East Coast Earthquake: Only A "Foreshock"? "The Worst is Yet To Come?"

Great, just great.  That's according to the USGS, by the way:

Minutes after the quake, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, Marcia McNutt -- who watched objects falling from the shelves in her office -- cautioned that the shaking might not be over.

“What the concern is, of course, is that this is a foreshock. If it’s a foreshock, then the worse is yet to come.”

She said the energy from earthquakes on the East Coast does not attenuate as quickly as it does on the West Coast, and thus even a relatively modest tremor can shake a very broad.

“When something like this happen, everyone has to remember, more than half of the states in the U.S. are considered earthquake country. When something like this happens, remember what to do in the case of a seismic event. Duck, get under something sturdy like a desk or a doorway, get away from falling glass. Make sure that you are not in the way of falling objects like pictures, bookshelves, books, anything that’s not firmly connected the wall.”

.....From Mike Blanpied, associate coordinator for the USGS earthquakes hazards program:

“Aftershocks could go on for days, weeks, or even months. They’re most likely to be felt under the next 3 or 4 days.”

“The rocks are old and cold and they carry the seismic energy very far. Even a magnitude 6 or less earthquake can be felt over a considerably large area, unlike California where the shaking is more concentrated,” Blanpied said

Not my first trip to the rodeo, having lived in LA for a few years. Still, one fo the things I always liked about the East Coast was that natural disasters were usually limited to hurricanes, which can be predicted a few days out. Speaking of which, I was heading to Home Depot anyway to get some tape, bottled water, and boards. Maybe - in the light of the possibility of more "foreshocks" - I need to get a hardhat as well?

Investment Advice for 2011-2012

So, while having dinner with a group of friends (yes, the same aforementioned meal from which I received insights on the immigration debacle), I was listening to one pontificate on the best place to invest money during the current economic upheaval.

"Gold", he said, and only gold.  "Don't get scared off by the $1800/ounce price", he advised, as it will cross the $2K rubicon soon enough, and continue northwards from there.

"But what if you can't afford ingots of $2,000 gold",  I asked the player, "or have your investments in securities that are penalized if they are liquidated into cash too rapidly?  What's my next best option?"

My friend held my gaze coolly for a moment for a moment, but replied without hesitation, and without a smile.

"Ammunition.  And lots of it.  Preferably matched up with a large caliber handgun...."

I've been thinking about it. And I'm starting to realize this might have been the best finanacial advice I have ever received....

Jon Huntsman, Defined....

...by Robert Stacey McCain.  The question, as the Other McCain re-positions it, is not where does he come up with his strange brand of Republicanism, but when.  Because Huntsman has defined himself by a moment in time that he thought - like many liberals - was transitional.

Instead, it was only transitory.  Very much so, as it turns out:

Huntsman doesn’t represents any particular Republican faction. Rather, he represents a point in time — late 2008 through spring 2009 — when a lot of ”smart” people in the GOP seemed to believe that the Obama ascendancy was more or less permanent. The way to succeed as a Republican in the Obama era, these people believed, was to cooperate in the patriotic spirit of Bipartisan Compromise.

You can run down the list of names of those who succumbed to this nonsense: Arlen Specter, Charlie Crist, Dede Scozzafava, Bob Bennett...

When Huntsman accepted an appointment from Obama as ambassador to China, the former Utah governor probably little suspected that the political tide would turn as soon as it did. He might have expected that he could return from Beijing in a couple of years and be welcomed by a GOP chastised by defeat. Instead, by the time he returned to seek the presidential nomination, the Republican Party had rolled to its biggest mid-term landslide in more than half a century...

It's as if a Republican candidate left town in 1976, upon Carter's election, and returned in 1980 talking about detente and appeasement with the Soviet Union, only to be faced with a fellow named Reagan talking about an "evil empire".

Some, of course, believe that Huntsman realizes he's a man out of time and out of a job, and is angling to replace Joe Biden as the Vice President on the 2012 Democratic ticket. What a coup it would be for the "centrist" Barack, and how well it would play at the Convention, a former Republican reciting the many ways "that party left him". How could Obama refuse? Not out of loyalty to Biden....

Also explains why the media loves Huntsman. He may become one of their own any day, and they don't want to tarnish his brand. As a matter of fact, they described him thusly not too long ago:

Contributor Mike Barnicle relayed the enthusiastic tribute of a man he met who said Huntsman reminded him of John F. Kennedy: "The guy was so smooth, the guy was so comfortable, so handsome, so articulate, so composed. he was stunned..."

Who does that sound like they're describing? If you can't get the hint, the Morning Joe crew lays it out:

JOE SCARBOROUGH:  on Huntsman and his wife together -- is it safe to say the most impressive team you've seen on the campaign trail since Barack Obama emerged?

Senior Political Analyst MARK HALPERIN...As impressive as any couple I've seen.

Seems like the media - much like their new hero, Jon Huntsman - fail to realize the moment of the glib and glamorous left-of-center politician is as dead as $2/gallon gas. It's almost sad, like watching an aging women in black lace gloves, spandex and leg warmers get ogled by a bunch of guys with spiky hair and parachute pants...

Wiener's Old District In Revolt Against Obama, NYT Faints Dead Away...

They must be burning effigies in the street, because normally, this is the type of new the New York Times tries to bury simply by not reporting on it at all.

In the Race to Succeed Weiner, a Surprising Anger at Obama

"Surprising"?  Only to the New York Times, I reckon, whose staff cannot fathom the fact that Republican Bob Turner is running a scant few points behind Democrat David Weprin in the race to fill the Congressional seat of the disgraced Anthony Weiner   Some snippets, with stunned editorial commentary left intact:

Of all the places to hear fulminations against President Obama, one of the least expected is the corner of 71st Avenue and Queens Boulevard, in the heart of a Congressional district that propelled Democrats like Geraldine A. Ferraro, Charles E. Schumer and Anthony D. Weiner to Washington.

But it was there that Dale Weiss, a 64-year-old Democrat, approached the Republican running for Congress in a special election and, without provocation, blasted the president for failing to tame runaway federal spending. “We need to cut Medicaid,” she declared, “but he won’t do that.” She shook her head in disgust. “He is a moron.”

After nodding approvingly for a time, the Republican candidate, Bob Turner, signaled for an assistant to cut off Ms. Weiss. Frustration with Mr. Obama is so widespread, he explained later, that he tries to limit such rants to about 30 seconds, or else they will consume most of his day.

“It’s endemic in the district,” Mr. Turner said. “You can’t stop them once they get started.”

Legendary New York Democrat Ed Koch,  campaigning with Republican Bob Turner

I guess we are all traitorous tea-baggers now! Seems as even if Obama can get another trillion-dollars stimulus passed, the natives will still be restless. What more can they want, if not the wasting of other people's money?

The Democrats, as embodied by Mr. Obama, have no idea.

...the race has become something far more unsettling to Democrats: a referendum on the president and his party that is highlighting the surprisingly raw emotions of the electorate. <

National Democrats, alarmed by a poll that showed the contest far closer than anticipated, are privately fretting that even a close outcome in a working-class swath of Brooklyn and Queens may foreshadow broader troubles for the party in 2012.

Stunned, stunned is the Times that the sales pitch - designed for the five-year old trolls patrolling lefty blogs - isn't working:

On paper, Mr. Weprin seems like a sturdy candidate; he is the former chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee and the son of an Assembly speaker. His message seems tailor-made for the district: he promises to protect Medicare and raise taxes only on the super-rich. <

But the election, waged with little news media attention, offers scant time to remind voters of his biography. And after a long summer of stock market gyrations and battles over the federal debt, voters seem determined to register their frustrations with Washington.

Because it can't be that people are rejecting the message, or perhaps the nepotism of the messenger, laws no. Folks are just "frustrated", that's all, and like children, are simply acting out against their best interests with a tantrum.

Well, in case it gets too close to call, Weprin is ready to pull out his secret weapon:

Mr. Weprin urged the crowd to vote, his tone at times pleading.

“Do you know about the election?” he asked a woman sitting in a row of folding chairs.

Leaning in, he cracked a nervous joke. “Your vote,” he told her, “is going to count twice.”

Not a joke at all, actually...

If The U.S Government Was A Public Corporation, Our Bonds Would Be...Junk

I mulled over this post title; after all, isn't the United States Government a public corporation already, with almost 300 million shareholders voting on all levels of executive officers?  I suppose, but in a real corporation, executive officers as incompetent as ours could be fired mid-contract...

Anyway - the New York Post's John Crudele does a little Q&A on the aforementioned question:

Q:  Can you put S&P downgrade in perspective by comparing what rating they would give the US government if our country were rated as a corporation? ~Jeff

Dear Jeff:  Our securities would be junk grade, according to Anthony Sanders, an economist and Mercatus scholar at George Mason University.

S&P downgraded the US Treasury debt because our debt and spending have been growing at astronomic rates, says Sanders. Worse, debt is growing at a time when the economy is expanding by less than people thought it would.

“When you look at our Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security entitlements, they are about 450 percent of current GDP. So what S&P did was perfectly reasonable,” says Sanders.

The US, of course, can print all the money it wants to pay its bills. So that’s why the rating isn’t lower.

The trouble is, the more money a country prints, the less people trust that currency. The phrase “it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on” comes to mind.

On the way to the supermarket to buy a loaf of bread in Germany, 1923.  When it happens in America, we will refer to our new million-dollars bills as "Obamas"...

Immigration: A view from inside the department

At a dinner last night night, talking to an acquaintance who works for the Department of Immigration, in a division known as "Detention and Removal ".  Some insights:

On staffing:  Unlike most government agencies, where hiring has increased in tandem with regulations, Immigration is understaffed by 37%.  According to my source, the Obama administration intentionally withholds funding and uses other bureaucratic techniques to avoid filling these positions, in order to make the removal process harder for the department to implement and easier for the illegals to skirt.

On Chris Christie:  My friend loathes him.  And not for the usual "government employee" reasons.  If the story I heard last night was accurate, in the 18 months leading up to Chris Christie's election as governor, valid New Jersey deportation cases slowed to a halt as his office (US Attorney General) refused to move any deportation cases along.  Apparently, the governor feared being accused him of "anti-immigrant tendencies" during the campaign by either the media or Hispanic activists .  I can't confirm the validity of this claim (although I am sure records are kept on the level of activity), but if this is true, it's another reason - along with his fealty to the "global warming" craze and his disturbing desire to rub elbows with power, including Barack Obama and Chinese dictators - why Christie is likely best off not entering the 2012 Republican presidential primaries.

Tilted playing field against the department:  If US Immigration makes even the smallest mistake on any form or document - even spelling, in some cases - judges turn the illegals immigrants loose in an instant.  Should said illegal make a mistake, however, he is told how to correct his form and allowed to re-enter his documents.  No many how many times it happens.

The saddest thing I ever heard:  "The case is not closed until the illegal alien wins."



It's a miracle these guys can wake up and go to work every day, trying to enforce the law, with the knowledge that their own government is working tirelessly to ensure that their work ends in failure...

If Obama's lost Oregon....

...well, he's already lost middle America, so that analogy is passe at this point anyway.  But it's still interesting to hear Oregon Congressman Peter Defazio (D) intermix some hard truths with his liberal whining:

In his Eugene office Wednesday, Defazio accused the President of lacking the will to fight for the promises he made to get elected.

“Fight? I don’t think it’s a word in his vocabulary,” said the Springfield Democrat, who specifically cited Obama's lack of follow-through in promises to restore Bush tax cuts for the wealthy....

He’s also not convinced the President will do well in Oregon.

“I believe Oregon is very much in play. I mean we are one of the harder hit states in the union, particularly my part of the state. I've just done six town hall meetings, have seven to go but people are shaking their heads and saying 'I don't know if I’d vote for him again.'” Defazio said.

Asked if he was surprised, the congressman shrugged.

“Not at all," DeFazio said. "One guy asked me, 'Give me 25 words what he's about and what he’s done for me.' I’m like, 'It could have been worse.'”


I'm not sure "It could have been worse" will suffice as reason and rallying cry to re-elect Barack Obama and the Democrats in 2012.

I will say that the fact that Defazio is still here and talking to us, and not sitting in a bathtub trying to remove the tar and feathers, is a testament to his wisdom in not starting his 25-word reply with "health care reform"....

General Motors: Another Government "Investment" Gone Sour, And Begging For A Waiver...

Remember how we would make all of our money back, and more, from the government's investment in GM's IPO? That the $33-/share IPO price was a steal, certainly to skyrocket past the $50 range and bring a tidy return for us "investors"?

Like every other investment Obama has made the with American treasury, this too is suffering from his reverse-Midas Touch, and turning rapidly into shit:

(click to enlarge)


Meanwhile, it appears as if the Chevy arm of GM is looking to get a waiver on the piss-poor job it has done constructing vehicles:

General Motors Co (GM.N) is seeking to dismiss a lawsuit over a suspension problem on more than 400,000 Chevrolet Impalas from the 2007 and 2008 model years, saying it should not be responsible for repairs because the flaw predated its bankruptcy.

But in a recent filing with the U.S. District Court in Detroit, GM noted that the cars were made by its predecessor General Motors Corp, now called Motors Liquidation Co or "Old GM," before its 2009 bankruptcy and federal bailout.

The current company, called "New GM," said it did not assume responsibility under the reorganization to fix the Impala problem, but only to make repairs "subject to conditions and limitations" in express written warranties.

Who will Barack Obama support? Innocent Americans who have fallen victim to the gross negligence of the "fat cats" at a major corporation? Or will he work instead to protect his personal/political investment in the GM bailout at their expense?

Oh, that's too easy...

Verizon Workers Striking Against...ObamaCare? Oh, You Betcha !

The unions finally got a stooge in the White House...too bad it was Curly.

So why are those Verizon buggy whip manufacturers - sorry, land-line workers - on strike? Right, because they don't want to have to contribute anything - not a thin dime - to their health plans. And why are they being asked to do so? Ah:

Two unions are on strike against Verizon Communications in protest of proposed company policies that the unions themselves helped bring about. The new Obamacare law, which both unions supported, dramatically hikes the cost of Verizon’s employee health care plan. Efforts to pass some of that cost on to employees have sparked outrage, and now a strike.

Verizon’s health care plan is what President Obama commonly referred to as a “Cadillac plan” – expensive and luxurious – during his push to get health care legislation through Congress. The new law will levy a 40 percent tax on all health care plans with individual coverage worth more than $10,200 and family coverage worth more than $24,000. Though the tax will not go into effect until 2018, “Verizon is required to account for this cost now,” according to company literature distributed to employees. “Accordingly, we will need to modify plan designs to avoid the impact of this tax.”

Verizon says it current pays $4 billion annually to cover nearly 900,000 employees’ health care. Its hundreds of thousands of unionized employees, though, pay nothing towards their health care premiums. The company estimates the “Cadillac tax” will add about $200 million to those annual costs....

Snark:
You gotta pass it to find out what’s in it, suckas! — Greg Pollowitz

Sorry, guys. And it's only going to get worse. Check this bit of stupidity out:

A controversial proposal to build a massive underground pipeline to carry 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas has become the environmental issue of the summer, pitting developers and labor unions desperate for construction jobs against environmentalists and Native American tribes who fear the pipeline will spell environmental disaster.

The American Petroleum Institute and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, both of which are urging the State Department to approve the project, held a conference call with journalists Thursday in which they claimed the pipeline could generate 20,000 new jobs....

That's 20,000 jobs you ain't getting, bitches, 'cause the EPA calls the shots in Obamaland.. And speaking of which...how clueless is your puppet president? This clueless, as recently as last week:

...this last month and a half have been extraordinary....We actually have jumpstarted an entire industry here in the United States, building advanced batteries that are going to go into electric vehicles. Not only does it create jobs, manufacturing jobs that pay well, but it also is going to make a huge contribution in terms of our environment and reducing carbon emissions.

Nice fantasy, Mr. President. Too bad we're only selling less than 1000 Leafs and Volts a month...combined. That's more a niche than an industry, in my reckoning...

Bottom line: Barack Hussein Obama is one stupid m*therf*cker, a college boy who had utopian ideas in his head with no idea how to implement them, and was glad to be used as a puppet for every constituency that crossed his transom, as long as they ponied up the re-election dough. And guess what? Just about every constituency got screwed, possibly the aforementioned union members most of all. Suckas!   


Barack Obama is..."Bart the Genius"

STUDENT 3: What do you think of the new kid?

STUDENT 1: A rather mediocre genius.

STUDENT 2: Yes, not very bright at all...

Frank Lautenberg lets the mask slip: "We've got to eliminate the rich!"

New Jersey's senile senator - whoops, I meant "senior senator" - went off on a rambling tangent after a young man asked him a question about using funds from government-seized property (drug cash, etc.) to help replenish the state's beaches.

Lautenberg's response: "We've got to eliminate the rich":



Art Gallagher has some suggestions for our Diapered Dandy:

Let me be the first to suggest that Lautenberg start with himself. He should turn over all of his wealth including his homes in Cliffside Park and Manhattan and return to his native Paterson where he grew up during the Great Depression. Maybe there he would recognise something of his immigrant parents in some of the immigrant couples with different skin colors and dialects that Sam and Mollie had, but have a similar work ethic, faith in the American Dream and love of their children. Maybe he will see something of himself in a brown young boy with dreams.

Or maybe he will see hopeless broken families merely existing on the government handouts confiscated from the rich.

That's Congressman Frank Pallone (D) standing astride his sugar daddy, by the way. Pallone can be seen here bragging that he's the true architect of Obamacare. (Of course, all mention of that proud accomplishment has long since been scrubbed from his website...)

Pallone acts like he love his dear old granddad - with his approving, doting, patient smile -  but the stories are legion in New Jersey about Frank's rage that the old man just absolutely refuses to kick the bucket and pass on the seat that is rightfully his...

Which of course, reminds me of:

"Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish""

Burns: There, Simpson: seven gone. As soon as you're in your pressboard coffin, I'll be the sole survivor and the treasure will be mine.
Abe: Over my dead body, it will!


Burns:  I've tried to meet you halfway on this, Simpson, but you had to be little Johnny Live-a-lot. Now, give me your key to the Hellfish bonanza...

Global Warming Will Force Aliens To Destroy The Earth!

Can I declare this the official moment that the entire "climate change cult" has jumped the shark?  Or perhaps "descended into madness" is the more appropriate phrase.  As the science has faltered, and the reality sinks in that the entire climate scam has been about implementing the liberal agenda and strengthening government control, the last true believers are frantically reaching out for something - anything - that will scare us enough into taking them seriously.

This story, alas, won't do it.  It may in fact be a tipping point, but not in the direction the Warmists would like:

Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists

It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim.

Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.

This highly speculative scenario is one of several described by a Nasa-affiliated scientist and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University that, while considered unlikely, they say could play out were humans and alien life to make contact at some point in the future....

"A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilisation may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand. Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilisational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of the Earth's atmosphere, via greenhouse gas emissions," the report states.

"Green" aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet. "These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets," the authors write.

Well, for one, I am starting to come to the belief - after some denial of my own - that the gradual defunding of NASA may not be such a bad thing, if it employs folks like these as consultants.

George Savage over at Ricochet asks if the authors of this report aren't missing another possible reason aliens might want to wipe humanity off the Earth:

...there is little risk of being judged a rapidly expanding civilization while Barack Obama is in office, so we can breathe easily for the next sixteen months. However, I find it strange that amidst the many scenarios considered for alien encounters... I missed the one exploring the possibility of liberty-loving aliens wiping us out to prevent the spread of socialist utopianism, which, once established, could destroy the galaxy by its kudzu-like growth even in the face of universal evidence of its comprehensive failure.  


Just make sure nobody tells Democratic presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, who proudly tweeted yesterday:

To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.

OK.  We will...

Separated At Birth: Clint Eastwood and Rick Perry?

I don't think this is going to be a campaign liability for Governor Perry:

The bushy eyebrows, the scowl...

Rick looks a little too happy here, but notice the similarities in the squint...

And both men are comfortable around long-barreled guns, be they pump-action or automatic....


And being that Clint Eastwood was recently voted "The Coolest Man in America", well...if I was Perry, I'd play up the similarities a little bit. If nothing else, it will drive the liberal media batshit crazy.

Funny thing, though...I've never seen Rick Perry and Clint Eastwood together....maybe...nah.  Couldn't be...

In the meantime, maybe Rick Perry should co-opt some of Clint's greatest lines:

This film cost $31 million. With that kind of money I could have invaded some country.

I tried being reasonable, I didn't like it.

....you've got to ask yourself one question--Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya...punk?

Nothing wrong with shooting...as long as the right people get shot.

Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.

I like the libertarian view, which is to leave everyone alone. Even as a kid, I was annoyed by people who wanted to tell everyone how to live

First, I blow a hole in your face; then I go back inside, and sleep like a baby... I guarantee you.




Perry already has a good start...

Rick Perry: Smarter Than Obama, Funnier Than Letterman

OK, I admit those are two pretty low bars.  But being that they are esteemed by liberals as the brightest and the cleverest, respectively, what can they say about the smart and sharply witty Rick Perry?

Well, they can hate with frothing rage and jealousy, I suppose.  Which explains almost the entirety of the Perry coverage we've seen since the eve of his announcement....

The Washington Examiner has the Top 10 Perry One-Liners So Far.  Glad they put the disclaimer in the headline, I feel this is one list that will need to be updated regularly.

Go read them all, these are my favorites:

- “We’re going to stop spending the money, unless I run out of ink in a veto pen.”  - Perry on how he's going to get a balanced budget.

- “Give him my love”  - Perry to reporters about fellow GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney

- "We don’t have tsunamis in Texas.”  - Perry on why he supports nuclear energy.

- "I never comment on whether I'm carrying a handgun or not . . that's why it's called concealed." -Perry on whether he was armed while at the Iowa State Fair

- “Anybody that wears that color pants, you gotta win,” - Perry to a man wearing salmon colored pants.


Eat your heart out, David Letterman.  Sh*t thy pants, Barack Obama....

Syria Slaughters Palestinians; World Yawns...

When Israel pats down Palestinians at checkpoint, it's definitive proof  of their apartheid status.  When Syria kills them in cold blood, well...nothin' but crickets.  Which proves nothing more than what anyone with half a brain already knows: Most criticism of Israel is grounded in good old fashioned antisemitism cloaked in liberal piety.

Otherwise, after events like these,the Security Council would be in session:

Syrian forces attacked a Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia this week, causing up to 10,000 residents to flee. UNRWA, the UN agency in charge of Palestinian refugees, said it has no idea where they went, how many were killed, or whether wounded and elderly people might still be trapped in the camp; it deemed the situation “very, very worrying.” A senior Palestinian Authority official, Yasser Abed Rabbo, went even further, terming the attack “a crime against humanity.”

Maybe they went into Israel. They'd get more love from their enemies than their "friends" like Hamas, Iran, or Barack Obama, none of whom spoke a word about this massacre.

But some of the aforementioned did have the time to issue a statement condemning Israel - specifically, the peace-loving "Quartet", which has accomplished nothing so far, and seems bent on keeping their track record perfect:

The Quartet is greatly concerned by Israel's recent announcements to advance planning for new
housing units in Ariel and East Jerusalem, and reiterates its position in this regard...

But they are not so concerned about Assad killing innocent Palestinian civilians when it suits his needs. Interesting.

You know, if both sides could rid themselves of outside interlocutors - be they Euro-socialist windbags debating fairness or petty proto-fascist thugs craving power - maybe we'd actually see some movement on the whole "peace" thing...


UPDATE:  Hamas must be sweating, they went a-Jew killing today, shooting at some children in cars. Smokescreen for Assad?  You betcha...

Will Barack Obama drag down Robert Menendez?

Well, one can only hope...

This has been the big news out of New Jersey this morning:

President Barack Obama is headed in the wrong direction as New Jersey voters disapprove 52 - 44 percent of the job he is doing...the president's lowest score ever in the Garden State.

Hey - in the land of the shady boardwalk, the locals know when they've been had by the shifty carny. Still:

New Jersey voters say 49 - 45 percent that Obama does not deserve to be reelected, but say 45 - 37 percent that they would vote for Obama over an unnamed Republican challenger in the 2012 presidential race.

So let's name one, and then see what happens.

But here's something I find even more interesting:

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez has a slightly negative 39 - 42 percent approval rating...Voters split 41 - 43 percent on whether Menendez deserves reelection in 2012, but back him 45 - 39 percent over an unnamed Republican challenger.

So let's name one.....

Menendez (D-La Raza) is a horrific Senator who has done little to nothing to advance the state's interests, while voting consistently to raise taxes on his constituents, take away their health-care choices, and flood their streets will illegal immigrants. New Jersey is a fairly liberal state, to be sure, but middle-class liberalism ends on the front lawn, and when they can't afford to mow it anymore, and find illegals napping in it, well....they'll fume silently (so as not to appear racist) and vote for the guy in the black hat.

In 2009 that hat was worn by Christie, who won despite being outspent 3-1 in a state where Democrats hold a huge registration advantage. Menendez's seat may be easy pickings for the Republicans in 2012, and it doesn't appear as if Barack Obama will have long enough coat-tails to carry his wife's fat ass, not to mention any far-left Senators in a fade-to-purple state.

Especially if Chris Christie - who was the only fellow to show a net gain an positive approval in the Quinnipiac poll at 47%-46% - is beating his ample chest about how much damage Menendez has done to New Jersey, and how much relief our as-yet unnamed Republican nominee can bring...

The Mainstream Media: Mocking Republicans and the Common Man For 150 Years...

John Miller's got a piece out in today's New York Post mocking (rightfully) Barack Obama's claim that since Abraham Lincoln got as much abuse in the past as he's getting in the present, he should be treated with the same respect and awe as the Great Emancipator.

As salient as any other example of Obama-speak, I suppose. But Miller reprints an excerpt from an editorial in The New York World, circa 1864, that shows who's really been taking sh*t from the elites for the past century and a half.  Pontificating on the Republican team of Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, we get:

“The age of statesmen is gone; the age of rail-splitters and tailors, of buffoons, boors and fanatics, has succeeded,” it wrote. “In a crisis of the most appalling magnitude, requiring statesmanship of the highest order, the country is asked to consider the claims of two ignorant, boorish, third-rate backwoods lawyers, for the highest stations in government. Such nominations, in such a conjecture, are an insult to the common-sense of the people.”

Expect the New York Times to reproduce an almost identical editorial to denounce the 2012 Republican team of Perry/Bachmann....

Abe Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, George W.  Bush, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry....backwoods, ignorant, fanatical boors, all... 

Not Exactly The Headlines Obama's Bus Tour Was Supposed To Create...

Guess the dim bulbs (can we call them "florescents"?) in the White House thought that the countrified, deep-fried rubes in flyover country would greet Obama with the awe and deference which medieval peasants used to show when the king ambled by.  One thing's for certain, they weren't expecting to get headlines like these from the local media:

Hmmm...maybe it's time to limit the president's press pool to the New York Times and MSNBC?

Speaker Boehner has more...

Obama's latest talking point: "My ideas have traditionally had bipartisan support"

Barack Obama, yesterday, speaking to residents at a "town hall" in Decorah, Iowa:

"The problem we have is not with our country. The problem is that our politics is broken..."

"There are a whole host of ideas that we could be implementing right now that traditionally have had bipartisan support. The only thing that is preventing us from passing them is that there are some folks in Congress who think that doing something in cooperation with me, or this White House, that that somehow is bad politics."

Sound familiar? It should, as Obama used almost exactly the same line in his post-downgrade speech last Monday:

In fact, if Congress fails to extend the payroll tax cut and the unemployment insurance benefits that I’ve called for, it could mean 1 million fewer jobs and half a percent less growth. This is something we can do immediately, something we can do as soon as Congress gets back.

We should also help companies that want to repair our roads and bridges and airports, so that thousands of construction workers who’ve been without a job for the last few years can get a paycheck again. That will also help to spur economic growth.

These aren’t Democratic proposals. These aren’t big government proposals. These are all ideas that traditionally Republicans have agreed to, have agreed to countless times in the past. There’s no reason we shouldn’t act on them now. None.

Note how Obama, without mentioning the Tea Party, is attempting to isolate them from what "traditional" Republicans would have supported him on in the past, thus buttressing his claim that lack of support for additional spending is a partisan attack by a radical subgroup of conservatives.

And ironically, Obama might be right. Were this a different year, or an earlier time, Republicans would have certainly reached bipartisan agreement with Democrats on additional spending on infrastructure, welfare extensions disguised as tax cuts, etc.

But we've already spent ourselves to the brink of bankruptcy on the very same failed "ideas", and Tea Party Republicans were elected specifically to stop coming to the types of "agreements" with Democrats that wind up being paid for out of the middle class's pockets. So despite Obama's claim, there is very good reason not to act on them again, no matter how many times we have in the past.....

Nice try though, Barack. Would be nice for someone on the Republican side to point out the hostile partisan rhetoric Obama is engaging in, while campaigning for re-election on the taxpayer's dime...

Obama's new scapegoat: "Bad Luck"

...it's the plaintive wail of the loser, the one who never got the glory that was destined for him, and is bitter towards those who did, regardless of the price they paid in blood, sweat ,tears, and toil.

So it is no surprise that Barack Obama would have eventually turned to the weakest of all excuses for failure.  The only surprise is that he hid behind it so soon - usually, it is after the fall, in retrospect, when our underachiever looks around him, and realizing there is no one else he can credibly blame but himself, that he crawls into the cocoon of "bad luck", where his ego remains blameless for what debacles have ensued.  That Obama has reached for it so early makes me wonder what he has realized about himself, and the direction he is taking the country.

So here are the lies the president is reduced to telling himself, and the nation:

"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months we've had a run of bad luck." Obama listed three events overseas -- the Arab Spring uprisings, the tsunami in Japan, and the European debt crises -- which set the economy back.

Bush lost New York City and New Orleans to war and nature within a space of a few years. Don't recollect George W. Bush complaining much about his run of luck, for good or ill. Different men, I suppose...

And of course, there is this little bit than Glenn Reynolds likes to post now and again, about luck a quote from Robert Heinlein:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.


This is known as “bad luck.”

Paul Krugman: Wow, Texas Is Awesome!

I don't do much Krugman on this blog anymore.  I feel his ideas deserves about as much space here as would those of any other street-corner lunatic, which is about what he gets.

But sometimes the soapbox loon is just too damn funny to resist quoting.  So here we have Krugman, trying to discredit the powerhouse economy of the Lone Star state by gamely exposing what he dubs as - with all due reverence to the English language - the "Texas Unmiracle".

And what he discovered was horrifying - that the Texas model seems to work.  Well, he doesn't say that, exactly, but he has trouble working his way around the truth.  Observe:

It’s true that Texas entered recession a bit later than the rest of America, mainly because the state’s still energy-heavy economy was buoyed by high oil prices through the first half of 2008. Also, Texas was spared the worst of the housing crisis, partly because it turns out to have surprisingly strict regulation of mortgage lending.

You mean energy production is good for the economy? And that mortgages shouldn't be based upon the color of a borrower's skin, or just what they feel they want, but instead on what they deserve? Revolutionary! Why, those are the exact ideas espoused by conservatives and those terrorist tea partiers! Is Krugman about to go all heretic here?

Wait, there are more revelations by "el beardo":

For this much is true about Texas: It has, for many decades, had much faster population growth than the rest of America — about twice as fast since 1990. Several factors underlie this rapid population growth: a high birth rate, immigration from Mexico, and inward migration of Americans from other states, who are attracted to Texas by its warm weather and low cost of living, low housing costs in particular.

And just to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with a low cost of living. In particular, there’s a good case to be made that zoning policies in many states unnecessarily restrict the supply of housing, and that this is one area where Texas does in fact do something right.

So I suppose the "Rick is racist" meme now needs to be taken off the table, now that "The Krugz" has labeled him a good multiculturalist? One would almost seem to believe that Krugman is endorsing the Christian dogma of Perry as well -  after all, isn't high childbirth considered a glory onto God?

Must be the weather. And that low cost of living...Ah, here we go:

Many of the people moving to Texas — retirees in search of warm winters, middle-class Mexicans in search of a safer life — bring purchasing power that leads to greater local employment. At the same time, the rapid growth in the Texas work force keeps wages low — almost 10 percent of Texan workers earn the minimum wage or less, well above the national average — and these low wages give corporations an incentive to move production to the Lone Star State.

Wonder if Krugman here too, by touting Texas' safety, is endorsing the "one man, twenty guns" policy that has been the hallmark of the state for decades. But I suppose that, after visiting lavish praise on Rick Perry, he has to feel he found fault somewhere. But alas, our head-over-heels in love doctor Krugman seems to have forgotten to check how his facts stand up to comparison. They don't, as is to be expected:

According to a July study by the liberal National Employment Law Project, 73 percent of nation-wide job growth during the past year has been in low-wage occupations. The New York Times reports:

The report by the National Employment Law Project, a liberal research and advocacy group, found that while 60 percent of the jobs lost during the downturn were in midwage occupations, 73 percent of the jobs added since the recession ended had been in lower-wage occupations, like cashier, stocking clerk or food preparation worker.

Another fact that hasn’t been mentioned: the number of minimum wage jobs was actually decreasing steadily in Texas between 1998 and 2006. But when the federal minimum wage was raised from 2007 through 2009, many jobs previously considered above minimum wage in Texas automatically became classified as minimum wage.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes this in its recent report on lower-wage workers in Texas, and also points out that the number of workers making minimum wage increased in the state as well as the nation...

Whoops! Looks like Krugman is right: Texas is a perfect place, after all!

And not once in his piece did he even get around to mentioning that Texas has no state income tax, adding to its allure as a destination for the talented and entrepreneurial who want to keep just a wee bit more of what they earn.

Guess Dr. K will have to save that one for his next glowing piece on unfettered Texas capitalism...