What we've been tweeting

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After thinking that the Democratic Party ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden had no campaign strategy as there is no way in hell they were going to run on their record, it appears things have changed

The Democrats have seized upon Republican candidate for Senate for Missouri, Todd Akin and his insipid remarks on rape and will turn their national convention into an Abortion-fest.


From the Washington Examiner:

With an eye on Rep. Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comments and the GOP's mad dash away from the sinking Missouri Senate candidate, the Democrats are turning their upcoming presidential convention into a pro-choice assault on the Republicans with the help of major abortion supporters.

Just as the Akin crisis was reaching a crescendo, the Democrats on Wednesday announced that three starlets of the pro-choice movement will be featured at the convention, an event that will now drive the liberal charge that the Republicans are anti-women.

Democrats said that they will feature Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parent Action Fund, Nancy Keenan, president of the NARAL Pro-Choice America and Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University student whose plea for federal birth control funding drew the ire--and a subsequent apology--from Rush Limbaugh.

What's more, the Democrats are expanding their list of women ready to assail the GOP on women's issue, adding Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski and actress Eva Longoria to the list that already includes Sen. John Kerry and Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren.

Democrats led by party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz believe that the Akin controversy--and his refusal to leave the Missouri Senate race--has revived their chances of winning a majority of women in the presidential race, key to re-electing President Obama. On Wednesday, for example, the party turned their homepage over to the affair with the headline: "The GOP is dangerously wrong for women." And with a devilish move, they included pictures of Mitt Romney, running mate Paul Ryan and Akin.

We'd like to add that NARAL is dangerously deadly for the unborn.

To the Democrats, though: good luck with that strategy.

Abortion never polls very high on the list of priorities when it comes to Presidential elections and it may not even be a blip on the radar considering the rampant unemployment, exploding deficits and the anemic GDP growth of this election cycle

But forget the general populace for a moment: is this strategy even going to work with women? We know an awful lot of women out there that are in charge of their family's finances and an awful lot of single women that collectively just might be a tad more concerned with their own job prospects and that of their husbands' and the fate of the economy than any fear-mongering as practiced by the Democrats with respect to their reproductive rights.

Its a good bet that many of these women remember the two-term Presidency of a social conservative, George Bush, who had Republican majorities for 6 years in those two terms and they might also remember that there was no real weakening of abortion "rights".

Along with that is the pander factor. Here's Barka Herman explaining (h/t: KT:

I own my own business, travel and entertain a lot, have many hobbies that I don't always get enough time for, and am considering writing a memoir. I donate money and time to causes I believe in. Birth control has never occupied more than one percent of my time ever in my life. I suspect the actual lifetime number is much lower than that.

So what is up with the entire birth control debate? Am I just a walking vagina? Is this insulting just to me or others?

We can totally see how many woman would feel demeaned by the politicization of one of their body parts. Excuse us: the cheap, crass politicization of one of their body parts.



Oh, almost forgot...

Our Tweet:

In order to drive the point home, the #Dems should prematurely terminate their convention on the 3rd and final day. #trimesters

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Not wanting a recession to go to waste

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Well, we suppose the logical extension of claiming food stamps and unemployment benefits provide an economic stimulus is to use them as bait to get people on the voting rolls.

From Mickey Kaus:

Will the GOPs take advantage of Obama's new welfare weakness? The Obama Department of Agriculture has pulled the radio"novelas" that urged Spanish-speakers to wise up and get on the dole. ("In one of these, an individual tries to convince a friend to enroll in food stamps even though that friend declares: 'I don't need anyone's help. My husband earns enough to take care of us," says GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions, describing the novelas. "The first individual replies back: 'When are you going to learn?'")

Why is the USDA's retreat significant? Because it shows the administration is sensitive, in an election year, to being perceived as dismissive of the work ethic. Like a prize fighter who winces when you hit him in a sore spot, the Obamaites have revealed their weakness. If the Republicans' have any strategic sense they will now hit that sore spot again by making a big fuss about the Health and Human Service regulations that renege on the work requirements imposed on welfare recipients by the 1996 welfare reform law (and its successors). If Romney, Boehner and McConnell can't frame these regs as part (along with the food stamp push) of Obama's cavalier disregard for the value of work-in embarrassing contradiction to the image he portrayed in 2008-they should really retire to Austria with Denise Rich.

If you think merely getting more people on the dole is the real end game then we, unfortunately, believe you to be a tad naive. From an electoral standpoint, the Democrats are absolutely invested in creating a permanent underclass, dependent upon the Party for the unwarranted bennies as the Democrats are dependent upon them for their votes. Nice little arrangement they have worked out for themselves.

However, as we have stated in our previous post, the government in enticing people to eschew work in order to get food stamps is completely immoral. A government that encourages its people to sacrifice their independence and liberty in the name of sloth is not a government worthy of governing.


We hate to seem pessimistic or even conspiratorial, but what is it precisely that has you persuaded the Democrats don't think this recession is such a bad thing?

Messaging difficulties

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That the Democrats can't quite get through a conversation without saying the word "tax" is completely understandable as raising them is pretty much what they are running on in 2012; a message endorsed by the Supreme Court last Thursday. Think were joking? Check out House minority leader Nancy Pelosi on Meet the Press on Sunday




0:23 :

"ta-penalty"

Pelosi's assertion that the ta-... penalty is on the free-riders glomming off the rest of us that are paying into the healthcare system is laughable on its face, as Democrats have courted and have counted on the votes of the free-rider class for decades now.

And let's see if we got this straight: They want to soak the rich and the investor class by jacking up the marginal income tax rate and the capital gains rate, they want to saddle the middle class with the taxes built into Obamatax that will fund the monstrosity and they want to stick it to young people and those who may not need nor can afford to purchase health care (Or as @Iowahawkblog tweeted: don't bite the hand that food stamps you). And it's the right that's obsessed with taxes?



Remember, gang:

The more things change...

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Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that the state of California is in some dire fiscal circumstances and word came down on Friday that things are not getting any better. In the news:

California's tax revenue plummeted in July, missing expectations by nearly $539 million and raising fears that deep education cuts will be needed to keep the state budget balanced.

The bad news, announced Tuesday, came less than two months after Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers patched together a budget on the assumption that a budding economic recovery would produce a $4-billion revenue windfall. Those hopes are now fading.

The plunge occurred before the recent Wall Street gyrations that wiped away many of the year's stock-market gains. If the economy remains sluggish and the $4 billion does not materialize, cuts in public schools, universities, libraries, child care, and services for the elderly and frail will automatically take effect.

"Every drop in revenues puts us closer to the drastic trigger cuts that could be imposed next year," state Controller John Chiang said in a statement accompanying his July revenue report.

Oops. Our bad. The linked article above is from August of last year.

And how did we get into that particular mess? From June of last year:

Abandoning negotiations with Republican lawmakers, Gov. Jerry Brown struck a deal with Democrats for a budget that assumes billions of dollars in fresh revenue — but could lead to major service cuts if the money doesn't materialize.

The proposal, which Democrats said they would pass as soon as Tuesday, does not include the renewed tax hikes that the governor had been pushing to put before voters. But it does contain some charges that Democrats believe they can legally raise without GOP support.

$11 billion worth of fresh revenue to be precise. And since Brown and the Sacto Democrats gave no specifics of where this unanticipated revenue was going to come from, you would not be wrong in assuming it was to be delivered on the backs of unicorns bounding over rainbows.

So, when you paper over budgets with hapless and laughable gimmickry, it should come as no big surprise that this is where we currently are:

California’s budget deficit has swelled to $16 billion after tax collections trailed projections amid the tepid economic recovery, Governor Jerry Brown said in a comment on his Twitter post.

The shortfall has widened from the $9.2 billion Brown estimated in January, after lawmakers resisted the Democrat’s call for cost cuts, the federal government blocked other reductions and April income-tax revenue missed budget forecasts by $2 billion. On May 14, he’s set to unveil a revised spending plan and to say how he would erase the gap.

Brown, 74, set out an initial budget in January with $92.6 billion in spending for fiscal 2013, which begins in July. That plan stripped more than $4 billion from health and welfare programs while relying on higher income and sales taxes. The levy increases will go before voters in November. If rejected, schools will lose $4.8 billion midway through the year.

“We are still recovering from the worst recession since the 1930s,” Brown said in a YouTube video cited on his Twitter post. “Tax receipts are coming lower than expected and the federal government and the courts have blocked us from making billions of necessary budget reductions. The result is that we are now facing a $16 billion deficit.”

First of all, we aren't aware of the degree and purpose of federal meddling in California's budget matters so if anyone has any details, please feel free to share.

The ballot initiative Brown is pushing would raise the sales tax, already the highest in the nation from 7.25 to 7.5 and would also raise taxes on those making over $250,000 and would raise taxes on those making over $1 million from 10.3 to 13.3, the highest in the land.

In a state hobbled by a bad economy and horrible self-induced economic/regulatory policy that is driving businesses and rich people out of the state, it is baffling to us how piling on more bad economic policy in way of taxing consumers and the rich and their businesses is going to balance the books.

In the face of all evidence to the contrary, we are seeing the rigid ideology of statist tax and spenders at work here in California. They simply cannot bring themselves to think and act in any other manner.

Hey, big spenders!

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(please scroll down for the update)
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In the wake of a miserable SOTU address and amid cantankerous primary posturing, please allow the CBO to drop a reality bomb on everyone:

For the fourth year in a row, Washington faces a $1 trillion-plus deficit and just servicing the nation’s debt will soon cost as much as paying for Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled. (ed. note: and which was just expanded under ObamaCare)

Those were two grim predictions in a 147-page report from the Congressional Budget Office, which Tuesday stepped into the 2012 campaign like some stern Aunt Cassandra — coming down from the attic to lecture the protagonists: “It’s not just the economy stupid, it’s also the debt.”

Indeed the $1.079 trillion deficit now projected for the 2012 fiscal year ending Sept. 30 is wider than what the added CBO had predicted in August, and the picture won’t substantially improve unless Congress comes to grip with changes needed in tax and spending policy.

“The CBO’s latest alarm bell couldn’t be more ominous,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). “For years, politicians from both political parties have failed to be honest with the American people about the size and scope of the debt threat. The CBO’s report today confirms that it is past time for serious leaders to put aside politics and start forging solutions.”

(italics, ours: a variation on the "unexpectedly" theme we've grown so accustomed to the past few years.)




If you were looking for any silver linings, you are at the wrong place for the entirety of this post, at least. So, how about them jobs' numbers? From the same CBO report:

"Had that portion of the decline in the labor force participation rate since 2007 that is attributable to neither the aging of the baby boomers nor the downturn in the business cycle (on the basis of the experience in previous downturns) not occurred, the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2011 would have been about 1¼ percentage points higher than the actual rate of 8.7 percent"

Terrific. The CBO is essentially saying that the real unemployment rate is actually 10%.



So, where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us with a President who has accomplished nothing in his 3 years in office as far as addressing the debt/deficit and unemployment but instead resorts to creepy militaristic/fascist imagery as the model for national cooperative triumph in his state of the Union address.


And as for our esteemed Republican candidates, we have the architect of ObamaCare vs. an ethically-challenged candidate amidst a swirling "controversy" of how he actually felt about Reagan. Inquiring minds want to know! Yes, we realize it's the primaries and there will always be an element of "silly season" to them but forgive us for sensing a complete lack of seriousness amongst all 3 when it comes to making bold and meaningful statements as precursors to bold and meaningful action with respect to the existential threat posed by our ever-growing entitlement programs and the accompanying debt.

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(UPDATE #1) : One of our faves, Chuckie Schumer (D-NY) on grave and our economic outlook... from last week:





Unexpectedly

Quickies

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



6 things the film industry doesn't want you to know about'




Awwww... a progressive White House really just a good ol' boys club after all.





From "scandal-free" to "scandal fatigue in 3 weeks!

On August 30, concerning President Barack Obama’s reelection prospects, Allan Lichtman, an American University history professor and author of The Keys to the White House: A Surefire Guide to Predicting the Next President, told US News: “I don’t see how Obama can lose.”

Lichtman’s presidential election success formula, which has correctly predicted the winner of the popular vote in every contest since 1984, requires that the party currently holding the White House prevail on eight of thirteen “keys.” Lichtman contended that Obama was winning nine of them, with a tenth, whether the economy is in recession during the campaign, pegged as “undecided.”

Then came Solyndra, Gunrunner and Lightsquared.

Here's the chief hack of one of the hackiest groups in all of D.C. on standards, ethics...

Unhappy members of the Congressional Black Caucus “probably would be marching on the White House” if Obama were not president, according to CBC Chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).

"If [former President] Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House," Cleaver told “The Miami Herald” in comments published Sunday. "There is a less-volatile reaction in the CBC because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president."

... and bigotry.




Even liberals know it's over... or never really existed in the first place.

Ezra Klein of the WaPo sticks a fork in Hopenchange.

Satellite photos of North Korean death camps..?

... on Google Earth?

Another great moment in the history of crony capitalism:

President Barack Obama will raise money in early October with a Missouri businessman whose company benefited from a $107 million federal tax credit to develop a wind power facility in his state.

Tom Carnahan, a scion of Missouri’s most prominent Democratic political family, is listed on Obama’s campaign website as a host of a $25,000-per-person fundraiser to be held in St. Louis on October 4.

His energy development firm, Wind Capital Group, was helped by a sizable credit authorized in the stimulus, for an energy project in northwest Missouri.

Republicans argue that it’s inappropriate for the Obama campaign to raise money from a donor who has benefited directly from the Recovery Act.

Missouri Republican Party executive director Lloyd Smith compared the situation to the Solyndra affair, in which the Obama administration reportedly rushed federal support to a green-energy firm that subsequently collapsed.

How many more of these types of cases are floating around out there and are going un-reported due to apathy, covering for the administration or scandal fatigue? They play, we pay.



The Party of "No" .

Calling for a weekend to “cool off,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid set up a Monday vote on replenishing the almost-empty federal disaster relief accounts as all sides race to beat a deadline to keep money money flowing to disaster-stricken states and to keep the federal government at large running.

“Cool off a little bit. Work this through. There’s a compromise here,” Mr. Reid said Friday, minutes after the Senate blocked back a bill drafted by House Republicans that would have replenished the disaster fund accounts through Nov. 18.

Without an agreement, the government could shut down in a week, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency could run out of money even before then.

The House, on the strength of Republican votes, passed a bill early Friday morning that directs an additional $3.65 billion to FEMA, with some of the spending offset by cuts to a clean-energy program popular with Democrats and the Obama administration.

... and Obama donors.


That's all for now. We'll be back at it tomorrow.

Quickies: the completely manufactured debt ceiling deadline panic edition

A round-up of what some people have been saying about the debt ceiling deal.




First, B-Daddy of The Liberator Today encourages us to take the long war view of this:

It's warm at my house, (I was going to say hot, but we live in San Diego, CA not San Diego, TX). My son's room seemed especially warm, so I turned on his overhead fan. A while later, I went back in his room and it was still uncomfortable. The fan was spinning fast, but in the wrong direction, sucking air up from the floor and blowing it towards the ceiling. This fan has a remote control, with way to many buttons; but I managed to hit the button to reverse the flow. (I know I am probably not supposed to do that, but quit interrupting.) As soon as I hit the button, nothing seemed to happen, the fan was still sucking air from the floor. But after a while, I noticed that it had started to slow. Sure enough, it continued to slow and slow, eventually coming to a complete stop and reversing direction.

So here is the deal with this execrable debt ceiling deal; we've got a fan spinning at high speed in the wrong direction and threatening to fly apart. But the only reasonable thing to do is apply a countervailing torque that will eventually reverse the flow. Sticking a pitchfork between the blades to get it stop instantly isn't going to be good for the fan or the pitchfork. But that means that we have to keep the torque constantly applied, because this fan has a lot of mass and momentum built up over decades.

A lot of tea partyers are incensed by this deal. That may not be such a horrible thing. Let's harness that anger toward taking back the Senate and the Oval Office in 2012 where we might possibly be able to do something about the real budget busters: entitlements (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid which is not getting nearly the attention it should considering the horrible fiscal condition of many of our states).





Over at our blog buddy, Harrison's place, we made the following comment on his take on Biden's tea party = terrorist outburst and the liberal-Left echo chamber:

So, when the liberal-Left finally gets around to “pedophile” will that be the end of the line or do we just start the whole “racist-extremist-terrorist-pedophile” cycle all over again?

Oh-no. Looks like we're in a bit of an echo chamber of our own as Jim Treacher turns the tables in his tweet:

So we're terrorists for "holding the country hostage"? Okay, then: For what you're doing to future generations, you are pedophiles. Own it.

Then again, maybe pedophile just doesn't make the cut in the liberal-Left pejorative handboook.





Crime, smog, traffic and graffiti and all they have to show for it is their crappy newspaper.

Yep. Leave it to the L.A. Times to politicize Gabby Giffords' return to the floor of the House a couple of days ago to cast her debt-ceiling vote.

Steve McCann at The American Thinker is shoveling dirt:

The Obama Presidency is over. He has abdicated all responsibility to the Congress, in particular the House of Representatives, which has little choice but to assume a role they are not structured to do: lead the country as best they can until November 2012. The American people, suffering under the burden of high joblessness, eroding housing values, inflation and dramatically declining economic growth with no prospect of any immediate relief, are increasingly resigned to the fact that they must focus on surviving as best they can until the election.

To paraphrase a famous quote: rumors of the President's demise are greatly exaggerated.

McCann, however, is correct in his assertion that in kicking the can down the road with respect to dealing with the debt ceiling issue, the Democrats and the President were spoiling for a fight with the Republicans, to the exclusion of all else that is ailing this country right now. They gambled on this and they got worked. And for all that, the President came out looking ineffectual and incompetent. Hope he likes apples.




Stephen Green at Pajamas Media may not believe Obama's Presidency is over but the gravy train has definitely been derailed.

President Obama has had a good two-plus years, handing out deficit-busting goodies to all the favorite Democrat constituencies. The EPA has become the monster it always threatened to be, the unions are stuffed full of automakers and have the mighty Boeing trembling at their power. The insurance companies are wards of the state, the medical profession has been saddled and broken. The symbiosis of Washington and Wall Street is complete, each too big to fail and utterly, sickeningly and dangerously co-dependent.

But yesterday’s debt deal showed that Obama’s goodie bag is empty. There’s nothing more to hand out. Santa Claus has left the building, and the Grinch has taken his place.

“Honestly,” the Democrats must be wondering, “what good is he to us now?”

(italics, ours)

That would be the Keynesian gimmickry goodie bag, Mr. Green.

Porkulus fail. Cash for Clunkers fail. Cash for Caulkers fail. HAMP fail.

All these wonderful and well-meaining programs that were designed to lift us out of the recession and propel us into economic prosperity only served to forestall a real recovery and now it looks as though the stall has been overcome by gravity and we are once again heading back into recessionary territory.


And, of course, Charles Krauthammer chimes in on... patent reform?:

More bridges

And speaking of Keynesian gimmickry and "dead"... Rich Lowry shovels some of his own dirt.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the liberal lion from Illinois, pronounces the debt deal “the final interment of John Maynard Keynes.”

The burial ceremony should be a nice, simple one after the violence done to the aged economist by the failure of the broad Obama stimulus program. The administration’s serial overpromising in his name did more to discredit Keynes than a century’s worth of broadsides by his intellectual enemies.

Nearly three years into the Obama administration, the unemployment rate is more than 9 percent, a grassroots movement devoted to cutting government has the upper hand in the House of Representatives, and the debt of the United States could well be downgraded by Standard and Poor’s. If Durbin thought that in these circumstances Keynes was heading anywhere other than a pine box, he hasn’t been paying attention.

It must be an alliterative thing because we never hear or read the term "conservative lion". But considering that Durbin ascended to that title after Teddy Kennedy's passing, maybe what qualifies one for "liberal lion" status is trashing our troops over in Iraq.


OK, gang, that's it. Hope you enjoyed this special mid-week edition of Quickies.

"Governing for the next generation...

... not the next election." (unlike some other people we know)


One of the under-reported elements of the electoral tsunami of the 2010 mid-terms (What? Too soon?) was the fact that 680 seats changed hands from (D) to (R) at the state level. And what this has resulted in, in Wisconsin's case at least, is turning a $3.6 billion deficit into a $300 million surplus and 9,500 new jobs created in June alone which accounted for over half of all the new jobs created in the entire nation.


Alexis Garcia of PJTV has a chat with Rebecca Kleefisch, the Lt. Governor of Wisconsin on Wisky's public employee union battles and its amazing turnaround in this near-double-dip economy.

Warning: the following content may be cause for conservatism

Here's some red meat to serve up going into the 4th of July weekend...


Bad news, libs... Don't let your kids anywhere near those gosh-darn xenophobic, John Phillips Souza-playing and flag-waving July 4th parades and celebrations.

Harvard: July 4th Parades Are Right-Wing

Democratic political candidates can skip this weekend's July 4th parades. A new Harvard University study finds that July 4th parades energize only Republicans, turn kids into Republicans, and help to boost the GOP turnout of adults on Election Day.

"Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation's political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party," said the report from Harvard. [See political cartoons about the 2012 GOP field.]

"The political right has been more successful in appropriating American patriotism and its symbols during the 20th century. Survey evidence also confirms that Republicans consider themselves more patriotic than Democrats. According to this interpretation, there is a political congruence between the patriotism promoted on Fourth of July and the values associated with the Republican party. Fourth of July celebrations in Republican dominated counties may thus be more politically biased events that socialize children into Republicans," write Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor David Yanagizawa-Drott and Bocconi University Assistant Professor Andreas Madestam.

(italics, ours)

Leave it to a bunch of egg-heads from Harvard to think that unabashed celebrations of the birth of this country can be more politically biased as celebrated by Republicans.

And leave it to a bunch of egg-heads from Harvard to misinterpret their own findings. We don't think 4th of July parades turn you into an (R) per se. It's probably more a case of right-leaning folks are more apt to turn up at the pie-eating and apple-bob contests on the 4th. Whaddya want? We're simple-minded folk. If you think yourself to be more patriotic than the other guy, you're more likely to go to events that celebrate the birth of this country, right?

And compounding this, we know as anecdotal fact that many liberals are extremely uncomfortable with open displays of patriotism. Therefore, it is actually they who politicize these 4th of July events by their mere non-attendance.

The solution: hug a liberal this weekend. Seriously. Let them know that it's cool to be happy that they live in the greatest nation on earth and enjoy freedoms that nearly every other person on this planet does not. We just don't get it. How could you simply not be bursting with joy, pride and gratefulness all this weekend?

Here's to a great 4th of July weekend!

At last...

(Another re-published post that appeared briefly on Thursday before the great Blogger meltdown of May 2012)



Thank goodness. It looks like Sacramento legislators here in California are finally going to roll up their sleaves and get down to solving the issues that are plaguing the Golden State like high unemployment, budget deficits and state-employee pension liabilities, right?


Errr...

Chances are, the last time you flopped down on one of those lush hotel beds, replete with a pillow-top mattress, high thread-count sheets, down comforter and mounds of fluffy pillows, you weren’t wondering, flat — or fitted.

Yet, that’s at the core of a debate that will consume state legislators beginning next Monday when a committee will ponder a labor union-backed bill mandating the use of fitted bottom sheets in all hotel rooms.

The way union leaders see it, such sheets – common in households across America but far less so in hotels – will help ease the backbreaking work that defines a housekeeper’s job. Hoteliers, who say the mandate could cost the industry $20 million statewide, call it a ridiculous, unnecessary piece of legislation that is sidetracking politicians from far more pressing work like balancing the state budget.

The bill, SB 432 is backed by the California Applicants’ Attorneys Association, which works on behalf of UNITE HERE, the hotel workers union.

Wouldn't getting fitted sheets be a concession for which you negotiate the next time the contract expires rather than taking up legislative time?



We will never... never shill for the Republican Party in neither general nor specific terms but we continue to be amazed regarding the level of unseriousness exhibited time after time by the Democratic party (OK, we'll grant you Constitutional flag-burning amendment attempts trotted out every once in a while by the GOP).


At least the Republicans are attempting or at least accused of serious albeit evil stuff.


The Republicans are trying to kill Medicare! The Republicans are trying to dismantle the social safety net! The Republicans are shredding the Constitution! The Republicans... the.. the Republicans are drowning little baby kittens on Gun Smoke!
It's serious, man!



But fitted sheets? Yeah.

Headline of the day

Courtesy Jim Treacher at the Daily Caller:

The schism in the Coffee Party is so bad, they split up into two different booths at Denny’s


Our previous thoughts on this curious faux-roots political organization, here.

When it formed about this time last year, the Democrats had control of the Oval Office and both the Senate and the House and with the resulting progressive agenda being advanced through the corridors of power, we just could never figure out what this crew was supposed to be all about.

Oh, that's right... civility. They were going to bring civil discourse to the public arena.

“We are writing to you because it is our belief that much can be learned from the experience of the Interim Board, and the dynamics on the Board which we believe seriously impeded our process. We would like to identify some issues which, from our point of view, have become problems within the Coffee Party, and which, if not corrected, will hinder its success,” wrote ousted board members Bahiya Cabral-Johnson, Teri Torres-Hart and Sabina Virgo in an open letter.

Painting a general picture of organizational chaos, they pointed to a lack of civility in the organization, a lack of democracy and a lack of consultation.

Bummer, dudes.

Fleabagger update

First, Wisconsin and now Indiana.

The Indiana Democrats say life on the lam hasn't been enjoyable. There is one washing machine at the hotel and there are lines to use it. It has rained for almost a month, keeping them indoors except for an occasional walk past strip malls and chain stores. Three have developed sinus infections. After an initial wave of support and visits across state lines from union members and supporters, they have been largely isolated. "We're busy but we're bored," said Democratic Rep. Linda Lawson.

Hmmm... kind of sounds like our senior year spring break in New Jersey.

But how exactly does this help the Democrats' branding image? A profile in courage it is not and besides, math wins, math always wins.

B-Daddy has more of the goods, here.

Sarah sez

One in a series that takes a look at some of the zany and madcap things said by Sarah Palin.

"Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us - it is our mantra - 'pay as you go'."

Of course, that wasn't Sarah Palin but rather that glittering jewel of colossal ignorance, former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

Good lord, how can one deny media bias when this person doesn't get a fraction of the heat as does Palin for coming up with one inane, asinine and delusional statement after another?




And speaking of glittering jewels....

Here's Joy Behar on good lovin':



Why do we get the distinct impression that Behar's idea of "lovin'" in this context is so much different than ours?



And, once again, here's former Speaker Pelosi on the way out the door today:



:07 : What's with the backhand to the hubby? Is that an Italian thing?



And since we've just turned this into movie night at BwD, here's the tan man and new Speaker of the House, John Boehner, making his swearing in speech:



By the way, that's not a gavel rather a sawed-off croquet mallet.


OK. Party's over, everyone. Time for the 1-1-2, the tea party Congress, to get to work.

Yes, they are

The Compton Unified School District looked like an ideal target to an organization created to help parents force dramatic reforms at poorly performing schools.

For many years, the troubled school system of 26,000 students south of downtown Los Angeles has had campuses with low test scores, distracted management, a poor reputation and, its critics say, hostility to change. It also has parents dissatisfied enough with their children's education to take on the local bureaucracy.

On Tuesday, those factors came together as 85 adults and children arrived at Compton's district headquarters to present a petition signed by 62% of parents at McKinley Elementary, one of the state's worst-performing schools. The petition requires the district to turn management of McKinley over to a charter school company. Charters are independently operated public schools.

Organizers say the effort is the first to use California's new "parent-trigger" law, under which a majority of parents can force a school to shut down, replace its staff or convert to a charter.

Compton Unified has no recourse under California law, state officials said, even though McKinley's test scores have risen significantly the last two years and steadily over the last six. The school's two-year 77-point rise on the state's Academic Performance Index is among the highest in California.

Critics have characterized the parent trigger as an overly blunt, sometimes counterproductive instrument. But the effect, say supporters, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, is to put children and parents ahead of employees and interest groups.

"Giving power to the parents — this is what this is all about," Schwarzenegger said in a conference call Tuesday with reporters. The governor applauded the McKinley effort and described as "unacceptable" the education some children in the state receive. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan also praised the developments in Compton.

At district headquarters, parents chanted "Yes, we can!" as Karen Frison, acting superintendent of Compton schools, accepted the petition. Telling the group she would "do what is required by law," she declined to answer questions. (Her predecessor was recently fired over allegedly improper use of district credit cards.)

We have blogged previously about the charter school effort up in Compton and Los Angeles and with specific respect to Locke High School (home to our favorite American League slugger, Eddie Murray, while growing up) and the opposition they faced by the teachers' union and the bureaucracy.

Here is a sampling of what we wrote when Locke went charter:

This is nothing short of astounding. If the L.A. political structure, the very picture of statist conformist thinking can commit to this bold maneuver there is no telling what future possibilities are in store. Then again, maybe this speaks to the abject wretchedness of the L.A. schools that the school board essentially threw up its hands as if saying, “well, nothing else has worked”. A victory, no matter.

We also would like to note (again) how the Republicans are letting a golden opportunity slip away by not getting out in front of this growing movement. We are advised non-stop by political players and pundits that the party needs to quit being so white and that it needs to reach out to minorities. OK. Sure. But when the strategy is revealed as to how “we” Republicans are to go about doing it, it inevitably leads to embracing amnesty for illegal aliens. That’s the big idea?

To be fair to our Republican friends, it has dawned on us that it's kind of tough to be a vanguard in this movement when you don't have any boots on the ground, or perhaps, more accurately, you are not even a presence in the area.

Our desire to see the G.O.P. lead the way in the school choice/charter/voucher movement fight is blunted by the fact that these battles are taking place most significantly in the heavily-unionized areas of the north-east, rust belt and Los Angeles that are dominated by Democratic politics. It's blue on blue violence and we are pleased to see the less-statist side of this battle is prevailing.

Absent a ground game, perhaps the Republicans can take this national by having the House, in the next session, introduce legislation that would restart the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program for students in the nation's capital and which was allowed to die on the vine by the current Congress.

The G.O.P.-led Congress is going to have an awful lot on their plate come next January but this would be simply the right thing to do politically, pragmatically and morally.

Quickies

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



The Democrats' diversity problem: The Voting Rights Act rules that govern redistricting is hurting congressional blacks' state and nation-wide appeal.

Recall the Justice Department's meddling down in Kinston, North Carolina, where they ruled that black voters needed to know who the Democratic candidates were... for city office.

Time to take another look at this well-intended but very possibly out-dated law?





From Cafe' Hayek and explaining the behavior of economists particularly in recessionary times:

There is truth in both of those arguments but I think it is useful to add some public choice as well with economists as rent seekers–if you want to be a player, you have to be willing to play. So those economists who argue for the virtues of intervention get a chance to play. Those who oppose intervention remove themselves from any chance of riding the government gravy train.

It’s a bootlegger and baptist argument–economists favored discretion and ad hoc intervention to save the economy knowing it is good for their own income and power. There’s also some groupthink involved. When everyone is touting the virtues of job creation via fiscal policy, you feel a little lonely suggesting it’s a sham. Finally, there is some risk aversion. Once you have some input into the policy process, better to do something than do nothing. Did Ben Bernanke really want to preside over the next real Great Depression while doing nothing? Better to do something, even if it’s flawed. The fact that you gain enormous power along the way would help any mortal man come to the view that doing something is better than doing nothing.

So, economists are becoming the new faith-based global-warming zealots? Terrific.





You may have heard the city of Cleveland threw itself a pity party on Thursday evening as LeBron James and his Miami Heat came to town to endure taunts, boos and signage that will not make anyone take pity upon Cleveland.




Oh, in case you were curious, the Heat thumped the Cavs 118-90.





Got gas? You may. Fracking goes global as Scrappy American companies are exporting their controversial drilling techniques to Asia and Europe, where "fracking" could face less regulation.





Michael Gerson on shellackings, messaging problems and assigning blame to conspiracies:

It is very bad political advice. It also indicates a movement losing contact with political reality. When an ideology stumbles, its adherents can always turn to alcohol - or to conspiracy theories. It is easier to recover from alcohol. Conspiracy thinking is not only addictive, it is tiresome. It precludes the possibility of interesting policy debate or genuine disagreement - how can you argue with a plot?

You know where we stand on this matter. Coping mechanisms in both '06 and '08 where also we knew exactly why the Republicans got trounced and it had zero to do with messaging or conspiracies.




Seriously. Given the alternative, conspiracy theories are so lame.





Suckers... Mickey Kaus breaks down the General Motors IPO and the ten warning signs GM ignored.





When you lose Paul Krugman:

After the Democratic “shellacking” in the midterm elections, everyone wondered how President Obama would respond. Would he show what he was made of? Would he stand firm for the values he believes in, even in the face of political adversity?

Perhaps, Krugman could share what he believes are those "values" that President Obama believes in because after 3+ years of being on the national/global stage, we sure as hell don't know what his values are.

And we were told it was Sarah Palin who was not properly vetted. Suckers.





At a season-ending banquet in Ann Arbor:

Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez fought back tears, talking about the toll his job has taken on his family, and used passages from the Bible and a Josh Groban song during an emotional address that closed the team's banquet.

"I truly want to be a Michigan man," he said Thursday.

Rodriguez might not get that chance next season.

He didn't have to deal with the awkwardness of having Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh in the same ballroom, getting honored with the Wolverines who were honored 25 years after finishing the season ranked second, but the tension he feels about his job security was apparent.

A couple of things here. Michigan football officially recognizes 2nd place finishes?

Also, the conventional wisdom was that RichRod needed to win one of his last two games (Wisconsin and Ohio State) to save his job. They got drubbed in both finishing a bowl-eligible 7-5. We bought into this logic until early this past week. We think RichRod stays and here is what we wrote about his hire 3 years ago:

Let’s face it… Michigan is the CBS of college football. They are the embodiment of the stodgy, gray-flannel suit establishment of college ball. And like CBS, Michigan’s presumed dominance has been taking some hits of late – the program was showing its age and subsequently the ratings… and rankings were beginning to slip.

They took a huge gamble on Rodriguez and his very un-Michigan-like spread-option offense. If the Tiffany Network of college football whacks Rodriquez now, after only 3 years, it will appear that they are flailing and directionless... and perhaps as worse, admitting that they completely screwed up in the hiring decision. Rodriguez, who does have that offense dialed-in, gets another year to go at least 9-3. The now-rare occurrence of beating Ohio State would greatly help matters as well.

As for that song that got the head ball coach all misty...








Upon hearing this news, Groban tweeted:

"Coach Rodriguez, I'm very flattered but crying to You Raise Me Up is SO five years ago."

Getting punked by Josh Groban? Maybe RichRod is getting whacked, after all.




Folks, that's all for now. Will check back in later in the day, perhaps.

Some (final)* thoughts on the midterm elections

Last week, in the wake of the Republican tsunami, reader and commenter "Steve" noted that (R) should have won the Senate seats in Delaware, Connecticut and Nevada with ease were it not for the tea party-approved candidates. B-Daddy responded by saying this whole thing will take time and implied it was a learning experience.

Allow us to say this regarding the claim that the tea party cost the Republicans seats in the Senate: we don't care.

No, this isn't flippant or cavalier know-nothingness - to be completely cliche', we're willing to break a few eggs in order to make an omelet.

It has been said that one of the most important acts in the history of democracy was when George Washington stepped down after his 2nd term as President, putting to bed the notion of President-for-life. Implied in that act as well, we believe, was the rejection of the notion of the career politician. At that time the conventional wisdom was that you turned over the operation of the farm or your business to the brother-in-law to do the bidding of the people in Washington before returning home to your work-a-daddy life a couple of years later.

So Sharron Angle, Linda McMahon and our wacky ex-girlfriend, Christine O'Donnell weren't "strong" candidates, they weren't "ideal" and they lacked "experience" and "gravitas".

You want "experience"? You want "ideal"? You got it:










One of the most patently ridiculous things ever said with respect to legislating from one with "experience" and whom is on a first name basis with "career politician".

Peggy Noonan recently lamented that a man of unparalleled competence and integrity she knew, turned down an offer to run for public office because he had "not led a perfect life". Well, the fact that the three aforementioned candidates were not "perfect politicians" bothered us not the least.

Coiffed hair, Ivy League educations, teleprompters, nuanced wording, blue blood pedigrees, posturing, triangulation, telegenic smiles and... experience, all in abundance in D.C., currently... and how has that been working out?

We don't care about experience (in the Senate - White House is an entirely different story) or anything else in that previous paragraph. We want votes! We want dependable conservative votes. We want votes to repeal ObamaCare, we want votes to cut spending. We want votes that will be used as a restraining order against the regime's statist agenda. That's it.

The tea party simultaneously energized a segment of the electorate while providing a loose decentralized network that was more an ideal than a brick and mortar political infrastructure around which that energy and passion could coalesce and then act.

The 60+ and 6 and the 680 seats that flipped at the state level was not going to happen without the tea party.


* Heavily qualified

Did Obama and Pelosi actually get it right?

While the conventional wisdom is that last Tuesday's election results, a massacre for the Democrats, was a rebuke of the hard left swerve taken by the administration and Congress (and it was), Philip Klein of the American Spectator takes the long view of these past two years and wonders if President Obama and Nancy Pelosi did indeed employ sound political strategy.

The American public didn't go from being socialists to Reaganite conservatives in the past two years, any more than their ideology radically transformed from 2004 to 2006. The lesson of recent elections, thus, may not be that the American people are right of center, or left of center, or dead center, but that many of them aren't terribly ideological. This means that political power is ephemeral. No matter how popular one party is, they could be only one election away from embarrassing defeat. No matter how badly one party is defeated, they could be on the verge of a historic comeback. In this environment, reports of the demise of any political party, at any time, are likely to be greatly exaggerated.

One reaction to this reality is to argue that a political party should enact as many of its policy goals as they can while in charge. While Obama’s presidency is shaping up to be a spectacular failure from a political perspective, he may view it as a smashing success from a liberal ideological point of view. Instead of squandering Democrats' time in power by playing small ball, he went bold.

Political majorities are fleeting - legislation is (nearly) permanent.

When Nancy Pelosi says she has no regrets, we tend to believe her not because she's delusional but rather she is a true believer. Liberals like Pelosi have had a hot lust for government managed/universal health care for over 60 years - it was their single biggest dream and if it cost them votes, even enough to lose control of Congress, then so be it.

What the Republicans must do and must do on a continual basis is to educate the public on ObamaCare and reveal all the hideousness that is contained in that 2,800 page monstrosity*.

Educate the public and in a show of bipartisanship, allow the Democrats to help. The Republicans hold the subpoena hammer now, so they should hold hearings asking people like Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, just how she intends to administer ObamaCare. After all, this bill is simply festooned with "...at the discretion of the Secretary..." and "the Secretary shall..." and the American people deserve to know precisely how all that structural arbitrariness is going to be managed.

And politically speaking, if the Republicans are serious about wanting to repeal ObamaCare then they are going to have to pursue it with the same fanatical damn-the-torpedoes zeal that the Democrats did in getting it enacted in the first place.

The Republican Party being left for dead just two years ago demonstrates just how swiftly and substantially that pendulum can swing.


* As doing our part to educate the public on just how bad ObamaCare is now that it is law, we instituted a running post, "Nancy's Nuances: a journey of discovery". Apparently, the contents therein were so horrendous and so terrifying, Blogger couldn't bear it as it has been deleted from our archives. Now we aren't suggesting anything untoward as the Speaker inspired us to log quite a bit of info into that single post resulting in a really, really long post so we will do what we can do to resurrect it or simply start over with all that we have learned since August.

We've still got Harry Reid to kick around

The HopenChange that swept most of the nation last night was tempered a bit here on the West Coast.

California decided to send a retread (Jerry Brown) back to the governor's mansion and a disgraceful incompetent (Barbara Boxer) back to the Senate. And while we give the lunatics in the Assembly the ability to pass a budget on simple majority (Prop. 25) we denied ourselves the capabilities of easing the pain (Prop. 19 - marijuana legalization). Oh, and we decided to continue our one-state crusade to battle man-made global warming by shooting down Prop. 23.

But on the bright side... we've still got Harry. Sure, this particular campaign was national and was supposed to be a referendum on the tea party but if there was ever a last-stand/Alamo-like effort to preserve the most high-profile Democrat seat, we saw it by the Democratic Party in Nevada in the last few weeks leading up to yesterday.

Never quite grasping the irony, an ecstatic Ed Schultz of MSNBC was crowing of what an incredible accomplishment it was in sending Harry back to D.C. amid one of the worst state unemployment rates in the nation... brought upon by policies levied upon that state by Reid and his party.

(Again, we cannot emphasize enough just how bad MSNBC's coverage was last night. All told, we wound up watching about an hour's worth of coverage and we were stunned by the lack of balance and professionalism. "Whistling past the grave yard" is the metaphor that best described a cable operation of which we weren't sure was watching the same election results we were.)

So, Harry the human punching bag gets to go back and lead a Senate that owns a 9.6% unemployment rate and a stalled economy and which will be facing an energized Republican House that will get to use Reid as a proxy to attack the furthering of the regime's statist agenda.

Also, on the bright side, no more mailers clogging our mail box and no more political ads on T.V. In honor of this joyous occasion we may just run NFL bloopers and Cheezburger photos for the next few days as an ode to frivolity in the wake of all this politically besotted earnestness.

And speaking of besotted, looks like we will be enjoying that Herr-adurra later this evening as we nailed the Senate pickups (6) and darn-near nailed it in the House (58 vs. the predicted 56).

And to further this exercise in frivolity, we will be going to, speak of the devil, Vegas this weekend for the Breeder's Cup among other things. Programming Alert details to follow.

2010 midterm open thread: the Slurpee edition (UPDATED...again)

Full disclosure:

We pulled the trigger for Whitman.

Both Lieutenant Governor and the congressional rep for our district (CA-53) got the "none of the above" treatment.

Screw Crimmins (Rep. candidate for the 53rd). Did not get a single flyer from this clown and only in the last week did we see a few campaign signs of his... and even those were on street medians and other "public places" - none on the lawns of houses - never a good sign.

Depending on our motivation, we may update this post from time to time as the election results roll in throughout the evening so please feel free to check back. Our friend, Leslie at Temple of Mut has been live-blogging all day so go on over and see what is unfolding with respect to these, hopefully, historic midterms.


(UPDATE #1) 4:15 PDT: An update on Prop. 19 (marijuana legalization) here in California:

I’m told by organizers on the ground that youth turnout is so high that the polling location at San Diego State University has completely run out of provisional ballots. We’re hearing that it will take 3 or 4 more hours to re-stock the ballots there…

For those of you familiar with M.O. of SDSU, this should really come as no big surprise. However, if you want high youth turnout, putting something like 19 on the ballot will do the trick.


Also, does March really seem that far away? Here's Obly on his "Countdown" just after ObamaCare passed:

Failed Mr. Boehner. You lost. You blew it. . . . I would think the “will and desires of your fellow countrymen” should be pretty damn clear by now: Your countrymen think your policies are of the past, and your tactics are of the gutter. . . . And so I offer this olive branch to the defeated Republicans and Tea Partiers. . . . You are rapidly moving from “The Party of No,” past “The Party Of No Conscience,” towards “The Party of No Relevancy.” You are behind the wheel of a political Toyota. And before the mid-terms, you will have been reduced to only being this generation’s home for the nuts.

We're not really sure how it is that Boehner blew it - the President had everything in his favor and we felt that for the most part, the Republican leadership performed very admirably in keeping the ranks in line against this abomination of legislation.

Anyway, as always, the take-away is that Olbermann is very odd and bitter man.


(UPDATE #2): Fox has called Florida for Rubio, Connecticut called for Blumenthal and Delaware for Coons.

Nevada still too close to call, though Reid's people say they are liking the early returns. The Dems have thrown everything they had in the final few days into Nevada. And not to start hedging or anything but is having that human punching bag, Harry Reid, in a weakened leadership position such a bad thing? The Republicans can continue to hammer away at Obama and his policies via Harry. Of course, if Angle winds up winning that would be epic but we don't believe the alternative is so bad.

Barney Frank over Bielat (MA-2) by a 63-35 margin with 59% reporting. Nice work, Massachusetts. One of the masters of the housing disaster returns to Congress.


(UPDATE #3) 7:30 PM PDT: The narrative is being established for the Democrats who are projected to lose mid-50s seats in the House and perhaps 6 in the Senate: Golly, it could've been a lot worse. And we certainly hope they take some positive messages away from tonight with respect that maybe their policies aren't so bad after all. Keep believin', guys, keep believin'.


(UPDATE #4) 8:20 PM PDT: Wisconsin called for Republican Ron Johnson over long-time Senator Russ Feingold, 57%-42% with 33% reporting.

And in the perhaps inevitable category: California called for both Jerry Brown and Boxer over Whitman and Fiorina, respectively.

Brown's victory was called a "gain" for the Democrats. Conservatives chuckle.


(UPDATE #5) 9:10 PM PDT: Couldn't take it. Had to switch over to Tony Barnhart's show on CBS College Sports. Did you know that LSU under coach Les Miles is 14-1 after a loss?

And then switched over to the joy that is MSNBC. Good lord. We never in our life want to hear about Fox News bias until MSNBC is mentioned in the same breath. MSNBC's election analyst panel contained 3 liberals: Lawrence O'Donnell, Eugene Robinson and Tingles Matthews which was anchored not by their news people but by their opinion stars, Olby and Rachel Maddow. Fox had 2 liberals, Joe Trippi and Juan Williams to balance out Karl Rove and Brit Hume for their panel which was anchored by news man Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly.

Boy, do they love them some Harry Reid and the fact that it looks like he will be able to hold on to his Senate seat. Ed Schultz, out in Nevada, slammed all the outside money that poured into Nevada on behalf of Sharron Angle and then proceeded to rattle off union after union that poured into Nevada to... presumably not spend money on Reid's race.

The snark is unbearable and the professionalism is completely non-existent. Olby referred to Daniel Inouye's retaining his Senate seat (HI) as an "inoculation" to the Republicans taking the Senate which we knew was never going to happen in the first place.

There is constant off-camera cross-talk, the graphics stink and they don't even broadcast in HD! 20 minutes spent with these amateurs and we understand why no one watches them.

Again, Good Lord.


(UPDATE #6) 10:45 PM PDT: Lakers dispatched the Grizzlies with ease, so... onto some local stuff. Great news: looks like local (San Diego) Prop. A (open labor competition - labor union kick in the balls) "yes" and Prop. D (sales tax increase in return for dubious pension reform) "no" are run-away victors.

Bad news: looks like both Prop. 25 and Prop. 19 (sorry, blazers) are going down to defeat.

This may wrap it up for this evening as morning (0500) comes electra.

Christine O'Donnell: not fit to serve in the U.S. Senate

just a reminder, folks...
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Initially, we were going to crack back on that insufferable prick, host Lawrence O'Donnell for at first, patronizing Greene and then saying on the air that he was still supporting Greene over Republican incumbent Jim DeMint and then it dawned upon us: in this near-5 minute interview did Greene come close to saying anything as loopy as what Nancy Pelosi has uncorked over the past 4 years since she became Speaker of the House?

Greene had his talking point and he stuck to it. He mentioned that he served this nation in the armed forces. Then he correctly alluded to the failed economic policies of the regime that have led to the massive shedding of jobs in this country. Did we mention that he stuck to his talking point?

All things being relative and considering the question we asked above, dude was hitting on all cylinders.

No, we can't quite bring ourselves to endorse Alvin Greene over Senator DeMint in South Carolina but were geographic situations and our own party affiliation thrown askew a tad, he would have our full-fledged support over that of Chris Coons in the Delaware primaries.