The economic recovery by the numbers

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With a lapdog media panting over the prospects of the unemployment number holding steady at 8.3%, it begs to be revealed what some of the internal numbers are showing.


By the numbers:


49: the number of months since the country hit peak employment in January of 2008 surpassing the previous record of 47 months following the post-9/11 recession of 2001.


37: the consecutive number of months the unemployment rate has exceeded 8 percent. The longest streak in the post-WWII era.


63.9: the labor force participation rate in February - a near-historic low. Individuals who have stopped looking for work do not count toward the unemployment rate, masking the true extent of the jobs crisis.


5.4 million: the number of individuals looking for work for more than six months, double the amount from when the President took office in 2009.


8 million: the number of Americans working part-time despite wishing to work full-time.


19.1: the total underemployment rate in which Gallup combines the unemployment with underemployment and which has been steadily rising over the last several months.


14.1: the black unemployment rate which rose half a percentage point in February.


6.7 trillion: the amount of dollars the President has requested in additional deficit spending over the next decade.


229 billion: the amount of dollars to which the CBO says will be added to the deficit in February marking the 41st consecutive month the federal government has run a budget deficit. The previous longest streak was 11 months.


$45,000: the per capita debt in this country which is higher than in many of Europe's most financially distressed countries.


$1.5 million: the amount of money an American born today will be required to pay off our current national debt which is $16 trillion and growing.



For a President that employs Keynesian gimmickry to "jumpstart" the economy, that adds unneeded complexity and additional regulatory burdens to the healthcare sector, that is attempting via bureaucratic fiat to regulate that which we exhale every second of our lives, that sinks billions and billions of dollars into a cronyistic green energy loan program and who sics his Labor Bureau on an airline company who is attempting to start up a brand new manufacturing facility, just to name a few examples... is it any small wonder then that despite the terrific news that the unemployment rate did not actually go up last month, that the long-term and behind-the-scenes numbers continue to remain absolutely dreadful?

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Video clip of the day

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Scratchy throat? Nagging cough? Hey, everyone can agree that birth control is important but it sure seems to us that cough drops are a pretty important preventive medicine, also.


Thankfully, we've had a congressional hearing on the subject.

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Duly noted: a firm nod towards what has been a part of the Republican push-back effort and which is completely counterproductive to the issue at hand which is why is the government forcing others to pay for that which is an entirely voluntary choice?


Via their cute little mascot, Ms. Fluke, the statist-left is now insisting, against decades of protesting to the counter, that one's private sex life is now of public interest and concern. If you are asking the public to, in effect, pay for you to have sex, how can it be viewed as anything but?


We do consider it a relief to know, however, that the "Keep your laws off my body!" set has finally given up the ghost and through support of the contraception mandate has admitted their battle cry was nothing more than a high falutin' argument in favor of killing the unborn.

Honesty is indeed the best policy, wouldn't you agree?

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Quickies

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A round-up of articles, news items, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.

Quote of the week:

Government cannot make the slow run fast; they can only force the fast to run slower. That’s how government creates equality, how it levels the playing field.

Barry at Word Warrior of SoCal has a great roundup of tax-payer subsidized green technology failures... plus a Milton Friedman reference. Who can pass up Milton Friedman?








Smack of the week: Sarah Palin on Bill Maher, Barack Hussein Obama and "dirty money".

“I don’t know how anyone can sit in the audience of a commentator like Bill Maher and chuckle and laugh and think that’s entertaining. I think it’s disgusting. And this dirty money that he has now provided Barack Obama’s campaign – I don’t know how Barack Obama can sleep at night if he really thinks about Sasha and Mahlia and the treatment of some women today, how he can accept that dirty money. Granted Barack Obama has never been seen in the conventional, traditional way of one we who describe a man of valor, so it shouldn’t surprise us that Barack Obama would accept that dirty money.”

(italics, ours)

That is what is known in Placentia, California as lacking core values and principles.

Look, Palin may be spot on with respect to her assessment of the President's character but she has bought into the distraction. Instead of talking about violations of conscience and religious beliefs, we are talking about locker room language, what differs between a "private" and "public" person and gotcha politics. The advocates for religious liberty and limited government have been derailed. Time to get back on track, gang.





One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter?

The Treasury Department’s counterterrorism arm is investigating speaking fees paid to a long-time Democratic Party leader who is among the most vocal advocates of an Iranian opposition group designated as a terrorist group by the State Department.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell told The Washington Times that Treasury investigators last week subpoenaed records related to payments he has accepted in exchange for public speaking engagements.

Mr. Rendell is among a bipartisan group of prominent former officials - including Cabinet-level Republicans - who have accepted payment in exchange for speeches calling for the removal of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

The MEK, also known as the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long called for the overthrow of the Islamic theocracy in Tehran. The group, which engaged in terror attacks on Iranian government targets in the 1980s, has been on the terrorist list since 1997, when President Bill Clinton put it there in an attempt to improve relations with Iran.

Mr. Rendell and others argue the MEK should be removed from the list because it has not engaged in violence in more than two decades and shares a common enemy with the United States.

Here's an idea: if the concept of freedom for the Iranian people is so important to Rendell and other D.C. pols, perhaps they can take up the cause pro bono. We suppose that maybe freedom really isn't free after all.







Fair and balanced:

MSNBC host Al Sharpton held a rally today, reenacting the famed civil rights march from Selma to Birmingham. "[I]nstead of protesting Jim Crow segregation and police brutality, he's opposing voter ID laws, right-to-work laws, and the Alabama illegal immigration bill," the Washington Examiner reported. It was a political rally, with Sharpton preaching the platform of the Democratic party.

And in fact the political rally was broadcast on cable television. Sharpton's speech was aired on MSNBC, Sharpton's employer.

That the network employs an unapologetic race huckster like Sharpton, speaks volumes.






Good news: San Diego mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio receives the GOP endorsement. Here's what DeMaio had to say about who he perceives as his toughest opponent:

I don’t see this as a race of me against these three other candidates. My campaign is the same campaign I have waged since becoming a taxpayer watchdog years ago: to clean up the mess at city hall.

My real opponents are the government employee unions and powerful downtown interests that benefit from the cozy system at City Hall at the taxpayers’ expense. They know I will end their taxpayer-funded gravy train, and that’s why they are doing everything they can to defeat our grassroots campaign.

And here's B-Daddy (linked above) on the matter:

This also speaks to my long time complaint here in San Diego, that our political choices have been between government that favors big business or government that favors big labor. We need government that favors the taxpayers and average citizens, whether or not that favors particular businesses. An even playing field will ultimately make our city a better place to live.

Frankly, we're a little surprised the endorsement (at 71%, even) went to DeMaio. Our bet would've been on Nathan Fletcher, the more establishment of the two. Our guess: current Mayor Jerry Sanders' willingness to champion public employee pension reform tipped the scales to DeMaio. We welcome other theories.






When you lose the New York Times...

Conveniently tucked away in the Saturday Op-ed section:

President Obama, who came to office promising transparency and adherence to the rule of law, has become the first president to claim the legal authority to order an American citizen killed without judicial involvement, real oversight or public accountability.

That, regrettably, was the most lasting impression from a major address on national security delivered last week by Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.

There were parts of the speech worth celebrating — starting with Mr. Holder’s powerful discussion of why trying most terrorists in civilian courts is best for punishing them and safeguarding America. But we are deeply concerned about his rejection of oversight and accountability when it comes to killing American citizens who are suspected of plotting terrorist acts.

A president has the right to order lethal force against conventional enemies during conventional war, or against unconventional enemies in unconventional wars. But when it comes to American citizens, there must be compelling evidence that the threat the citizen poses is imminent and that capturing the citizen is not a realistic option.

Giving credit where credit is due, kudos to the NY Times for finally acknowledging this constitutional inconsistency. Now, how about some of the same treatment from the rest of Obamabot Nation? We won't be holding our breath.






W.C. Varones on the student loan debt scam:

The third point, student loans as welfare, is new to me, but not surprising. Making "student loans" that prop up consumer spending but will never be paid back is just a way to do more stimulus spending without it showing up in the deficit. That debt will be forgiven by taxpayers decades from now, when the miscreants in power today have retired to a private life of luxury.

Allow us to add a fourth point: Student loan debt can be used conveniently as a class warfare/political issue as this President has done with the assistance of his lackies in the Obama's Whining Squatters set.







Folks, meet Karen Bass, freshman congresswoman from L.A.'s Westside so you know that it would totally be in form for her to state the following:

“The environment is much more important than jobs”.

Leslie at Temple of Mut has more on the background and agenda of yet another Team O economic illiterate.





And finally, Sarah Bond of Lipstick Underground regarding the Kony 2012 video:

At the end of the day I really only have one genuine criticism of the video and campaign: it glosses over the fact that is is going to take military action and violence to find and capture Joseph Kony. Most of the early supporters of Invisible Children and and Kony 2012 are peace-nicks. Do they realize that to ‘arrest’ Kony, someone is going to have to shoot their way through his human shield of child soldiers? If we’re going to insert ourselves into someone else’s problem for the greater good, let’s try to be honest about the cost.

Oh, and finally Pt. II: Sarah gets quoted in a front page San Diego Union-Tribune article on rising gas prices.

Sarah Bond and her husband bought their home in Valley Center, about one hour from downtown San Diego, so their two young children could grow up close enough to nature yet not too far from their favorite destinations. But with gas prices soaring, they just don’t get out as much.

“It’s no more going to the beach, no more taking drives to the mountains. It’s school and groceries and what we could do at home,” Bond said. “We might as well live in Oklahoma for what it’s costing us.”

Bond, co-founder of the SoCal Tax Revolt Coalition, said she’s frustrated with lawmakers and the president for not making energy more accessible, “not exploiting our natural resources in the clean, environmentally sound way that only Americans can do,” she said.

Atta way, Sarah!


And from the other side of the aisle:

Hugh Moore, treasurer­ for the Green Party of San Diego County, said he hates that people have to pay more for gas because oil companies are raking in more profits, “but the truth is we should be paying considerably more for every gallon of gas.”

The intellectual inconsistency is stunning. The guy necessarily wants high gas prices but doesn't want the gas companies to profit from it. Sorry, Hugh, can't have it both ways. And since he does indeed want higher gas prices, why doesn't he have the courage of his convictions and actively champion the cause instead of displaying his false sympathy for his fellow citizens at the pump.

No wonder the Green Party never gains any real electoral traction outside of agitation and litigation.



OK, gang, that's it for today. See you all tomorrow.



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More great moments in the history of crony capitalism

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Who's up for a Fisker update?

You all remember Fisker, right? The Al Gore-backed recipients of a $529 million loan guarantee from the federal government in order to build $100,000 electric sedans in Finland. Let us know when this stops looking like a business model in which to poor that amount of tax-payer money because it just keeps getting better.

It would appear that there really is nothing greener than a car that doesn't run.

Here's the test drive report from Consumer Reports:

Our Fisker Karma cost us $107,850. It is super sleek, high-tech—and now it’s broken.

We have owned our car for just a few days; it has less than 200 miles on its odometer. While doing speedometer calibration runs on our test track (a procedure we do for every test car before putting it in service by driving the car at a constant 65 mph between two measured points), the dashboard flashed a message and sounded a “bing“ showing a major fault. Our technician got the car off the track and put it into Park to go through the owner’s manual to interpret the warning. At that point, the transmission went into Neutral and wouldn’t engage any gear through its electronic shifter except Park and Neutral.

We let the car sit for about an hour and restarted it. We could now engage Drive and the same error message disappeared. After moving it only a few feet the error message reappeared and when we tried to engage Reverse the transmission went straight to Park and again no motion gear could be engaged. After calling the dealer, which is about 100 miles away, they promptly sent a flatbed tow truck to haul away the disabled Fisker.

We buy about 80 cars a year and this is the first time in memory that we have had a car that is undriveable before it has finished our check-in process.

(italics, ours)


Because nothing says boondoggle like not even test driving your own vehicle before handing it over for a third-party assessment.


Think about it: billions upon billions of dollars in green technology subsidies and the prices are going in the wrong direction and, in this case, for products that don't even work unlike other areas of the tech sector (computers, TVs and smart phones) where no subsidies were received and real skin was in the game and the market determined the winners and losers.




* As an unintended safety feature, Karma drivers will enjoy the increased visibility.

Giving voice to what we've known all along

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Nearing the one-year anniversary of our kinetic Libyan military adventurism, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin E. Dempsey and the Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta are testifying before Congress and in this case facing questioning from Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) regarding the legal justification for military action against another country.

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Jaw-droppingly stunning is the only term we can muster at this point.


"International legal basis", the U.N., NATO... and it can be definitively inferred, the Arab League, as was the case in Libya where we were protecting civilians, taking out military targets, assassinating foreign leaders, are all given as examples as legal justification for military action ahead of the United States Congress.


Panetta trots out the strawman of the right of the President to "defend this country if it's necessary". What direct threat did Libya pose and what direct threat does Syria pose to this country? None.


If you want to make the case that military action against those countries is justified as those same countries are state sponsors of terrorism, then fine... make the case before Congress. But that's not the case here and everyone knows it.

And shame on Congress for letting the Arab League nudge them out of the Constitution and being relegated to merely an "informed" body rather than an "authorizing" body.

It's certainly shaping up that Syria will be a Libyan redux where our Nobel Peace Prize-winning Commander-in-Chief will be currying favor outside our borders in order to expend resources from within our borders.

Just another fine moment there in the continuing erosion of our Constitution.

Video clip of the day

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It's almost becoming un-nerving: another conservative-themed video with higher-than-questionable production values?


From the office of Paul Ryan (R-Wisky) from whom we look forward to hearing a lot more in the future and in particular 2016:

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Slouching towards a 4th term

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Let's see... "unilateralism", "going it alone", "rendition", "pre-emption", "shredding the constitution"... weren't all the above which were allegedly part and parcel to Bush's presidency some of the main causes of Bush Derangement Syndrome among liberals and particularly those who were most excited by the Hopenchange as promised by one Barack Hussein Obama?

No, it couldn't have been. It couldn't have been because...

The U.S. government has the right to order the killing of American citizens overseas if they are senior al-Qaeda leaders who pose an imminent terrorist threat and cannot reasonably be captured, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Monday.

“Any decision to use lethal force against a United States citizen — even one intent on murdering Americans and who has become an operational leader of al-Qaeda in a foreign land — is among the gravest that government leaders can face,” Holder said in a speech at Northwestern University’s law school in Chicago. “The American people can be — and deserve to be — assured that actions taken in their defense are consistent with their values and their laws.”


Holder’s discussion of lethal force against U.S. citizens did not mention any individual by name, but his address was clearly animated by the targeting of Anwar al-Awlaki, a senior figure in al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate. Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in September.

Since that operation, the Obama administration has faced calls to explain the legal framework behind its decision to target Awlaki and to release at least portions of a classified memorandum by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel that contains its evidence, reasoning and conclusions.

Holder’s speech represented the administration’s most elaborate public explanation to date for targeted killings. And it followed a prolonged internal debate about how to inform the public about one of the most extraordinary decisions a government can take without explicitly acknowledging the ongoing classified drone program.

Among the most revealing parts of the speech was Holder’s discussion of some of the factors the administration reviews before deciding that an individual represents an “imminent threat.” He said the critical factors include the “relevant window of opportunity to act, the possible harm that missing the window would cause to civilians and the likelihood of heading off future disastrous attacks against the United States.”

He said the president is not required by the Constitution to delay action until some “theoretical end stage of planning — when the precise time, place and manner of an attack become clear.”

(italics, ours)


Holy smokes! It's the ticking time bomb theory as justified to use, ahem, enhanced interrogation techniques that was scorned by Bush-hating liberals.

And let's be perfectly clear about something: The Bush administration considered but never put together a program or "list" if you will of American citizens suspected of terrorist activities that would be targeted for killing let alone actually carrying out a kill job as the Obama administration has done.

The attorney general’s “flexible definition of ‘imminent threat’ is absolutely appropriate as applied to terrorist planners, but it may be unsettling to many in the international community who criticized President Bush for his principle of preemption,” said John B. Bellinger, who served as a legal adviser to the State Department in the George W. Bush administration.

Bellinger said he agreed with the attorney general’s statement of U.S. law for targeting an American, although he noted that the speech was less clear about how targeted killings comply with international legal rules.

We don't recall nearly as charitable treatment of Bush-era counter-terrorism policies from this nation's papers (the Washington Post, in this case)



And here's more from the miserable hack that runs the Justice Department:

Holder argued that a careful and thorough executive branch review of the facts in a case amounts to “due process” and that the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment protection against depriving a citizen of his or her life without due process of law does not mandate a “judicial process.”

“Where national security operations are at stake, due process takes into account the realities of combat,” Holder said. “Some have argued that the president is required to get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen who is a senior operational leader of al-Qaeda or associated forces. This is simply not accurate.”

Holder said that the question of “whether the capture of a U.S.-citizen terrorist is feasible is a fact-specific, and potentially time-sensitive, question.”

“Given the nature of how terrorists act and where they tend to hide,” he continued, “it may not always be feasible to capture a United States-citizen terrorist who presents an imminent threat of violent attack. In that case, our government has the clear authority to defend the United States with lethal force.”

That is indeed an interesting philosophical shift from a person who wanted to try KSM and other terrorists in our civilian courts.




Years ago, B-Daddy warned us against giving the Executive branch too much of a national security pass when it came to the accruing of and execution of extra-constitutional powers. His fear was that a subsequent president would use the Bush actions as precedent to gather even more power under the Presidency. We don't think even B-Daddy, however, expected such a power grab in the very next presidency be it with respect to health care, Bailout Nation and, of course, the War on Terror.

That any number of Obama supporters and a compliant 4th estate admit to the same thing.





We leave you with a video we ran a couple of months back that is a very nice little Bush-Obama civil liberties side-by-each comparison.



When you lose Noam Chomsky





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As seen on Facebook

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To which we responded:

We think everyone can agree on this: your voting record, your sex life and your purchasing of birth control are all highly personal, autonomous and self-responsible matters and should remain that way.

It's come to this...

Modern feminism: having become enslaved to your own sex life, you are left to beg on Capitol Hill for someone else to pay for your own birth control.

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We suppose you have, sweetheart.

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#OWS update

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Yeah, yeah, we know - we said we weren't going to be doing any of these easy- target OWS updates but we're granting ourselves a pass as this isn't one those cheap gotcha rape, murder or physical assault-related updates rather video footage of what passes for a leadership panel discussion at the New School in New York discussing the abolition of capitalism refreshed, of course, by Starbuck's coffee and Poland Springs bottled water.

David Graeber: “It strikes me that if one is going to pursue this to its logical conclusion, the only way to have a genuinely democratic society would also be to abolish capitalism in this state.”

Marina Sitrin: “We can’t have democracy with capitalism… Democracy and capitalism don’t work together.”

We made it about half-way through the video but could bare it no longer. Incoherency.

Two related thoughts occurred to us while watcing the video: 1) what's the alternative? Since we only made it through half the video, they may have eventually got around to it but having watched this set in various forms, shapes and sizes through the years, we're confident they didn't beyond flowered-up speech that was essentially re-distributionism and involuntary confiscation of others' wealth and property in the name of "justice".

and 2) they never got around to the alternative... because the 20th century did it for them. The 20th century was a study in the alternative and as you all know, it was a flamingly spectacular failure and we do believe we are being charitable in that assessment.

Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Peronism, Imperialism, Nazism... every strain of collectivism known to civilization as practiced by the true believers in that century left a trail of human misery and death heretofore unknown to mankind.

And in the backs of their minds they know it. Don't be fooled - these jokers don't want a revolution. Do any of these people look as if they are prepared for an actual revolution? Whether they realize it or not and wthether they are willing to admit it or not, they are defending and are fully vested in the status quo. The statist-left of which they are all part is the Establishment.

The unions, the occupyers, the minority-based grievance industry, higher academia and the entrenched interests at the federal, state and big city government levels are all absolutely counting on a continuance of the crony statism that is their life-blood.

They don't want a revolution and they don't want to end capitalism - they want things to stay pretty much on the slouching course they are currently on.

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Instructive GM commercial displays roughly all the Volts sold in the month of February

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The commercial:






The reality:

General Motors has told 1,300 employees at its Detroit Hamtramck that they will be temporarily laid off for five weeks as the company halts production of the Chevrolet Volt and its European counterpart, the Opel Ampera.

“Even with sales up in February over January, we are still seeking to align our production with demand,” said GM spokesman Chris Lee.


Lee said employees were told Thursday that production would put on hold from March 19 to April 23.


The Chevrolet Volt, an extended-range electric car, is both a political lightning rod and a symbol of the company’s technological capability.


Chevrolet sold 1,023 Volts in the U.S. in February and has sold 1,626 so far this year.


In 2011, Chevrolet sold 7,671 Volts, but fell short of its initial goal of 10,000.

In a true free market, an auto manufacturer would read the hand-writing on the wall and most likely pull the plug on a sedan that stickers at $40,000 and which possesses sales figures that anemic.

Of course, this is anything but a free market scenario as the federal government after having bailed out General Motors with tens of billions of your dollars is still partnered with GM and on top of the $7,000 rebate (again, your tax-dollars), The Mackinac Center for Public Policy estimates that the actual cost-per-car of each Volt, once all the federal subsidies are factored in, comes to $250,000 or $3 billion, total.


If auto manufacturing and financial institutions in this country are deemed "too big to fail", you better believe that the bailouts that "rescued" those same outfits are as well.


Just think: tens and tens of billions of your tax dollars and years and years later chasing the impossible dream, GM might just get this Volt thing figured out.

Back to the issue at hand

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Yes, Rush did a bad, bad thing as he has apologized for calling Sandra Fluke, the 30 year-old Georgetown University birth control activist who wants to be paid for having sex, a "slut" and later on a "prostitute" (by the by, liberal Kirsten Powers wants to know when prominent lib-talkers are going to apologize to the conservative women they have smeared).

Rush screwed up two-fold: first, by allowing the statist-left to use slut-gate? as a distraction from the real liberty interest issue that it is and secondly, despite affirming testimomy given by Ms. Fluke herself, it's never gentlemanly to call someone a "slut" in polite and/or public company.




Here's B-Daddy who's sick and tired, himself, of slut-gate:

Its been quite the brouhaha over the matter, with the Democrats yelling stupid talking points like: it prevents abortions and reproductive rights; and too many Republican uttering the nonsense that the government is paying for birth control. Lost in the shuffle is why the heck can't insurance companies offer a mix of coverage that their customers might actually want. My local grocery store recently added arugula to its vegetable line up; but under the Democrats argument, if Michele Obama urged the Secretary of HHS that this was a great idea, every supermarket would have carry the vegetable. And under the mandate theory of interstate commerce, nothing prevents Washington DC from dictating every single economic choice Americans make.

This is why I turn off the TV every time I hear bloviation on this subject; everyone is missing the point. It's the freedom, stupid.

He's exactly right. We want our health insurance plans to look like a combination of our auto insurance and a Chinese menu where we have a wide range of options of what we would or would not like coverage. Having to pay out of pocket for healthcare items as you would tires, oil changes and routine maintenance incentivizes healthy dietary, medical and lifestyle choices. That's how you bend downward the healthcare cost curve not buying some random person in your risk pool the pill.





And totally related, there is this:

The irony is that a federal mandate for contraception coverage renders women’s personal sexual choices a matter for public debate. The folks plucking sex out of the private sphere in this situation are the mandate supporters, not its opponents.

For years, haven't we been lectured by feminists and liberals at large about matters of the bedroom staying in the bedroom, how it's none of our business and for the government keeping its laws off our body?

Now ain't that a turn?: We have a leftist activist, in public, describing how much sex she has to the point that its breaking her and that is why she wants us to pay for it. Sorry, Ms. Fluke, since we are now paying for your birth control, your sex life now is our business. Congratulations for turning 4 or 5 decades of American liberal doxology on its head.

Just chalk this up to another pratfall of ObamaCare: since it will minimize personal responsibility and "skin in the game", no one's business will truly be their own.




Exit question: The creepy little misogynist, Bill Maher, just gave one of Obama's super PACs one million dollars. Being one of the biggest offenders in the Powers' piece linked above, will the President give that money back?