The peoples' business - If it's Tuesday, it must be time for four fundraisers.  There will be two shows at the Peachtree Plaza.

Republicans: Resistance is futile!

It must be the pending Obamacare ruling but the wailing and rending of clothes is reaching an apex.  Here's Paul "One Note" Krugman blaming all our woes on...guess who.

So what does the Fed propose doing about the situation? Almost nothing. True, last week the Fed announced some actions that would supposedly boost the economy. But I think it’s fair to say that everyone at all familiar with the situation regards these actions as pathetically inadequate — the bare minimum the Fed could do to deflect accusations that it is doing nothing at all.
Why won’t the Fed act? My guess is that it’s intimidated by those...

Wait for it......

Congressional Republicans, that it’s afraid to do anything that might be seen as providing political aid to President Obama, that is, anything that might help the economy.

That's right: the Fed, an independent entity in our government, is cowed by the Tea Party nuts.  Who knew it could be so easy to make Ben Bernanke tremble into submission?  That's GOP Power, baby!

Then there's E.J. Dionne who opens this article by hoping for an "honest and complete discussion" about Obamacare.  Three paragraphs later he's asking: "Why do these Republicans keep talking about Obamacare?"

The ACA is the victim of a vicious cycle: Obamacare polls badly. Therefore, Democrats avoid Obamacare, preferring to talk about almost anything else, while Republicans and conservatives attack it regularly. This makes Obamacare's poll ratings even worse, which only reinforces the avoidance on the liberal side.

I, for one, will be flabbergasted if the Supreme Court rejects Nancy Pelosi's thorough and analytical defense on the legality of Obamacare: "Are you serious?"  Good show.

And the cherry on top is James Fallows' great Frisco freak-out that we're in the middle of a coup d'etat.  Well, I guess the secret is out: we Republicans purposely gave the Democrats a filibuster-proof two-year grace period because we were so sure they'd screw it up.  Step #2 was to engineer the largest midterm swing in Congressional power since 1938.  Step #3 was to make sure our buddies in the Supreme Court knock down Obamacare.

Step #4 is four months away but, so far, everything's on track.

One step closer to Idiocracy (brought to you by Carl's Jr.)

NY Times: "Cities consider selling ads as economic lifelines."

After Baltimore officials made the wrenching decision to close three fire companies later this summer, the City Council initially sought to avert the cuts with a new money-raising strategy: it passed a resolution this month urging the administration to explore selling ads on the city’s fire trucks.

Cities, they like the money.

You know what would make your special day even more special?  Me. - Hot Air: "Because nothing says "wedding present" like a donation to the Obama campaign."

Extra - Ace: "This is weird, right?"  Um, yes.  So are the dinner raffles.

More - Twitchy: "Let them eat wedding cake - #ObamaGiftRegistrySlogans."

Back from Vermont - Had a great weekend camping in Vermont although we shall not talk about my luck at horseshoes.

Stuff I didn't know until we elected a Constitutional Law professor President

1.) The Commerce Clause can make you buy stuff, even if you don't want it
2.) The President can make recess appointments when Congress isn't in recess
3.) Executive privilege to protect Presidential communications extends to conversations that never occurred
4.) The President can pick and choose which laws to defend
5.) The President can craft his own legislation
6.) Conservative super-PACs must reveal donors; liberal ones, not so much
7.) The President can kill Americans without due process

Four more Pinocchios for Team Obama

This time was for the Bain attack reboot and the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler makes a joke here:

The Obama campaign fails to make its case. On just about every level, this ad is misleading, unfair and untrue, from the use of “corporate raider” to its examples of alleged outsourcing.  Simply repeating the same debunked claims won’t make them any more correct. 

Ha-ha!  Clearly Glenn has never heard an Obama speech.

Supreme Court decisions - It wasn't the big Obamacare ruling today but the Court handed down decisions on four cases.  The invaluable SCOTUSBlog has a review.

Aussie floodlights and letterboxes - The Chive: "A great Australian troll about placement of a floodlight."

This JOLT fails to stimulate

The Labor Department has the latest Jobs Outlook and Labor Turnover report and Zero Hedge says it's "ugly."  "The BLS April JOLTS survey was released earlier and it was ugly - of particular attention was the number of "job opening" which collapsed from 3.741MM to 3.416MM, a drop of 325,000, which just happens to be the biggest decline since May 2010. ... Adding to the dire jobs picture was the New Hires number which dropped by 160,000, the biggest sequential drop since April 2011, and finally separations, which after months of increases (remember: more separations is a good thing supposedly, meaning people are confident they can find better paying jobs elsewhere), had their biggest drop by 81,000, also the most since April 2011."  Combine this with the "unexpected" rise in jobless claims last week and the double-dip recession could be a real thing.

More - James Pethokoukis: "Is the U.S. economy losing jobs again?"

Tom Daschle pens a dumb article

This guy used to be Senate majority leader?  Over a Politico, he wants to remind us that "Health insurance isn't like broccoli."  First off, he says - gee whilikers - the only difference between other entitlement programs and Obamacare is the way it's funded:

The only difference between these mandates and the insurance mandate is that Congress chose to use its constitutional taxing authority, rather than the commerce clause, to enact them.
This raises the question: Would we even be having this debate if this administration and Congress had done the same?

No.  No we wouldn't because of that single word highlighted above.  But this administration could never pass the legislation with trillions in new taxes, so they dreamed up the individual mandate to tax (mostly younger and healthier) Americans by other means.  And as we all know, some people really hate to pay taxes.

Tom quickly turns away from this dead-end argument and back to broccoli:

But back to broccoli and Congress’s authority.
The power of this simple idea has its genesis in a trite bit of logic: “the nose under the tent” argument. If we require people to purchase health insurance, the reasoning goes, with that nose under the tent, why not broccoli next?
That logic comes as close to insulting one’s intelligence as anything I can imagine.
Yes, Congress could require Americans to purchase broccoli. But who would be stupid enough to even suggest it? Does anyone actually believe that we could find 60 votes in the Senate and 218 votes in the House to support it?

Is this guy serious?  It's a metaphor, Tom!  A metaphor that goes right to the heart of the question of whether the Commerce Clause has any limits.  Congress is not going to compel you to buy broccoli (I can't say the same about Brawndo.)

What remains is boilerplate mish-mash about how we could have this great new system if only we're willing to give up this tiny bit of our liberty.  It's all been said and will soon be disposed by next Monday's Supreme Court ruling.

It's always the messaging, never the policy - Politico: "Robert Redford: Democrats are bad storytellers."    During the Obamacare cramdown, Obama gave like a thousand speeches across the country selling this awful legislation and yet his golden voice failed to move the needle one bit.  So when the messaging doesn't work, it must be because we're living in a country full of Kansas bitter clingers.  Comforting to think so.

Cue the "malaise" speech - Red State: "We've reached the penultimate Jimmy Carter moment of the Obama presidency."  This crazy old democracy of ours is just ungovernable.

Finally on Father's Day - This is kinda big deal: after a four-year drought, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the NASCAR Sprint Cup race in Michigan today.  And Junior Nation cheered. Amen.

Rockin' in my Dockers

Happy Father's Day!

Sign of the times - NJ Star Ledger: "Cursive slowly scribbled out of N.J. curriculums as computer skills gain value in schools."  I guess in the future we'll all sign documents with a barcode.

Anna Wintour suggests a fine Gruyere to go with that whine - Hot Air: "Obama: Republicans haven't 'lifted a finger' for job creation."  Said the guy who hasn't passed a budget, doesn't talk to anyone in Congress, and has attended more fundraisers than the previous five Presidents combined.  He jotted down his "to-do" list and that's about it.

Americans like the stuff they like, we don't know about that other stuff - American Interest: "Cocoon alert: WaPo on Obamacare."

Where the buck stops - Mark Steyn "Earthly woes mount as Obama's rhetoric soars": "Self-pity is never an attractive quality, and in an elected head of state even less so. Obama whines that his opponents say it's all his fault. One can argue about whose fault it is, but not, as my colleagues at National Review pointed out, whose responsibility it is: It's his. He's the only president we have. And he made things worse. He increased the national debt by some 70 percent, and what do we have to show for it? No dams, no railroads, no moon shots. Just government, and bureaucracy, and regulation, unto national bankruptcy."

Extra - Matt Continetti: "Obama's pity party."

No, and can we please stop pretending we can? - Hot Air: "Can we prevent a fiscal collapse without reforming entitlements?"  The "baseline scenario" is not an answer.

Michael, Sam and Fiona - Time for "Burn Notice"!  Yay!

One-trick pony

Here's First Read this morning:

In the five years since Barack Obama has become a fixture on the national stage, he has followed this script when the going gets tough: He gives a speech. .... In THIS speech, per the campaign, the president will mention (as he’s said before at some recent fundraisers) the stark contrast on the economy between the two presidential candidates, and he’ll say that this election has the chance to “break the stalemate” between the two parties on how to fix the economy and pay down the debt. Here’s the thing about Obama’s speeches, though: This appears to be his team’s only play sometimes. They’ve worked in the past, of course. But the question becomes: If you continually give a speech when your back is against the wall, does it inevitably have less of an impact?

Judging by the reaction by the media, I would say this one is a bust.  Put aside the predictive models of election results based on disposable income or consumer confidence.  There's also what I call the "living room" threshold where Americans ask themselves: "do I want this guy in my living room (on the TV) for four years?"  Obama has had consistently high personal approval ratings but in this election season he's quickly become a hectoring bore.  Gone are the "hope and change" of 2008, now it's all whining, blame-shifting, and fantasy rhetoric.

Don't worry: the Democrats are slaves to the notion that Americans are dull drones and improved "messaging" will carry the day.  So there will be blood more speeches.

The speeches will continue until morale improves

Old and busted: I'll be "held accountable" if I don't turn around the economy in three years.



New hotness: Did I say three years?  I meant eight.

Less college than country club - Via Fark, Time magazine has a photoessay on "The evolution of the college dorm."  The early days of Harvard, students (male) had to chop and transport their own firewood.  Now colleges are in an arms race to pile on amenities.

His own private reality

I caught this on Commentary: "Obama entering a world all his own"

What is fairly astonishing in all this is the utter lack of self-awareness by the president. A jolting collision is occurring between his own self-conception (Obama views himself as a world-historical figure and Great Man) and the multiple and multiplying failures of his presidency. Obama appears incapable of processing the truth or coming to grips with reality. And so he’s spinning tales day after day, including his fantastic (and thoroughly discredited) claim that “Since I’ve been president, federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years.”

Is Obama really still repeating this thoroughly-debunked bunkum?  Well, according the White House web page, yes he is, as of yesterday:

Even after you factor in all the work that we did to prevent us from slipping into a depression, the pace of growth of government spending is lower under my administration than it has been in the last 50 years. 

You have to wonder about this guy.  Mickey Kaus took note of Obama's enthusiastic embrace of this "skinflint" persona:

Does Obama really not have an intuitive feeling for how much he’s been spending? That’s a little like not remembering how much sex you’re having. He’s the one doing the spending, after all. Even if he wasn’t, you’d think an ordinary BS detector would kick in.

Forget it, Mick.  It's Obamatown.

Back into the deep red - Zero Hedge: "The US 'budget surplus' miracle is over: $125 billion deficit in May."  We're well on our way towards another trillion-dollar deficit for the year.  Why did we order that steak?

Commerce secretary has seizure, foreign car

John Bryson, the Obama administration Commerce secretary seemed to have had an incident this past weekend where he hit a couple cars.  That's not funny, but this is:

Bryson, 68, was driving alone in a Lexus in San Gabriel, a community of about 40,000 northeast of Los Angeles, when he struck the rear of a vehicle that had stopped for a passing train, authorities said.

So we have a Commerce secretary who drives a Toyota and an Energy secretary who is indifferent to gas prices because he doesn't drive at all.  Who says the Obama administration is out of touch?

Looks like it's going to be an early night for me - Dang, the Devils are down 3-0 after the first period.  It's looking like the L.A. Kings are going to win their first-ever Stanley Cup championship.

This is all he does now

Ace: "Obama: I didn't come to Wisconsin because I was "too busy."

Obama's schedule for June 12th: six fundraisers.

Too busy for Wisconsin or Finland - Mark Steyn "Our Celebrity President": "There are monarchies and republics aplenty, but there’s only one 24/7 celebrity fundraising presidency. If it’s Tuesday, it must be Kim Cattrall, or Hootie and the Blowfish, or Laverne and Shirley, or the ShamWow guy . . . I wonder if the Queen ever marvels at the transformation of the American presidency since her time with Truman. Ah, well. If you can’t stand the klieg-light heat of Obama’s celebrity, stay out of the Beverly Wilshire kitchen."

Sorry, Mr. Prime Minister!

College in the 21st century - George Will says it's suffering from curriculum drift while Frontline reports that it's now a full-out profit chase.

Today's tech tip - So about a month ago, my son's Samsung Evergreen got the "white screen of death."  That is, his cell phone screen was completely white all the time: during charging, start-up, and operation.  He doesn't think he dropped it but he did have it out during a rainy track meet.  Hmmm...

I checked tech support but the answers ranged from "pop out the battery" to "you're screwed."  So I swapped out the SIM card to an old cellphone and put his Evergreen aside until I could get to the AT&T store where - almost certainly - they would help me by telling me "it's busted."  But then today I turned it on and it's working fine.  I swapped back his SIM card and everything's back to normal.

My word of advice when you get the white screen problem: it may be caused by moisture in the phone.  Let it dry out for a week and try again.

The definition of insanity - Opinion Journal: "The President on growth": "The fair if depressing takeaway from Mr. Obama's press conference is that he continues to believe, despite three and a half years of failure, that more government spending is the key to faster growth and that government really doesn't need to reform. This is how you get a jobless rate above 8% for 40 months and the weakest economic recovery in 60 years."

Time for summer reruns

WashPost: "Obama suggests economic fundamentals are strong, an argument John McCain once made."  To much ridicule by the 2008 Obama campaign.  This is what happens when you go off-teleprompter.

I was home today and caught Obama's press conference and I was less-struck by his obvious gaffe than by the same-ole-same-ole feeling: "oh, that darn Congress" and "headwinds in Europe."  On that score, Victor Davis Hanson has it right: "He cannot outline a vision of economic recovery without blaming someone or something for his current problems."

Extra - Commentary: "Team Obama's third-rate performance."

More - From Q&O.

Flashback - This is from National Journal in February: "Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg is out with a must-read polling memo this morning, which offers some eye-opening advice to President Obama and his re-election team.  After testing several of the president's economic messages, he finds the argument that the economy is back on the right track polls miserably - and "produces disastrous results."

You're gonna need a bigger chart

Legal Insurrection: "Bring bigger charts."  The CBO pretty much admits that can't calculate our future debt load if we don't make difficult choices on taxing and spending.  So, you know, that's the most likely scenario.

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Interesting: citizens voted down a tax increase on a small and vilified minority then voted to curtail runaway government costs in...California.

Obamacare was more important than fixing the economy

This is a potent line of attack by the Romney campaign, combining Obama's negligence/ineptness on the economy with his much-hated legislation.  It was all about "making history" for the One.  In response, Noam Scheiber responds to Romney interpretation of his book with, well, you can't call it a contradiction:

I argue that Obama really was more focused on long-term, historically significant accomplishments than marginal, near-term differences in the pace of the recovery. On some level, Obama was prepared to accept (and I’m making up these numbers for argument’s sake) three years of painfully high unemployment with health care reform rather than 30 months of painfully high unemployment without it. And the reason is the one Summers alluded to (before disputing): Health care was simply more historically important than avoiding those extra six months of pain. 

Obama never shuts up about inheriting the worst economy since the Depression but as soon as he checked the box with his useless stimulus, it was time to set his rendezvous with history.  America would just have to "accept" the pain, lie back and think of Obama.

Our agent has been exposed - Hot Air: "Let's face it, Bill Clinton's a double-agent for the GOP."

CNN tries to build suspense on WI recall, fails, cuts to the Queen - Hit and Run: "CNN's squeaker looks not so squeaky."  Most everybody called the race after an hour and, as up this writing, Scott Walker is up by 15% which is way more than most polls indicated heading into this recall race.

Working hard to save exactly one job

Via White House Dossier, here's Obama's schedule for tomorrow:

9:20 am ET || Departs the White House
11:45 am PT || Arrives San Francisco
12:20 pm PT || Attends a fundraiser; Landmark Tower, San Francisco
2:15 pm PT || Delivers remarks at a fundraiser; Julia Morgan Ballroom, San Francisco, San Francisco
3:15 pm PT || Departs San Francisco
4:20 pm PT || Arrives Los Angeles
7:15 pm PT || Delivers remarks at a fundraiser; Beverly Wilshire Hotel; Beverly Hills, California
8:55 pm PT || Delivers remarks at a fundraiser; private residence; Beverly Hills, California

He's really padding that record of his.

Baby Boomers + institutional inertia = bankruptcy - Hot Air: "CBO report: U.S. debt will be two-times GDP by 2037."

"The money you pay into Social Security is not yours" - Zero Hedge says you shouldn't expect it back: "The Lie that is Social Security."

On Wisconsin! - Heard this on NPR today: the Republicans didn't have a great ground game in Wisconsin but, thanks to the intense national attention on the Scott Walker recall election, now they do.

For all your Wisconsin coverage, check out Badger State blogger Ann Althouse, who has been on top of the Walker-Barrett race for months now.

Extra - WSJ: "The Wisconsin recall stakes."

A New Jersey native in Western Massachusetts - I've always been a Devils fan (although I rooted for the Bruins when they made the Stanley Cup Finals) but I'm definitely in the minority here.  The LA Kings goalie is Jonathan Quick who graduated from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.  Boy, he's been good so far.

Don't mess with the Devils!

Not just Solyndra - Heritage Action: "Can President Obama name ONE clean energy success?"

Another bad number - Hey, between the unemployment rate and the stock market, let's add this one from Zero Hedge: "US debt soars by $54 billion overnight."

The sun'll come up tomorrow - Hot Air: "White House on disastrous job report: Problems won't be solved 'overnight'."  "Anyone want to try defining “overnight” for me, just so that we have a rule of thumb going forward? On Inauguration Day, I would have accepted “2009″ or even “his first two years in office” as plausible answers. Instead, five months out from election day, somehow dawn still has yet to break."

Well, I seem to recall that the original line-in-the-sand was three years.  There must be a "headwinds" proviso.

What? The hot surface ignitor? The solenoid valve? - NY Times: "Obama's 'thingamajig' offers cure for boredom if not the economy."

Extra - From Doug Ross.

Elizabeth Warren doubles-down on ridiculous

In a lengthy interview in the Boston Globe, Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren stands with a fist: "I won't deny who I am."  Oh, and by the way, I remember that I did tell Harvard and UPenn that I was Cherokee, but it had nothing to do with diversity hiring and it's just a coincidence that I stopped listing myself as a minority after getting tenure.  Because Elizabeth Warren is proud - so very proud - of her heritage.

Similarly, asked why she never raised her Native American roots with Globe reporter Noah Bierman when he met with Warren in Oklahoma City for a three-thousand word story on her upbringing, published in February, she replied softly, “Noah didn’t ask.’’

Q.E.D.

This fellow really cares about just one job - White House Dossier: "Obama to hold six fundraisers in one day."  I hope he can squeeze in a round of golf.

Extra - From Jammie Wearing Fools.

Springfield standoff - MassLive: "Cherokee group to protest Elizabeth Warren outside state Democratic convention in Springfield."

Here come the automatic Social Security cuts

I've been warning for years that current law requires that when the Social Security Trust Fund runs out of government bonds, benefits must be cut to match incoming revenues.  For most Americans, that means an automatic 25% cut in benefits.  But there's a much more immediate, much worse benefit cut than sending monthly checks to Baby Boomers.  WashPost: "Social Security disability trust fund projected to run out of cash in 2016."

A government entitlement program is headed for insolvency in four years, and it’s not the one members of Congress are talking about most.
The Social Security disability program’s trust fund is projected to run out of cash far sooner than the better-known Social Security retirement plan or Medicare. That will trigger a 21 percent cut in benefits to 11 million Americans — people with disabilities, plus their spouses and children — many of whom rely on the program to stay out of poverty.

Don't worry, though: Washington will break through and find a solution.

Neither President Obama nor House Republicans in their proposed budgets has addressed the disability program’s shortfall.

Oh well.

That's my governor!

Deval Patrick didn't exactly go for the jugular against Mitt Romney on Morning Joe today.  Hot Air: "Noted Obama surrogate from Massachusetts praises Bain & Romney."

On Bain: "Bain is a perfectly fine company.  They have a role in the private economy and I've got a lot of friends there."
On the Bay State unemployment rate when Romney left office: "I think when he left office, it was in the fours...yeah, not bad."

Maybe the Obama campaign can get Cory Booker back.

Extra - Politico: "Deval Patrick aims for Mitt Romney, hits Obama."

Meanwhile, here in Western Massachusetts - The Bay State Democrats are holding their convention in Springfield this weekend and the big story is whether Marisa DeFranco can gather up 15% of the delegate vote to force Elizabeth "Fauxcahontas" Warren into a primary fight.  So, after stating repeatedly in the past that he would not inject himself into primary politics, Governor Deval Patrick endorsed Warren today in what can be interpreted as an attempt to keep DeFranco under the the 15% threshold.

Extra - Legal Insurrection: "Gov. Deval Patrick runs interference for Elizabeth Warren on false Cherokee claim."  With fun video.

What a bargain - Enterprise Blog: "CBO: Obama stimulus may have cost as much as $4.1 million per job."  The lowball estimate is a half-million in money borrowed.

Massachusetts miracle - Ace of Spades HQ: "Obama's newest attack on Romney: Massachusetts' unemployment rate was 4.7%."  This is why the Obama surrogates keep talking about being "47th in job growth" - there was almost full employment to begin with.  Meanwhile, guess which Lightbringer Chief Executive (aw, I gave it away) presided over the worst 30 months of employment in the last quarter-century.

Perfect gibberish

Today White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked to explain how Bain Capital's mixed record on helping businesses differs from Obama's investment of taxpayers' money.  His answer combines English words (I assume) in a way that sounds lucid but is sucked dry of exposition.

In case you missed it, here's the video:



Extra - From Hit & Run.

The cult of personality - Here's WashPost blogger Ed Rogers "Time for Democrats to decide: is Obama an idol or a President?"  "Many on the left have lost any insight into their own bias; nothing Obama says is over the top, and nothing he has done lacks significance or inspiration. Likewise, nothing Romney says or has done amounts to much. By forcing a halo upon Obama, suggesting dark hearts among any who don't see it and follow, and ignoring the virtues of a decent man like Romney, does not serve the president well. It stirs resentment among voters who chafe at being told to love him or else."  I'm looking at you, Nobel Peace Prize committee.

Memorial Day

We remember: "As Memorial Day nears, a single image that continues to haunt"

...

This number is going nowhere but up - Weekly Standard: "Last decade, 65% of federal expenditures went to pay for entitlements."  As we prepare to head deeper into debt, by all means, let's talk about really important matters.

A question on the House finale - How did House know what Wilson was saying at the funeral?  The moment Wilson starts calling him an "ass" the cellphone has a text messages reading "Shut up, you idiot."  Was House at the funeral in disguise?  It seems impossible that House could hobble in, unnoticed.  Anyway, here's a review from Maggie's Farm: "House MD: End of a cantankerous era."

The media discovers Obama is quite the spender - Doug Ross: "Oh my, even the Associated Press mocks Obama's deficit hawk claims."  And in case you missed it, the WashPost Factchecker bestowed three more Pinocchios on the White House spin.

The legend of Fauxcahontas

Three takeaways from this article in the Boston Globe today: "Filings add to questions on Warren's ethnic claims":

1.) Elizabeth Warren self-identified herself as Native American, presumably using the "high cheekbones" criteria: "According to both Harvard officials and federal guidelines, those statistics are almost always based on the way employees describe themselves."
2.) Harvard really wanted to check off the box of adding minorities to the faculty: "In the years before Warren first came to Harvard Law, the school was under intense pressure to diversify its faculty."
3.) Warren had no idea that Harvard was identifying her as a minority despite articles in the Harvard Crimson and a letter to the New York Times.

And, of course, Harvard was so very impressed with Warren's background that it would be churlish to suggest a position was opened for her based on her cookbook contributions.  Here in Massachusetts there's little evidence that this issue is hurting Warren in the polls but I don't see how she can extricate herself from this tangle once the Senate race heats up.

Extra - Legal Insurrection: "Warren listed as 'woman of color' in Harvard student journal."  Another reference she knew nothing about, presumably.

More - From Althouse.

Let's all pay taxes, and by "all" I mean those rich guys

I was listening to NPR this evening and caught this unintentionally humorous interview with California governor Jerry Brown:

Ryssdal: Why is it that this debate, Governor, happens on the far ends of the economic spectrum? We're talking about cutting services for the most needy in our society and taxing the very richest. How do you reconcile that with an electorate that lives mostly in the middle?
Brown: Well, the electorate in the middle is telling every survey that they don't want any more taxes. They are willing to see the taxes on the most affluent increase at least temporarily -- if it's for schools, for public safety and for the most vulnerable. So faced with a gap of $15.7 billion, I can either fold my tent and then just slash away, or I can give the voters an opportunity to say, 'OK, we'd like to shoulder part of that burden.'

And by "we", Brown means a tiny sliver of the Golden State population.  Golly I hope everybody's "willing" to let somebody else pay for California's mess!  Predictably, it's all about "economic fairness."

Blessed are the peacemakers - American Interest: "Peace Prize follies."  (H/T Arts & Letters).

Noted unicorn rider talks about the "real world"

Here's Jim Gereghty on the Corner:

President Barack Obama, who has spent almost all of his career and adult life in academia, law firms, and government, begins his criticism of Mitt Romney by declaring, “those of us who have spent time in the real world . . .”
It would probably be rude of me to think about Michelle Obama’s work, where her salary jumped from $121,910 to $316,962 per year after her husband became a U.S. senator, a job that was strangely left unfilled after she stepped down to focus on her husband’s campaign.
Such positions are quite challenging to find in the . . . real world.

It's a beautiful life and spending other people's (well, taxpayers) money means never having to say you're sorry.

Moving the goalposts again - Initial jobless claims edged down 2,000 last week, resulting in a lot of "jobs improve slightly" headlines.  How'd that happen?  Well, last week's estimate was revised up by 2,000 - voila! - a "better" job picture.  This is the 62nd time out of the last 63 estimates that have been revised in one direction.

Hey big spender - Hot Air: "Correcting the media on Obama's spending record...again."

And James Pethokoukis adds some numbers to the fight: "As I point out in my original post, if Obama wins another term, spending—according to his own budget—would never drop below 22.3% of GDP. If that forecast is right, spending during Obama’s eight years in office would average 23.6% of GDP. That average is higher than any single previous non-war year in American history."

David Brooks *hearts* private equity

The New York Times columnist has a full-throated defense of Bain Capital and firms that promote capitalism, jobs, and growth: "How Change Happens."  I, for one, believe that the Obama camp should keep on pushing this line of attack.

Let's have that debate about how that guy took control of a failing company and a hundred-thousand people lost their jobs.

What Americans want, but not really - Zero Hedge: "Americans want smaller government and lower taxes."  Yet government just continues to grow and grow under both Democrats and Republicans.

Julia wept - Nice Deb: "Dozens of Catholic institutions file suits over HHS mandate."  Notre Dame's president frames the argument perfectly: this is not a question about access to contraception, no matter how much the White House spins their "war on women" narrative.  It's about the government compelling religious institutions to violate their tenets.

Obama collects two more Pinocchios

He said that job growth was slower under Bush; the WashPost begs to differ:

There’s no doubt that Bush owns an unimpressive record on job creation. But Obama comes in either last, second-to-last or in the bottom half among presidents since the Great Depression, depending on which way you look at the numbers.
The president said that policies from 2000 through 2008 produced the “most sluggish job growth we’ve ever seen.” Perhaps so, but the worst numbers on record occurred under his watch.

As the article notes, Obama wants to count only private sector job growth and not from the start of his term or even the "end" of the recession but from when jobs started (slowly) coming back.  In other words, everything good is a result of The One's magic while everything bad is that other guy's fault.  And it only cost $5 trillion in new debt.

Incredible: non-cheerleading article appears in the NY Times - How did this one get past the editors?  Campbell Brown: "Obama, stop condescending to women."

Train in vain - Althouse: "Not even a busted fisc can stop Jerry Brown's train to nowhere."  With less than half the cash needed to fund California's high-speed rail boondoggle, I'm getting the distinct impression that Jerry Brown's strategy is the same as Teddy Kennedy's sinkhole, the "Big Dig."

Step one: get the underfunded project started.  Step two: go broke.  Step three: beg the federal government for a bailout.  Step four: Profit!

Take the money and run - Doug Ross: "Ruh roh: Europe's invisible bank run accelerates."

But can he win another? - CNN: "I'll Have Another wins Preakness in close finish."  One more and we'll have the first Triple Crown winner since 1978.

Legendary DJ Pete Fornatale, rest in peace

I just got off the phone with my buddy who told me Pete Fornatale died a couple weeks ago.  Now that I'm living in Massachusetts, the news of New York disc jockeys doesn't make the headlines.  But it should.  This paragraph from his obit in the NY Times brings back all those rock-n-roll memories:

Mr. Fornatale was at the forefront of the FM revolution, along with WNEW-FM colleagues like Scott Muni, Rosko, Vin Scelsa, Dennis Elsas, Jonathan Schwartz and Alison Steele (who called herself “the Nightbird”). They played long versions of songs, and sometimes entire albums, and talked to their audiences in a conversational tone very different from the hard-sell approach of their AM counterparts.

Fornatale! Muni! Elsas!  I grew up in northern New Jersey listening to WNEW and the New York rock stations and there was an intimacy with these DJs that simply does not exist with the loudmouth drive-time jerks which populate the airwaves today.  One of my favorite segments on WNEW was the "Perfect Album Side" where fans would suggest a side to listen to, non-stop and commercial free (e.g. side 1 of "Born to Run.")  And, boy, did they know their music from artist to liner notes.

Dennis Elsas has a tribute to Fornatale up at his WFUV page.  I'm going to listen and remember Pete.

The media's response and responsibility - Tom Maguire has been all over the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case and his coverage is less about the altercation than the subtext of how the media has handled the case.  Which is poorly as he demonstrates today in the WashPost's coverage.  Can't "professional" reporters get even the most basic facts right?  If there are riots after Zimmerman's all-but-certain acquittal, there will be blood on the hands of the media who stoked their narrative first and reported the facts...eventually.

Shocking: people try to avoid paying taxes

I think Facebook founder Eduardo Saverin is a bit of a jerk to renounce his U.S. citizenship to avoid paying taxes on his IPO windfall, but that's his decision.  Of course, NY Senator Chuck Schumer never misses an opportunity to grab a headline with the outrage du jour so he's trying to move some punitive law that will go nowhere.

In turn, Zero Hedge has a "A simple question for Senator Schumer."  "Can Senator Schumer please rep, warrant and guarantee that none of his corporate sponsors, i.e., his Top 100 Contributors, have ever engaged in any form of explicit or implicit tax avoidance, tax offshoring, and tax shelter."  Wow, that's quite a list, including the Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and union-buster Verizon.  Let's see that clean bill of patriotic taxpaying, Senator.

How Pixar almost lost "Toy Story 2"

To un-deletion...and beyond!

Everybody act surprised - Hit & Run: "Of course foreclosure settlement money isn't going to people with foreclosures."  Governments just grab the cash.

Three years without a budget - Powerline: "Senate Democrats achieve a new standard of irresponsibility."

Sorry, Gramps - Derek Thompson at the Atlantic: "Why older Americans have the worst long-term unemployment crisis."  Part of it is higher health care costs and another part is that they still remember floppy disks.

The President makes a lot of sense

No, not that one:

Bill Clinton said Tuesday that President Barack Obama’s goal of hiking taxes on the rich alone is not enough to solve the country’s fiscal woes and suggested that middle class Americans must also eventually contribute more.

Meanwhile, Obama was continuing his "Steel Magnolias" tour by taking to "The View" to suggest that the country could close our trillion-dollar deficits if - gosh darn it - we could pass that Buffett rule.  Also, America might be racist if he doesn't win re-election.

California enters the death spiral - Jennifer Rubin in the WashPost: "We don't all wish to be California."  Jerry Brown banked on hope and delusion (not necessarily in that order) in the belief that a suddenly-improving business climate would lead to revenues that would forestall painful budget cuts.

Alas, the tax revenues did not materialize and spending continued unchecked.  Now California is facing not the $9 billion deficit it expected but a yawning $16 billion hole.  In other words, the budget cuts coming that were once just painful will now be excruciating and Gov. Brown wants raise taxes in the state with the 48th worst business tax climate.  Good luck with that plan, buddy.

Living in borrowed times - Zero Hedge notes that it now costs $2.50 in new debt to generate $1 in GDP growth.

Oh, oh, oh, it's magic! - You know.  Never believe it's not so.  Maggie's Farm has four clips from Penn & Teller's show "Fool Us."  Watch the first clip with the birds before you read down.  Impressive.

There's the camera



I'm playing in a trivia contest tonight that, typically, would ask players to name all the movies in this montage.  I'm proud to claim "The 400 Blows."  That's a deep cut.

Inexplicably, another law school identifies Elizabeth Warren as Cherokee faculty

The Boston Globe reports that while at the University of Pennsylvania, Fauxcahontas was identified as minority professor.  Why do these mistakes keep happening?

The reference offers another piece of evidence that Warren was identified as a Native American as part of her professional career. Warren has said she was unaware that Harvard University, her current employer, had described her as a Native American when it was under fire for a lack of diversity on its law school faculty.

Bryan Preston quips: "Once could be a mistake.  Twice, that's a career strategy."

It's funny when people try to gain an advantage with Native American heritage:

Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) learn that all of Lily's friends have been put in preschool causing the couple to panic. Mitchell calls Claire to see if Wagon Wheel is a good school and asks her if she can get them an appointment. At Wagon Wheel the assistant tells them with their diversity (Mitchell and Cameron being gay and Lily being Asian) they can get into any preschool. Mitchell starts calling Cameron his life partner to seem even more diverse to make it in Billingsley, the expensive school nicknamed "the Harvard of preschools." They soon become beaten at their own game by an interracial, disabled lesbian couple with an adopted African American child. Cameron pretends to be one sixteenth cherokee to seem more diverse in their interview. They eventually decide to go to Wagon Wheel after bombing the interview.

Oh Cam, that's so hilariously underhanded.  You should be a Senator.

Winner of a story - Here's the latest narrative from the Obama campaign: after spending $299 million in taxpayer money, Obama saved this guy's job...except he's been employed since 2006.  Scrubbing your Facebook was a winning move, buddy.

The layoffs will continue until morale improves - Hit & Run: "High unemployment is the new normal": "The headline unemployment statistics are wrong. Unemployment is higher than 8.1 percent and it will be for a while."

Not to worry: initial jobless claims dropped last week after the previous week's claims were revised upward for the 17th straight week.  So they can go down.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe employee #50 - Business Week: "Why France has so many 49-employee companies": "Here’s a curious fact about the French economy: The country has 2.4 times as many companies with 49 employees as with 50. What difference does one employee make? Plenty, according to the French labor code. Once a company has at least 50 employees inside France, management must create three worker councils, introduce profit sharing, and submit restructuring plans to the councils if the company decides to fire workers for economic reasons."

Mark Halperin beclowns himself

The Time magazine "journalist" comes across as a bespectacled pre-teen, looking longingly at all the kids in their clubhouse having a swell time.  Gee, they're a cool bunch!  Ann Althouse accurately calls this piece "a particularly silly example of press love for Obama."

This section in particular caused me to LOL:

Romney also has the luxury of an open schedule. Although without the gilded mantle of the presidency, he can spend every waking hour as a full-time candidate, while the President is required to do his day job.

Oh yes, it's a non-stop schedule of fundraisers, golf, posh parties, campaign stops masquerading as "policy speeches" and checking boxes.  Obama's so busy, he just doesn't have time for press conferences or passing economy-killing budgets.  The poor man should take a vacation.

Deep into the Big Red - Forbes: "Ten reasons Wall Street should be (very) worried about the U.S. debt."  There are two common themes in the article: one is that spending is on auto-pilot and there is virtually no political will to address an unsustainable level of debt.  Otherwise, it's a fun read.

Related - Zero Hedge notes that non-revolving debt has hit an all-time record, as the federal government encourages car loans to prop up Government Motors and further inflates the student loan bubble.

Julia and Elizabeth

Mark Steyn "Composite Americans": "Have you dated a composite woman? They're America's hottest new demographic."

That poor, fatherless kid - City Journal: "The life of Zachary."

Obama 2012: "Look at all the stuff I gave you with the money I borrowed from China"

Hot Air reviews the life and times of "Julia" who enjoyed the benefits of the federal government while the national debt climbed to over $20 trillion.  Curiously, the Obama narrative leaves out this salient point and the less-than-hypothetical scenario where China stops borrowing U.S. Treasuries or - worse - asks for their money back.

It seems that hypothetical "Julia" will enjoy the benefits of Social Security when she retires, despite the statements by those liars at the Social Security Administration.  David Harsanyi nails this one:

If you think Social Security benefits allow you to live your retirement without worry, you deserve Barack Obama.

Keep living the dream, America.

Extra - IBD: "Obama promises women a lifetime of dependence."

More - From Powerline: "In this election, the lines couldn’t be more clearly drawn. The Democrats are the party of free stuff. Well, not actually free of course, but taxed away from someone who earned it or borrowed from our children."

And this - The Memeorandum wrap-up.

It's a whopper - PowerLine notes that Obama scored himself the un-coveted "Four Pinocchios" award: "Washington Post rebuts Obama's malicious lie."

Aww, she just wanted a warm meal - Althouse: "Elizabeth Warren explains that she listed herself as a minority lawprof "in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon.""  Makes sense.

America, heck yeah!

Heaven knows I have many, many problems with President Obama.  But, honestly, I don't have an issue with an American President going to the heart of Taliban country and saying: "Remember that guy we swore we'd kill?  He's sleeping with the fishes.  He's pushing up sea cucumbers in Davy Jones' locker."

He's the Commander-in-Chief (for now) and, let's face it, if the whole deal had gone south we'd be talking about Carter's "Desert One" until the cows come home.  It's his one unvarnished moment of glory - let him have it.