Obama's Version Of Afroman's "Because I Got High"

It's like I don't care about nothing man

Roll another joint, ooh la da da da la da da la la da da

I was gonna start an economic boom, until I got high

I was gonna stop and end the doom, but then I got high

This country is still a tomb and I know why

(Why man?)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I was gonna cut the price of gas before I got high

I coulda drilled and kicked some ass, but I got high

(Uh uh la la da da)

Now the voters are takin' a pass and I know why

(Why man? Hey hey)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

(Go to the next one, go to the next one, go to the next one)

I was gonna git down to The Oval, but then I got high

(Oh oh)

I was gonna work on a campaign slogan, but I got high

(La da da da da)

So it's jus' "Forward" from Joe Stalin and I know why

(Why man?)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I was gonna find me a new church before I got high

I was gonna drop that Muslim lurch, but then I got high

(No you wasn't)

That Arab Spring won't bear research and I know why

(Why man? Yeah)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I wasn't gonna bail out the bankers, but I was high

(Uh, I'm serious man)

I was gonna jail all the wankers, but I was high

(Uh)

Now I'm just an old Dodd-Franker and I know why

(Ha ha ha, why man?)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I was gonna pay for the bills I wrote until I got high

(Say what? Say what?)

I wasn't gonna gamble all our gold, but then I got high

(Uh uh)

Now the debt load's sinkin' the boat and I know why

(Why man?)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I was gonna give you the public option, but then I got high

(Ooh, I'm serious)

I was gonna make it much cheaper too, but then I got high

(Oh)

Y'all'll be screwed before I'm through and I know why

(Ah, trying to shut off, ha ha ha)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I transformed the entire country because I got high

(Go go go)

I made every last road bumpy because I got high say

(What? Say what? Say what?)

It'll soon be third-world-dumpy and I know why

(Why man? Yeah yeah)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I'ma stop singing this song because I'm high

(Raise the ceiling baby)

I'm singing this whole thing wrong because I'm high

(Bring it back)

And if I don't sell one copy, I'll know why

(Why man? Yeah)

'Cause I'm high, 'cause I'm high, 'cause I'm high

La la da da da da la da da da shoobe do be do wa

Skibitty do da da da la get jiggy with it scubbydooby wa

(original video here)

Colorado Election Model v. Rasmussen

The latest and last prediction before the election from a state-level economic model by The University of Colorado, here, shows Romney winning in November with 330 electoral college votes to Obama's 208:

The model foresees Romney carrying New Mexico, North Carolina, Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. Obama is predicted to win Michigan and Nevada.

Rasmussen differs in that he has Obama strongly carrying New Mexico, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania, as of tonight, and Romney strongly polling in none of the states he's supposed to carry according to the Colorado model.

Rasmussen also shows Obama narrowly polling ahead in Wisconsin, Ohio and Nevada.

Assuming those 6 states go for Obama, along with Michigan, that would put North Carolina, Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Florida in Romney's column (narrowly), totaling 267 electoral college votes, just shy of the needed 270 if the rest of Rasmussen's map is correct.

Obama taking Wisconsin and Ohio and Nevada would give Obama 271 to win if the rest of Rasmussen's map is correct.

That result would mirror the year 2000 contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore, only flipped this time favoring the incumbent Democrat Obama.

Why Should Government Support Home Ownership? Babies Need Nests!

America should support home ownership because babies need nests. Babies are future taxpayers. Babies are the future.

Is it any coincidence that in the wake of the housing debacle and the employment depression birth rates have now tanked to record lows?

No nests, no jobs, no babies.

Time has the story here:

[I]n 2011 . . . the general fertility rate (63.2 per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44) was the lowest ever recorded; the birth rate for teenagers ages 15 to 19 declined; birth rates for women ages 20 to 24 hit a record low; and rates for Hispanic and non-Hispanic black women dipped. Some birth rates remained unchanged, like those of women in their late 40s. Only women ages 35 to 39 and 40 to 44 are more likely to have babies now than in the past.

The Gold To Oil Ratio Is 19.79

Meaning relative to gold, oil is STILL on sale.

They don't think so in California this weekend, but it's true.

Gold would need to fall to $1,350 the ounce to right the ratio at the current price of oil, a 24 percent decline.

Or oil would need to go to $118 the barrel at the current price of gold to right the ratio, a 31 percent increase from the current price near $90. 

Rasmussen Polling Shows Romney Improving, Obama Still Winning

Rasmussen's electoral college map shows Romney now polling slightly ahead in Florida and Virginia, but Obama is still ahead in Nevada, Wisconsin, Ohio and New Hampshire to win it.

Ohio is key in that math, where Romney is narrowing the gap. Everything else remaining equal, Romney capturing Ohio would snatch victory away from Obama.

Romney's strong debate performance already seems to be shifting narrow polling in his direction.

RCP Puts Ohio Back Into "Toss Up" Moving Obama Back To 251 EC Votes

See the map here.

Private Sector Employment Has Fallen 2% In Four Years

Data and graph available here.

In other words, 2,260,000 fewer work in private industry than did four years ago.

Four Years Ago, Total Non-Farm Employment Was Higher By 2.832 Million

Data and graph available here.

The 2% decline in total non-farm employment is the nominal decline which ignores the growing size of the US population, and thus of the workforce, over the period. A healthy economy grows sufficiently to absorb new workers added to the population. Since 2008 US population has grown by over 3%.

The Number Forced Into Part-Time Work Exploded 38% In Last Four Years

View the data and graph here.

In other words, 2.4 million more work part-time today because they must than four years ago.

Four Years Ago, Part-Time BY CHOICE Was 2.7% Higher Than Today

View the graph and data here.

In other words, there are about one half million fewer working part-time by choice compared to four years ago.

Four Years Ago, Full-Time Employment Was 3.7% Higher Than Today

View the data and graph here.

In other words, 4,470,000 full-time jobs existed on September 1, 2008 which do not exist today.

Part-Time Employment Surges Over 7 Percent In One Month

Part-time for economic reasons surged from 8.0 million in August to 8.6 million in September.

Unemployment Drops To 7.8 Percent, Just In Time For The Election

After 43 straight months of unemployment over 8 percent, and an average of monthly reports of 9.0 percent for the entire Obama presidency, the absolute worst record in the post-war period, unemployment has suddenly fallen by 0.3 points in one month from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September.

Just in time for the election!

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here:

The unemployment rate decreased to 7.8 percent in September, and total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 114,000, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in health care and in transportation and warehousing but changed little in most other major industries.

The unemployment rate declined by 0.3 percentage point to 7.8 percent in September. For the first 8 months of the year, the rate held within a narrow range of 8.1 and 8.3 percent. The number of unemployed persons, at 12.1 million, decreased by 456,000 in September.

Romney Last Night Actually Embraced Martin Feldstein's Deduction Cap

Here:

"And I'm going to work together with Congress to say, OK, what -- what are the various ways we could bring down deductions, for instance? One way, for instance, would be to have a single number. Make up a number, $25,000, $50,000. Anybody can have deductions up to that amount. And then that number disappears for high-income people. That's one way one could do it. One could follow Bowles-Simpson as a model and take deduction by deduction and make differences that way. There are alternatives to accomplish the objective I have, which is to bring down rates, broaden the base, simplify the code, and create incentives for growth."

You can read Martin Feldstein's argument for capping deductions, here, from which this excerpt:

Limiting the revenue loss from the itemized deductions and the exclusion of employer payments for health insurance to two percent of each individual’s adjusted gross income would raise more than $275 billion at current income levels and more than $3 trillion over the next decade.

Romney Isn't "All-In" With Free Market Capitalism

Romney can talk all he wants about helping small business, but his is the voice of big business:

"Regulation is essential. You can't have a free market work if you don't have regulation."

Economies of scale favor larger corporations over smaller ones with respect to compliance with regulations, which gives them a significant advantage. It's another way of "picking winners and losers", which is what he's accusing Obama of doing.

Sorry Gov. Romney, We're Not Spain

Romney, last night, in another odd coincidence with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"Spain -- Spain spends 42 percent of their total economy on government. We're now spending 42 percent of our economy on government. I don't want to go down the path to Spain. I want to go down the path of growth that puts Americans to work with more money coming in because they're working."

A little dyslexia is going on here, I think. Whatever Spain's expense is as a percentage of GDP, America's is not 42, it's 24.

Here's US News and World Report, in June:

Federal spending was close to 20 percent under the Carter administration, dropped to 18 percent under Clinton, and is currently at an incredible 24 percent of GDP. According to the Congressional Budget Office, federal spending may hover around 22 percent for the next decade.

It's a little disturbing Obama didn't catch this mistake. It's a little disturbing Jim Lehrer didn't catch this mistake. In fact, I've heard the soundbite repeated on the radio this morning without anyone referring to the mistake, and that's pretty disturbing, too.

Does anyone really know what time it is?

Romney Is Half Right: One Tax Proposal Is New, And Alarming

And it is amazing no one has taken this seriously:

"My plan is not like anything that's been tried before. My plan is to bring down rates, but also bring down deductions and exemptions and credits at the same time so the revenue stays in, but that we bring down rates to get more people working."

Romney is threatening to reduce the value of exemptions and credits which exist under the existing tax code.

This amounts to major fiddling which the preoccupation with "deductions" obscures.

Deductions we have lost before, as in the 1986 tax reform. That he wants to reduce the value of more deductions is bad enough. But the truly alarming thing is the proposal to do the same to exemptions, and to a lesser extent to credits. That is new, and alarming.

That can only mean the whole set of assumptions involving the system of personal exemptions, and perhaps also the time-honored "married filing jointly" status itself, and credits such as the Earned Income Credit and the Child Tax Credit and the like. I can well imagine a President Mitt Romney eliminating the favoritism of the tax code toward married people, and toward their housing and their children, to make gay and unmarried people equal to them in the tax code. Remember, in Massachusetts Gov. Romney had a reputation, deserved, for being a tax equalizer.

I also expect he will propose capping the value of deductions and credits by using something like Martin Feldstein's plan, in order to preserve the deductions and credits for lower income individuals but phasing them out as one climbs the income ladder. In other words, the progressive tax code stays, but progressivity of tax deductibility goes out the window. That may be fair to a liberal like Romney, but it isn't maintaining progressivity, it is steepening it.

Mitt Romney is not a social conservative. And if he gets his way with the tax code, I suspect he's going to prove it, unless conservatives in the US House stop him.

Good luck, America. You're going to need it.

Romney Should Know Better: The Rich Will Suffer Under More Of Obama

Mitt should know better than to say the rich will do just fine whether he's president or Obama:

"But I'm not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people. High-income people are doing just fine in this economy. They'll do fine whether you're president or I am."

Taxes on the rich will rise under ObamaCare alone, not to mention in other ways if Obama gets his way.

It's politically incorrect to defend equality of treatment under the law for the rich today, and Romney is wrong to concede this ground. Obama's belief that the rich don't presently pay their fair share is unjust when they pay not only the largest sums but at higher rates.

The robbery continues only because there are more Obamas in the country than there are rich people. Mitt shouldn't join them.

Rep. Paul Ryan's So-Called Conservatism Won't Roll Back Anything

He's about preserving Medicare, not ending it.

He's for abortion in certain circumstances.

And now he's about preserving the status quo on DADT, too.

Conservative in name only.

Story here:

One year after the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that barred openly gay and lesbian service members from serving in the military, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said in an interview with WPTV NewsChannel 5 that the controversial policy should not be reinstated.

"Now that it's done, we should not reverse it," Ryan told WPTV NewsChannel 5 during a visit to Miami. "I think that would be a step in the wrong direction because people have already disclosed themselves."

Rasmussen Moves North Carolina Into "Toss Up", Leaving Romney With 181 EC Votes

See Rasmussen's map, here.

He had shown North Carolina leaning Romney for quite some time.

RCP Moves Missouri Back Into "Toss Up", Putting Romney At 181 EC Votes

See the history of map changes, here.

Missouri has been changeable since summer, either leaning Romney or a toss up.

On 4th Anniversary Of TARP, 12% Of Banks Are Still In Trouble

nonperforming bank loans as percentage of total

The FDIC reports as of June that it has 7,246 member banks with $14 trillion in assets. Four years ago there were 8,384 member banks with assets of $13.6 trillion. Bank failures and consolidation in the industry have reduced the total membership by over 13 percent in the interim.

Bank failures have cost the Deposit Insurance Fund, funded by member premiums, in excess of $80 billion, costs which are inevitably passed on to bank customers. TARP was deliberately morphed into a fascist capital injection scheme when it became clear that identifying and buying toxic mortgages was an unworkable solution, cooked up as it was in a panic. The capital injections effectively made taxpayers unwilling stockholders in troubled "financial" institutions, some of which were not commercial banks to begin with but were allowed to become so to obtain protection.

Meanwhile bank nonperforming loans in the US continue at a high level, over three times higher than prior to the financial crisis in 2008, despite TARP's measly billions, and despite the real action trying to circumvent free-market capitalism involving trillions of dollars of Federal Reserve liquidity interventions.

An unofficial list of problem banks tracked here currently shows 874 institutions still under some form of FDIC supervision for irregularities of one kind or another, four years after the passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program signed by President Bush on October 3, 2008.

Sen. Barack Obama voted for the TARP program in the US Senate, as did Sen. John McCain, his opponent for the presidency, joining the rest in the US Congress who wanted to make it appear they were doing something about the crisis. In the wake of TARP the stock market crashed anyway in the succeeding month, preparing the way for the debacle of March 2009 five months later. The mortgage market remains effectively dead, along with housing, net worth, and employment, zombies all. 

How much better off we would be today if we had simply embraced the failure prescribed by capitalism instead of denying it. Bankruptcy courts would have been busy selling off assets to responsible actors, debts would have been adjudicated, and a few high profile bad players may have actually gone to trial, and jail, by now.

Instead it's just more of the same: government of the bankers, by the bankers, and for the bankers.

Real Clear Politics Gives New Hampshire To Obama, And 269 Electoral College Votes

One vote away from a fait accompli.

Here.

Fear: The First, Second And Third Reason NOT To Invest

Once again, the purveyors of fear make an appearance, trying to scare you into investing in stocks when stocks are again near historic highs and Shiller p/e multiples are near the top of the historical range, this time at Reuters, here.

Patience is a rule of investing, too, which requires you to stick to your reasons for investing, or not investing, in the first, second, and third place. It makes no sense to purchase investments which for good reasons seem to be overvalued, especially when based upon historically novel forms of valuation which remain in vogue despite the lessons of the great debt bull since Ronald Reagan.

Appeals to "fear" from people who are already "all-in" are therefore suspect, and should be. Nothing continues to feed a fake bull like ever more greater fools.

And don't forget that permabulls need you, too, like Larry Kudlow, who confessed on his radio show last Saturday:

"God knows I'm long. I'm long . . . I have no choice."

If it's a free country and a free market, why is there so much compulsion?

The Greedy Bastards' Big Lie About Your Mortgage Interest Deduction

1

Read the data for yourself, here, from the Joint Committee on Taxation's own estimate of the "cost" to the government of your mortgage interest deduction.

The JCT estimated that the government's biggest loss of revenue between 2007 and 2011 came from the exclusion of dividends and long term capital gains from higher tax rates. This does NOT include gains from selling real estate.

Tax losses from deductions for health insurance expenditures ranked second, tax losses from deductions for retirement plans third, all three of which range between $632 billion and $607 billion over 5 years.

The tax loss from deducting mortgage interest was a distant fourth, at $430 billion, yet the drumbeat from so-called conservatives to eliminate the deduction gets louder everyday.

Can you say, "Middle Class Tax Increase"?

2

3

4

Blown Prediction Of Doomsday Award Goes To Republican TARP Author Sen. Judd Gregg

The blown prediction of doomsday award for 2012 goes to former Senator Judd Gregg, Republican author of TARP, who opined in July (here) that September was likely to be a month where we might again come close to total economic collapse.

Oh well. There's always Octember. After which comes Novonder.

As we all know:

MINISTER OF PROPAGANDA to DICTATOR HAILSTONE:

"Yah, you were gonna Blitz-Kreeg Great Mitten by the middle of August!"

FIELD MARSHAL HERRING to DICTATOR HAILSTONE:

"Then you said, Septober, then Octember, it's now in the middle of Novonder, and we ain't there yet!" -- The Three Stooges, "I'll Never Heil Again" (1941, here)

TARP averted nothing. And now nothing has averted nothing.

Aren't you glad he was in charge?

"I'll Turn Public Schools Into Food Deserts, You Take Care Of The Rest"

Two Years From Now Unemployment Will Still Be About 9.1 Percent

So the calculator here.

That must mean 2 years from now Obama will be the president.

Romney Isn't A Flip-flopper On Taxes, He's A Snake

During the primaries Romney ran as a conservative tax cutter who would cut taxes across the board by 20 percent.

Now that he's the candidate, in Ohio he has said not to expect much of a tax cut because he would be eliminating deductions and exemptions at the same time, evidently in continuity with his pledge to maintain revenue neutrality and the progressivity of the tax code. You'll be paying the same . . . for now.

The problem with this is that the deductions and exemptions are bulwarks against the effects of rising tax rates in the future, and once removed expose taxpayers to the full force of those higher tax rates. This happened to us once before between 1986 and 1993 when deductions were eliminated by Reagan in exchange for lower tax rates, only to be raised again by Clinton. (Sorry, folks).

Conservatives should be running away from Romney. He's not just a mere flip-flopper. He's a snake, and a liberal one at that whom the Democrats will be quite happy to have succeed with his tax program because it will make it easy for them to milk the middle class the next time they come to power.

Americans Are Pretty Much OK With The Fascist Police State

Poll here.

Do The Mussolini With Cabaret Voltaire

Video here.

UN Ambassador Susan Rice Does The Mussolini For Politico

Story here.

US Embassy Cairo Decides Religious Feelings Trump Free Speech

I'm sure the Supremes are amused by the attempt to assert the priority of one clause of the First Amendment over another clause of the First Amendment.

I saved the screen shot from 9/12/12.

Speaking of not abusing the right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others, the news reports that The Piss Christ is back on display.

So let me get this straight. Muslims do not believe in the deity of Christ, nor of Muhammad for that matter, but if you insult Muhammad you must die.  But Christians in America worship Christ as a god but its government does nothing to protect them from hurt religious feelings when he is insulted.

So therefore the government of the United States thinks Islam is deserving of superior treatment, for some reason.

Gee, I wonder what that would be?

Democrats Embrace "ObamaCare" Moniker On Bumper Sticker

Seen on a car in Grand Rapids this morning.

Tea Party Support Has Dropped 20 Percent Since Summer 2010

Gallup has the numbers, here.

30 percent of respondents supported the Tea Party in August 2010.

In August 2012 support is just 24 percent.

In the interim Republican operatives have worked to co-opt local chapters, assisted by Rush Limbaugh and Freedom Works in particular.

You know Rush Limbaugh, the guy who thinks President George W. Bush used the tax code to pander to the middle class.

Would Republicans have retaken the House in 2010 with 2012's level of support?

Just sayin'.

Video Of Romney Backtracking On Tax Cuts, Threatening Your Deductions

Romney will take away your deductions and exemptions

Romney the tax simplifier, tax leveler, tax back-tracker, tax flip-flopper, uncertain tax trumpeter was on display in Ohio this week, posing himself as a clear and present danger to the tax code's many indispensable props to middle class family life, including not just the mortgage interest deduction but also for the first time "exemptions".

The last time a Republican talked this way was in 1986 when Ronald Reagan took away deductibility of credit card interest in exchange for lower overall rates.

Those rates lasted until Clinton, when they were raised. But deductibility of credit card interest? That never came back, and never will.

The same thing is going to happen to the home mortgage interest deduction, and possibly to "married filing jointly" and other such provisions of the current tax code. You'll get lower rates . . . for a while, until they have to raise them.

And then the protections of the current provisions will be absent, exposing you to the full force of increased tax rates.

The fat cats from The Wall Street Journal and Forbes Magazine to Rush Limbaugh, Mitt Romney, the Libertarians and the Simpson-Bowles crowd all want their greedy little hands on more revenue from the middle class . . . so they don't have to pay as much. It's just that simple.

And they are betting you are so stupid that you will vote for that!

There is nothing wrong with the current code which spending cuts cannot fix.

Story and video here.

Jim DeMint And Rick Santorum Endorse Todd Akin

ABCNews reports here.

Now they support him, after the deadline passed for Akin to quit and after Akin had to go it alone for over a month against Romney and the entire Republican establishment telling him to "git out".

Spineless cowards.

8,692,638 Republicans Can't Be Wrong About Romney

Rush Limbaugh Indicts George Bush As A Panderer

I can't believe he left in the transcript, but here it is:

"But tax policy leading up to Obama... You know, politicians have pandered to the middle class forever, and there's a whole boatload of Americans not paying income tax right now. I think the numbers, depending who you talk to, is 47% or 49%. The top 5% number you're talking about, it's 59% of all tax revenue is paid by the top 5%."

Nice of you to pit your working class listeners against the middle, Rush.

Now what was that class warfare Obama engages in that you were complaining about?

"The Electorate Always Makes The Correct Decision"

Was Obama the correct decision?

This Is How Democracy Ends Up

"The correct decision, what's best for the masses," democratically elected.

Why is it that someone always must die for the sake of the masses? Jesus had to die for the sins of the whole world. The Jews had to die in the shtruggle for Lebensraum. 50 million abortions have had to be sacrificed for the American way of life.

It would be nice for a change if someone had to live.

Libertarianism is as insanely dangerous as any ideology:

[F]or all of the criticism the Right makes of Leftist-Statist-Big Government ‘knowing what’s best for the masses,’ there does exist a virulent strain of the same arrogance within its own ranks which is totally inconsistent with Wanniskian thinking, which as John Tamny beautifully points to in his piece, can be summed up as the electorate always makes the correct decision and/or the electorate as a whole is smarter than any individual (“…the electorate as a whole is wiser than any individual member in understanding its interests, it is wiser than any economist or group of economists.”).  Overt or subtle as it may be, the belief of most Conservative intellectuals I have met is that they (or their ‘bundle of ideas’) are wiser than the American electorate which suffers from liberal media bias or systemic ignorance.

I'll take my chances alone.

And We Said NO To King George III . . . Why?

Moochelle and the Mooch are milking the presidency for all its worth, according to this story in The Daily Caller:

Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks.

In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million on the royal family. ...

Aside from a salary, the president gets a $50,000 a year expense account, a $100,000 travel account, $19,000 entertainment budget and an additional million for “unanticipated needs,” he notes.

It's the worst economy since WWII, but the Obamas are costing us 24 times what a Queen would. A Constitutional Monarchy never looked so good.

Romney's Alarming Flip On Taxes: Expect Cuts To Deductions And Exemptions

The Wall Street Journal, here, is describing this flip as a shift.

I'll say, like a mountain shifting, or a Giant Foo Bird shifting its entrails over your house:

Mitt Romney on Wednesday told an Ohio crowd that while he would work to lower tax rates on businesses and individuals, they shouldn’t “be expecting a huge cut in taxes because I’m also going to lower deductions and exemptions.”

The deductions we all fear losing are relatively common knowledge, like the home mortgage interest deduction. Romney has been cagey about this, on again off again about reducing the benefit for higher earners only. But this outburst sounds like cutting the deduction for those farther down the income ladder is possible. 

Cuts to "exemptions" is an entirely new animal, however, and goes to the very heart of the tax code. Since Americans fought hard after WWII for the tax-filing category "Married Filing Jointly", the prop to families trying to raise children on one income has come under repeated attack, first under Nixon, and then from feminists who deplored the special tax status given to families. Gay and lesbian couples tirelessly work for recognition of their unions as marriages mostly because they want in on the tax preference.

It is extremely disappointing to hear Romney talk this way. It plays entirely into the hands of the opposition, who can use it to sow doubt in the minds of his would be supporters about whether Republicans will raise taxes on the middle class. I , for one, think Romney will say anything he thinks he has to in order to win votes, even if it is self-contradictory. But the fact of the matter is Romney was a tax equalizer in Massachusetts, which meant privileges for favored groups went out the window, and so fees went up on businesses and taxes went up on properties to adjust to his leveling programs. 

With Rush Limbaugh candidly letting it slip today that the middle class has been pandered to through the tax code, the drumbeat against the people grows in intensity.

And the dupes will vote for it.

Liberal Narrative Blames Drought For Poor GDP, As If 1.5 Percent Growth Were Good

GDP for Q2 is revised down today to 1.3 percent annual rate, from 1.7 percent a month ago, and liberals are blaming . . .  the weather.

They are blaming 0.2 points of the 0.4 point decline on declining farm inventories due to the drought, as if it makes a difference whether GDP is 1.3 or 1.5. Hell, GDP of 2.5 percent represents treading water. Anything less than that is an economy in real trouble. By their own admission, farming is 1 percent of the economy, but the article to the left is already blaming lousy Q3 GDP, which isn't out yet, on the drought, too. This is the lamest excuse we've heard yet, and that's saying a lot.

Last August it was the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Arab Spring, and financial turmoil in the European Union which were responsible for everything going wrong for Obama.

In 2010 it was his peeps' fault, whom he told to pull up their socks, get off the couch and go vote.

Before that everything was Bush's fault.

After November Obama gets to blame the American people for all his troubles, none of which are ever his responsibility.

The Blue Tie Club: The Enemies of the People's Money

Romney Would Replace Ben Bernanke

Read about here at USA Today.

Q2 2012 Annual Rate Of GDP, Third Estimate, Revised Down To 1.3 From 1.7

The BEA reports, here:

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the second quarter of 2012 (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the "third" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 2.0 percent.

The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the "second" estimate issued last month. In the second estimate, the increase in real GDP was 1.7 percent (see "Revisions" on page 3).

The third estimate indicates that the economy was growing in the second quarter 24 percent less well than thought in the second estimate, and 35 percent less well than thought in the first quarter.

As an annualized rate of growth, today's report of 1.3 percent represents more slowing since 2011, which represented slowing from 2010 after the depression of 2008 and 2009. Clearly the trend continues down despite unleashing the full force of economic stimulus, all of it borrowed and running up the debt in the process while monetary policy of the Federal Reserve has robbed savers in broad daylight, savers who depend on a free market in interest rates which Ben Bernanke, the appointee of George Bush and Barack Obama, has done everything he can to subvert. He is as much the enemy of the people as Bush and Obama have been. 

The Fed recently embarked on so-called QE To Infinity And Beyond because it knew what was coming in this report.

It is high time America shouted NO to this cabal. Mitt Romney is the most likely person to right this ship commanded by these pirates.

It Be Da Winker Night At Drudge

Ohio Poll Showing Obama +10 With "Likely Voters" Prepares The Way For The Lord

The Ohio poll by Quinnipiac/CBS/NewYorkTimes here showing Obama +10 over Romney is of "likely voters", not telling us how many Democrats are represented in the results. They could be legion, in view of the fact that Rasmussen's latest poll in Ohio showed the race to be +1 Obama just days before this poll. Has anything significant happened in recent days to cause such a dramatic swing?

Despite the significance of the auto bailouts for the prognostications of local Democrat officials in Ohio, the fact that early voting in Ohio begins next week helps explain why it is necessary for Democrat sympathizers to release a favorable poll now to prepare the way of the lord.

Bailout Takers To Give Obama The Margin Of Victory In Ohio

Is Romney wrong to write-off voters who depend on direct government assistance?

Alec MacGillis for TNR, here:

When I was in Toledo last week, I asked Lucas County Treasurer Wade Kapszukiewicz, a Democrat, what he made of Obama’s strong position, and he didn’t hesitate. “It’s the bailout," he said. "It’s not just the Jeep plant in Toledo and that they build the Chevy Cruze in Youngstown. But more than that -- we have 88 counties, and in 82 of them there are supplier plants to the larger ones. When you start talking about 82 of 88 counties that have some sort of direct, literal, positive impact from this rescue, I think that on the margins has the ability to tweak the numbers.”

The moral hazard of bailouts doesn't affect just the outcome for a business, but also the outcome for the politician responsible for it.

Gov. Romney should have considered that the contributions of bankers who were helped through TARP bailouts which he supported may be outnumbered by the votes of workers whose jobs the auto-bailouts he opposed preserved. 

Real Clear Politics Puts Ohio In Obama Column: He's 5 Votes Away From Victory

Real Clear Politics has put Ohio in the "leans Obama" column, here, which puts Obama 5 Electoral College votes away from clinching victory, according to the polling and math as presented.

Recent discussion of polling has included charges that polling is oversampling Democrats, that polling amounts to "in-kind contributions" to Democrat campaigns by news organizations biased toward liberalism, that polling is campaigning in another form, that polling is disinformation designed to suppress the turnout of the Republican opposition, etc.

So remember this map after the election is over, the only poll that counts.

Missouri Republicans Finally Stand Up For Rep. Todd Akin

So Reuters, here:

But the chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, David Cole, who had issued a statement soon after the rape remarks that questioned Akin's decision to remain in the race, said on Tuesday the state party supported Akin.

"We are confident that Todd will defeat McCaskill in November, and the Missouri Republican Party will do everything we can to assist in his efforts," he said.

Mike Huckabee has been there for Akin from the beginning. Newt has stepped up. Missouri Republicans are stepping up, following Newt's lead. Even Demented Jim's Senate Conservatives Fund is thinking about it.

What's to think about, Jim?

Meanwhile Reince Priebus of the Republican National Committee is still running away from Akin as fast as he can. That guy is as clueless as was his predecessor, Michael Steele.

Establishment Republicans are hopelessly clueless.

In Your Face, America!

Seen In Grand Rapids Last Week

Politics Is The Art Of The Possible

Madonna's Black Muslim In The White House

Reported here:

“Y’all better vote for f–king Obama, OK? For better or for worse, all right? We have a black Muslim in the White House! Now that’s some amazing s–t,” Madonna said. “It means there is hope in this country. And Obama is fighting for gay rights, so support the man, g-damnit.”

Good Soldier Newt Gingrich Campaigns For Todd Akin In Missouri

USA Today has the story here:

"If verbal mistakes mattered, Joe Biden couldn't be vice president," Gingrich said in the radio interview, adding he is supporting Akin because the congressman "admitted he made a mistake and apologized for it."

Republicans have cut-off funds for Akin, which tells the electorate all it needs to know about the Republican Party.

Republicans Still Don't Get It: Obama Is Not Carter Redivivus

Until the Republican Party comes to grips with the fact that the Bushes were two of the very worst presidents for the economy in the post-war period, it is never going to understand the current problem and offer America a decent alternative, which is that Obama is continuing in the Bushes' footsteps and is actually worse than them, if that were possible.

Obama is the second coming of George Bush, not of Jimmy Carter.

If only we had an economy like Jimmy Carter's, lousy as it was for its time. But total household net worth never increased more as a percentage than under his short tenure, and he ranked third best in the post-war period for increasing housing values. Those two categories, incidentally, were also where his successor Ronald Reagan shined the brightest as well.

Erick Erickson should know better:

"There are a lot of elitist Republicans who have spent several years telling us Mitt Romney was the only electable Republican. Because the opinion makers and news media these elitists hang out with have concluded Romney will not win, the elitists are in full on panic mode. They conspired to shut out others, tear down others, and prop up Romney with the electability argument. He is now not winning against the second coming of Jimmy Carter. They know there will be many conservatives, should Mitt Romney lose, who will not be satisfied until every bridge is burned with these jerks, hopefully with the elitist jerks tied to the bridge as it burns."

Mitt Romney is a fiscally conservative social liberal who doesn't really have a home in either of the two major political parties, which is why he's being attacked from all sides. It is not because of his social liberalism but because of his fiscal conservatism. Which is to say that both parties have expunged that idea from their lexicons since LBJ and no one really knows what it even means anymore.

But Romney may indeed know, and always gives the impression of knowing, which is why he is having a likeability problem. He comes off as the bad banker who won't increase your credit limit until you start catching up on your payments.

No one really likes a guy like that, but that is the kind of guy whom we most need right now, holding the veto pen. If he loses, fear of that will be the reason.

No one likes a spending party pooper.