is this guy?
Book Review
Fannie, Freddie, Barney and the economic collapse
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND ESPECIALLY ITS TEA PARTY WING HAVE JUST ACQUIRED A NEW WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION — and it has nothing to do with any of Congressman Wiener’s rogue body parts. If they deploy this weapon effectively in the next election cycle — a big if — then THEY HAVE THE BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY TO MOVE THE COUNTRY RIGHTWARD SINCE RONALD REAGAN TOOK THE OATH OF OFFICE BACK IN 1981.
The Tea Party WMD stockpile is currently stored in book form: Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon. By Gretchen Morgenson, one of America’s best business journalists who is currently at The New York Times, and noted financial analyst Joshua Rosner, RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT GIVES THE BEST AVAILABLE ACCOUNT OF HOW THE GROWING CHAOS IN THE MORTGAGE AND PERSONAL FINANCE MARKETS AND THE RAMPANT BUNDLING OF DUBIOUS LOANS INTO EXOTICALLY TOXIC SECURITIES PLUNGED THE WORLD, AND MILLIONS OF AMERICAN FAMILIES, INTO THE GRAVEST FINANCIAL CRISIS SINCE WORLD WAR TWO. It is gripping reading as well, and its explanations are clear enough that readers without any background in finance will have no trouble following the plot. The villains? AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE BETWEEN WALL STREET, THE DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT, COMMUNITY ORGANIZING GROUPS LIKE ACORN AND LA RAZA, AND POLITICIANS LIKE BARNEY FRANK, NANCY PELOSI AND HENRY CISNEROS. (Frank got a cushy job for a lover, Pelosi got a job and layoff protection for a son, Cisneros apparently got a license to mint money bilking Mexican-Americans of their life savings in cheesy housing developments.) . . . If the GOP can make this narrative mainstream, and put this picture into the heads of voters nationwide, the Democrats are toast. The party will have to reinvent itself (or as often happens in American politics, be rescued by equally stupid Republican missteps) before it can flourish...
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/06/07/fanniegate-gamechanger-for-the-gop/
The truth is not a friend to the Democrats. They can only hope they can continual to bamboozle the public about the cause of the economic crises in 2008.
Ecology
Forests getting denser
For years exponents of climate change theories have used images of deforestation to support their cause.
However, THE DENSITY OF FORESTS AND WOODLAND ACROSS MUCH OF THE WORLD IS ACTUALLY INCREASING, according to a respected scientific study.
The change, which is being dubbed the ‘Great Reversal’, could
In countries from Finland to Malaysia, the thickening has taken place so quickly that it has reversed the carbon losses caused by deforestation between 1990 and 2010.
IN BRITAIN, FOREST DENSITY HAS INCREASED BY 10.8 PER CENT FROM 2000 TO 2010 AND BY 6.6 PER CENT ACROSS THE WHOLE OF EUROPE.
Even South America and Africa, which have suffered deforestation because of logging and farming, have recorded increases in forest density of 0.8 per cent and 1.1 per cent respectively.
Dubbed the planet's lungs, forests act as huge carbon sinks that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1394692/Forget-deforestation-The-worlds-woodland-getting-denser-change-help-combat-climate-change.html#ixzz1OhGdZz3i
There are certain things that happen that the climate alarmist don’t want to recognize. More carbon in the atmosphere will result in more foliage on the planet. It’s not magic, it’s science.
Obamacare
The Logical Extension of Obamacare
….Reading through the proposal submitted by the Center for American Progress this morning (which starts on page 40 of this document), I ran across an EXTRAORDINARILY BOLD AND SHAMELESS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF WHAT SOME OF US ON THE RIGHT HAVE THOUGHT MUST BE THE LEFT’S NATURAL NEXT STEP AFTER OBAMACARE. We have assumed that, having created a powerful price-control and rationing board for Medicare (the IPAB) and a system of federally designed state exchanges for selling insurance to younger Americans (into which, as this recent McKinsey study shows, tens of millions of those who now have employer-based coverage will flow), THEY WOULD THEN USE THESE NEW MECHANISMS TO GIVE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THE AUTHORITY TO IMPOSE PRICE CONTROLS AND RATIONING DIRECTLY ON PRIVATE INSURERS, simply putting the whole sector under government control without formally bothering to outlaw it. Well, the CAP proposal states:
In our plan, aggressive implementation of PPACA, along with some enhancements to its existing cost-control mechanisms, will result in dramatically lower health expenditures, both for the federal government and overall. But predicting the exact effect of the myriad test programs and reforms in the new health law is fraught with uncertainty. Thus WE ALSO INCLUDE A FAILSAFE MECHANISM THAT WOULD ENSURE SIGNIFICANT SAVINGS. Our failsafe would be triggered if, starting in 2020, total economywide health care expenditures grow at a rate faster than the economy. Should that happen, WE WOULD EMPOWER THE IPAB TO EXTEND SUCCESSFUL REFORMS IN MEDICARE AND OTHER PUBLIC PROGRAMS TO INSURANCE PLANS OFFERED IN THE HEALTH CARE EXCHANGES AND THEN POTENTIALLY TO ALL HEALTH CARE PLANS, SUCH THAT THE TARGET IS MET. This will ensure that costs are constrained across the health care sector, preventing cost-shifting and maintaining access for all….
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/269138/logical-extension-obamacare-yuval-levin
It’s worse than we thought. They aren’t just planning on destroying Medicare as we know it, but our entire healthcare system.
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