Sunday, September 30, 2012

Making stuff up, a continuing series

Palm Beach Post: "Biden OK with Democrats" (snip) lying:
Not long after Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told seniors at Century Village of Boca Raton they could be socked with $6,300 a year in higher Medicare costs under Mitt Romney, Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged the figure is based on an analysis of an outdated plan.
But Biden argued it’s fair for Democrats to keep using the number, anyway.
Ends, means, justified.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Phantom cuts over a decade that lasts 12 years

Hit and Run looks at Obama's plan to cut the debt by $4 trillion and finds it's all smoke, mirrors, and taxes:
That $4 trillion in deficit reduction takes credit for nearly a trillion dollars in pared back war spending that is already scheduled to happen. The Medicare cuts called for by the plan are of the dubious slashing-provider-reimbursement variety that Congress has had serious trouble maintaining before and that the administration has already put the brakes on in one instance. The plan plays games with the budget baseline, counts $800 billion in debt payments as a "spending cut," and cleverly spreads is deficit reduction out over 12 years rather than the industry-standard 10 year window in order to meet the $4 trillion threshhold but make the early cuts — the ones he'd actually have to oversee as president — quite a bit smaller.
As The Washington Post's Fact Checker Glenn Kessler wrote earlier this month, "virtually no serious budget analyst" buys the president's $4 trillion deficit reduction figure, and "most of Obama’s claimed deficit reduction comes from his proposed tax increases."
Budget gimmicks and tax hikes: That's Obama's version of a balanced plan.
In other words, it's just more "making stuff up" and hoping nobody will notice.
Sea of debt - Zero Hedge: "The next subprime crisis is here: over $120 billion in federal student loans in default."
The Benghazi coverup - The Minuteman takes note that the NY Times waited until their least-read edition of the week to muse on the attack in Libya: "Hard to imagine - the Administration failed to anticipate terrorist attacks on the anniversary of 9/11,then misled the public about their failure, and this is news?"

The Administration, of course, is doing everything it can to get answers on this tragic incident - everything except getting the FBI team into Benghazi.  Like everything else, it can wait until after the election.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

This Obama fellow sure likes to cast blame and avoid responsibility

Hot Air: "Obama claim that Bush is 90% responsible for current deficit gets 100% of Pinocchios at WaPo."  Here's the conclusion from Kessler's analysis:
We are not trying to make excuses for the fiscal excesses of the Bush administration — and Congress — in the last decade. But at some point, a president has to take ownership of his own actions.
Obama certainly inherited an economic mess, and that accounts for a large part of the deficit. But Obama pushed for spending increases and tax cuts that also have contributed in important ways to the nation’s fiscal deterioration. He certainly could argue that these were necessary and important steps to take, but he can’t blithely suggest that 90 percent of the current deficit “is as a consequence” of his predecessor’s policies — and not his own.
As for the citing of the discredited MarketWatch column, we have repeatedly urged the administration to rely on estimates from official government agencies, such as the White House budget office. It is astonishing to see the president repeat this faulty claim once again, as if it were an established fact.
"Take ownership"?  Oh that's rich.  Anyway, after - what - three years of different variations of this theme, it's sure nice that somebody in the media notice that Obama lies about the deficit.  And only six weeks from the election.

Extra - Emily Miller: "The pass-the-buck president."

Monday, September 24, 2012

Kidz got mad reading skillz - Zero Hedge: "Confirming U.S. dumbification, verbal SAT scores just hit record low."  "All we can say is that the need for the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too has never been greater."
Best to take things in stride - Hit and Run: "Social Security's a wreck! But let's not rush to fix it or anything."

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Preventing the "heckler's veto"

Here's Victor Davis Hanson: "Please, no more apologies for free speech"
Apparently leaders of the Islamic world present a non-negotiable demand to the West that they be given a blank check for their governments to defame Jews, Christians, and Americans, but the United States must condemn any private individual who, quite apart from the knowledge of the U.S. government, does the same to Muslims. That is the issue, and anything less than an unapologetic defense of free speech is not only a betrayal of our Constitution, but a very dangerous concession that will only incite more violence in the near future.
The other day on NPR, professor Noah Feldman explained that freedom of speech is really unique here in the U.S.A.  Here's one excerpt from "Held dear in U.S., free speech is perplexing abroad"
"In the U.S., we value the liberty of the speaker much more highly than either the dignity of the person who feels insulted or the state's interest in trying to avoid violent protest. ...
"What's most distinctive from our perspective is that we think that if your feelings are hurt, then that's your problem. We don't believe that you ought to be protected from the hurly-burly of political insult. And that's a very deeply ingrained American notion. ...
"And because we're concerned not to allow what's called the heckler's veto, where the fact that one particular group or person will make a fuss, means that we will prohibit the speech, we've tended to be extremely permissive, and that does make us very different from other countries."
One thing I took away from this interview is that every time the United States rolls out a new apology, the response from the Islamic world is bewilderment and more anger.  The apology itself feeds into the mistaken belief that the American government can curtail speech if it really wanted to.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

It's really loud with the Shop-Vac on

I lifted this video from Mental Floss because 1.) it's a catchy song and 2.) the video uses "kinematic typography" where the words are shaped and animated to match their definitions.  It's fun!



It's a rhetorical question - Weekly Standard: "Did Obama mislead on Social Security cuts?"
What media bias? - The Onion: "Media having trouble finding right angle on Obama's double-homocide".  Heh.

Extra - Free Beacon: "Obama's Army."

Friday, September 21, 2012

We're the PIIGs in America

Zero Hedge: "PIIGs in America: Is Illinois preparing to request a federal bailout?"

Imagine that

Gallup: "U.S. distrust in media hits new high"
Americans' distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust is up from the past few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been in years prior to 2004.
Funny thing: although we all know the media is totally fair and objective, Republicans and independents don't see it that way.  Democrats, on the other hand, think they're doing a great job.

I'm more convinced than ever that the media's intention to protect Obama at all costs is leading to a Presidential cocooning that will explode during the debates.  He hasn't had a press conference since March, he's been meeting with hard-hitting magazines like Entertainment Weekly, making appearances on "The View" and Letterman, and avoiding the White House press corps like the plague.  For the first time in a long while, Obama faced an interviewer at Univision (of all outlets) who wouldn't accept Obama's pre-programmed straw-man responses.
We see what happens when Obama's asked some difficult questions: He screws up. The reason we don't see this often is not that he is a cognitive high evolutionary; it's because he's never asked difficult questions. Questions about wedge issues. With follow-ups. With contradictions.
Obama has been either lying or vague on the campaign trail with nobody to press the issue.  Today he told the AARP that he'll protect Medicare by "keeping costs down" but there were no details and nary a journalist in sight will note that the only remedy he's ever proposed to meet this goal is an unelected board whose only power is to cut reimbursement rates to medical providers.  Both Obama (and Bill Clinton) keep insisting that $716 billion in Medicare cuts won't affect benefits but good luck finding a doctor who will accept Medicare reimbursement rates reduced to the same level as Medicaid.  Plus, there's the magic accounting of money taken from Medicare will both extend the program and pay for Obamacare.

When has Obama been confronted to explain these issues in detail by the mainstream media?  Oh, I know, he's asked about them and then he starts his five-minute filibuster and nobody dares to interrupt the President.  But on that debate stage there's going to be a flashing light and somebody (one can hope) that will challenge Obama to defend his record with non-lies.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Eric Holder will be playing the role of Sergeant Schultz - He knows nothing about Fast and Furious.  Hit and Run: "Fast and Furious report exonerates Holder; rogue agents done the deed.  Right."  "An either-or choice between deceitful bastard and incompetent figurehead should not be read as an exoneration."
Warren-Brown debate - It's rare that we have a close race here in the People's Republic but the first debate for the Massachusetts Senate between Scott Brown and Liz Warren was tonight.  As it happens, I had to pick up my kids so I missed the whole thing but Prof. Jacobson has a post-debate analysis.  It sounds like the Cherokee question didn't have to wait very long.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Al Qaeda? Oh heavens no - Treacher: "Let the record of the Benghazi attack show...whatever Obama needs it to show."

It was that darn You Tube guy.  Washington Examiner: "Al Qaeda is alive and GM is half-dead."
Does anybody really know what time it is?

Obama took some time out of his busy day partying with Beyonce and Jay-Z to appear on Letterman to feign ignorance about the size of the national debt:
Then Letterman went back to the tally: “Now, do you remember what that number was? Was it $10 trillion?”
Then came the payoff, as the president made clear that he really didn’t want to utter the word “16”: “I don’t remember what the number was precisely.”
He don't know nothin' about no debt.  This one:


Who's going to pay for this?  Sure, "the rich."

Extra - Powerline: "Obama's answer was a masterpiece of prevarication."

More - From Twitchy.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Even Pennsylvania? - Daily Caller: "University of Colorado model prediction model points to big Romney win": "A presidential election prediction model developed by two University of Colorado professors points to a big win for GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney in November.  The model, the only of its kind to use more than one state-level economic indicator, has correctly predicted the winner of every presidential election since 1980."  The fundamentals of this election still matter.
A low-quality product doesn't sell

Opinion Journal: "The Fourth Estate, still thrilling to the spirit of '08."

Big Journalism: "Newspaper ad revenues collapse to 1950 levels."

Gallup: Only 26% of Americans think journalists have high ethical standards.
Yeah, this would have been better - And it provides a template on how to frame the debate going forward.  Opinion Journal: "What Romney might have said."

Monday, September 17, 2012

Romney does himself no favors

How can a guy who has been running for President for a decade open himself up for another line of attack that he's elitist and out-of-touch?  I'd like to think Allahpundit has it right here:
This was recorded awhile back at a fundraiser, just like Obama’s infamous “bitter/clinger” comments in 2008. Remember how big that blew up? That’s how we ended up with President McCain.
And everybody was suitably shocked when then-candidate likened his low bowling score to the Special Olympics.  But Romney doesn't have the advantage of a press that's, um, objective and non-partisan.  MSNBC will be running stories around the clock about how deeply Obama cares about all those people he put into poverty.  Meanwhile, Romney tithes to his church?  Tax dodger!

Extra - From Patterico and Doug Ross.
Government Motors update - The Truth About Cars: "GM execs want their jets back, want taxpayers to take a bath."  Nothing doing, GM...the Feds are going to hold tight to that stock like a Facebook founder.  It's gotta go up sometime, right?

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Free speech 2012

Because it's absolutely normal for five deputies to arrest a man in the middle of the night on a probation violation.  Glenn Reynolds: "Why Barack Obama should resign."

Or as somebody on the Internet noted: "Death to the filmmaker!"  White House: "Hold on, we'll get him for you."

The "Defend the Constitution" memes are coming up.  Here's my contribution:


Extra - From Hit and Run: "Filmmaker Nakoula voluntarily accepts ride from police."

More - Powerline: "In order to spare themselves the sort of critical scrutiny to which they are unaccustomed, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have fallen in with the absurd claim that violence has broken out in eleven Muslim countries, and terrorists armed with RPGs and (reportedly) mortars carried out a military operation to assassinate a U.S. ambassador, as a result of a 14-minute YouTube video. As always, Obama’s first priority is to point the finger of responsibility elsewhere."

Saturday, September 15, 2012

I'm sure the media will be reporting this any day now - Zero Hedge: "On this week in history, gas prices have never been higher"  "For those that do eat or use vehicles; for the first time in history, national average gas prices for the 2nd week of September were over $4.00."
Waivers update - Mickey Kaus: "Welfare fight, round four."

Friday, September 14, 2012

Answering that 3 a.m. call

It looks like Hillary Clinton's famous ad about Obama's readiness has come to this: he's ready to answer that 3 a.m. call as long as Beyonce and Jay-Z are at his side.  Now who wants some sweatshirts?  Whoot!


Thursday, September 13, 2012

Old and busted: "Yes we can!"
New and busted: "Nobody could have fixed this."

Here are some headlines from the past couple days:

Zero Hedge: "Jobless claims spike is fourth largest in 2012 as producer prices surge by most since June 2009."
Hot Air: "Great news: Middle class sinks to all-time low in 2011."
CBS News: "Survey: One-third of Americans in 'lower classes' since Obama took office."
NPR: "Gas sends wholesale prices up the most in 3 years."
and finally: "Does this look like an economy that's moving forward?"

And yet two years ago, when it looked like the economy was on the mend, the Obama administration was hanging the "Mission Accomplished!" banners:
We're asked to believe that the Obama administration knew all along that things would take longer than four years to improve. "I never said this journey would be easy," the president claimed in Charlotte. On the contrary, the president stated explicitly on Feb. 1, 2009, that if he failed to get the economy turned around in three years, he would be looking at a "one-term proposition."
If the Obama administration knew from the start that the so-called "hole" left by the previous administration was too deep to climb out of in one term, why did they repeatedly claim that the recovery was at hand? "Recovery Summer," the White House website promised, would begin in June 2010.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner authored a New York Times op-ed in August 2010 proclaiming "Welcome to the Recovery." Geithner wrote, "(A) review of recent data on the American economy shows that we are on a path back to growth." Though acknowledging continuing challenges, Geithner assured readers that "the actions we took ... to stimulate the economy helped arrest the freefall, preventing an even deeper collapse and putting the economy on the road to recovery."
It's pretty clear that Obama never thought his policies would lead to such a weak recovery and had no Plan B.  Should have told better stories.

Monday, September 10, 2012

GM's Bizarro business model

From The Truth About Cars: "Your tax dollars at work: GM loses its shirts on every Volt"
GM loses around $49,000 on each Volt it builds says Reuters. GM sold a record 2,831 Volts in August, but that may “have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce,” says Reuters after a deep data dive into the elusive profitability of GM’s green halo car.
With tax credits, the Chevy Volt costs around $32K and GM loses $49K.  Remember when the White House was criticizing Romney's time with Bain by saying government is not about making a profit?  They weren't kidding.

Extra - The Corner: "The Democrats' GM fiction."

More - Gateway Pundit: "Obama makes lying about Ohio auto jobs a campaign staple."

Sunday, September 09, 2012

Can you tell me where I can buy this $3.50 gas you speak of?

Saturday, September 08, 2012

Greatest invention ever (crosswalk technology subcategory) - Via Chive, here's a video of a crosswalk console in Germany.  When you're allowed to cross the street, the screen will show a green bar that indicates how much time is remaining.  But when you're waiting, the console will allow you to play a game of Pong with the person across the street.  Technology is fun.
You, yes you, are going to pay for all this stuff - Opinion Journal: "Desperately seeking middle-class taxes."
The college scam - Maggie's Farm: "Everybody should go to college."  There's an old Bloom County cartoon in which somebody is buying an engagement ring and asks: "Who decided that it was a necessity to get a shiny rock before you can get married?" and the jeweler declares "Guilty!"  The colleges have subtly advanced this elitist trope that the only way to get ahead is to go to college.  It is empirically untrue and the idea is filling the coffers of for-profit schools like the University of Phoenix.  As Mike Rowe or John Ratzenberger would advise: learn a trade.
Will the media finally break out of its Obama reverie?

Here's a post from Doug Ross: "Real unemployment is now 11.7%; propaganda gap hits new level."  The jobs report was awful in every way from downward revisions of previous months, a drop in manufacturing jobs, and the lowest participation rate for men since they starting keeping labor statistics.

And yet, the morning of the jobs report, Joe Scarborough was declaring the jobs report "good news" and a "tailwind" for the President.  It fell to Chuck Todd to tell Joe he was an idiot.  But can you blame Joe?  He's just a pixel in the larger MSM brotherhood out to protect their guy.

Remember when gas prices were the top story on the news every night?  Today, not so much.  Newsbusters: "Networks hype gas prices four times more for Bush than Obama."  Nobody talks about Gitmo anymore and there's zero interest in Obama's secret kill list.  But if Paul Ryan says that Obama stole $716 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare (he did) then it's time to deploy the "fact checkers."

At some point, that J-school education has to kick in and they'll remember the class on balance and objectivity.  Until then, brace yourself for some "fresh" reports on Romney's tax returns.

Extra - From Instapundit and Ace.

More - Big Government: "Do your job, mainstream media, people are suffering."

Friday, September 07, 2012

Everybody out of the labor pool

Zero Hedge: "The reason why the unemployment rate dropped: the labor participation rate is at fresh 31-year lows."


At a campaign stop today, Obama laid blame for the anemic job growth.  I'll give you three guesses who he blamed and the first two don't count.

Extra - James Pethokoukis - "The awful, awful August jobs report."

Thursday, September 06, 2012

Fire up the teleprompters


Wall Street Journal: "Obama to press plan to revive the economy."  Seems to me that should have been on your "to do" list four years ago, champ.

Extra - Commentary: "Obama's recycled promises."

More - Opinion Journal: "Mr. Obama was elected first and foremost with a mandate to fix the economy. Yet when he found himself by rare confluence of luck with 60 votes in the Senate, he put nurturing a fragile recovery secondary to the pursuit of pent-up liberal social policies."

Snap review - This was Obama's speech from 2008: it was full of "we're gonna do this and that" and "the path forward" and "we should choose this way forward" as if he hasn't been President for four years.  There wasn't a hint of a mea culpa for record debt, unemployment, and food stamps.  Well, that may not be true: I think he said things have been tough so he fell to his knees just like Lincoln.  Because he was a President too and therefore a great man.

And, dear Lord, the pandering.  This election isn't about me...it's about you!  Because you're marvelous.  It's you who are the hope.

Finally, as I predicted, there was nothing on entitlement reform, which will swallow the entire budget in 23 years.  Instead it was snark, small-ball, smarmy smiles and straw men.  I can't imagine independents and undecided voters would buy into this.

And this - Charles Krauthammer just called it the "emptiest major speech" Obama's ever given.  Now Joe Trippi is saying that Joe Biden's speech was better...literally.  Gee, maybe they should have brought Clinton out again.

Finally - I need to go to bed but a lot of the adjectives I'm hearing are "flat" or "resigned" or that Obama seems "weighed down."  And I have to wonder: did Obama see some bad news in tomorrow's job report?  The consensus report is something like +120,000 jobs with the unemployment rate staying at 8.3%.  Hmm.
Woman in RNC ad is a Republican - libs freak out

I have to admit I thought this was a spoof, but apparently it's real.  The Republicans ran a tongue-in-cheek ad of a woman "breaking up" with Obama and the lefties shouted "Aha! she's not a Democrat!"

Jim Treacher: "This might be the dumbest nontroversy you'll see all day"
Seriously. They really do think you’re this stupid. I’m surprised they aren’t pointing out that she’s delivering her lines to a cardboard cutout, not the real Obama, and calling that a “problem.”
I think they're trying a little payback after "Republican women for Obama" were actually Democrats.  For extra fun today, a "former Bain employee" who spoke at the DNC never worked for Bain.  Fake but accurate, I presume.
Yeah, right - Ace of Spades: "Obama will address entitlement reform tonight."

Guess who isn't going to be pushing Grandma over a cliff tonight?  The guy who stole $716 billion from Medicare.

Wednesday, September 05, 2012

Elizabeth Warren's twaddle - There's a reason why this non-Cherokee is trailing in the polls against Scott Brown here in Massachusetts: everything she says is the most vapid, vaporous, platitude-laden nonsense.  Early in her sappy, silly speech tonight she talked about all the jobless in Massachusetts who are "hammered" by corporations and oil companies and nameless Republicans.  This tragedy occurs in a state led by a Democrat governor, an overwhelmingly-Democrat state legislature, in a country led by a Democrat President.  But darn those "fat cats!"
Dora always asks hard questions


Can YOU spot the unsustainable entitlement?


I think the answer is "red."

Hit and Run: "Medicare is doomed"
When Democrats accuse Republicans of wanting to “end Medicare as we know it,” they are right. But Democrats do too. “Medicare as we know it” is no longer an option.
Leaving aside Medicare’s fatal moral defect—that it’s coercively funded—the program is doomed. It has tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities. It threatens working generations with a crushing tax burden. Because of the relative size of the Baby Boom generation, soon there will be only two workers to pay each retiree’s medical bills. Younger people might have other plans for their money.
So something’s got to give, no matter which party is in power.
The Democrats and their cronies in the AARP are trying to sell Americans on the soothing notion that Medicare is a "sacred promise" but the truth is that the well is running dry:
One of the great ironies of this convention already is that speaker after speaker denounces Republicans for being unable to tell the truth or get their facts straight. Meanwhile, one of the most important truths of modern governance—we are well and truly out of money—sits neglected in the corner. This might be a great way to rally the Democratic base, but it's thin gruel for the majority of Americans who think, correctly, that the nation's finances have spun out of control.
Now let's pass that Buffett rule already.  It will pay for literally hours of government spending.

Monday, September 03, 2012

I tell you these are honorable men - Given the stories of the complicated relationship between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and the former's desire for a Hillary presidency, I wonder if Bill might be preparing the Mark Antony speech.  In the "friends, Romans, countrymen" oration from "Julius Caesar," Antony cleverly turns the crowd against Brutus and the assassins all the while insisting they are "wise" and "honorable."

It's interesting - to say the least - that Clinton is not letting anybody see his speech.  By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes...to North Carolina.
Hostile to business - WashPost: "Obama faces mounting questions over 'you didn't build that' remark"

The timeline of this gaffe is telling: for a solid week, the White House issued no kind of clarification - "we meant roads and bridges!" - until the snap poll results rolled in and then the Most Articulate President ever had to cut a quick commercial to explain what he really meant.  Of course, to believe Obama wasn't being derisive of the hard work of small business owners, you merely need to review the rest of the speech.

Oh, sure, roads and bridges.  Gotcha.
Cut and paste




Entitlement nation - Opinion Journal: "American character is at stake" "What is monumentally new about the American state today is the vast empire of entitlement payments that it protects, manages and finances. Within living memory, the federal government has become an entitlements machine. As a day-to-day operation, it devotes more attention and resources to the public transfer of money, goods and services to individual citizens than to any other objective, spending more than for all other ends combined."
Fact-checking the fact checkers on welfare reform

Mickey Kaus returns to the work requirement that Obama scrapped: "Credulous fact-checkers fall for 20% scam"
Raise caseloads by 20% and Sebelius’ standard will probably be met. (Maybe raise caseloads 30% just to be sure.) So what looks like a tough get-to-work incentive is actually a paleoliberal “first-get-on-welfare” incentive. But the point of welfare reform isn’t to get more people onto welfare.
It’s understandable that MSM reporters and non-profit checkers–some of whom may have been given only a few hours to get to the bottom of a subject they’ve never written about before–would easily fall for a bit of bureaucratic fakery. Do they have to be so self-righteous about it?
Judging by the MSM's over-reaction to Paul Ryan's speech, it's pretty obvious they're wired into the Obama campaign's Twitter feed and swallows whole the spin.  "False balance" indeed.

Sunday, September 02, 2012

Jesse and Creed

The last "Breaking Bad" until 2013 is tonight?  That's quite a long wait.



Predictive model says: Obama's gonna lose

For all you Eeyores out there who think this election is going to be a squeaker: take heart.  Today's Boston Globe has an article (behind pay wall) about the IHS Global Insight model that takes a handful of economic and political factors then calculates the incumbent's percentage of the vote:
The Lexington economic forecasting firm takes two economic indicators plus three political variables, plugs them into a formula, and out pops the percentage of the popular vote the incumbent party is expected to win. The formula has correctly predicted the outcome in 14 of the last 16 presidential elections.
Indeed, most of the model's predictions have been within a percentage point and the worst miss was the 1972 election that underestimated Nixon's re-election share by 4.8%.  And what does the model predict for The One?
The most recent update of the formula, using July economic data, shows President Obama losing decisively, with just over 45 percent of the popular vote.
In other words: landslide territory for Romney.  But if you want to go old-school, there's always the President's approval rating:
A president’s job approval rating is one of the best indicators for assessing his chances of reelection. Typically, the president’s job approval rating on Election Day will be close to the share of the vote he receives. Currently, 48% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's job performance.
That's Rasmussen's poll.  This morning, Gallup posted Obama's approval rating at 43%.

These numbers all predict a loss for Obama and America still has to digest the new benchmark of $16 trillion in debt and an unemployment rate that - at best - will stay at 8.3%.  Have fun at your convention, Dems.

Saturday, September 01, 2012

Is today the day? - U.S. debt clock is about to turn over $16 trillion.

Update - Well, it looks like this is the official one and as of Sunday morning it's at $15.996 T.  That means we're almost certainly going to hit the big 1-6 on Labor Day, right before the DNC.