Breakfast Scramble: Obama’s Economics

Dumbo does not do economics, more evidence that Barack Obama lacks any understanding of economics, from Fox News:

It was explained to Obama that the permitting process can delay projects for “months to years … and in many cases even cause projects to be abandoned … I’m sure that when you implemented the Recovery Act your staff briefed you on many of these challenges.” At this point, Obama smiled and interjected, “Shovel-ready was not as … uh .. shovel-ready as we expected.” The Council, led by GE’s Jeffrey Immelt, erupted in laughter.

The Obama administration promised the Recovery Act (“the stimulus”) would prevent the jobless rate from going over 8%. It now stands at 9.1%

Video at the link.

More Darren Samuelson, Politico:

President Barack Obama heads to an energy plant in North Carolina on Monday to talk once again about the job-creating power of a green economy.

The catch? Nearly three years into Obama’s presidency, the White House can’t point to much solid evidence that significant numbers of Americans are scoring the green jobs the president has been touting.

Neither does Obama understand that electric cars not so green, from Ben Webster, Australian:

ELECTRIC cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents because of the energy consumed in making their batteries, a study has found.
An electric car owner would have to drive at least 129,000km before producing a net saving in CO2. Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime because they typically have a range of less than 145km on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips. Even those driven 160,000km would save only about a tonne of CO2 over their lifetimes

Hat tip: Ed Morrissey, Hot Air

I don’t see the metal chemical battery has an efficient means of storing energy.  Remember the chief virtue of battery mobile is not that it eliminates pollution, but rather it transfer it from the automobile to the power plant..

Mitt Romney  takes dead aim at Obama, video:

Hat tip video: Jim Geraghty, National  Review.

Wesbury, Long Island, NY– I’m here at one of my regular stops. I ran down to Carlisle, PA to pick this load up, and ran it here this morning AT the moment, I’m waiting to get unloaded so I can get out of the city.

• No, gang, the Tea Party is still here.Neil Munro says:
  

  These days, Tea Party activists are focused on state and local issues, such as school choice legislation in Pennsylvania, Kibbe said. They’re not looking to mount another massive D.C. march, such as the 9/12 protest in 2009, in part because the movement has already proved its influence during the 2010 election, he said.

  They’re still adding 500-2000 members a day…  They’ll be concentrating on get out the vote efforts. Assuming that the GOP nominee shares Tea Party Values. And the movement is more than hinting it’ll sit on it’s hands again if the GOP nominates Romney. And, rightly so, says I.

• IS THIS THE END? Walter Russell Mead:
  

  But Fannie Mae represents a special problem for the Democratic Party and Democratic ideas.  It is not just a vitally important institution led by prominent Democratic figures and part of a broader Democratic patronage network; Fannie Mae is one of the original New Deal institutions and the vision it was intended to serve stands at the heart of the concerns of the Democratic Party of the 20th century.The fall of Fannie Mae is bigger than just another politicos run wild scandal.  It stands as one of several signs that our current way of life is reaching its limits and that big changes are on the horizon.  The Fanniegate debacle tells us that the progressive ideal is in the process of jumping the shark.

  I think Mead’s chosen phrase “our current way of life is reaching its limits”, is itself a bit overstated. I think it should be said, rather, that the way of life that the left would have us living, is being shown as unattainable, or at least unsustainable.   Certainly, however, it must be said that Mead is correct that progressivism is once again shown as the failure it always has been. The current situation that we are in, all of it, can be traced directly to, and laid at the feet of, the left.  Its ideas and ideals are precisely what landed us in this situation.  Of that they can no longer be any logical argument, though most of the left has been trying illogical arguments for decades, now.  At some point, the majority of the voters must recognize that as Ronald Reagan once said, “Government is not the solution, government is the problem.” I dare to suggest to you that day has already arrived, with the rise of the tea party and other anti big government groups.

  Unfortunately, the party in the best position to take advantage of this situation, and to set us on the course we should’ve been on all along, the GOP, itself still does not believe what most Americans do; that either the age of progressivism comes to an end, or America does.

• It’s by intent: I made mention the other day about how I had long since come to the conclusion that Obama and his people were intentionally crushing America’s economy.  Remember, it is Obama himself who said that he wanted America to take on a less prominent role in the world.  What better way to enforce that vision than to make sure we couldn’t afford taking on anything bigger than say, Guatemala , in world events than to make sure we couldn’t afford it?   I also made mention that McPhillips had said something similar.   I spoke to Martin about that over the weekend.  He seems convinced that this is not about making America a socialist country.  He says  Obama simply wants to crash our economy, and therefore our way of life.  (One assumes, though Martin doesn’t say as much that Obama considers this “Social Justice”.)  Frankly I’m not convinced to go quite that far.  If one wanted to eliminate our constitution and our way of life so as to set up a socialist environment, wouldn’t one need to tear down what was already in place, first ?  I begin to think that some public discussion on these points between he and I is in order.  I’ll have a word with them later about it.
• Whatever happened to Freedom?Interesting notes from Paul Hsieh:
  

  In the realm of health care, the Obama administration is forging ahead to implement its “universal health care” plan, despite consistent popular opposition and numerous legal challenges. They claim they must restrict patients’ freedoms by forcing them to purchase insurance on government terms and restrict doctors’ freedoms by herding them into Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) in order to guarantee everyone the supposed “security” of guaranteed health care.

  Yet, as we’ve already seen in Massachusetts (which has a health plan similar to the national ObamaCare program), this results in patients having theoretical “coverage” — but less of an ability to get actual medical care.

  Hsieh mentions this matter in some detail a few weeks ago, here.

  As an aside….This Romney Healthcare monster is exactly why I want Romney nowhere near the White House and I tell you, should the GOP be stupid enough to pass him through what laughingly is called a primary, I will, like most of the GOP, sit on my hands and we’ll have 4 more years of Obama.

  I hasten to add that this warning is not limited to Romney… ANYONE NOT A CONSERVATIVE… A REAL CONSERVATIVE, will get the same response from the voters. Are you listening, GOP leadership? Forget the bak room deals, forget the “It’s his turn” BS, forget the attempts to mollify the increasingly non-existant middle, and put forward a real conservative.

  As to Romney’s healthcare monster, the problem, here, is one that Romney tries to dance around , by saying that it is so much better because it is run by the state versus the Federal government. Here is someone who doesn’t understand at his core that the problem is government, period. He is thereby no brand of conservative at all, and does not deserve our support. The fact of the matter is anytime the government is involved, regardless of the level of government, state, Federal, local , it doesn’t matter things get massively screwed up.  Indeed, the only difference that I can see between them is the level of screw-up tends to increase, the more centralized the program is.   THe difference between Romneycare and Obamacare is not enough to fit water through.  But let’s not get too diverted.    Hsieh continues:

  In the related realm of pharmaceuticals, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claims it must restrict patients’ freedom to purchase (and manufacturers’ freedom to sell) drugs in order to protect our safety. However, pharmaceutical industry experts fault onerous FDA regulations for contributing to the current dangerous shortage of many injectable drugs by artificially raising the costs of drug creation and production.  Hence, many seriously ill patients are now unable to get the medications they need.

  Even worse, as Mark McCarty of Medical Device Daily recently described, FDA advisors have sought to deny terminally patients access to potentially life-extending treatments on the grounds that “the risk-benefit ratio was not up to par.” Similarly, medical device makers are now finding Europe a more hospitable environment for innovation than the U.S. due to FDA regulations. Rather than protecting Americans, the FDA is endangering them.

  In the realm of transportation security, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) is already a national joke for groping grandmothers and babies. Yet when tested with fake bombs and real guns, they’ve failed miserably.
  .

  The conclusion that anytime you involve government you invite corruption, and a less effective (insert function here… healthcare, employment, finances, etc) is completely inescapable. Or as Reagan said, Government isn’t the solution, government is the problem. It is also inescapable that the Democrats think the solution is we haven’t handed enough over the government yet.  Apparently, reality has no bearing on their outlook.  The republicans, meantime are marching is down the same road, all be a more slowly.  Hence, my objection to the centrist John Q Milquetoast McCain types. The only escape from this is a return to constitutional fundamentals.  The democrats and the left certainly aren’t going to give us that.  The republicans have thus far demonstrated themselves incapable of doing it, for fear of alienating too many of the center.  What each fails to understand is that the vast majority are to the right of center, and have become increasingly so once exposed to the disaster that is liberalism these last few years.

  Let me remind the GOP leadership that Reagan won in a landslide over Jimmy Carter when this country was suffering terribly as a result of liberal policies the Carter and the Democrats in Congress put in place.  The resulting unemployment at the time of the election was seven and a quarter percent, or somewhere in that neighborhood.  As it stands right now this nation is suffering with unemployment in the neighborhood of 10%, officially, and in reality far higher than that.  Obama’s going to have to scramble to get UP to Carter’s level,m and given his inability to admit what policies work and what doesn’t, he won’t do it.  When presented with that reality, under Carter, the American voter went for the unabashed unapologetic conservative… Reagan.  Does anybody think that situation is not going to repeat itself? Aside form the GOP leadership, I should add. And let’s remember also that the GOP leadership was not tremendously happy about Ronald Reagan’s candidacy, either.  Even then, there was a disconnect between the GOP leadership and the GOP rank and file.That’s a situation that needs rectifying immediately.  Else, it’s time to start looking for a third party, one that will actually produce conservatives to vote for.

• Palin vs Al Capone’s Vault: It seems that there was an anything there, after all.  All those emails have been gone through, all those correspondence check, cross checked, double checked, and those using these Revelations to attack Kaelin, or at least to attempt to,have come up handed once again. It’s as I said a couple weeks ago; I’m not there Lee convinced that Kaelin is the best we can come up with for GOP candidate.  That said, the woman has been fully vetted, the left and the GOP establishment have gotten about as vulgar as they possibly can get in the process of trying to knock pale and out of the race.  It hasn’t worked.  It won’t work.  Even the Democrats in those rare honest moments, are beginning to admit that the woman can win easily over Obama.  Of course all the sniping that they’ve been doing all this time about her, tells us that.  There really expressing their deepest fear.  I say again it’s all about the power.  They see Palin as a threat to that power.Amusingly, Prof Bainbridge asks, do you have to like Sarah Palin to be a conservative now? And one of his readers answers, correctly, “I don’t think you’re required to like Sarah palin, but you are required to give a reason for disliking her that is more cogent than the simple fact that she’s Sarah Palin.” The fact is, that nobody’s come up with a reason that is so qualified, yet.  They just happened.  I say again she might not be the best candidate we have to offer.  But I am still waiting for a logical reason that she should not get my support.
• Weiner used government property in his exploits. Not that this should shock anyone. I actually had somebody suggest to me the other day that in a post Bubba Clinton world, this kind of offense really isn’t all that bad.  After all, didn’t the blue dress get that stain in the Oval Office?  Well, certainly it’s not all that big a deal for Democrats, but let’s ask Mark Foley about that.  Larry Craig, also.  The outrage of the left was palpable in those circumstances.  Yet they defended Clinton, and they continue to defend this slimeball. There is perhaps no more glaring double standard. And of course, what’s it all about?  Power. Plain and simple, the big attraction is power.  Even for the congressman, himself.  Look at the scramble he’s going through just to hang on to that power.  is there any doubt about what motivates the man?  This is not about what’s good for the people, this is about what’s good for him.

Palin Mail, on those what twenty-four thousand e-mails the lame stream media was so eager to get their paws on, from Brian Clark Howard, Daily Mail:

Its emergence today will also reinforce claims that, far from damaging Mrs Palin’s presidential hopes, the dossier of emails have in fact helped her campaign by revealing a more human side to the controversial politician.

Mrs. Palin’s  spelling may be creativ, but she does not appear to suffer from writer’s block.
Illegal immigrants, go home, from a shocked Justin Elliot, Salon:

On Thursday, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signed what both critics and backers agree is the toughest immigration law in the country.
Despite the relative lack of national media attention, the Alabama law includes more harsh measures than even Arizona’s notorious SB 1070, which immediately faced legal challenges after passing last year. Like the Arizona law, Alabama’s measure requires local police to check the immigration status of people who they believe may be in the country illegally.

I suppose you could call enforcing laws prohibiting bank robbery harsh on bank robbers.  Well you could if you wrote for Salon.  The simple fact is, that if illegal immigrants don’t like the way they treated in our country, the can, and should, go back to their.  The exists are not looked.

Holding the Weiner to the Weiner standard, from Morgen, Verum Serum:

At this stage it seems clear to just about everyone but Weiner that he should follow his own advice to Governor Paterson and step down…immediately.

Video:

It is bad enough that the Weiner sets low standards.  It even worse that he can’t live up to them.

Deflating the Weiner, the Sharp Tack, Clarice Feldman, thinks that the story about Weiner’s wife Huma Abedin, suddenly being with child is too good to be true.  Clarice marshalls a parade of  cats to support her contention, from American Thinker:

Just as pressure was mounting to force Weiner’s resignation, three  “anonymous” sources told the New York Times that his wife, Huma Abedin (Hillary Clinton’s Girl Friday) is in the early stages of a pregnancy. Huma was in Africa with Hillary and made no comment on the report, nor did Weiner, who was otherwise occupied when another Weiner crotch  shot — this time sans culottes — was  making its way through the new media.

I was skeptical, thinking it was a convenient ploy to win him time and sympathy. So was Professor Althouse.

Cripes Suzette saw in this a familiar pattern going back to Chappaquiddick and Joan Kennedy’s now-you-see -it-now-you-don’t  just in time pregnancy.

Gads those girls have long memories.

Very interesting, from Toby Harnden, Telegraph(UK):

Whether or not she[Sarah Palin] runs for the White House – and the solid consensus among Republican leaders is that she won’t – the scramble over the Palin emails confirms her status as a pivotal figure in the race to challenge President Barack Obama next year.

It comes at a moment when the battle for the Republican nomination appears set to be transformed by the late entry of Governor Rick Perry of Texas, a social conservative and Palin ally who could almost immediately leap to the front of a currently lacklustre field.

Sources close to Mr Perry have confirmed that he is “highly likely” to announce a presidential run in the coming days. Intriguingly, they have also hinted at a something they believe would increase immeasurably Mr Perry’s chances of winning the White House – an endorsement from Mrs Palin

Were he to announce, Rick Perry would apt to on the top of  my list as well.    Remember governors have to make decisions.   Junior senator only give fancy speeches.

Herm Can, Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, Daily Caller:

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain continues to display a gross misunderstanding of the ideological threat posed to our nation by Islamists. I am very disappointed that any candidate for president of the United States would say, especially after being given multiple opportunities for clarification, that he would “be uncomfortable hiring a Muslim in his administration.” One cannot help but question how those comments square with his understanding of the very United States Constitution that he seeks to protect. He somehow wants me, as an American Muslim, to be comforted by his explanation that he would still appoint Muslims but they would first have to meet some sort of constitutional litmus test. This is a line of thinking that directly conflicts with the constitutional prohibition that states, “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” (Article 6, Section 3).

Is the Herminator,  Herman Cain, wrong?    While it is true that no all Muslims are terrorists, virtually all terrorists are Muslim.   The Muslin population seems have those who support jihad and those that don’t object to it.    Show me the peaceful Muslims.

But Tony Weiner is no B.J. Clinton, from Rand Simberg, Pajamas Media:

Anthony Weiner allegedly and admittedly communicated with young women on social media and sent them photos of his unmentionables, and then lied about it for a week or so before coming clean.

Bill Clinton had actual sexual relations (and yes, folks, “oral sex” is sex — look at the second word) with a young woman in his pay, in the Oval Office, during working hours, sometimes while discussing troop movements with members of Congress on the phone. He sometimes held up meetings with government officials so that said young woman could have the proper time to service his needs, which included (to put it as delicately as possible) using her tongue to function as toilet paper.

Both the Weiner and B.J. Clinton are reprobates, but only B.J. appears to be a felon.  So why rush to flush the Weiner but the jihad like defense of. B.J.?

Chrissy Matthews bitten by the Weiner, from back to back posts at McCain.  First Chrissy discusses values:

This is, to me, the stakes here. If [Anthony Weiner] stays, [Democrats] never get the leadership back. They never get the Speakership back because the people in the rural areas of this country who are Christian conservative culturally – you can say backward if you want – but they don’t like this kind of stuff at all. They’re not part of that 56 percent in Brooklyn and Queens who say, “okay, we can live with this guy.” Your thoughts, Ben? Isn’t that the cutting edge of this?

Via Robert Stacy McCain, Other McCain.

And then:

NEW CASTLE, Del. — Police on Friday afternoon came to the home of a 17-year-old high school junior to ask her about direct online communications she has had with Rep. Anthony Weiner.
Two officers from the New Castle County Police Department arrived at the girl’s home around 4:30 p.m. and asked to speak with the girl’s mother about the daughter’s contact with Weiner. Another officer appeared at the home a short time later. A FoxNews.com reporter was at the home when the police arrived.

Via Robert Stacy McCain, Other McCain.

Chrissy, if you want my advice, don’t go near the Weiner.    The Weiner is radioactive.

Top 10 headlines about Congressman Anthony Weiner. from Toby Harden, Telegraph(UK), Chrissy fits nine to a tee:

9. Lots of guys pull a Weiner (New York Daily News)

Can’t keep a good country down, from Emily Allen, Mail l(UK):

Just three months ago Japan was plunged into chaos after a cataclysmic earthquake sent a merciless tsunami crashing through towns and cities up and down the east coast.

The unforgiving tide of water obliterated tens of thousands of buildings, devouring almost anything in its path. Thousands of people died and hundreds of bodies have never been recovered.

The heart-breaking images of families desperately searching for loved ones amid the rubble of their homes sent shockwaves around the world.

Now, three months on, these images show the Japanese people remain undaunted by the havoc nature has wreaked on their homeland as step by step they rebuild their nation.

Shooting in gun free New York I, from New York Times:

Five people were shot along the boardwalk in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, Thursday afternoon during a mini heat wave that had packed the city’s beaches.

Two of the victims are badly wounded, the authorities said.

The shooting took place around 5:20 p.m. on the boardwalk near Brighton Sixth Street, the Fire Department said.

The shooting unfolded on a day when a mini-heat wave and a school holiday sent hordes of people to Coney Island and Brighton Beaches, which were teeming with beachgoers — many of them teenagers — trying to escape temperatures approaching 100 degrees.

Shooting in gun free New York II from Mark Morales and Bob Kappstatter, Daily News:

Shots rang out on a crowded Queens subway train Thursday, forcing riders to duck and run as two gangs brawled.

Riders panicked when three shots erupted from the last cars of a Manhattan-bound A train at the Howard Beach station about 6:30 p.m.

No injuries were reported.

The adversaries fled down the tracks of the 159th St. and Coleman Square elevated connecting point to the AirTrain to Kennedy Airport.

Was it an off-duty cop one Mayor Bloomberg’s political supports who was the shooter?  They the only people allowed to carry guns in Da Mayor’s crime free, gun free paradise

Argentina and the Falklands: A background post,from Fausta.   The only thing I know about Spanish that is was hard.

Revenge from beyond the grave, Lying Lizzis strikes out at her  ex, from Mail (UK):

In a final act of revenge, Elizabeth Edwards secretly recorded a testimony in her dying days that helped prosecutors indict husband John last week, it was claimed today.

John Edwards is due to stand trial on charges that could lead to a 30-year jail sentence after he pleaded not guilty on Friday to using $925,000 in campaign funds to cover up an affair and love child.
The estranged wife of the former presidential candidate is alleged to have filmed a damning testimony that was central to the prosecution’s case for charges.

Friends said the cancer victim, who died in December, wanted to ‘haunt’ her estranged husband and his mistress Rielle Hunter, with whom he fathered a child and made a sex tape.

Climate change strikes Gingrich campaign, Newt Gingrich’s campaign staff melts down and dissolves,  from Allah Pundit, Hot Air:

Breaking so hard that I don’t even have a link for you yet, but Carl Cameron is reporting on Fox News as I write this that the entire senior circle — everyone, basically — is jumping ship based on “a difference of opinion” with Gingrich on the direction of the campaign. Presumably that’s not a reference to his criticism of Ryan’s Medicare plan; if it was, they would have dumped him already. It might be a reference to their exasperation at Newt taking off for a little vacation right as the campaign’s heating up.

Color me less than heart broken.

More Fred Barnes, Weekly Standard:

The problem was the wife. Aides to Newt Gingrich have resigned from his presidential campaign in protest of what they felt was a takeover by Callista Gingrich, the candidate’s wife since 2000.

[..]

While Gingrich was away, his aides talked among themselves about the course of the campaign. They wanted him to commit to seeking the Republican nomination on a full-time basis, including time spent in personal fundraising by Gingrich himself. Gingrich balked at this. His wife wanted him to pursue the presidency at less strenuous clip.

“The professional team came to the realization that the direction of the campaign they sought and Newt’s vision for the campaign were incompatible,” strategist David Carney told Jonathan Martin of Politico. The advisers believed Gingrich could not win the nomination without campaigning full-tilt.

We have seen over the last two plus years the price the nation has to pay for lazy president.  Thank  Mrs. G.

How is that racial  taboo working? We have a race problem in this country and we will not talk about it.    You can not solve social problems by not talking about them, from John Kass, Chicago Tribune.

No Shat Sherlock, from Steve McCann, American Thinker:

President Obama is in deep water, well over his head, in the misbegotten Libya adventure into which he dragged America. His public statements reveal the degree of the debacle.

Well Dubya may have been a cowboy, but unlike Dumbo, b/k/a Barack Obama, Forty Three was not stupid.

More Weiner Gate, from Nice Deb:

Nice Deb is sometimes too timid to say what she really thinks. Especially in a situation as delicate as this one.

But Andrew Breitbart has paved the way for other doubting Thomases by saying (in his opinion), the news of Huma’s pregnancy is *probably* a PR attempt and a ploy to make people not want to report on the Weinergate scandal

Nice Deb can afford to be discrete, for her readers are not so discrete, nor dumb as the lame stream media.

There are wives and their are political wives.   Wives put their marriage first.  Political wives put their political career first.   Is the Weiner’s wife Huma Abedin  a real wife or lust a politician using a faux marriage for political cover?    Can’t say, just yet.

However Abedin is a close political aide to one Mrs. B.J. Clinton, who is very much a political wife.    When the Gennifer Flowers scandal was threatening B.J.’s presidential campaign, Mrs. Clinton went on Sixty Minutes to deny the entire affair.

When allegations of the Monica Lewinsky affair again threatened  B.J’s political career, Mrs. Clinton called the allegations a product of a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, and have my membership card etched into my memory.    Despite the appearance of the now infamous blue dress, Mrs. Clinton has issued neither an apology or retraction.

Mrs. Clinton clearly cares more about her political career than the continuing sexualYmisadventures of her cad husband.    Is Huma Abedin cut from the same bolt of cloth?

Stacy asks;

When Will Weiner Quit?

My hunch says today but, rationally, politicians always prefer to save bad news for after 7 p.m. on a Friday

The little guy is useful for sport and is poison to the liberals   Go Tony, go.

From, Robert Stacy McCain, Other McCain.

With the departure of chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, that’s the number of members from the original Obama economic team still working for the administration, not quite three years into the first term.

Rats, say goodbye to the ship of state: Gone are Christina Romer, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag. Headed out is Goolsbee, who abruptly announced his resignation Monday to return to teaching at the University of Chicago.

With the water lapping over the gunwales, the lone holdout is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the former tax cheat, who sails grimly on.

Michael A. Walsh, New York Post.

York,PA in the midst of a really wild thunderstorm…–

I brought a load here from the Adirondacks, and will be on my home turf, tomorrow. I’m looking forward to this weekend; it’s been a particularly trying week… several repairs. Actually, I’ve been quite road-repair free until this week. A radiator hose, two tires, a welding job on an air tank, etc.  Yikes. Glad I’m not paying that repair bill.

• KAUS DESTROYS KURTZ: Gotta love it:
  

  Here’s my theory about Howard Kurtz: He consistently gets things wrong, but then after the facts are in he’ll always write a column telling you why everything was so obvious.

  Example? Kurtz’s 2008 column looking back on the Edwards/Rielle Hunter affair (in the wake of Edwards’ televised confession).  Having completely blown the story, Kurtz actually ends his post-mortem on a note of self-congratulation: “I didn’t know how right I was” (because at one point he’d wondered if Edwards’ candor was “carefully choreographed”).** … P.S.: Kurtz’s “everything was so obvious” wrap up of Weinergate should be a keeper, given his claim, days after the story broke, that the “whole thing appears to be faked. Sometimes it pays to wait for the facts”.  I guess it does! …

  So, why didn’t he, then? The reason is obvious: Kurtz is the mainstream press, who has an agenda to push, and anything that damages that effort… say, liberal pols involved in a sex scandal, he needs to claim isn’t happening.

• Good Column, but…. Walsh writes a great column, but misses the point… and it’s something I’ve been saying for some months now. He gets this right….
  

  The growth in GDP declined to a measly 1.8 percent in the first quarter of 2011 as consumers hung desperately onto their wallets. Job growth has completely collapsed. Fully 60 percent of the electorate thinks the country is on the wrong track. No wonder the daily economic briefing, once on a par with the intelligence briefing, has vanished from President Obama’s schedule.

  Heckuva job, guys.

  And now Obama says he’s not worried about a double-dip recession. Easy for him to say: For Americans not feeding at the government trough, the first recession never ended.

  We are witnessing the total failure of academic Keynesian economics, with its heavy emphasis on high taxes and exorbitant government spending. Yet Obama sails blithely on, already in full campaign mode and still blaming George W. Bush and the Republicans (admittedly no models of fiscal restraint or responsibility) for everything.

  Worse, the what-me-worry president continues to insist that the ongoing hard times are just a “bump in the road” — that if we can just get the “fortunate” rich to “pay a little more” everything will be just fine.

  Never mind that most of the “rich” got their own money by inventing a product or providing a service in the private sector. That they invested an enormous amount of their own capital and sweat equity before it paid off. That they did it for the most part without any help from Obama or his friends in academe.

  And never mind that if you tax the rich at 100 percent of their wealth, the country will still go bankrupt.

  Bump in the road to what, Mr. President? The road to perdition?

  … But Walsh fails utterly to address the small matter of intent. Obama WANTS to crash our economy. I say again what I said last April: If you wanted to cripple the greatest nation on earth, (Who you’ve said publicly, you want to see take a smaller world role) how would you accomplish it, outside what the left has done? I think that when viewed through the standpoint of a strong America internationally speaking , and a strong private sector economy within America, and individual freedoms, Obama, and the left have gone precisely the wrong direction with a batting average that approach is as close to 1000 as no matter. Given that, it does not seem unreasonable to me to question whether this is a case of incompetence or malice. I conclude the latter.  Reasons are many, but can be summed up this way:

  One does not screw up totally every single time without a certain level of both competence, and intent.  It seems more likely to me that what’s happening is that Obama and company have a completely different goal than the stated strong America, and that they know exactly what they’re doing and are purposely steering us toward the rocks.  There is no other logical conclusion to draw anymore. I note McPhillips coming to that conclusion, also.

• EDUKASHUN: Just go and read this. I can’t even describe it. Was there ever any doubt that the teachers unions are leftist dominated? It’s not about education at all, people.

Leaders lead, Dumbo shucks, from Daily Caller:

A cascade of bad economic and political news knocked President Barack Obama off his game today, and prompted him to revive his 2008-style criticism of his predecessor, and also to suggest that investors, consumers and even the media are responsible for today’s stalled economy.

The blame-game rhetoric – which pollsters say is counterproductive – came during the White House’s joint press conference with Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel. “It is just very important for folks to remember how close we came to complete disaster,” he told the watching TV cameras and reporters.

Barack Obama, a/k/a Dumbo loves to hog all the credit, but is never willing to take any blame.

Are the Weiners with child? From Michael Barbaro and Ashley Aberdin, New York Times:

Weiner’s Wife Is Pregnant

Representative Anthony D. Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, in January.Their marriage has become the subject of intense speculation and scrutiny amid an embarrassing online sex scandal.

Now, Representative Anthony D. Weiner and Huma Abedin are about to make news of a different kind: they are expecting their first child.

Ms. Abedin, 35, is in the early stages of pregnancy, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.

NFL, the timing is too convenient and the Weiner will lie about anything.

Who knew, from Doug Powers @ Michelle Malkin:

Dept. of Education Has SWAT Team Raid Home Over Student Loan Default; Update: OIG Agents, Not SWAT

If the government calls in a SWAT team because of a few dollars owed for student loans, what do you think they’ll do if you do not obey the Obamacare law to the letter?

The Department of Education was a SWAT team.   Why?    Disarm these fools before they hurt somebody.

What schools don’t teach, from Thomas Sowell, RCP:

If banks try to act like they are real estate companies and hold on to a huge inventory of foreclosed homes, they are likely to lose money big time, as those homes deteriorate and cannot compete with homes marketed by real estate companies with far more experience and expertise in this field.

But if teachers fail to educate children, they don’t lose one dime, no matter how much those children and the country lose by their failure. If the schools waste precious time indoctrinating children, instead of educating them, that’s the children’s problem and the country’s problem, but not the teachers’ problem.

The professional education class has no concept competency.

Scranton, PA– OK, I had the burned wiener festival last night. The Wiener is toast, and it’s all over but the signatures. So, I’ll not mention that whole thing.

• Like hell, I won’t. Ya gotta love Breitbart basically hijacking the burned Wiener’s press conference. Andy takes down Weiner and the leftist dominated press  and meanwhile Kos takes down his disproven blog posts. Says it all, that does.But of course, there’s more. Every time one like this comes up.. at least when it’s a Democrat, and partculalry a lockstep liberal, we end up hearing cries of “it’s all about the sex”. No, it’s not. This slimeball was willing to lie is ass off, and smear anyone he needed to to get out of what he’d done. Only when he got cornered, did he make a show out of taking “full responsibility” for his actions.   Ask Scooter Libby what happens when someone lies… Or, Chris Lee…even a little bit, when they’re a Republican. But a Democrat?  They’re still going to bat for the Democrat.There’s this, as well; Isn’t using one’s office to smear a private citizen, a misuse of one’s office at least? Can you imagine the howl given a role reversal?
• Obama to the left of majority of the country: Fifty-four percent (54%) of voters believe the president is more liberal than they are while 13% believe he is more conservative says Rasmussen. Is anyone surprised?
• FANNIE MAE SCANDAL WORSE:Read it here.
• It’s the Economy, Stupid! Meanwhile,Rasmussen also says that  just 31% believe the economy will be stronger in a year while 43% believe it will be weaker. That’s a more pessimistic assessment than in March when 35% thought it would be stronger. Do not for a moment listen to anyone suggesting Obama is unbeatable.  And ya know what? “It’s the Economy, Stupid” was a Jim Carville phrase. Interesting how that can be tossed back in his face.  And more yet… The Daily Caller:
  

  In an appearance on Monday’s “Imus in the Morning” on the Fox Business Network, the former Clinton adviser said that, based on the May jobs number, if the unemployment picture doesn’t improve, 2012 could be rough for the president.

  “[L]ook, I don’t think anybody — if 54,000 new jobs is the new standard, it’s going to be a very, very rough 2012 for President Obama,” Carville said. “But the three-month average was 160,000. If that is the case, then he will do OK. I can’t tell you what will happen. But yes, if this, if this last jobs number is an indication of future job numbers, it’s going to be very, very rough.”

  Carville goes on to predict riots. He’s right, of course. Gotta give Obama Credit… He certainly united the country…. against Liberals.

• LEFTIST STOOGE: Do we need any further proof that Obama installed a leftist stooge as CEO at GM?
• Who but the true believers didn’t see this coming?
  

  Emergency room visits have been on the rise in Massachusetts since the passage of the 2006 health care law, much to the chagrin of supporters who projected that the opposite would happen as more people had insurance and were connected with primary care providers. 

  That goes directly to both Obamacare and Romneycare. Neither deserves office. Sorry, they just don’t.

To my way of thinking, the saddest part of this story is Barbara Walters devolution; this once-respected newswoman nears the end of her distinguished career by playing as ghastly a non-sequitur as I’ve ever heard, saying (in essence) if Sarah Palin ‘can ride around on her bus,’ Weiner Can Stay in Congress.

When Joy Behar, of all people has to defend Sarah Palin from your bizarrely gratuitous swipe, you know you’ve let your hate lead you too far into Whackyland

Elizabeth Scalia, Anchoress.

The O-conomy, from Jim Geraghty, National Review:

Since January 2009, American businesses have faced at least three big potential risks to their bottom line besides the lingering effects of the 2008 crash: A) the possibility of tax hikes B) the possibility of greater costs for health care to employees imposed by government and C) the possibility of much higher costs for energy use triggered by cap-and-trade legislation or some sort of tax aimed at reducing carbon emissions. A GOP-held House can obviously block most legislative efforts in this area, but as long as Obama is president, the threat of these policies being enacted, or similarly deleterious ones through the regulatory process, is nonzero.

While President Fifty-Seven states is not known for or even capable of deep thinking, Dumbo, b/k/a Barack Obama, is man of passionate beliefs.    Dumbo believes in  Cap and Tax, Dumbo Care and  yet higher taxes.     So as long as Dumbo remains in position to enact his agenda, the economy is going no where but down.

What no health care:

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Once provisions of the Affordable Care Act start to kick in during 2014, at least three of every 10 employers will probably stop offering health coverage, a survey released Monday shows.

While only 7% of employees will be forced to switch to subsidized-exchange programs, at least 30% of companies say they will “definitely or probably” stop offering employer-sponsored coverage, according to the study published in McKinsey Quarterly.

Maybe Dumbo just does not care,  from  Sam Youngman, Hill:

At some point during the first two years of his administration, President Obama stopped receiving the daily economic briefing that he requested when he took office.

Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs announced at his own first daily briefing reporters that Obama asked for the daily economic briefing, described then as comparable to the daily intelligence briefing the president gets every morning.

“The president asked that this be added every day to his schedule,” Gibbs said at the time. Gibbs added that Obama believed it is “important that each day he receive the most up to date information as it relates to the economy.”

It does seem the only job about which Dumbo is concerned is his.

Sex change stupidity:

DILLWYN, Va. (AP) – Crouched in her cell, Ophelia De’lonta hoped three green disposable razors from the prison commissary would give her what the Virginia Department of Corrections will not – a sex change.

It had been several years since she had felt the urges, but she had been fighting them for weeks. But like numerous other times, she failed to get rid of what she calls “that thing” between her legs, the last evidence she was born a male.

If Mr. De’lonta was born a male, he will die a male, with or without his package.  Sex is immutable.

(Newburgh, NY–) I’m off Interstate 84 at Exit 5 tonight, at the TA in Newburgh, NY. It’s been a long day and I’m feeling tired but with the feeling I have accomplished something for the day.

I’ve showered…. always a plus on a hot day…. and I’m now cooking some dinner.Some rice, some Brocolli, and some smoked Sausage in honor of Andrew Brietbart.

Before I dive into the particulars, I do want so suggest that the press would have handled the whole thing rather differently, were the congressman a Republican. Say, Tom Foley. I mean, OK, it’s an obvious point, but that it IS obvious is itself a sad statement.

• Funny thing how the usual left-leaners are reacting to the burned Weiner. . One example, which I’ll link because his back links to other lefties are useful in demonstration my point. As an example, take Amanda Malcotte.  Does anyone on earth figure  she wouldn’t be screaming bloody murder if this scandal involved a Republican, or a tea partier? She’d not get a sentence out for the next several weeks that didn’t involve the phrase “Sexual harassment”. But because theguy is a Democrat, she’s all concerned about HIS sexual privacy. Is there a more glaring double standard? Oh… there’s Kos, of course, who, sayssays Jimm Treacher, is having his worst day since he heard the name “Ned Lamont”.
• Goolsbee: He’s now gone. Richard Pollock says
  

  Last night’s abrupt resignation of President Obama’s top economic advisor was leaked as the country experienced the Weinergate maelstrom. While the country was gripped by the latest depravity committed by the elites who profess they know how to improve our country, it was easy to miss the announcement and its ramifications.

  The sudden announcement that the president’s remaining academic economist, Austan Goolsbee, was heading for the exits was a strong indication of our national economic crisis and the turmoil at the top: he resigned after only nine months at the helm. Goolsbee headed the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, Obama’s assembled “wise men.” Last night Goolsbee told his staff he will hang it up for good and return to the calm of university life.

  In the end, I see this as an admission of failure. But, I see his return to teaching his crud to be far more dangerous to America and the world than I do with him actually in charge, since the failures are easy to trace when he’s at the helm. When he’s teaching instead, the failures that occur are far harder to trace to the source: Liberalism.

  But yoou know, perhaps the reason he’s gone now, is because he dared to get something right. Observe his comments on CNN, a mere two days ago:

  Our effort now, as a government, should be to get the private sector to help them stand up and lead the recovery.  The government is not the central driver of recovery.

  The problem of course is that the only conclusion on how to do that… reducing government and the taxation that feeds it,  runs directly afoul of Obama’s call for “social Justice”. Obama brought this guy in to give Obama credibility, not to fix the problems. Goolsbee made the mistake of speaking the truth, and perhaps that’s why he’s now gone. The message from the White House seems to be “lockstep or die”.

Watching Breitbart crush Weiner beneath his heel like an insignificant weiner, it occurs to me that Breitbart’s genius – and he really is an information genius – consists almost entirely of two pieces of knowledge: one, leftists will lie knowing the media will back them and two, the media will back them.  With those two principles, he manages to make utter fools of both lying leftists and their corrupt mainstream media cronies again and again.  Not to mention again.  It’s wonderful.

Via Jeff Dune, Yid with Lid.

Weiner Roasted, from Robert Stacy McCain, Other McCain:

Smoke, fire.  Kettle, black. Weiner, roasted. Career, toasted.

Comment by Dandapant, McCain reader.

Literally, from New York Daily News:

Anthony’s weiner never tasted so good.

A Brooklyn sausage joint is serving up a special entree skewering scandal-scarred Rep. Anthony Weiner.

Dubbed Anthony’s Weiners, the dish by Der Kommissar in Park Slope features two beef hot dogs on two slices of French bread brushed with olive oil.

Hat tip to Stacy.  He said this was a big story all along.   McCain knows news.

Saving the Fed, from Peter A. Diamond, New York Times:

LAST October, I won the Nobel Prize in economics for my work on unemployment and the labor market. But I am unqualified to serve on the board of the Federal Reserve — at least according to the Republican senators who have blocked my nomination. How can this be?

As I recall Alfred Kinsey was a professor as well. and Jimmy Carter and Yassar Arafat both won Nobel Prizes, from Confederate Yankee:

In case you haven’t been paying attention for the past half-decade, the Nobel Prize has been reduced to absurdity. Even Paul Krugman has one. ManBearPig got on for junk science that was debunked. Our current war-monger President, who is fighting what the left used to call “an illegal war”

Everything Barack Obama, a/k/a Dumbo, has tried to revive the economy has failed.   If Dumbo supports Diamond,  that alone is sufficient reason to oppose him.

Enviro-Nazis,  lest you think our description of the wacko jobs spouting the theory of anthropogenic global warming is a tab bit too harsh, from Sidney Morning Herald (AU):

Surely it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.

Not necessarily on the forehead; I’m a reasonable man. Just something along their arm or across their chest so their grandchildren could say, ”Really? You were one of the ones who tried to stop the world doing something? And why exactly was that, granddad?”

Mr. Glover, I’ll start taking the theory of anthropogenic global warming seriously after the the leading proponents of the theory,  see I mean you Al Gore, start acting like they believe their own purported theory.

Hat tip:  Bruce McQuain, Questions and Observations.

Well I never liked bean sprouts anyhow:

BERLIN, June 5 (Xinhua) — German authority said on Sunday that bean sprouts might be the “most convincing” source for the E. coli outbreak which has killed 22 people and infected more than 2,000 in the Europe.

Gert Lindemann, Agriculture Minister of the state Lower Saxony, told reporters in a press conference that restaurants and food outlets where the cases of E. coli had been reported all had received shipments of the particular bean sprouts.

When in Hamburg, eat hamburgers.