Top 47 organization contributors in politics, mostly unions, gave $2.4 billion and 75% of that to Democrats

The Kochs come in 48th, giving just $27 million to Republicans.

When it comes to money in politics from organizations as opposed to individuals, Democrats easily get the majority of it . . . mostly from the unions both public and private. Almost all the top 20 contributors to Democrats are unions, contributing $1.4 billion total with unions accounting for $1 billion of that. The top 20 contributors to Republicans can't even crack the $600 million level.

Open Secrets has the data, here.

Americans are gay propaganda victims, overestimating LGBT population by at least six times

Gallup reports here:

"The American public estimates on average that 23% of Americans are gay or lesbian, little changed from Americans' 25% estimate in 2011, and only slightly higher than separate 2002 estimates of the gay and lesbian population. These estimates are many times higher than the 3.8% of the adult population who identified themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in Gallup Daily tracking in the first four months of this year."

Liberals caught lying again: SSM study published in SCIENCE was faked

From the story here, which just shows that "co-authorship" is often simply designed to lend authority to the findings and is specious because the co-author really isn't contributing anything meaningful and is never intended to:

The study’s co-author [Donald P. Green], an esteemed Columbia University political science professor, asked the journal Science to retract the groundbreaking paper, saying he was deeply embarrassed by the incident. ... “Michael LaCour’s failure to produce the raw data coupled with the other concerns noted above undermines the credibility of the findings,” he wrote. “I am deeply embarrassed by this turn of events and apologize to the editors, reviewers and readers of Science.”

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Green got just what he deserved. The practitioners of "science" aren't worthy of the name.

48 Senate Republicans and 14 Democrats give Obama trade power and sell-out American workers

Why are our enemies on the left our friends?

The roll call vote is here, at 8:51pm on the Friday night before a holiday weekend just to make doubly sure you weren't paying attention. But of course you're too poor to pay attention anyway.

The handful of Republicans who did the right thing include Susan Collins, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby. Mike Enzi didn't vote. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio notably voted Yea, along with a bunch of freshmen who have dutifully fallen in line with the establishment.

Story here.

The bill doesn't go to the president for signature unless the House passes the measure. Fortunately it is on vacation this weekend.

On Memorial Day we honor the memory of the war dead, but who will honor the walking dead of America's Zombie working class?

US Supreme Court's brains mysteriously found on a street in upstate New York

Story here:

GOUVERNEUR, N.Y. -- Nine brains inexplicably appeared earlier this week along a street in a St. Lawrence County village. How the brains got there and where they came from remains a mystery. Residents discovered the brains on Beckwith Street near railroad tracks and called the police.

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At least someone in this country still has the presence of mind.

Kathy Shaidle is wonderfully quotable yet again

While discussing the purely accidental discovery of a real traitor, here:

"Conspiracy theories are History for stupid people."

It doesn't get much better than that.

She doesn't get out much, but it obviously helps. 



Drudge's headline writer has homo on the brain

Obama's winter GDP isn't a victim of bad BEA methodology, it's just UNUSUALLY bad

CNBC and Obama's other excuse makers in the media don't want you to focus on how unusually bad Obama's winter GDP has been.

The fact is nominal GDP over the 69 winters from 1947 has improved from 4Q to 1Q on average by 1.77%. That includes every recession year, and Obama's entire record to date which pulls down the average. Pulling Obama's record out lifts the average to 1.94%.

Obama's record over the 7 winters from 2009 has averaged just 0.24%.

Whatever may be said about the existence of methodological problems with BEA's seasonal adjustments and the lack of transparency involved with its raw data, the point is those problems have persisted over time and infect the whole record. They aren't new to the Obama era. What is new is how CNBC and The New York Times have offered up this red herring this spring since it became clear the 2015 winter was nowhere near as bad as the last one and couldn't be plausibly blamed for the 1Q2015 GDP disaster.

Traditionally the BEA is always involved in revising its reporting based on better information and methods. That's the whole point of the comprehensive revisions published every five years in the summer (one of which we just had in 2013) and of the annual revisions every summer. BEA's decision to revise the Obama record and going back only to 2012 in the upcoming summer 2015 annual revision looks as unusual as Obama's GDP record itself, and smacks of pure politics. If the BEA had any integrity it would follow its normal process.

It is a complete red herring to focus on those problems as if they can in any way excuse Obama's awful record.

The political hacks who never stopped telling you how bad the economy was under George W. Bush aren't telling you now that Bush's winter GDP averaged 1.15%, almost five times better than under Obama.

We should be so lucky to have George Bush's rotten economy today instead of Barack Obama's.

State budget funding gaps and low reserves are the evidence of the nation's growing poverty under Obama

Like the people in general who have experienced their median annual household income fall below 2000, 2007 and 2009 levels, the majority of states now have less to spend in real terms as tax revenues decline and have less in reserve for a crisis, having plundered their savings to make up for the shortfalls.

Bloomberg reports here:

Thirty-two states faced budget gaps in fiscal 2015 or 2016 or both, according to an April 27 report by Standard & Poors. The fiscal year ends June 30 in all but four states. ... State governments have about half the reserves that they had before the recession, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. ... A dozen states still haven’t recovered all jobs lost since the start of the downturn in December 2007 . . . Aggregate general-fund revenue and spending haven’t rebounded to inflation-adjusted fiscal 2008 levels, according to a survey by the State Budget Officers released in December. Revenue of $748 billion for fiscal 2015 would have to be $15 billion higher to match real 2008 levels, the group said.

Libertarianism in Michigan now means smokers and drinkers pay 111% more in taxes than businesses

A fine how-do-you-do from the ménage à trois between Republican libertarianism, Democrat liberalism and the dry Dutch.

The Detroit News reports here:

Revenue from so-called sin taxes on tobacco, beer, wine and liquor totaled $290.5 million in the 2014 fiscal year, more than twice the $137.6 million net income taxes paid by Michigan businesses after receiving $768.8 million in refunds from tax credits, a Detroit News analysis of tax data shows.

Since Gov. Rick Snyder and lawmakers delivered sweeping tax relief for businesses in 2011, net business income taxes dropped 90 percent, depleting the state's main operating fund of $1.33 billion, according to state revenue data.

The percentage of general fund revenue from business income taxes also has plunged as tax credit payouts to companies have soared. Tax data show business income tax receipts declined from 21 percent of the general fund revenue a decade ago to about 2 percent last year. ... Last year, the balance of business income taxes as a share of general revenue began to turn when companies holding tax credits triggered a surge in refunds, from $75.8 million in 2013 to $723.3 million in 2014. The Democratic administration of former Gov. Jennifer Granholm was responsible for most of the state's surge in handing out tax credits to businesses.

Crazed libertarian pledges allegiance to liberty for all, but wants tobacco outlawed

Broadcaster Steve Gruber, here and here:

"I am writing this column to outline one of my more controversial positions. It is time to outlaw smoking altogether. In fact it is time to ban tobacco for any recreational purposes. The kinds of death linked to tobacco from lung cancer, bladder cancer, emphysema, COPD and a host of other horrible diseases need to be stopped."

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Glad you quit again though, Steve. And best of luck to you this time.

Milestones in the growth of the federal regulatory state

• 1950: Code of Federal Regulations, 13 volumes
• 1970: 73 volumes
• 1990: 170 volumes
• 2013: 235 volumes

From an interesting presentation, here, asserting the existence today of over 1 million specific restrictions in the code.

Reuters lies about the fall of Ramadi: Obama isn't "pounding" ISIS from the air

Ramadi has fallen to ISIS because Obama is sitting on his hands, not as reported here:

The United States and its allies have been pounding the militants for months with air strikes in both countries. Washington said on Saturday its special forces had killed a senior IS figure in a raid into Syria.

Over a period of 24 hours up to 0500 GMT on Sunday, the U.S.-led coalition carried out seven air strikes near Ramadi, according to a statement - the highest number on any single location in Iraq and Syria.

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Here's what "pounding" really looks like:

Combat operations began the next day [March 20, 2003] and the USAF participated in air strikes on key targets in and around Baghdad, launching more than 1,700 coalition air sorties and missile launches against Iraq. ... Coalition Air Forces flew nearly 1,000 Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) sorties during the initial weeks of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, collecting 42,000 battlefield images and more than 3,000 hours of full motion video. As of April 30, 2003, coalition air forces numbered 1,801 aircraft, 863 of which were U.S. Air Force fighters, bombers, tankers, special operations and rescue aircraft, transport aircraft, and ISR and command and control aircraft. In the first six weeks, coalition air forces flew more than 41,000 sorties and the USAF accounted for more than 24,000 of the total. Likewise, Air Force C-130 aircraft transported over 12,000 short tons of materiel during the initial stages of the operation, while Air Force tankers flew more than 6,000 sorties and disbursed more than 376 million pounds of fuel.

The US winter of 2015 was not severe by any measure, so its unremarkable cold and snow can't be blamed for poor GDP

Snow cover averaged 1.19% below the baseline since 1967 for the first quarter.

For average temperature the first quarter ranked 95th warmest out of 121 years, 5.6% above the baseline.

For minimum temperature it ranked 96th, 6.7% above the baseline.

For heating degree days it ranked 75th, just 2.3% colder than the average. By contrast 1Q2014 was 6.8% colder than the average, and the 18th coldest by this measure since 1895.

For cooling degree days, a measure of uncomfortable warmth, 1Q2015 ranked tied for 12th warmest winter at 40% above the baseline. 1Q2012 was the warmest in the series at 136% above the baseline.

Better to blame the languid GDP on the heat than the cold.

Vox details the Hillary triple players who didn't just lobby or donate to her foundation, but also enriched her and Bill personally

Here:

The latest episode in the Clinton money saga is different than the others because it involves the clear, direct personal enrichment of Hillary Clinton, presidential candidate, by people who have a lot of money at stake in the outcome of government decisions. ... Together, Hillary and Bill Clinton cleared $25 million on the lecture circuit over the last 16 months, according to a Hillary Clinton's personal financial disclosure required of presidential candidates. ... Corning's in good company in padding the Clinton family bank account after lobbying the State Department and donating to the foundation. Qualcomm and salesforce.com did that, too. ... And Microsoft, the American Institute of Architects, AT&T, SAP America, Oracle and Telefonica all paid Bill Clinton six-figure sums to speak as Hillary Clinton laid the groundwork for her presidential campaign. And that list, which includes Clinton Foundation donors, is hardly the end of it. There's a solid set of companies and associations that had nothing to do with the foundation but lobbied State while Clinton was there and then paid for her to speak to them. Xerox, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, in addition to Corning, all lobbied Clinton's department on trade matters and then invited her to earn an easy check.

Libertarian disunity on display in massive field aspiring to 2016 GOP nomination

14 GOP aspirants to date

Liberals have one serious candidate and a few other aspirants defining their side, but Republicans have twice as many with no clear front runner. This is because Republicanism is now overcome by a libertarianism which by definition is unable to agree about much of anything. It is a shrill and brittle ideology of "freedom from" instead of a more modest philosophical meditation about "freedom for". The latter recognizes that freedom is not an absolute, and is what conservatism is all about, but today you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone talking about that in the Republican Party, much less anywhere else.

7 Democrat aspirants to date

The bad news for graduates: if you follow your passions you'll likely go off the rails

USA Today mediocrity Laura Vanderkam sells the snake oil here:

"[T]he good news is that the economy is evolving in ways that make [following your passion] more practical than your graduation speaker realizes. The key is recognizing two things. First, work and life aren't separate; a career is ideally a way to profitably live out your interests. And second, you don't just want to follow your passion; you also want to rally other people to follow your passion. Doing so is how you will get to do what you love for the rest of your life. Fortunately, building a following is more possible than ever, even for young people, if you play your cards right."

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America didn't become the greatest economic powerhouse in the history of the world because its people followed their passions. Ask the millions who slaved away their lives tilling the soil, mining the coal and driving the trucks. Rather it was relentless commitment to hard work, delaying gratification and saving which formed the basis for the success. As for rallying other people to follow your passion, that is a complete waste of your time. And since time is one of your only advantages relative to everyone else, you ought to concentrate on using it more wisely. It's the greatest leverage you have, next to your energy.

Work. Save. Invest.

Republicans vote "in lock-step" to advance Obama's trade pact in Senate, including Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio

Conservatives do not have a single friend in the US Senate, unless you count Cassidy and Sullivan who didn't bother to vote and the Senate's 33 hard left Democrats.

Reuters reports here:

"The about-face came after Democrats won a separate vote on a bill punishing countries that manipulate their currencies to keep their exports cheap, and followed a renewed round of personal lobbying by Obama.

"Thirteen of 44 Democrats joined with Republicans, who voted in lock-step to give backers of the legislation more than the 60 votes needed to proceed in the 100-member Senate."

The Senate Roll Call vote is here: 65-33.

Senate Democrats put Fast Track on the slow track

Story here.

One commenter wonders where are all the media accusing the Democrats of holding the bill hostage.

Heh, heh.

Why we're poorer: America is $10 trillion poorer since 1983 because of libertarian free-trade ideology

That's $10 trillion of GDP we're missing, because net imports are a subtraction from the calculation.

Imagine having an extra $333 billion every year for 30 years: In the last 12 months, GDP is up $670 billion, so we'd have 50% MORE in the last year. Instead we're exporting that GDP to others, building up foreign middle classes at the expense of our own while enriching the few owners at the top in our own country.

Traitors to America they are.

Sixty percent of the states still collect less revenue than before the 2007 recession

From an Associated Press story here:

A majority of states have failed to climb back to their pre-recession status, in terms of tax revenue, financial reserves and employment rates, said Barb Rosewicz, who tracks the fiscal health of states for The Pew Charitable Trusts. ... Nationally, total tax revenue coming to the states has been rising, but the pace has been slow as employment continues to lag pre-recession levels in more than half the states, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. Pew also found that 30 states are collecting less revenue than at their peak.

Why did Senator No Pants Paul vote against subpoenaing a fraudulent congressional application to DC's health exchange?

Maybe there's less to Rand Paul than meets the eye.

The story is unpacked here.

Ted Cruz is showing his true colors supporting the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal

From the story here:

"The issue is shaping up as a major 2016 presidential campaign issue, and Sens. Cruz and Rubio join former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, alongside Democratic Party frontrunner former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as supportive of the deal. Graham, Paul, Dr. Ben Carson, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker haven’t taken positions on the matter yet.

"Lousiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, real estate magnate Donald Trump, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina are all publicly against the deal." 

In defeat Nigel Farage realizes the problem is representation, as the American founding generation understood

Here:

"There is also the question of what is fair and reasonable. For so many millions of voters to have just one representative simply cannot be right – and I believe that whomever is the next Ukip leader has a major campaign to fight on this issue."

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He's referring, of course, to the fact that about 4 million Brits voted for UKIP yesterday but got only 1 MP out of it.

This coming from a country with much better representation than in the United States.

Here we have one representative in our parliament, the US House, for every 737,000 citizens. There they have what amounts to one MP for every 98,000 British citizens. That's seven and a half times better representation in Britain than in the US. Yet Nigel Farage complains.

Well.

The American libertarian P. J. O'Rourke visited South Thanet, evidently twice before the election and didn't find Farage there to interview, and today good ole Nigel is surprised that he lost in his own backyard. All politics is local, as we used to say. You have to work for it. Evidently Nigel Farage didn't work hard enough. 

In the US the people own not one such solitary seat as UKIP now owns in the UK, and never will until representation matters to them again as it did at the American nation's founding.

The system in Britain is more friendly to UKIP than Nigel Farage knows.

Who knew David Cameron is actually Britain's second Jewish PM, after Benjamin Disraeli?

"David Cameron's great-great-grandfather Emile Levita was a German Jewish financier and a direct descendant of Renaissance scholar Elia Levita, the author of Bovo-Bukh, the first secular work ever published in Yiddish. Emile Levita obtained British citizenship in 1871 and was the director of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China which became Standard Chartered Bank in 1969. Through Levita, Cameron is a descendent of the Levites, who themselves claim to be descended from Moses. His wife, Cameron's great-great-grandmother, was a descendant of the wealthy Danish Jewish Rée family on her father's side."

Michael Savage gets history wrong again: says Ed Miliband would be first Jewish Prime Minister of UK

Today, in the first hour of the show.

Guess he never heard of Benjamin Disraeli.

84% of rich people suffer from wealth-denial and self-identify as middle class

Stephen "I don't feel like a wealthy person" Schwarzman is worth about $10 billion

Reported here:

"Fully 44 percent described themselves as middle class, and 40 percent said they were upper middle class. Only 4 percent described themselves as wealthy or rich, and 5 percent described themselves as upper class. ... Studies show that more than three-quarters of today's millionaires made their money themselves and started out in the middle class or lower. Wealth experts say these self-made millionaires may still see themselves as having middle-class values of hard work, humility and family despite their increased wealth."

Hillary: Fired for being too dishonest to investigate President Nixon

h/t th

Obama's been in charge for going on seven years and complains there aren't enough jobs

Look in the mirror, dumb ass.

Video here:

". . . too many young people don't have hope, they don't see opportunity, there are not enough jobs . . .." 

The Wall Street Journal defends Scott Walker's jobs record, with a backhanded swipe at the end

Here:

"The point is simple: After four years with Mr. Walker, more Wisconsinites are employed. That the state has outdone the nation on key economic indicators and moved ahead in key state rankings shows that his policies are working.

"Anyone looking to knock down the prospects for a Walker presidential bid had better look elsewhere—like, for instance, his recent comments about the economics of immigration. Gov. Walker hasn’t mastered everything about the way employment works, but his performance so far in Wisconsin has been much better than his critics claim."

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Open borders insanity is what really matters to The Wall Street Journal and Scott Walker has sinned against the religion by changing his position.

Bush's GDP in winter was 208% better than Obama's

Bush's nominal GDP record in winter, quarterly change from 4Q to 1Q, recessions excluded, coldest to warmest:

2003: 1.2%

2004: 1.4%

2007: 1.1%

2005: 2.0%

2002: 1.2%

2006: 2.0%

Average: 1.48%

Obama's nominal GDP record in winter, quarterly change from 4Q to 1Q, recessions excluded, coldest to warmest:

2014: -0.2%

2015: 0.1%

2010: 0.8%

2011: 0.1%

2013: 1.0%

2012: 1.1%

Average: 0.48%

Add in the recession winters in 2001, 2008 and 2009 and Bush's average becomes 1.15% in winter, 379% better than Obama's 0.24%.

Grand Rapids, MI, temperature anomaly for 2015 extends to 20.2 degrees F below normal through April

April in Grand Rapids was just 0.3 degrees F below normal, a tenth of a degree warmer than the anomaly for April 2014.

The total anomaly for January through April 2014 was 24.8 degrees F below normal, almost 23% colder than the same period this year.

Total crap: CNBC/Reuters blaming the weather for another GDP miss

The story is here.

Just how bad was the winter? Out of 69 winters in the post-war 2015 ranked 22nd worst for heating degree days, and all Obama could manage is 0.1% nominal growth over the prior quarter, $6.3 billion. But 1959 came in 21st and somehow America under Eisenhower could manage 2.0% nominal growth q/q in winter. And 1964 ranked 23rd and somehow America managed 3.1% nominal growth under JFK in winter.

The winter of 2014 ranked 10th worst, and Obama gave us a pathetic nominal growth of -0.2%, yet in 1977 which ranked 9th worst winter in the post-war Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter!, gave us +2.6% nominal growth. The 12th worst winter was in 1962 and again JFK gave us 3.4% nominal growth.

The story is the same for 2010 and 2011, 33rd and 35th worst winters, which is to say, not very bad. These winters appear in the warmer half of the record. Obama gave us just 0.8% and 0.1% respectively, flanked by winters of like severity in 1972, 1951 and 1957 posting nominal growth of 3.4%, 6.3% and 2.2% respectively.

2013? Only the 42nd worst winter. But 1967 was worse and we got 2.4% nominal then, thanks to LBJ. Obama gave us 1.0%. And 1950? 43rd worst, but it clocked in with 3.7% nominal growth.

2012? The warmest winter in the record at 69th. So the weather argument should have meant economic growth had been absolutely stellar by comparison with everything going before it, right? Instead Obama gave us 1.1% nominal. Well, that IS Obama's best performance in winter, so maybe the heat helped a little. But 1990, which ranked 68th, witnessed 2.3% nominal growth under George H. W. Bush.

You see the pattern here? Obama "underperforms" everybody around him in similarly situated weather. But actually his numbers are so bad in winter it's like he's not even in the game.

Average Obama score in winter outside of recession: +0.5%.

Everybody else in the same boat: +3.1%.    

Without the Protestant reformers, the USA had never existed

“I love and revere the memories of Huss Wickliff Luther Calvin Zwinglius Melancton and all the other reformers how muchsoever I may differ from them all in many theological metaphysical & philosophical points. As you justly observe, without their great exertions & severe sufferings, the USA had never existed.”

-- John Adams

What do you mean try finding one? Congress is full of the one type, and most of them are Republicans.

Nicholas Kristof, here:

'After all, American adults have, on average, one ovary and one testicle. But try finding such an “average person.”'

We don't have free trade WITHIN the United States: Companies in just 13 states get over 90% of $110 billion in government subsidies since the 1970s

We're talking over $100 billion of taxpayer money favoring companies, in descending order, in New York way ahead in first, then Washington, Louisiana, and Michigan rounding out the top four, Kentucky, Oregon, Indiana, Texas, New Jersey, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Mexico over every other company in those states and throughout the states.

View the report here, and the state by state map here. For a shorter period involving additional federal subsidies adding another $68 billion to the above total see this report at the same site.

Forbes Magazine is not amused, here:

According to Good Jobs First, there are 514 economic development programs in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. More than 245,000 awards have been granted under those programs. I ask again, where is the outrage? The system is antithetical to the idea of free markets. A quarter of a million times, state governments decided what is best for producers and consumers. That should make us cringe. First, the government is inefficient at providing public goods, and it is terrible at manipulating the markets for private goods. But more importantly, those 514 economic development programs are almost all the result of insidious cronyism. Narrow business interests manipulate government policymakers, and those interests prosper to the detriment of everyone else. Free markets be damned.

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For the top four, think Wall Street, aircraft, oil and autos.

Highly secretive trade deal negotiations with Pacific "partners" no doubt reproduce sweeteners all around no different from what has been going on within our own country for a long time right underneath our noses.

The first step to curtailing this cronyism is to stop calling the one free trade and the other free-market capitalism. We have neither.

They ought to know: Most WOMEN think Hillary Clinton is dishonest and can't be trusted

"American voters say 54 - 38 percent that Hillary Clinton is not honest and trustworthy, a lower score than top Republicans."

So says a recent poll taken by Quinnipiac University, reported here. 

The 10 Idiot Senate Republicans who voted to confirm Loretta Lynch as Attorney General

The 10 Republicans who think being in the majority is a sin:

Ayotte (R-NH) oh yes she votes. just. like. a. woman.

Cochran (R-MS) senile old codger

Collins (R-ME) gender before party

Flake (R-AZ) aptly named

Graham (R-SC) McCain's errand boy

Hatch (R-UT) competing with Harry Reid for Mormon infamy

Johnson (R-WI) used to be the Tea Party's Senator! Go Feingold! Go Feingold! Go Feingold!

Kirk (R-IL) soon to be replaced by another disabled person of the same political party

McConnell (R-KY) recently had unsuccessful testicle transplant surgery

Portman (R-OH) has never had any testicles according to anonymous sources 

The roll call vote is here.  

What Richard Feynman might have said to today's climate cultists

''They follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential because the planes don't land warming never arrives.''

From the obituary, here.

Oh look! A GDP deer!

Liberals are trying to hide Obama's lousy winter GDP in a broader story about historical first quarter economic weakness.

A classic red herring maneuver designed to obscure the uniqueness of GDP weakness under Obama.

First it was CNBC here with "The Mysterious Case of Weak 1Q GDP, for 30 years!", and now it's The New York Times here with "Why You Can't Put Faith in Reports of First-Quarter Economic Slumps".

Consider these new pre-emptive first strikes designed to take the confidence out of opponents' sails when expected awful 1Q2015 GDP comes out next week. The weather argument used in the past is not going to fly this year simply because overall this last winter was pretty average, so another argument is being proposed which couches Obama's repeated first quarter failures in a broader context of perennially suspect first quarter GDP reports.

Oh look! Over there! A deer!

You wouldn't know from either of these stories that economic weakness in the first quarter under Obama has been uniquely weak. It doesn't matter if there is something seasonally different about the first quarter in general. What matters is that Obama can't even hit that.

Outside of recession Obama has had five first quarters with average nominal GDP change from the fourth quarter to the first of just 0.60%.

Forget the articles' fascination with the previous 30-year record. The 50 year record outside of recession going back to the years since 1946 shows that before Obama the average nominal GDP improvement from 4Q to 1Q was 2.3%.

Obama is underperforming that by 74%. His record is a complete outlier in the series, even compared to George W. Bush, who before Obama otherwise had the worst GDP record overall in the post-war. Bush's six first quarters outside of recession averaged 1.5%, 150% better than Obama. Add in the recession years and Bush still averaged 1.2%, 100% better than Obama in winter.

To make matters worse, five of the six quarters of Bush doing 150% better than Obama occurred in the warmer half of years in the 50 year series, when GDP naturally has run behind the GDP of the colder half of years. Include all eight first quarters for Bush when he did 100% better than Obama and seven of eight were in the warmer half of years when it's harder to post higher GDP, and the one was on the borderline of those warmer years. Obama by contrast in 2014 had the tenth coldest winter on record since 1946. That was actually an advantage to him for GDP because GDP in the colder half of winters has actually run 19% ahead of the warmer half. Instead Obama blamed his poor performance in 2014 on what was really to his advantage.  

Barack Obama's poor winter GDP record sticks out like a sore thumb, and no amount of excuse-making can change that fact.

Winter GDP under Obama has underperformed everyone who came before him for 50 years by 74%

There's nothing wrong with GDP that a change of leadership at the top couldn't fix. I'll bet Caligula's favored horse Incitatus, whom the crazed Roman emperor wanted to install in the consulship, could have done better, that's how bad Obama has performed.

To date we've had five first quarters outside of recession under Obama and the average nominal GDP addition in the first quarter from the preceding fourth quarter has been just +0.60%. From coldest to warmest here the five are: 2014 (-0.20%), 2010 (+0.80%), 2011 (+0.1%), 2013 (+1.00%), 2012 (+1.1%). Incidentally, 2014 was the 10th coldest first quarter since 1946, but 2012 was the hottest, and Obama still couldn't pull out a decent performance from that advantage.

It's not the fault of the weather. It's Obama.

GDP measured in exactly the same way before Obama and going back to 1947 has averaged +2.3% in the first quarter, which means that under Obama GDP has lagged the average by 73.9%. In fact, Obama's record in winter is so bad that he's pulled down the long-term average by 0.2 from 2.3% to 2.1%.

But wait, it gets worse.

America actually posts better GDP when winters are colder, and poorer GDP when they are warmer.

The twelve warmest winters since 1946 have added just 1.5% to nominal GDP on average, but the twelve coldest added an average 2.7%.

For a president, and economists, to blame cold weather for poor economic performance shows a level of ignorance and intellectual laziness which is shameful.

America can do much better than Obama, and it will. 

Scott Walker receives the kiss of death . . .

. . . the endorsement of the Koch brothers.

That conservatism stuff is just for show. The real Scott Walker is a libertarian.

Story here.

Hey global warming frauds: FBI admits bogus science reigned supreme for decades at hair comparison unit and in courts

And you climate fraudsters will be the next to be exposed.

From the story here:

"The admissions mark a watershed in one of the country’s largest forensic scandals, highlighting the failure of the nation’s courts for decades to keep bogus scientific information from juries, legal analysts said. The question now, they said, is how state authorities and the courts will respond to findings that confirm long-suspected problems with subjective, pattern-based forensic techniques — like hair and bite-mark comparisons — that have contributed to wrongful convictions in more than one-quarter of 329 DNA-exoneration cases since 1989."

Kathy Shaidle: You can't bomb people back to the Stone Age who never left it

Here:

So after we bombed the crap out of them (although not enough in Germany’s case to suit me), at least some survivors retained memories of their culture’s rational past, all the better to reconstruct or even surpass it. (With an infusion of American billions, that is.)

Today’s Muslim belligerents either have no such past, or are busily trying to eradicate any trace of it. When we bother destroying their strongholds, who can even tell? You can’t bomb people back to the Stone Age if they never left. And in any case, this time we reinstituted the Marshall Plan before we half wiped them out—a fatally ass-backwards move.

Hey Obama! You're embarrassed by the process? You're an embarrassment to the constitution!

Video here:

"And I have to say that there are times where the dysfunction in the Senate just goes too far. This is an example of it. It's gone too far. Enough. Enough. Call Loretta Lynch for a vote. Get her confirmed. Put her in place, let her do her job. This is embarrassing, a process like this. Thank you."

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[The President] shall nominate, and, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. -- Article II, Section 2

Are bankrupt people who commit crimes absolved of them because they were bankrupt?

Then why should GM get off for killing over 80 people?

If corporations are people who have free speech rights just like everyone else, they have personal liability when they break the law, bankrupt or not.

Poor people go to jail all the time, but rich, well-connected corporations do not. How convenient.

Hillary the cheapskate: stiffs on the tip at Chipotle

"Well, that's what you get when you don't recognize me you morons!" (note: this is not a real quote)

Bankruptcy judge lets GM off the hook for 80 deaths

Here's the lede from the story:

A federal judge handed General Motors a multi-billion-dollar reprieve Wednesday, ruling that the company could not be sued in hundreds of death and injury claims related to the defective ignition switches that are estimated to have killed more than 80 people.

According to [retiring] Judge Robert Gerber, GM’s government-overseen bankruptcy and reorganization in 2009 shields it from liability for actions the company had made previously, despite claims by the families of people injured or killed by the ignitions that GM had been misleading the court at that time about the ignition-switch woes in older, smaller cars.

Read the rest here.

Marco Rubio joins the gay normalization crowd

Democrats have got to shake off the Clinton albatross and find new blood

So says Camille Paglia, here.

Hillary and State both stonewalled the House Committee on Oversight about her private email already in December 2012

Hillary Clinton knew well in advance that what she was doing in shielding her email was wrong and likely to get her into trouble, which is why she subsequently destroyed the evidence, obstructing justice. Hillary makes Richard Nixon look like a piker in comparison to the scope of her crimes.

The New York Times reports here that she and the State Dept. deliberately did not respond to the House's inquiries about whether she used private email for government business while she was still Secretary of State in December 2012:

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton was directly asked by congressional investigators in a December 2012 letter whether she had used a private email account while serving as secretary of state, according to letters obtained by The New York Times.

But Mrs. Clinton did not reply to the letter. And when the State Department answered in March 2013, nearly two months after she left office, it ignored the question and provided no response.

The query was posed to Mrs. Clinton in a Dec. 13, 2012, letter from Representative Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Mr. Issa was leading an investigation into how the Obama administration handled its officials’ use of personal email.

“Have you or any senior agency official ever used a personal email account to conduct official business?” Mr. Issa wrote to Mrs. Clinton. “If so, please identify the account used.”

Marco Rubio is just another liberal

Marco Rubio, quoted here, wouldn't recognize conservatism if it bit him in the ass:

"[O]ur country has always been about the future and before us now is the opportunity to author the greatest chapter yet in the amazing story of America. But we can’t do that by going back to the leaders and ideas of the past. We must change the decisions we are making by changing the people who are making them.”

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How about going back to the American founders for inspiration? Can't do that.

How about going back to the constitution? Can't do that.

How about the anti-Federalists? or the Bible? or Shakespeare? Can't do that.

Did changing the people in charge make a difference between 2000 and 2008? How about after 2008?

Change is the mantra of liberalism, and belief in the essential superiority of a certain kind of person its fatal conceit. 

Dingbat feminism should make up its mind already

Hillary Clinton knows the way to San Jose . . . San José de las Lajas, Cuba

Hillary campaign logo: Don't call her Hillary?

Flag of Cuba

The libertarian free-traders in both parties have killed the American middle class: Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton, Obama

From Patrick J. Buchanan, here:

The average U.S. family has not seen a rise in real wages in 40 years. This is directly traceable to the loss of more than one-third of all U.S. manufacturing jobs. And that loss, that deindustrialization of America, is directly tied to the $10 trillion in trade deficits since Bush I. Writers who celebrate how U.S. imports have risen in this month or that year almost never mention the trade deficit for this month or that year. Perhaps that is because the United States has not run a trade surplus in four decades, whereas, in the first 70 years of the 20th century, we never ran a trade deficit. Trade surpluses add to GDP; trade deficits subtract from GDP.

And when in a company town the company closes the factory, the town often dies. And all the little satellite businesses—bars, diners, food stores, pharmacies—that rose around the factory, they die, too. The tombstones of countless dead towns across America should read: Killed by Free Trade. Tenured economists on college campuses call this “creative destruction.”

The stagnant wages of two generations of U.S. workers also help to explain the crisis of Social Security and Medicare. For, as workers’ wages fail to rise, or fall, so, too, do their contributions in payroll taxes. If, as Simpson-Bowles contends, our largest entitlement programs are heading for insolvency, free trade played a lead role in that American tragedy. And where is the liberal morality in passing laws to ensure U.S. workers a living wage and clean and safe conditions, and then, through fast track and free trade, signaling their bosses that they can evade these laws by shutting factories here, moving their plants to Asia, paying coolie wages, and subjecting Asian workers to conditions that would earn a U.S. industrialist a tour in Leavenworth?

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I've checked Buchanan's math and he's exaggerating a bit. The total is precisely $9.5 trillion . . . if you go back as far as 1982 under Reagan, but you get the point.

Winter 2015 temperatures were above average in the lower 48

The first quarter of 2015 was a lot warmer than last year.

For 2014 minimum temperature January through March ranked 25th going back to 1895, meaning there were 24 winters that had colder minimum temperature, 41st for average temperature, so obviously below normal, and 104th for heating degree days (the coldest year ranked 120th, meaning 2014 was the 16th coldest first quarter since 1895 in terms of the energy needed to keep comfortable).

2015, despite the horror stories heard from places like Boston, was overall much warmer. For minimum temperature the first quarter ranked 96th, for average temperature 98th, and for heating degree days, above average at 75th. An average winter involves 2317 heating degree days. 2015 came in at 2370, not very much higher at all. The worst winter on record was in 1912, with 2761 heating degree days.

Consider yourself armed when the wusses blame the weather for the bad economy.

You know who to blame . . . the gutsy one.

This woman should be deported today

Story here.

Gun production triples under Obama to 10.8 million in 2013 to meet sales and concealed carry demand

Seen here:

The biggest change in production has come under President Obama. From 2001 to 2007, gun production held steady at between 3 million and 4 million units a year. It topped 4 million in 2008 but shot to 5.6 million in 2009, held steady in 2010 and then spiked to 8.6 million guns in 2012 and a record 10.8 million in 2013, according to ATF data. ...

Mr. [John R.] Lott [Jr.] said firearm sales, even more than manufacturing statistics, are a measure of the health of the movement, and those are also on the rise, with adjusted background checks — a good proxy for sales — growing from 8.9 million a year in 2008 to nearly 15 million in 2013. ...

Nationally, concealed carry permits have grown from 4.6 million in 2007 to more than 12 million now, Mr. Lott said.