What’s New Today
Story # 1 and #2 are the signs of desperation for today. #3 has Mickey Klaus questioning what is the
real floor under the two candidates for President this year. #4 has Little Debbie (Wasserman-Shultz)
avoiding the questions being asked to her.
#5 and #6 questions things we don’t know but should know about
Obama. #7 looks at Dick Morris’ take on
the polls and #8 is the lesson we need to learn from Spain.
Today’s
Thoughts
Obama goes childish: “It’s like Robin Hood in reverse,”
Obama told a crowd of about 500 supporters at a fund-raiser in Connecticut
Monday night. “It’s Romney Hood!”
A new report from the conservative Government
Accountability Institute (GAI) finds that President
Barack Obama’s and Attorney General Eric Holder’s failure to criminally charge
any top Wall Street bankers is likely a result of cronyism inside the
Department of Justice and political
donations made to Obama’s campaign.
A study from Ernst
& Young found that letting tax rates
for the wealthiest Americans lapse would sap $200 billion and some 700,000 jobs
out of the economy, reduce wages by 1.8 percent and lead to a decrease in
investment. But it would be more fair
according to the Democrats.
"Nobody
spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own….So
if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly
utilized, you have to do it through the
means of private property." -- Milton Friedman Translation:
When
was the last time you washed a rented car?
If the goal is to stabilize the amount of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere at a low level by 2050 (in precise terms, at 450
parts per million or less), then the world would need to deploy a nuclear power plant worth of carbon free
energy every day between now and 2050. For wind or solar, the figures are
even more daunting.
1. Signs of Desperation
Top aides on President Obama’s
re-election team are terrified that there will be scores of empty seats when he
makes his acceptance speech
at the Democratic National Convention, party insiders said.
Obama,
once the biggest draw in politics, won’t likely attract crowds as large as
those at the 2008 convention because voters have gone sour on the poor economy,
insiders said.
“It’s
always a concern about making sure there aren’t empty seats, but this is
different,” said one Democratic official familiar with the convention plans.
“This
is a different time than four years ago. It’s a different convention. And the
president is viewed differently.”
The president will accept the
party’s nomination on Sept. 6 in a Charlotte, NC, football stadium. that holds
80,000.
“They’re worried they can’t fill
the stadium,” the official said….
Now for the desperation part, the
Democrats are raffling off seats at the convention for only $5.
2. Signs of Desperation
part 2
Yesterday during an appearance on Fox News
Sunday, Obama campaign chief David
Axelrod told host Chris Wallace that he never used the term "recovery
summer," during a heated exchange about the failing economy.
Wallace: Didn't this White House badly misjudge
this recovery? I remember in 2010, two summers ago, you and Vice President
Biden were running around talking about 'Recovery Summer.' That was the summer
of 2010 and the fact is the White House said if you got the stimulus, the $800
billion that unemployment would stay under 8%. In fact, with the stimulus,
unemployment has stayed over 8% for the last 42 months. That's three and a half
years.
Axelrod: Chris, first of all, I wasn't running around saying anything other than that we were going to have to be persistent. That it took years to get in this mess, it was going to take years to get out --
Wallace: You talking about 'Recovery Summer' in 2010, sir.
Axelrod: Well you should show me the tape of me saying that. I've been very consistent about the fact that we need to be very persistent in our efforts here.
Axelrod: Chris, first of all, I wasn't running around saying anything other than that we were going to have to be persistent. That it took years to get in this mess, it was going to take years to get out --
Wallace: You talking about 'Recovery Summer' in 2010, sir.
Axelrod: Well you should show me the tape of me saying that. I've been very consistent about the fact that we need to be very persistent in our efforts here.
Vice President Joe Biden today will kick off the
Obama administration’s “Recovery Summer,” a six-week-long push designed to highlight the jobs
accompanying a surge in stimulus-funded projects to improve highways, parks,
drinking water and other public works.
David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, said: “This summer will be the most active Recovery Act season yet, with thousands of highly-visible road, bridge, water and other infrastructure projects breaking ground across the country, giving the American people a first-hand look at the Recovery Act in their own backyards and making it crystal clear what the cost would have been of doing nothing.”
David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, said: “This summer will be the most active Recovery Act season yet, with thousands of highly-visible road, bridge, water and other infrastructure projects breaking ground across the country, giving the American people a first-hand look at the Recovery Act in their own backyards and making it crystal clear what the cost would have been of doing nothing.”
Splitting hairs is a sure sign of desperation.
3. Mickey
Klaus Questions Assumptions
Undecideds
in the Floorboards: I’ve never understood why pundist
can confidently assert that Obama
and/or Romney have a “floor” of 45%, 46%, or 47%. How do they know? Isn’t it possible that lots of people who
tell pollsters they’re “for” Obama (or Romney) harbor grave doubts and might
not do what they say (or might change their minds)? With Obama, I’m not
talking so much about a racial “Bradley Effect” as a similar effect produced
when voters are reluctant to admit openly
that they’ve given up on whatever hopes they had when they elected
Obama in 2008. …
An interesting viewpoint.
I think that many of the people who are undecided or weak supporters of
Obama are looking for a reason not to vote for him. Once they are giving permission to vote
against the man, you will see a big movement to Romney. I don’t expect this to be picked up until the
final week of the race. The other (abandoning
Romney) is not likely to happen. This
election ultimately will be are you satisfied with Obama and what his 4 years
have done for the economy and the country.
4. Little Debbie refuses to condemn Reid
DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
was put on the spot today when This Week host George
Stephanopoulos grilled her about Senator Harry Reid‘s
claim that Mitt Romney has not paid taxes in ten years. Stephanopoulos asked Wasserman-Schultz if the Democratic leader of the
Senate should be throwing out such scurrilous remarks or if they are unbecoming
of someone in his position.
Wasserman-Schultz admitted she did not know who
Reid’s source was, but said that Romney
could easily clear the whole thing up by releasing his returns to prove he paid
taxes. She suggested that the scant returns Romney has already provided may
be “just for show.” Stephanopoulos sympathized with her position, but found it
bewildering that she could defend what Reid said.
She continued to insist that Romney could answer
everyone’s questions by releasing his returns, adding that a candidate for the
presidency should have an obligation to make such things known to the public.
Stephanopoulos tried to get Wasserman-Schultz to say if she would repudiate
Reid’s remarks, to which she replied, “Everybody is responsible for saying the
things that they have information on.”
DWS’s comments sound like someone saying
the police shouldn’t have to have a warrant to tap your phones since if you
aren’t doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about. But that isn’t the way the American system
works. We are a government of law. Reid is completely out of line and little
Debbie is a shill for him.
5. What’s sauce for the Goose: Thing we need to know about Obama
Harry Reid wants to see more of
Mitt Romney's past income-tax filings. Debbie Wasserman Schultz wants to
see 23 years of his taxes. This, from the die-hard supporters of a candidate who will
not release his college transcripts or so much more.
I want to know how Barack Obama
got into Columbia University
for undergraduate school. I want to see his application. Did he
seek extra consideration, as did Elizabeth Warren in applying for her academic
opportunities, by claiming to be a member of a demographic group favored by
affirmative action? I imagine that he did not falsely claim special treatment on a theory of being
foreign-born, but I would like to know
for sure. It is immaterial where he was born -- I want to know whether he claimed on his applications, as his
book publisher later would write about him, that he had overcome the
disadvantages of being foreign-born. What did he write to the dean of
admissions of Columbia University about his childhood, his education, his
background? Every college-transfer application to Columbia requires that
the student write a narrative, tell his story, explain why he deserves a crack
at the Ivy League after a brief sojourn at a lesser institution.
I want to know who funded his
college education.
Columbia costs an arm and a leg. Did Barack Obama have benefactors,
admirers of his youthful promise, paying his way? Did he take loans? If so, how did he
qualify? Or did he win exceptional scholarship and grant-funding?
If he received assistance -- and good for him if he did -- what was the
narrative that he presented to qualify? Did he speak of the challenges of
being reared in Hawaii, a black youngster reared by a white grandmother who
stood in as surrogate for his mom? Did he speak of having overcome
educational disadvantages overseas? Did he boost his appeal for
assistance by claiming to be foreign-born? Like Harry Reid and
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, I also want to know more about the leader of the free
world.
During his time at Columbia,
what were his grades?
Everyone is entitled to a bad grade or two or three. You run into a tough
professor or one who, though brilliant, is garbled and incoherent. Or
someone whose code you simply cannot crack. However, a student who glides from Columbia University into Harvard Law School
typically will have quite impressive a string of fabulous grades. I want
to know what his grades were at Columbia. We all gained the
opportunity to learn Al Gore's grades at Harvard, as well as John Kerry's and
George W. Bush's grades at Yale. We
learned that Bush, a "C" student with a 77 average, had scored one
point higher than Kerry, who graduated with a 76 GPA. Bush got a
"D" in astronomy, while Kerry
scored four “D” grades as a freshman. That year alone, Kerry scored
68 in each of two history courses and a 69 in political science. Indeed,
the media could compare them. I want to know Barack Obama's grades at my
alma mater. It seems that a 78
average is all it would take to register Barack Obama as a genius on the
"American Presidency Academic Scale." Why is a brilliant
thinker, whose ostensible brilliance raised him to be president of Harvard Law
Review even though he never published any scholarship on his own, holding back?
Wasserman
Schultz wants to see Romney's tax returns from 23 years ago? I want to see Barack Obama's application to
Harvard Law School. Did he simply attach a fabulous, superlative transcript
of straight As earned at Columbia with letters of recommendation from the
university's most prominent faculty members, along with a sparkling grade on
the uniform Law School Admissions Test? If so, good for him. He should be proud to share it with the
public. I want to see it...
I guess Mitch McConnell should come out that he had a source
that told him Obama’s grades put him in the bottom quartile of his class at
Columbia. Or perhaps we should look at Wayne Roots gut instinct in the next
article.
6. Why we need to know more about Obama
Normally I don't give a rip about the "I know something you don't know about Obama" story, but this one is absolutely fascinating. Wayne Root over at the Blaze penned this beauty. Here's a how he concludes:
Why are
the college records, of a 51-year-old President of the United States, so
important to keep secret? I think I know the answer.
If anyone should have questions about Obama’s
record at Columbia University , it’s me. We both graduated (according to Obama)
Columbia University, Class of ’83. We were both (according to Obama) Pre-Law
and Political Science majors. And I thought I knew most everyone at Columbia. I certainly thought I’d heard of
all of my fellow Political Science majors. But not Obama (or as he was known
then- Barry Soetoro). I never met him. Never saw him. Never even heard of him.
And none of the classmates that I knew at Columbia has ever met him, saw him,
or heard of him.
But don’t take my word for it. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2008 that
Fox News randomly called 400 of our Columbia classmates and never found one who
had ever met Obama.
Now all of this mystery could be easily and
instantly dismissed if Obama released his Columbia transcripts to the media….
…I can
only think of one answer that would explain this mystery.
Here’s my gut belief: Obama got a leg up by being
admitted to both Occidental and Columbia as a foreign exchange student. He was
raised as a young boy in Indonesia. But did his mother ever change him back to
a U.S. citizen? When he returned to live with his grandparents in
Hawaii or as he neared college-age preparing to apply to schools, did
he ever change his citizenship back? I’m betting not.
If you
could unseal Obama’s Columbia University records I believe you’d find that:
A) He rarely ever attended class.
B) His grades were not those typical of what we understand it takes to get
into Harvard Law School.
C) He attended Columbia as a foreign exchange student.
D) He paid little for either undergraduate college or Harvard Law School
because of foreign aid and scholarships given to a poor foreign students
like this kid Barry Soetoro from Indonesia.
If you think I’m “fishing” then prove me wrong. Open up your records Mr.
President. What are you afraid of?...
This certainly turns Harry Reid’s outlandish charges on its head. Perhaps we should start demanding the truth from Obama.
7. Morris: What the
polls actually say
The media is trying to create a
sense of momentum and of inevitability about the Obama candidacy. One benighted
Newsweek reporter even speculated about a possible Democratic landslide.
On Friday, I saw the real numbers. These state-by-state polls, taken by an organization I
trust (after forty years of polling) show the real story. The tally is based on
more than 600 likely voter interviews in each swing state within the past eight
days.
The trend line is distinctly pro-Romney. Of the thirteen states studied, he improved or Obama
slipped in nine states while the reverse happened in only four. To read the
media, one would think that Romney had a terrible month. In fact, the exact
reverse is true.
Romney is currently leading in every state McCain carried
plus: Indiana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina, and Colorado. If he carries these states, he’ll have 228 electoral votes
of the 270 he needs to win.
To win the election, Romney would then have to carry Florida
where he trails by two points, and either Virginia (behind by two) or Ohio
where he’s down by only one.
If he carries all three of these
states and also wins all the others where Obama is now at 50% or less – Iowa,
New Mexico, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey — he will get 351
electoral votes, a landslide about equal to Obama’s 363 vote tally in 2008….
Obama has his supporters (mainly Democrats). But the opposition is equaled by Republicans
while Obama is losing with independents.
So how do current polls find Obama ahead? The sample have significantly larger number
of Democrats (anywhere from 6-12 percent higher number) than Republicans. Obama is in trouble right now. Voters are looking for permission to vote
against Obama and the campaign will provide them with the excuse. When this happens watch the polls point to a
Romney victory, big time.
8. Renewable Energy:
Lessons from Spain
Spain is planning to correct its
renewable energy experiment gone wrong by spreading the pain, a powerful lessons for a White House with
an incoherent energy policy that has often cited its model as one to emulate.
This week Obama’s campaign bashed
challenger Mitt Romney for planning to end tax incentives for wind power if
elected. “By opposing an extension to
the wind production tax credit, Mitt Romney has come out against growth
Obama’s expectations though are
based on European policy support models that are being revised and corrected.
Ahead of November elections, both candidates must realize America’s energy
policy more than ever demands a coherent policy based on its best interest not
ideological imperatives.
Putting renewable on steroids can come to damage a country’s
power sector, consumers, and the renewable industry itself, and in Spain’s
case, even a national economy.
Public support for renewable power
in America thus should be reconfigured to achieve realistic economic or
geopolitical net gain, not winning elections.
During the first two years of his
administration, President Barack Obama
and top officials praised Spain as a successful model to create employment and
improve energy security. So did everyone else, for that matter, but it’s
time to heed the lessons….
…Furthermore, Spain’s generous
subsidies already attracted more than twice as much installed capacity than its
peak demand of 40 GW, and much cheaper
fossil fuel and nuclear generators are being left idle to pay for renewable
output.
In this context, the country has no
choice but to pull the plug on its renewable experiment. More than a decade of
robust Spanish growth ended in 2008 as a construction boom went bust leaving
millions without a job and as the global economic crisis further undermined the
economy.
Gross national product in 2012 and 2013 is expected to
further contract and unemployment, already the highest of any rich nation at 25
percent, is expected to continue growing
and to become increasingly hard structural, according to the OECD….
It turns out that for every “green” energy job created, 2.2
jobs were destroyed in Spain. With the
latest technological advances in conventional energy extraction we in fact may
be at the beginning of the carbon fuel age rather than at peak oil.
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