One Year Out, Radiation in Futaba Japan 5 km from Nuke Accident Remains Dangerous

Here's a screen shot from Fukushima Diary showing recent, very high radiation readings measured at ground level and in a car in Futaba town, 5 km north and west from the melted-down reactors at Fukushima:

If you reduced a typical American's exposure to radiation in a year from all sources, including medical and flight sources, to an hourly level it would be 0.7 microsieverts per hour. The air level in the car to the left is nearly 45.0, and next to the soil 518.2, nearly 12 times worse, both far in excess of safe. Just breathing the air there for less than two years would give you more than a single lifetime's exposure.

(source)

Here's a map showing the nuke plant on the coast at the lower right and Futaba's Town Office to the northwest of it marked by the green arrow:

The Last Real American?

Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-2)

The Opposite of Transparency: Obama Regime Claims GSEs Exempt from FOIA

From an editorial on the subject here:

Judicial Watch sought those documents because the FHFA claimed in a separate lawsuit against the 17 firms that losses on securities were caused by material misrepresentations the firms made to Fannie and Freddie. Finance industry experts claim Fannie and Freddie officials were more than sufficiently knowledgeable about the mortgage industry to realize the risks involved in such securities. By putting all Fannie and Freddie documents about such transactions beyond the reach of FOIA requesters like Judicial Watch, the Obama administration is making it difficult, if not impossible, for independent evaluators to determine who bears responsibilities for the losses [$150 billion and climbing] now being covered by taxpayers.

Adam Smith: Crony Capitalism is a Powerful Force Against Freedom

From Sheldon Richman, here, quoting Adam Smith:

"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order [that is, 'those who live by profit'], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."

Smith grew up under mercantilism and knew well of what he wrote. America grew up largely under mercantilism and its cousin, Hamiltonian-Lincolnian corporatism. In this respect advocates of the freed market should embrace Smith’s understanding of political economy: that a powerful force against freedom emanates from where they might least expect to find it.

Worst Employment Recession Since WW2: After 4 Years, Jobs Recovery Not in Sight

The unemployment report yesterday shows some job gains, but the overall rate of unemployment remains unchanged from the month before at 8.3 percent, and jobs recovered have retraced only a small portion of the territory lost.

In every other jobs recession since the Second World War jobs recovered to the starting point in every case but one within 2.7 years. Bush's relatively mild job recession took 3.9 years to fully recover.

We are 4.1 years out and job losses are still at the severe depths last reached in the recessions of 1948 and 1957, as shown here.

America once knew how to bounce back quickly.

Not anymore.

Bank Failure Friday: The 13th in 2012. FDIC Covered Institutions Decline 13 Percent.

# 13 was New City Bank, Chicago, Illinois, costing the FDIC $17.4 million. No buyers for this one.

As of this date, FDIC coverage extends to 7,359 bank and savings institutions.

When IndyMac Bank of Pasadena, CA, failed in July 2008, there were 8,494 insured institutions.

The number of banks covered by the FDIC has thus contracted by over 13 percent in consequence of the depression of 2008-2009.

It took until March 2009 to complete the sale of IndyMac, which was originally estimated to cost the FDIC between $4 billion and $8 billion. In the end, its failure cost the FDIC $10.7 billion.

Justice is blind to every loyalty

 

Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always therefore represented as blind.

-- Joseph Addison, from "Justice", contributed to The Guardian

Obama and Romney Defend Progressive Taxation, But It's an Attack on Property and Justice

So says John Chapman, here:

To prove the moral case for progressivity — that, in President Obama’s exact words, the rich should pay “their fair share”, it would have to be shown that the marginal utility of the last $100,000 of income for the millionaire was providing less satisfaction than the last $1,000 for the worker making $10,000 in income.

To say this colloquially, Messrs. Obama and Romney feel that the millionaire should feel as much pain from losing his last 10% of income — should bear as much burden from this loss — as does the worker who loses his last 10%.  President Obama and evidently Governor Romney both posit that this is not the case with flat-rate taxation; they believe that the loss of the last 10% is not equiproportional for both without progressive rates.  But there is of course no way to know that empirically, and indeed, there are sound reasons to think the opposite is true — that progressive taxation is “unfair” to the higher-income earners by taking an “unjust” amount of their property from them, that ultimately harms the economy as a whole. ...

For steep progressivity is, at root, an attack on both property and blindness in the application of law.  Marginal rates of taxation now approach 60% in states like New York, and “the rich”, rather than acquiesce to Mr. Obama’s concept of paying their “fair share”, are simply vacating the state and/or ceasing in the taxable production of goods and services: chronic deficits leading to fiscal collapse then appear on the horizon in such cases.  Greece is a current exemplar of the extreme end to which this situation leads, and no amount of moralizing about “fairness” is relevant on the streets of Athens today.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu Praises Chevy Volt, Owns No Car, Wife Drives Beemer!

Her car uses premium gas, as reported here.

Greeks Violate Contract Law Just Like ObamaCare Does in America

Obama and the Democrats have violated hundreds of years of contract law in passing ObamaCare because the law forces Americans to enter into health insurance contracts on penalty of fine or even imprisonment. For contracts to be valid in a court of law, however, contracts must be entered into willingly, not under compulsion.

Now we learn here that the Greek Parliament, having thrown out people who won't vote the correct way, has interfered with bond contracts, rewriting the terms after the fact in order to get what it wants:

The Greek parliament's retroactive law last month to insert collective action clauses (CACs) into its bonds to coerce creditor hold-outs has added a fresh twist. These CAC's are likely to be activated over coming days. Use of retroactive laws to change contracts is anathema in credit markets.

Add to this the US housing MERS scandal which has violated the ancient principle of traceable registered property documentation and I'd say we have a trinity of cases demonstrating a complete and utter repudiation of The West by The West.

What A Shock: The New Republic Defends Crony Capitalism

Michael Kazin for The New Republic here argues that crony capitalism isn't really that big a deal because it is pretty much as old as the old Republic itself, except he skips the founders and begins in the nineteenth century.

It doesn't occur to him that perhaps crony capitalism suggested itself to so many Americans because they drank from the well of monarchy for so long. No thoughtful person who respects the founders imagines they were inoculated from the failings attendant upon all natures mixed with good and evil. The left delights in pointing this out, whereas the true right mentions it as a cautionary tale.

We are monarchy's lesser children because of people like John Locke, who was at pains to remind us that "is" does not always mean "ought", else we should, for example, beget and raise children to sell them into slavery because it was done, sometime, somewhere, in the past. Reason is necessary. Respecting ancient practice is not the essential meaning of conservatism, try as the left does to reduce it always to such a formulation. They are the terrible simplifiers still.

The greater children of monarchy are the strong men of Europe who drank deeply from the well of Marx after centuries of experience with kings and queens. Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were thus hyperbolic, aberrant, monarchists, and insofar as leftists like Wilson and FDR reinfected America with their example was to no good purpose, no matter how much The New Republicans say so to the contrary.

Mike Shedlock's Political Whopper of the Day: Republicans Hold The Senate

Here's today's political whopper from Mike Shedlock, aka Mish:

"I expect Republicans to hold the Senate, and probably the House regardless of who wins the 2012 presidential sweepstakes."

Excuse me, but to hold the Senate, you have to win it first.

He writes as if he doesn't know that Democrats, not Republicans, currently hold the Senate, and that they stymie every bill coming out of the US House of Representatives, which the Republicans won and currently hold. He complains of gridlock, but doesn't seem to grasp the political reality which is causing it:

"Sadly, a divided do-nothing electorate is the best outcome one can reasonably expect at the moment."

This is an embarrassingly stupid choice of words, unless we the people who elect our representatives and senators are really the do-nothings. Use your dictionary app, Mish.

It's also an especially stupid thing to say since he just said he expects Republicans to have majorities in both House and Senate, in which case a President Obama would be isolated politically, unlike now. Control of the Senate still gives Obama leverage, whereas Republican control of the House since 2010 has taken away his free hand. A politically isolated Obama would represent progress over what we have now, especially if a Republican Congress has enough votes to override his veto.

Mish's ignorance is appalling, and embarrassing. But it's also fairly typical, which is why we have the government we currently have.

The Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate of 63.7 Was Last This Low in May 1983

The pinnacle in this metric was reached in the first four months of the year 2000 at the level of 67.3 percent. Data viewable here.

This is a picture of a society which has lost its driver for jobs.

That driver was debt, mostly in the form of housing. Then government decided under Bill Clinton, Phil Gramm and Newt Gingrich to let you extract the built up capital in housing, skimming the operation like a casino operation.

It was fun while it lasted! At least the Japs had savings to get them through.

Now it's just beans and rice, and rice and beans.

If we had some beans.

If we had some rice. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Since this is trending on Dec 13, 2021, here's the latest chart showing the 2020 average for CIVPART at 61.7%, a level last seen round about 1976. Things have only gotten worse. The level in Nov 2021 is 61.8%. I include a chart for the sputtering debt engine as well.

We had beans and rice tonight, by the way.

 

 

Curley Practising "The Mussolini" in 'Movie Maniacs' (1935)

(see it here)

Gingrich Increases Delegates Over 200 Percent With Super Tuesday Wins

Here's the delegate snapshot from The Wall Street Journal, showing the new totals for each candidate after Super Tuesday.

Romney's lead is making all the headlines, but Gingrich's surge yesterday was the most significant. But can Gingrich keep it going?

Gingrich went from a total of 33 to 105, a gain of 218 percent.

Romney went from a total of 203 to 415, a gain of 104 percent.

Santorum went from a total of 92 to 176, a gain of 91 percent.

Paul went from a total of 25 to 47, a gain of 88 percent.

Gingrich is as vulnerable as Romney on the individual mandate. Newt has believed in it at least since 2006, and famously agreed with Romney in a Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas last October that they both got the idea from the so-called conservative Heritage Foundation (source of following transcript):

MR. ROMNEY: Actually, Newt, we got the idea of an individual mandate from you.


MR. GINGRICH: That's not true. You got it from the Heritage Foundation.


MR. ROMNEY: Well, it was something - yeah, we got it from you and the - you - got it from the Heritage Foundation and from you.


MR. GINGRICH: No, but - well, you - well, you - (inaudible) -


MR. ROMNEY: But let me - but let me just -


MR. GINGRICH: Wait a second. What you just said is not true.


MR. ROMNEY: Well, I thought -


MR. GINGRICH: You did not get that from me.


MR. ROMNEY: I think you -


MR. GINGRICH: You got it from the Heritage Foundation.


MR. ROMNEY: And - and you've never - never supported -


MR. GINGRICH: I was - I agree with them, but I'm just saying what you've said to this audience just now plain wasn't true. That's not where you got it from.


MR. ROMNEY: OK. Let me ask - have you - have you supported in the past an individual mandate?


MR. GINGRICH: I absolutely did, with the Heritage Foundation, against "Hillarycare."


MR. ROMNEY: You did support an individual mandate?


MR. GINGRICH: Yes, sir.


MR. ROMNEY: Oh, OK. That's what I'm saying. We got the idea from you and the Heritage Foundation.


MR. GINGRICH: OK. Little broader. (Laughter.)


MR. ROMNEY: OK.

In 2009 Romney specifically argued for the individual mandate in this USA Today op-ed as an acceptable alternative to the public option as embodied in Nancy Pelosi's version of ObamaCare which passed in the US House. Since then Romney has flipped on this issue, claiming repeatedly that he has been against imposing a RomneyCare-like plan on the whole country.

The Senate version of ObamaCare, which eventually became the law but is now going to be challenged before the Supreme Court, represents what Romney hoped for: government compulsion in healthcare insurance which kept government out of the insurance business itself (public option) while preserving the system of private, free-enterprise, health insurance more or less as it exists.

Historically, Republicans have been against a government-sponsored health insurance enterprise because of the perception that government has an unfair advantage against which private business cannot hope to compete and succeed. A case in point today would be Fannie and Freddie, the failed government mortgage giants without whom, alas, few people today can hope to get a mortgage. If you want a vision of failed government healthcare in about ten years, consider the miserable failed condition of those GSEs today.

This is Santorum's opportunity, but many of us wonder whether he's got the right stuff to ride this issue to the presidency. And it might become a moot point after the Supremes rule on ObamaCare by this summer.

Gingrich for his part has tried to change the subject to jobs and growth viewed through the lens of energy independence. It is a good strategy, but it leaves many voters who are worried about the growth and intrusion of the State with a nagging question unanswered: how is Newt really different from Romney philosophically if he's been willing to flirt with mandates?

To Date Republicans Prefer A Conservative To Romney, 3.8 Million to 3.2 Million

The only problem is, they are divided over which conservative.

For every Romney voter to date in the Republican primaries, another 1.2 voters prefer either Santorum or Gingrich.

Santorum has the edge with 1.9 million voters to Gingrich's 1.8 million, as shown here:

Everything You Need To Know About Gerald R. Ford

"Reagan’s uncommon good sense extended to sound judgments about controversial people who were similarly outspoken and principled—and thus unpopular if not under constant fire. He was an early supporter of Pat Moynihan’s courageous efforts to end decades of hypocrisy at the United Nations—at a time when even many Republicans still viewed the institution as a sacred cow. Jeanne Kilpatrick’s contentious, but insightful distinctions between Stalinists and right-wing dictators abroad won over an unabashedly supportive Reagan. He praised Soviet dissidents—even as a cautious Gerald Ford refused to meet with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. When William Bennet was taking a beating for his unsettling honest talk about the corruption in our schools and universities, Reagan brushed off worries that his Education Secretary was becoming a political liability."

-- Victor Davis Hanson, here

The American Working, Middle and Upper Classes By Income

The working class pulls in about $2 trillion annually and includes all earned compensation up to $45,000 per year. This group forms the broad base of the American people, numbering nearly 107 million strong, or 71 percent of all workers in 2010.

The middle class also pulls in about $2 trillion annually and includes all compensation from $45,000 up to $100,000 per year. This group is represented by 34 million individuals, or 23 percent of all workers in 2010.

The upper class, too, pulls in about $2 trillion annually and includes all compensation from $100,000 to $50 million and beyond! 9 million individuals represent this group, which is just 6 percent of all workers in 2010.

GOP Delegate Snapshot Going Into Super Tuesday: 437 Delegates At Stake Today

From The Wall Street Journal, here:

Obama's Indonesian Nanny Was A Man Who Thought He Was A Woman

As reported here by ABC News:

And so it was, at a cocktail party in 1969, that she met Ann Dunham, Barack Obama's mother, who had arrived in the country two years earlier after marrying her second husband, Indonesian Lolo Soetoro.

Dunham was so impressed by Evie's beef steak and fried rice that she offered her a job in the family home. It didn't take long before Evie also was 8-year-old Barry's caretaker, playing with him and bringing him to and from school.

Neighbors recalled that they often saw Evie leave the house in the evening fully made up and dressed in drag. But she says it's doubtful Barry ever knew.

"He was so young," says Evie. "And I never let him see me wearing women's clothes. But he did see me trying on his mother's lipstick, sometimes. That used to really crack him up."

When the family left in the early 1970s, things started going downhill. She moved in with a boyfriend. 

A Depression in Full-Time Jobs: Over 6 Percent Fewer Than in 2007

Full-time jobs reached a peak measurement on November 1, 2007, at 121.875 million.

On January 1, 2012, full-time jobs had declined 8.03 million to 113.845 million, a fall of 6.6 percent.

The last time full-time employment stood at a similar level to today was November 1, 2003 when 113.892 million people had full-time work.

View the graph and data here.

Part-Time For Economic Reasons Still Over 97 Percent Higher Than in 2007

Part-time employment for economic reasons reached an all-time high of 9.25 million persons as measured on September 1, 2010.

On January 1, 2012 the level still stood at 8.08 million persons, over 97 percent higher than the level measured as recently as February 1, 2007, when the measurement stood at 4.09 million persons.

View the graph and data here.

Part-Time Employment Has Fallen Over 7 Percent From 2007 Peak

Part-time for non-economic reasons reached a peak measurement on March 1, 2007 at 19.75 million persons. On January 1, 2012 the measurement stood at 18.29 million.

View the graph and data here.

Romney in 2009 Openly Favored Tax Penalties To Make People Buy Health Insurance

Romney's op-ed from USA Today is reproduced here.

The relevant portion below is argued in opposition to strong efforts at the time, particularly in the US House under Nancy Pelosi, to pass a healthcare reform bill which included the public option, or government insurance.

Romney's idea, as with RomneyCare in Massachusetts, was to shun the public option in favor of mandated purchase of privately supplied health insurance, under penalty of a tax, which is what we got with the Senate version of healthcare reform now known to us as ObamaCare, under which the tax is called a fine in order for the president to be able to claim that he does not raise taxes on ordinary Americans:

"Our experience also demonstrates that getting every citizen insured doesn’t have to break the bank. First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages “free riders” to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others. This doesn’t cost the government a single dollar."

As many have been maintaining, Romney's reasoning shows no essential disagreement with ObamaCare. Romney favors government compulsion in healthcare.

Real 2011 GDP Finally Exceeds Real 2007 GDP, But Only By 0.83 Percent

The data were found at the Bureau of Economic Analysis here:

YEAR   REAL GDP (2005 chained dollars)

2007       $13.21 trillion

2008         13.16

2009         12.70

2010         13.09

2011         13.32

And On What Will Santorum Run If The Supremes Find The Mandate Unconstitutional?

Sen. Santorum believes the issue of this election season is authoritarianism in government, as quoted here in The Weekly Standard:

". . . Obamacare. That is the biggest issue in this race. It’s an issue about fundamental freedom. It’s an issue about whether you want the government to take your money, and in exchange, give you a ‘right’….But, of course, when the government gives you a right, they can take that right away. And when the government gives you that right, they can tell you how to exercise that right. And they do — not just what doctors you can see and what insurance policies [you can buy], or how much you’re going to get fined if you don’t do what the government tells you to do, but even go[ing] so far as to tell you how to exercise your faith as part of your health care....If the government can go that far with Obamacare, just think what’s next.”

"The Whole Community Should Mutually Accuse and Come to Blows With Each Other"

Just one of the many ways a tyranny maintains itself in power, according to Aristotle.

In our case, bring up women's rights and "health" and make them an issue when they weren't.

A house thus busy being divided against itself is a house which cannot unite in revolt against its master. And what better way to divide the house than according to nature, the division between the sexes?

Another form of Locke's "crossing nature".

Santorum Bashes Everyone But The Prime Culprit: George W. Bush

Here.

Why bash John McCain, Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush?

I don't recall any of these claiming to redefine the Republican Party like W did. And all three of them served honorably in war, one as a prisoner of war, one maimed by war, and one a practised parachutist under fire. W did none of that. And neither did Santorum. 

OK, maybe Herbert Walker came close to an ideological make-over with that kinder, gentler, shtick, but we all know he didn't really mean it. He was not really into that vision thing. But W was full of hubris and said the conservative movement was OVER and that HE would establish a new meaning for it going forward, which boiled down to nothing more than personal loyalty. He must have learned that from the Democrats.

And I don't recall any of these also-rans abandoning free market principles to save the free market like W did. You can rightly say the objects of Santorum's ire represented tax collection for the welfare state, but at least they made a show of being capitalists. George W. Bush, a failed capitalist before he became president, ended his presidency the same way.

W was a knee-jerk liberal on immigration, welfare for the poor and for seniors, and on exporting the American way. A real conservative ought to say so. Rick Santorum never will.

A Lovely Question: Why Is Interest Income, Perhaps 10 Percent of GDP in the Past, Trivial to Savers but Ever So Important to Banks?

Jeffrey Snider wants to know, here:

I think everyone understands that credit is vital to businesses, but they also intuitively understand that customers are probably more vital (and the largest problem for businesses of all sizes since 2008). I don't think Chairman Bernanke can claim that interest income is trivial and therefore not really a consideration, both in an empirical sense (the numbers don't bear that out, especially at the margins) or, perhaps more importantly, in the perceptions of the voting public. If he does, then why is such a trivial amount to savers so important to banks? It cannot be the money multiplier effect since bank net income (the pivot in this trade-off) plays no role in that presumed multiplier - ZIRP is a technique of expanding bank balance sheet capacity. It is the method of circulation that is at issue here, and the Fed and its global central bank cousins are placing all their chips on circulating money indirectly through credit creation. If that is a superior option, then they should be able to demonstrate it.

Obama's New Campaign Slogan

A Volt in every garage and a condom in every pocket.

ObamaCare Inspires Fear For The Sake Of Making A Contract, Violating The Law

This is what ObamaCare does: It threatens with a fine the person who fails to make a contract with an insurance company.

"[I]n the freedom of choice there ought to be a kind of equality between the contracting parties. ...[N]o fear should be unjustly inspired for the sake of making the contract, or, if such fear has been inspired, that it should be removed."

-- Hugo Grotius, On Contracts, The Law of War and Peace, Book 2, 12, X (1625)

ObamaCare Violates Centuries of Contract Law: The Mandate is Equal to Duress

It's so simple a child could tell you that, but to date no legal wizard from Harvard, Yale, Chicago, or Stanford has been able to put his finger on it quite so well as this wonderful stroke of genius distilled in a newspaper from the American heartland of genius, Virginia:

From Hugo Grotius in the 17th century through William Story in the 19th and up to the present, legal doctrine has held that contracts are not valid unless they are entered into by mutual assent. If one party signs a contract as the result of fraud or under duress, it cannot be valid. But if Congress compels people to buy insurance policies — not as a precondition of exercising a privilege such as driving, but as a consequence of having been born — then, the [I]nstitute [for Justice] argues, this would undermine centuries of contract law.

All those law degrees, wasted.

If they were smart they would ask for their money back.

Now why didn't The Heritage Foundation realize this back in 1989 and save us from all this trouble from HillaryCare through RomneyCare and ObamaCare?

After all this time America is still little more than a backwater in the intellectual history of the West. Progressivism. Bah! Humbug!

This is an Unpaid Ad for The True Born Sons of Liberty

GO TO HELL, BARACK.

Oil Price To Crash By Fourth of July?

Chris Cook thinks so, maybe even to $60, here:

In my analysis, absent a massive, and sustained, shortfall in oil supplies – which I cannot see occurring, since all involved have every interest in ensuring it does not occur – the oil price will, as I have already forecast, fall dramatically by the end of this year’s second quarter at the latest. It’s not a matter of if, but when it will happen.

That implies gold at $900 the ounce.

I can wait four months.

Q4 2011 GDP, Second Estimate, Up .2 to 3.0 Percent, Q3 at 1.8 Percent

So reports the Bureau of Economic Analysis, here.

The revision up does not move the needle up on overall 2011 GDP, which was a pathetic 1.7 percent.

Occupy Portland Vandalizes Two Banks and a Starbucks

Anti-capitalists, they call themselves:

Police said they received an e-mail that said it was from "Some Of Those Responsible" and read in part, "about an hour and a half ago (around ten pm, Tuesday night) a group of anticapitalists rolled up on the US Bank at SE 39th and Main and smashed out its windows and ATMs." ...

Police said a second e-mail was received after the Key Bank branch and Starbucks locations were vandalized, which read in part, "wherever capital chooses for its bunker, we will be there to attack it in the night." It was signed "For freedom, for equality, for anarchy".

Story, here.

A Chase branch and a Wells Fargo branch were vandalized last November (story here).

Santorum Voters in Michigan Heavily Self-Identified as Democrats

By a margin over Romney voters of 35 points, according to FoxNews exit polling here:

Santorum voters were also union members by 15 points over Romney voters.

Only 24 percent of Santorum voters thought abortion should be legal, and 77 percent of Santorum voters thought of themselves primarily as abortion issue voters, with only 13 percent of Romney voters seeing themselves that way.

Deficits and the economy mattered more to Romney voters than Santorum voters by 16 and 17 points.

Despite Santorum's view that mainline Protestants aren't really Christians, Romney and Santorum pretty much split that vote with Santorum winning Protestants by two points. But Santorum lost the Catholic vote by a 7 point margin.

Romney excelled among females, the over 65 demographic, those making over $200,000 a year, college graduates and post-grads, the somewhat conservative, those somewhat opposed to the Tea Party and those favoring legalized abortion.

Self-identifying moderates went for Romney 45 percent to Santorum's 31 percent. The somewhat conservative went for Romney by an even larger spread, 50 to 32.

The Washington Post here reported that 1 in 10 Republican voters yesterday self-identified as Democrats:

Early exit polls in Michigan seemed to show that the negative campaigning had weighed on the state’s Republicans. Less than half of voters there said they backed their candidate “strongly.” About one in seven said they made their choice because they dislike the other options — four times the proportion that said so in this political season’s first votes, at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses.

The polls also showed that a large number of Democrats had, in fact, crossed party lines in Michigan. About one in 10 of Tuesday’s voters identified themselves as Democrats in exit surveys. That was a higher figure than in any of the other early GOP contests.


About 978,000 votes were cast in Michigan's primary yesterday.

Wins in Michigan and Arizona Give Romney 2 to 1 Lead in Delegates over Santorum

The Wall Street Journal here provides a handy delegate tracker:

Hey Romney! Is Obama's An Extreme Left-Wing Crusade To Bankrupt Us Or Not?

Sen. John McCain couldn't bring himself to talk this way in 2008, but he had to in 2010 to get re-elected to the US Senate:

"President Obama is leading an extreme left-wing crusade to bankrupt America,'' McCain says in one of the radio ads his campaign is airing.

Romney Views Republican Base As Angry Mob With A Beef Against Obama

Except he's not going there.

Remarks quoted here:

“It’s very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments,” he told reporters. “We’ve seen throughout the campaign that if you’re willing to say really outrageous things that are accusatory and attacking President Obama, that you’re going to jump up in the polls. You know, I’m not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support.”

But you already knew that:

O’Reilly: Is he a socialist?
Romney: You know, I prefer to use the term that he’s just over his head.
O’Reilly: Yeah, but you got to look at his economic plan. An economic plan that’s top down, federal leadership, getting us out of the recession--- he spent trillions of dollars on that. And people say, Listen, the guy’s a socialist — it’s class warfare that’s what he’s gonna wage against you if you get the nomination: You’re a rich guy, you’re out of touch. Is he a socialist?
Romney: Uh, you know, I consider him a big-government liberal Democrat. I think as you look at his policies, you conclude that he thinks Europe got it right and we got it wrong. I think Europe got it wrong. I think Europe is not working in Europe. And I’ll battle him on that day in and day out. But I’m probably not going to be calling him names so much as calling him a failure.


Like John McCain before him, who refused to criticize Obama or even question his political beliefs, Romney is out of step with the American people, the majority of whom believe "socialist" is a fitting moniker for President Obama:

Rick The Chameleon Santorum: Slams Cross-Overs in January, Courts Them in February

What a difference a few weeks can make, as reported here:

In stark contrast to his campaign's more recent courtship of Democrats, in January Santorum told Democrats that if they wanted to vote for a Republican, they should switch their party affiliation.

"It's the Republican nomination, not the independent nomination or the Democratic nomination," he said on the call. "If you're a Democrat and you want to be a Democrat, then vote in the Democratic primary, not the Republican. If you want to vote in the Republican Party then become one."

At the time, Santorum's main criticism was of Romney's success in the New Hampshire primary, where 53% of Republican primary participants did not identify themselves as Republicans. In the weeks following Romney's win in the Granite State, Santorum repeatedly cited that statistic in arguing that his rival's supporters was [sic] out of step with the mainstream GOP electorate. Now Santorum is hoping non-Republicans will help give him the edge in Romney's home state [of Michigan].

Rick The Snake Santorum Wants MI Democrats To Pick The Republicans' Candidate

So reports The Detroit News today here, claiming Santorum is making robocalls to Michigan Democrats to get them to turn out and vote for him:

"Michigan Democrats can vote in the Republican primary on Tuesday," said an unidentified man on the call, which Talking Points Memo said was left on someone's answering machine in Trenton. "Why is it so important? Romney supported the bailout for his Wall Street billionaire buddies, but opposed the auto bailouts. That was a slap in the face to every Michigan worker, and we're not going to let Romney get away with it. On Tuesday, join Democrats who are going to send a loud message to Massachusetts' Mitt Romney by voting for Rick Santorum for president.

"This call is supported by hard-working Democratic men and women and paid for by Rick Santorum for president."


Isn't Santorum's opposition to auto bailouts a slap in the face to Michigan workers?

Roy Brewer Archives Show Some of Hollywood Ten Really Were Commies

From The LA Times Magazine:

The archives shed light on another mythologized piece of Hollywood history: the hearings held by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. I grew up hearing about the Hollywood Ten—filmmakers railroaded by congressional witch-hunters in 1947, ostensibly because they were liberals.

According to that familiar narrative, they rebuked the committee when subpoenaed. If there’s a “profiles in courage” touchstone in Hollywood, this is it. Those who did testify, such as Brewer and Reagan, are regarded as Judases.

However, a letter from John Huston found in the files says this story is a well-constructed myth. And if anyone would know key facts about those days, it would be Huston, a non-Communist liberal Democrat who opposed the hearings because he believed it was unconstitutional to require a citizen to state his political beliefs.

Writing on the filmmakers who refused to answer questions from congressmen, Huston recounted, “Some of them had already testified in California, and their testimony had been false. They’d said they were not Communists, when in truth they were. To have admitted it now would have been to lay themselves open to charges of perjury.”

Huston said that at the time of the hearings, they convinced him they were standing up for principle—the “freedom of the individual,” as he put it. However, as he later learned (and wrote in the letter), “they were really looking after their own skins. Had I so much as suspected such a thing, I would have washed my hands of them on the spot.”

Don't miss the rest of this riveting account about Ronald Reagan's anti-communism by John Meroney, here.

A book is forthcoming.

Rules of the Road in Michigan

Come to an intersection and stop.

Wait a long time until you see someone coming from your left.

Then turn right, in front of said someone, and drive 10 mph slower than the speed limit, 15 if the someone tailgaits.

Union state. No sense of urgency. No sense of courtesy.

Game to Obama.

Make No Mistake About It: The Federal Reserve Is The Enemy Of The People

From another insightful meditation by Jeffrey Snider, this time on the consequences of trying to make the artificial financial economy and the real economy one:

The Federal Reserve has gone far beyond TARP into ZIRP (zero interest rate policy). ZIRP is a direct tax on savers, figuratively taking money out of the pockets of those who have acted responsibly in the real economy, transferring it to the banking system (especially the largest investment banks, the very banks responsible for most of the credit creation and monetary imbalance of the past asset bubbles) that was negligent, reckless and complicit in this disaster. Monetary policymakers, the gatekeepers to the realm of the monetary or financial economy, now intentionally and directly penalize real economy actors in favor of financial economy actors. They do so with this narrative that as the financial economy goes, the real economy will follow. Very few people seem to challenge this as backwards, certainly not anyone in a policymaking role.

Oil is Now Fairly Priced

Crude is almost $110, and gold is almost $1,774, so about 16 barrels buys an ounce of gold, just one barrel pricier than the ratio of 15:1 thought to be indicative of the historic relative fair value.

Yelling "Stop" is No Longer Good Enough

Because "Stop" preserves the damage done and doesn't roll it back.

Marxism Won In America: The New Deal and Great Society Stem From Socialism

So says R. Christopher Whalen here:

[D]espite America’s pretensions to being a free market, democratic society, the Marxian world view won the battle for ideas in the 20th Century. The New Deal and Great Society efforts to increase the scope of government in America all stem from the socialist ideas of FDR and his political heirs in both parties.

A genuine conservatism and a truly conservative Republican Party must stand for dismantling both.

"If I decide to do it, by definition it’s good policy. I thought you got that."

"I have abandoned free market principles to save the free market system."

The Whopper of the Day is from Mike Shedlock, AKA 'Mish'

He says the middle class STARTS at $100,000 (here):

I am against a VAT completely. And I certainly do not like exempting the first $100,000 [from any taxes whatsover] because the tax burden would then fall only on the middle class.

How crazy is that?

Of just over 150 million wage earners in 2010, 141 million make less than $100,000 a year. How many of them do you think would agree that the remaining 9 million who make in excess of that are in any way, shape or form "middle class"?

SocialSecurity.gov (here) shows on examination that federal taxable earned income divides pretty neatly into a lower, middle and upper class, with each class accounting for about $2 trillion of the total of almost $6 trillion in net compensation in 2010.

Americans in the lower class make up to $45,000 per year and haul in $1.9 trillion. The next tranche up, the middle class, makes up to $100,000 and hauls in $2 trillion. The upper class makes everything in excess of that, in total another $1.9 trillion.

It is a common conceit of the rich that they are middle class. The rich aspire down to it as much as the lower class aspires up to it.

Romney's Arizona Debate Statements on Plan B Drugs Fail Scrutiny

Evidence presented here indicates that Gov. Romney lied twice during the debate:

When Romney was asked in the debate if he had required Catholic hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims and had infringed on Catholics’ rights, he responded, “No, absolutely not. Of course not.” That was untrue.

When Romney said “for the Catholic Church to provide morning-after pills to rape victims…was entirely voluntary on their part”, that was also untrue.

The evidence indicates Romney came under pressure from legal counsel, under which he flip-flopped, but also that he personally embraced the idea of forcing Catholics to act contrary to conscience as the right thing to do.

How this makes him any different from Barack Obama who routinely acts in a capricious, authoritarian manner is beyond reconciliation.

A vote for Romney is a vote for Jello, every night.

US Exports 600,000 Barrels of Gasoline Per Day To Higher Priced Markets

So says this story in The Christian Science Monitor, which provides useful links to the data:

“I think it is simply disingenuous to think exports of gasoline are not a factor in the prices,” says Ben Brockwell, director of data marketing and information services at the Oil Price Information Service, which provides petroleum pricing and information to the oil industry. ...

Brockwell says gasoline exports, on a four week average, are now running 600,000 barrels a day compared to 200,000 barrels per day a year ago. ...

“Instinctively, I understand the API [American Petroleum Institute] not wanting the American public to know so much is exported and tied to high prices,” he says.

The export level of 0.6 million barrels per day represents more than 7 percent of current domestic consumption, according to Bloomberg here, which says gasoline usage is up to 8.28 million barrels per day from an historic low not matched since 2004:

U.S. gasoline demand rose 3.4 percent last week to 8.28 million barrels a day from a record low, MasterCard Inc. (MA) said.

The gain was the first in three weeks, according to MasterCard’s SpendingPulse report. The previous week’s consumption was 8.01 million, the lowest level in MasterCard data that began in July 2004.

Demand was 6.4 percent below the same week in 2011. It was the fifth week in a row that consumption dropped more than 5 percent from the year-earlier level.

Consumption is down because millions have no jobs to which to drive, nor income with which to buy the gasoline or the cars which need it. Total vehicle miles driven are again in decline back to 2009 depression levels.

Total vehicles in operation, though up in 2011, continue below the all time high reached in 2008 by about 1.5 million, according to RL Polk and Company here:

Jeb Bush is a Weasel: Says "I Used To Be A Conservative" in Speech, Says Still Is Later

Not only is he a weasel, he's a coward. Get in the race or shut up, you fake.

Fox had the story here, WaPo here.

Michigan Democrat Calls Truly Closed Republican Primary "Phony"

The Detroit News has the story, here:

Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, described the process as "unnecessary" and costing taxpayers $10 million. The candidate selection, she argued, should have been handled via a party caucus, which is how the Democrats will choose their delegates in May.

"Since you chose to play games with Michigan's elections, don't be surprised if voters choose to play games with your phony primary as well," she warned Republicans.

Democrats Trying To Queer Michigan Republican Primary Will Have To Lie On Ballot

Hallelujah, brother! And it's about time, too.

Which party you chose will be made public, according this excerpt from a story by Julie Mack here:

Within 71 days after the election, the Secretary of State will have available an electronic list of voters who cast a ballot and which party they choose. That list will be available to the public for 22 months.

The change was recommended in August by the Michigan Republican Party, to reduce the number of Democrats participating in the Republican primary. "We should have a process by which Republicans choose the Republican nominee for president," one official said.

Ann Coulter Claims RomneyCare Everywhere Would Have Solved The Health Insurance Problem

She's doubling-down on her support of Massachusetts-style state compulsion, here:

"Romney pushed the conservative alternative to national health care that, had it been adopted in the 49 other states, would have killed Obamacare in the crib by solving the health insurance problem at the state level."

She's come a long way since March 2010 when Ohio's mandate was in her crosshairs:

"President Obama says we need national health care because Natoma Canfield of Ohio had to drop her insurance when she couldn't afford the $6,700 premiums, and now she's got cancer. 

"Much as I admire Obama's use of terminally ill human beings as political props, let me point out here that perhaps Natoma could have afforded insurance had she not been required by Ohio's state insurance mandates to purchase a plan that covers infertility treatments and unlimited ob/gyn visits, among other things. 

"It sounds like Natoma could have used a plan that covered only the basics -- you know, things like cancer."

Or from December 2009 when Oregon's was the object of her criticism:

"[N]ational health care – it will force states that didn’t adopt these idiotic universal health-care schemes to bail out the ones that did.

"Liberals cite medical horror stories from the very states they once cheered for enacting universal health care in order to argue for a national health-care plan that will wreck the entire nation’s medical care the same way liberal states already wrecked their own medical care.

"Only Democrats could propose fixing one Bernie-Madoff-style scam with an even bigger Bernie-Madoff-style scam.

"Maybe when national universal health care fails, we’ll be able to go international. Then interplanetary – then interstellar! Why should I pay for my gall-bladder surgery when some Venusian could?"

And of course just a few months ago in October 2011 she was still speaking of "the failure of even statewide universal care" in reference to Massachusetts because under Romneycare very few new individuals ended up getting coverage while costs for everyone continue to escalate.

Obama is the Extremist, Says Gingrich, and the Media Give Him a Pass

In last night's debate (video here), quoted here:

“I just want to point out, you did not once in the 2008 campaign, not once did anybody in the elite media ask why Barack Obama voted in favor of legalizing infanticide. Okay? So let’s be clear here,” Gingrich said in response to a question about birth control. “If we’re going to have a debate about who the extremist is on these issues, it is President Obama who, as a state senator, voted to protect doctors who killed babies who survived the abortion. It is not the Republicans.”

Romney's Dog Problem Looks Set To Dog His Campaign If He's The Candidate

Like that's the only thing.

From Margaret Carlson for Bloomberg, here:

Romney insists Seamus loved his crate and appreciated fresh air, even at 60 miles per hour. That hasn’t appeased Dogs Against Romney, a group whose human founder, Scott Crider, is trying to get word out to the country’s 43 million dog owners, who represent all political breeds. Dogs Against Romney, which had more than 1 million visitors to its website in its first 10 days, recently organized an anti-Romney protest at the Westminster dog show. It also awarded a congratulatory “woof” to Lanny Davis, a former special counsel to President Bill Clinton, who wrote in The Hill newspaper that a man who would insist his dog enjoyed such abuse is unfit to be president.

Think of it: 43 million dog owners. That's more people than all the adult Catholic voters.

Can't Criticize Mormonism? Sen. Santorum Opens Door By Trashing Protestants

If Santorum is free to say the following about Protestants, Democrats will feel free not only to attack Santorum over his religion if he's the candidate, but also Romney over his:

"[L]ook at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it."

There is nothing qualitatively different about that statement from Christian Evangelicals' charge that Mormonism is a cult, not Christian, or some leftists' view that Mormonism is too weird to abide. At least Obama ditched Rev. Wright. But Romney is proud of his heritage, and so is Santorum pledged to defend all his beliefs in the public square.

Santorum has just played into the hands of the left and handed them a huge opening.

Thanks a lot, pal.

American Idle Presidency: Doing Everything Except His Job

(source)

We Already Got The Change From Obama, And It Sucks

Obama can't run on change, or on economic achievements. So says a Vanderbilt political scientist in this report from The Associated Press:

"He can't run on change because he's the incumbent, and he can't paint too rosy a scenario because things aren't that rosy," said John Geer, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. "He's got to come up with a theme that appeals to voters, especially middle-class voters, alleviates their fears and gives them reason to believe the future will be better."

In other words, we already got the change, and it sucks.