Banking On Re-election

clipped from pajamasmedia.com DAN RIEHL: Why would Obama not mind Dimon and Blankfein getting huge bonuses? “Well, Dimon has given over $100k just to the DSCC. Plus individual candidate donations, most of which go to Democrats. And Blankfein gives almost all of his donations to Democrats – $136k to $4k.”

The (Non)Working Man

clipped from www.moonbattery.com Listen: Nearly 20% of men in this age group [25-54 yrs] are out of the workforce, and none of the overall second-derivative labor market improvements seem to be helping much. How this trend impacts society more broadly should be interesting, to say the least.

Sleep Deprivation

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com So that's it. Binyam Mohammed was subjected to sleep deprivation. He was shackled during interrogations and was threatened with being removed from the safety of American custody. He was not beaten, waterboarded, or subjected to bodily pain of any sort. As one who suffers from insomnia I can sympathize with the sleep-deprived, but this is not torture by any reasonable definition. If anything less pleasant than a weekend at a spa is considered torture, and therefore illegal, we may as well give up on interrogating terrorists. There was, of course, a context for the interrogation of Binyam Mohammed. That context was the September 11 attacks. Which brings us to the second story, the release, apparently via a Freedom of Information Act request, of aerial photographs of the collapse of the World Trade Center You can see the NYPD pictures here. On September 11, thousands of Americans experienced something far worse than sleep deprivation.

6%

clipped from hotair.com You don’t say. Even the Obama administration acknowledges the legislation’s centerpiece — a tax cut for businesses that hire unemployed workers — would work only on the margins. $5,000 may sound like quite a substantial tax credit, but it can cost that or more simply to hire and orient a new employee. In fact, according to some studies, “turnover costs for a manager average 150% of salary, including tangible costs of hiring new workers and relocation, and intangible costs such as the new worker’s inefficiency and lost productivity while the job is vacant.” The median household income in the United States is $50,740. Using that figure, it can cost $76,110 to hire and train a new worker. The $5,000 tax credit would cover about 6% of that cost.

Yes Way!

clipped from hotair.com Yesterday, Barack Obama made an unexpected appearance at the daily press briefing to stress the need for bipartisanship, while at the same event, Robert Gibbs demonstrated the way the White House apparently intends to put it into practice.  Chris Muir brilliantly ties this to the entire nanny-state impulses of the Democrats and the Obama administration in a must-see entry of his Day by Day series:

6"

clipped from www.slate.com The regime cannot rule by terror alone, and now all it has left is its race-based military ideology. Small wonder that each "negotiation" with it is more humiliating than the previous one. As Myers points out, we cannot expect it to bargain away its very raison d'etre. All of us who scrutinize North Korean affairs are preoccupied with one question. Do these slaves really love their chains? Here are the two most shattering facts about North Korea. First, when viewed by satellite photography at night, it is an area of unrelieved darkness. Barely a scintilla of light is visible even in the capital city. (See this famous photograph.) Second, a North Korean is on average six inches shorter than a South Korean. You may care to imagine how much surplus value has been wrung out of such a slave, and for how long, in order to feed and sustain the militarized crime family that completely owns both the country and its people.

QOTD: Archives Are A B*tch

clipped from www.qando.net he QOTD for today actually comes to us from a NY Times editorial in 2005 which clearly states their understanding of the job of an opposition party: Mr. Bush has reacted by railing against Democrats for obstruction — as if Democrats are duty-bound to breathe life into his agenda and, even sillier, as if opposing a plan that the people do not want is an illegitimate tactic for an opposition party. Why I believe that is exactly the point the right is now arguing.  As witnessed by the editorial, the Democrats, lefty blogs and much of the media thought it was fair play in 2005.  Take heed, Republicans and don’t end up breathing life into a corpse.  The Democrats didn’t apologize for killing Social Security reform.  And it obviously didn’t hurt them electorally. Question: did killing SS reform in 2005 make America “ungovernable?” More importantly, did that mean the NY Times wanted the Bush agenda to “fail”? Heh … Archives are a bitch, aren’t they?

His D.L.

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com If you seek a handy compilation of the shibboleths that now guide our approach to the phenomenon formerly known as Islamist terrorism, Brennan's speech is must reading. To take one example cited by Pipes, Brennan rejects any connection between "violent extremism" and Islam: "Using the legitimate term jihad, which means to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal, risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve." Any connection between Islam and Islamist terrorism is purely coincidental. While Brennan's take on jihad may be a big hit in Obama's White House, it is not exactly authoritative. Pipes also captured the tone of Obama worship in which the speech is pitched: "Disturbingly, Brennan ascribes virtually every thought or policy in his speech to the wisdom of the One. This cringe-inducing lecture reminds one of a North Korean functionary paying homage to the Dear Leader."

Never Mind

clipped from www2.timesdispatch.com No more illegal wiretapping of American citizens . . . .This administration acts like violating civil liberties is the way to enhance our security. It is not. -- Barack Obama, Aug. 1, 2007 . . . On second thought, never mind. With the world's attention riveted by the earthquake in Haiti, few noticed when, late last month, a federal judge took a pair of sharp scissors to the Bill of Rights. But on Jan. 22, federal district judge Vaughan Walker agreed to dismiss a lawsuit over warrantless wiretapping, as the administration -- the current one -- had requested. The second suit was filed against the National Security Agency. Walker threw it out on the grounds that the plaintiffs could not show they had been individually harmed, because they could not "differentiate themselves from the mass of telephone and Internet users in the United States." They needed a "direct, personal stake" to claim standing for the right to sue, not merely "a right to have the government follow the law."

At Least 12.5%

clipped from www.qando.net The most recent release of unemployment data has raised some questions, namely, how can we lose 20,000 jobs in the same month that the unemployment rate declined to 9.7%.  The answer is simple: The unemployment rate is essentially a made-up figure.  And I can give you a much more accurate way to measure the unemployment rate. Fortunately, there is a better way to calculate the rate of real unemployment, and the BLS web site conveniently provides you with all the data you need to do it.  From here, we only need three items: The Civilian Noninstitutional Population, the Participation Rate, and the number of Employed. OCT 08: Civilian Noninstitutinal Population: 234,612,000 Participation Rate: 66% Labor Force: 154,843,920 Employed: 145,543,000 Unemployment Rate: 6.0% Jan 10: Civilian Noninstitutinal Population: 236,832,000 Participation Rate: 66% Labor Force: 156,309,120 Employed: 136,809,000 Unemployment Rate: 12.5%

Curiously Contra

clipped from www.cashill.com It seems altogether possible that the progressive and adventurous 17 year-old Dunham was impregnated by a black man while the family was still living in the Seattle area. If so, this pregnancy could have prompted the family to uproot to Hawaii where no one knew them and where mixed-race babies were more accepted.  According to the Andersen account, whose source was Maxine Box, "There were loud arguments between father and daughter -- fights that sometimes turned violent."  Ann did not want to go. Both the "Dunham as father" and the "anonymous black father" scenarios would make the Obama camp wary of sharing Obama's actual birth certificate, either because Dunham was not Obama's mother or, if she were, because Obama was born much earlier than August 4, 1961.

Projections Of The Mad

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Khamenei, whose public statements should be taken seriously, is promising some sort of devastating “punch” against the West on Thursday the 11th, the same day as the Green Movement is calling for a monster protest against his regime. What might he have in mind?  I don’t know;  they say a lot of things just for effect, but threats/promises from the supreme leader have a certain standing.  If I were an Israeli official, I’d recheck my information on Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. Some think he’s preparing some kind of attack against Israel.  Surely there has been no shortage in recent weeks of nasty language against the Jewish state.  Here’s Foreign Minister Mottaki a day ago: “Iran is facing a mad nation led by insane people. This is the reason why all of us in the region – in Syria, in Lebanon, and the Palestinians – must be prepared constantly for any crazy operation against us.”

Countdown

clipped from www.breitbart.com Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that Iran is set to deliver a "punch" that will stun world powers during this week's 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution. "The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman (February 11) in a way that will leave them stunned," Khamenei, who is also Iran's commander-in-chief, told a gathering of air force personnel. The country's top cleric was marking the occasion when Iran's air force gave its support to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a key event which led to the toppling of the US-backed shah on February 11, 1979. His comments came as Iran said it would begin to produce higher enriched uranium from Tuesday, in defiance of Western powers trying to ensure the country's nuclear drive is peaceful.

Divide

clipped from www.qando.net The divide between the Political Class and Mainstream voters, however, is remarkable. Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Mainstream voters are angry, but 84% of the Political Class are not. Those numbers include 57% of Mainstream voters who are Very Angry and 51% of the Political Class who are not angry at all. But then 68% of Mainstream voters don’t think the leaders of either major political party have a good understanding of what the country needs today. Sixty-one percent (61%) of the Political Class disagree. By comparison, the majority of Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliateds don’t believe the current political leaders have a good handle on what is needed today. Older voters and higher-income voters share that belief most strongly. Thus the Tea Parties and the very negative reaction by the PC to them. They simply don’t get it. We’re seeing laments about how the good old day before the damned internet, talk radio and 24 hour cable let the enlightened elite do as they wish.

Hand

clipped from www.moonbattery.com In the future, moonbats won't be so quick to denounce crib notes, in light of these revealing pictures:

Until The Next Time

clipped from pajamasmedia.com “To be appearing on platforms with Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment.” Saghal was suspended from Amnesty International within a few hours after publicly expressing her dissent. Saghal closed the letter describing her suspension with a recitation of her revolutionary credentials. It is an eerie passage which echoes structure for structure many of the protestations of innocence by the Old Bolsheviks when they found themselves in the cellars of the Cheka, stuffed there by a leadership that found they had outlived their usefulness. She wrote: I have been a human rights campaigner for over three decades, defending the rights of women and ethnic minorities Why does she think any of this matters?  The Left is not about principles. It is about itself. It is about power. Now that President Obama has been politically weakened look for the mask to come back on. Until the next time.

Just What I Choose It To Mean

clipped from www.firstthings.com How about that? They quickly “remedied” the situation, and corrected the record, and they didn’t even mock the president and his team for complaining about erroneous stories, as they did to the last administration. But what struck me was this line: Our budget explicitly calls for permanently extending the Bush tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. What? People who were not rich got Tax Cuts under Bush? I thought the Bush Tax Cuts were evil, and immoral, and they were only for the “top 1%” of earners in the country – his gift to his rich pals? You mean there were Bush Tax Cuts that were not evil or immoral and that deserve to be extended? That they were, in fact, so respectable that the Obama administration even acknowledges them as “Bush” tax cuts and retains them? This is the same White House that is also retaining most of Bush’s policies on terrorism and stuff, right? The same predecessor Obama keeps blaming for everything?

$123T

clipped from www.realclearpolitics.com The 20th century radically reduced deaths due to acute infectious diseases, which were concentrated in infancy and early childhood. In 1900, more than 33 percent of all deaths were of children under 5; today they are less than 2 percent. In 1900, deaths of persons 65 and older were only 18 percent of all deaths; today they are 75 percent. This demographic destiny might entail starving every other sector of society -- including national defense, at great cost to America's international standing. It had better not, given what Fogel argues in another essay, this one in the current issue of Foreign Policy. It is titled "$123,000,000,000,000." Fogel's subtitle is: "China's estimated economy by the year 2040. Be warned."

Curtain Call

clipped from online.wsj.com The curtain has come down on what can best be described as a brief un-American moment in our history. That moment began in the fall of 2008, with the great financial panic, and gave rise to the Barack Obama phenomenon. The nation's faith in institutions and time-honored ways had cracked. In a little-known senator from Illinois millions of Americans came to see a savior who would deliver the nation out of its troubles. Gone was the empiricism in political life that had marked the American temper in politics. A charismatic leader had risen in a manner akin to the way politics plays out in distressed and Third World societies.

QOTD: That's Right Kids

clipped from online.wsj.com That's right kids, stay in school, work hard, stay out of trouble and when you grow up, you can pay for those who didn't. —David Thompson

The Curvature O Nonsense

clipped from pajamasmedia.com According to the Washington Post, David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s senior advisor, said that the president worked with “[Harvard professor] Laurence Tribe on a paper on the legal implications of Einstein’s theory of relativity.” I’ve read that paper, “The Curvature of Constitutional Space.” It’s complete nonsense. The key thesis of the Obama-Tribe paper is contained in the opening sentences of its abstract: “Twentieth-century physics revolutionized our understanding of the physical world. Relativity theory replaced a view of the universe as made up of isolated objects acting upon one another at a distance with a model in which space itself was curved and changed by the presence and movement of objects. Quantum physics undermined the confidence of scientists in their ability to observe and understand a phenomenon without fundamentally altering it in the process.” All of these sentences are completely wrong.

P.J. On The Biggest Health Hazard

clipped from theology.meetup.com The Clinton administration is putting together a program so that college graduates can work to pay off their school tuition. As if this were some genius idea. It's called getting a job. Most folks do that when they get out of college, unless, of course, they happen to become governor of Arkansas. And the Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock? Peace Corps volunteers? Or maybe the people in Texas were attacked because of child abuse. But, if child abuse was the issue, why didn't Janet Reno tear-gas Woody Allen? You know. if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.

Not Getting It III: The Audacity Of Hopelessness

clipped from article.nationalreview.com In the last 60 years, the size of America’s state and local workforce has increased five times faster than the general population. But the president says it’s still not enough: We have to incentivize even further the diversion of our human capital into the government machine. Like most lifelong politicians, Barack Obama has never created, manufactured, or marketed any product other than himself. So quite reasonably he sees government dependency as the natural order of things. And in his college-loan plan he’s explicitly telling you: If you start a business, invent something, provide a service, you’re a schmuck and a loser. In the America he’s building, you’ll be working 24/7 till you drop dead to fund an ever-swollen bureaucracy that takes six weeks off a year and retires at 53 on a pension you could never dream of. It’s the audacity of hopelessness.

Not Getting It II: Total Societal Collapse

clipped from article.nationalreview.com Simply as a matter of internal logic, this is somewhat perplexing. After all, when he isn’t blaming Bush, Obama blames “Washington” — a Washington mired in “partisanship” and “pettiness” and “the same tired battles” and “Washington gimmicks” that do nothing but ensure that our “problems have grown worse.” Washington, Obama tells us, is “unable or unwilling to solve any of our problems.” So let’s have more Washington! In our schools, in our hospitals, in our cars, in everything! Which raises the question: Does even Obama listen to Obama’s speeches? The public does — at least to this extent: They understand that, when he’s attacking the tired old Washington games, he’s just playing the tired old Washington games. And everything the president proposes means more debt, which at the level this guy’s spending means, at some point down the road, either higher taxes or total societal collapse.

Not Getting It

clipped from article.nationalreview.com In Indonesia, the principal of a Muslim boarding school in Tangerang who is accused of impregnating a 15-year-old student says the DNA test will prove that a malevolent genie is the real father. But in America Barack Obama is talking. Talking, talking, talking. He talked for 70 minutes at the State of the Union. No matter how many geckos you shoveled down your briefs, you still lost all feeling in your legs. And still he talked. If you had an erogenous zone before he started, by the end it was undetectable even to Frenchmen. But on he talked. As respected poverty advocate Sen. John Edwards commented, “After the first hour, even my malevolent genie was back in the bottle.” As my colleague Rich Lowry put it after the Massachusetts vote, the public thinks Obama doesn’t get it, and Obama thinks the public doesn’t get it. And as he’s got the microphone, he’s gonna keep talking at you until you do get it.

Solvency

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com In 2013, when President Mitch Daniels, former Indiana governor, is counting his blessings, at the top of his list will be the name of his vice president: Paul Ryan. The former congressman from Wisconsin will have come to office with ideas for steering the federal government to solvency. To make the economy -- on which all else hinges -- hum, Ryan proposes tax reform. Masochists would be permitted to continue paying income taxes under the current system. Others could use a radically simplified code, filing a form that fits on a postcard. It would have just two rates: 10 percent on incomes up to $100,000 for joint filers and $50,000 for single filers; 25 percent on higher incomes. There would be no deductions, credits or exclusions, other than the health-care tax credit (see below). Ryan would eliminate taxes on interest, capital gains, dividends and death. The corporate income tax, the world's second-highest, would be replaced by an 8.5 percent business consumption tax.

Oh Boy

clipped from www.youtube.com

More Grave Rolling IV

clipped from money.cnn.com What would Keynes think of Obama's stimulus plan? It's unbelievable that a man whose main theme was to smooth investment comes to be the proponent of redistributing income away from the people and companies who do the investing. My advice on the stimulus plan was, don't do it. Let's look at the plan. First, a lot of the money was used to reduce the deficits of state and local governments by increasing the federal debt. It was simply money transferred from the federal government. The economic multiplier effect was zero. Second, the temporary tax cuts went to paying off credit cards and other debts, not spending that would have increased economic growth.

More Grave Rolling III

clipped from money.cnn.com Did Keynes champion tax cuts or government spending increases in a recession? Again, he was extremely vague. On spending, he did say that deficits should be temporary and self-liquidating. He clearly did not advocate long-term spending in excess of revenues, since that causes structural deficits. Nor did he specifically recommend tax reductions for individuals or companies. Those types of cuts, however, are an obvious way to achieve his goal of boosting investment in a recession. And it's been used with great success by his Keynesian disciples. For example, the Kennedy Administration tax cuts were championed by Keynesian economists, and proved very successful at raising investment. The temporary reductions under Carter, George W. Bush and Obama were all failures, since people spend more only when they're confident their take home pay will rise permanently. This is standard economic theory that the current administration ignores.

More Grave Rolling II

clipped from money.cnn.com Didn't Keynes advocate temporary deficit spending in a recession? Keynes wanted deficits to be cyclical and temporary. He wouldn't have been in favor of efforts to raise tax rates in a recession to eliminate deficits. He viewed that as suicidal. He was opposed to the idea that governments should balance the budget during a downturn, and advocated running short-term deficits to spur the economy. The type of stimulus he advocated was very specific. He said it should be geared towards increasing private investment. He viewed private investment, as opposed to big government spending, as the source of durable job creation. He also said that the deficits should be self-liquidating, so that the increased economic activity caused by the stimulus inevitably generated a combination of extra tax revenues and lower unemployment payments. With higher revenues and lower outlays, the deficit would disappear.

More Grave Rolling

clipped from money.cnn.com NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The Obama White House likes to say that the theories of John Maynard Keynes form the foundation for its fiscal policies. Most notably, it draws upon the legendary British economist's idea of spending big to pull out of a recession. But one economist says the administration has gotten Keynes only half right. Allan Meltzer of Carnegie Mellon is one of the most influential monetarists of the past 50 years. He has served in the Department of the Treasury under President Kennedy and on the Council of Economic Advisors during the Reagan Administration. He also authored the book, Keynes's Monetary Theory: A Different Interpretation. While the Obama team is laying out huge sums of money, Meltzer says it's neglecting a key part of Keynes' plan: You can't run up a debt without a way to cover it. If Keynes were alive today, what would he think of President Obama's fiscal policies? He would roll over in his grave if he could see the things being done in his name.

No Evidence

clipped from blogs.the-american-interest.com It’s not just the threat of Himalayan glaciers disappearing by 2035. Now another headline grabbing IPCC scare story is melting away.  A report in Sunday’s London Times highlights new humiliations for the IPCC. The most important is a claim that global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change. The claim has been quoted in speeches by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, and by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general. There is however one teensy-weensy little problem.  As Professor Chris Field, the lead author of the IPCC’s climate impact team has now told reporters that he can find “no evidence” to support the claim in the IPCC’s 2007 report. So: the Synthesis Report contains a major scare prediction — 50% shortfall in North African food production just ten years from now — and there is no serious, peer-reviewed evidence that the prediction is true. But there’s more. Much, much more.

#3?

clipped from www.washingtonexaminer.com I attended this past weekend’s National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, and I came away feeling that I had seen something important.  The Tea Party movement is part of something bigger:  America’s Third Great Awakening. This time, it’s different.  It’s not America’s churches and seminaries that are in trouble:  It’s America’s politicians and parties.  They’ve grown corrupt, venal, and out-of-touch with the values, and the people, that they’re supposed to represent.  So the people, once again, are reasserting themselves. But though Palin wowed the crowd with red-meat attacks on overspending, weak national defense, and broken promises, the key phrase in her speech was this one: “All power is inherent in the people.” And the biggest action item that she presented the crowd with wasn’t to support Sarah Palin, as most politicians would have asked, but to challenge incumbents in primary races.

COTD: Climaquiddick Stopped Clock Watch At The Beeb

clipped from wattsupwiththat.com Ian L. McQueen (11:28:08) : Maybe a bit off topic, I want to express my surprise at the sudden change in the BBC radio program “One Planet”. We get it in Canada in the wee-smalls of Sunday morning, 0500 or 0530. By chance I woke up within a couple of minutes of its beginning today and listened to the rest of the program via mini radio and earphone. The programs that I have heard in the past have been the usual promotion of AGW, as we expect from the BBC. The program today, nearly all of it, could have been scripted by any of us sceptics and was an excellent presentation with a sharp interviewer. If your computer has speakers, you can hear the broadcast at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/oneplanet/ It runs close to 30 minutes. I couldn’t believe my ears! IanM

2400 Words, 22 "I"'s

clipped from ace.mu.nu I am remiss in remembering this day. Here's his first inaugural address, as a commemoration. "We are too great a nation, to limit ourselves to small dreams." Goddamn right. The man could deliver a speech, couldn't he?

It's George W. Bush's Fault Again

clipped from www.washingtonexaminer.com Top Obama counterterrorism official John Brennan is blasting Republican lawmakers, accusing them of hypocrisy and of making a "political football" of the administration's decision to grant full American constitutional rights to accused Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. UPDATE: Sen. Bond responds, saying Brennan "never told" him of the plan to Mirandize Abdulmutallab. Bond's entire statement: Brennan never told me any of plans to Mirandize the Christmas Day bomber -- if he had I would have told him the administration was making a mistake. The truth is that the administration did not even consult our intelligence chiefs, as DNI Blair testified, so it's absurd to try to blame Congressional leaders for this dangerous decision that gave terrorists a five week head start to cover their tracks.

That Is What This Movement Is About

clipped from shortforordinary.com