The total public debt is now up $457 billion in just four days

Rush Limbaugh: 94 million not in labor force are ALL on welfare, ALL have an EBT card, ALL getting food stamps, ALL getting disability

Today, here, with the right's version of The Big Lie:

"We don't have 5% unemployment. We've got 20% unemployment.  Bob, we have 94 million Americans not working, not in the labor force.  They're all on welfare, Bob, one way or another.  You are talking about vandals basically coming in and ripping you off at the laundromat.  Half of this country is on welfare, Bob. That's another reason why people aren't talking about it.  Half the country that votes is on welfare, and they vote for Santa Claus, Bob. And to them, you're Santa Claus.  And you're...

"I can understand exactly why you want to sell the business and get out of there.  It's probably being stolen from you.  Customers in there get harassed by people that want to commit vandalism or crime in there.  I have total understanding, relatability, sympathy for what you're going through.  But we've succeeded in letting so many people... Bob, 94 million Americans not working, and they all have an EBT card. They're all getting food stamps. They're all getting some form -- many of them -- of disability."

Carson calls Politico story a lie, but MSM repeats it as a fact

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/06/carson-got-caught-who-stands-to-benefit.html

http://www.woodradio.com/onair/the-insider-48410/developing-ben-carson-admits-to-fabricating-14102408

That second one is a real howler. A Rush Limbaugh affiliate, Wood Radio in Grand Rapids could actually monitor the broadcast to learn Carson's campaign says the story is a lie but would rather just go with the lie.

Carson campaign denies it admitted to fabricating anything, calls Politico story a total lie

Here.

Rush Limbaugh is all over the story today.

Politico attempts to discredit Carson's claims to being offered the full ride to West Point

Here.

The story tries to make hay with his claim to being offered a full scholarship at West Point when there isn't any such thing "per se", but admits that with an appointment "all costs are covered". Carson was evidently encouraged to apply by General Westmoreland at some point based on his qualifications and interest, but declined to do so in favor of a medical education.

Carson's story may stretch the facts and err in details but overall remains a plausible if understandably biased retelling of his ROTC experience in high school.

Who would fault a poor black kid from Detroit for emphasizing that a full ride through West Point had been within his reach?

Answer: the liberal hacks at Politico.

Commentary Magazine's Jonathan Tobin doesn't even read what he cites, making a hash of Obamacare story

Jonathan Tobin here:

"This is something of a misnomer because, as the Heritage Institute pointed out in a paper published last month, almost all of these people were simply added to the rolls of those receiving Medicare. If you only count those who are actually receiving insurance outside of Medicare, the net increase of those with coverage (the number of those buying these policies is offset by an almost equal reduction in the number of customers who have employer-based plans) is only 260,000 people."

Ah, no.

First of all the paper was from the "Heritage Foundation", not the "Heritage Institute". Perhaps he's heard of it? It's only been a Washington fixture since like the Reagan Administration. He does remember Reagan, right? Well, he is a neoconservative.

And it was the rolls of Medicaid which were expanded, not Medicare. What kind of a dummy gets that wrong? Medicare is for older Americans. Medicare is supposed to be paid for through payroll taxes, and it's blowing up as we speak, but that's another story. Medicaid used to be health coverage for the poor and the indigent, provided by the States. Leave it to Obama to expand it from DC and call it insurance.

The middle class of this country will end up poor and indigent and on Medicaid, too, if someone doesn't put a stop to this train wreck called Obamacare and soon.

Middle class people have just had their taxes raised dramatically to provide coverage and subsidies to pay for that coverage to about 9 million people who didn't have it before or didn't have what they're getting now. Middle class taxes went up in the form of health insurance premium increases, raised deductibles and skyrocketing pharmaceutical price increases. Middle class people buying the cheapest of plans now can expect to shell out over $13,000 in premiums and deductibles before their plans pay out one red cent of a big healthcare bill. The incentive for them is to avoid care even when they need it in order to save money.  

All Tobin had to do to get the article moving in the right direction was to actually read the title of the Heritage paper and the accompanying abstract, but apparently he didn't do even that. One wonders if he even wrote the story himself. He is Commentary's "editor" after all.

What a putz. 

Backgrounder #3062 on Health Care

October 15, 2015

2014 Health Insurance Enrollment: Increase Due Almost Entirely to Medicaid Expansion

By Edmund F. Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski

Abstract

Health insurance enrollment data for 2014 shows that the number of Americans with health insurance increased by 9.25 million during the year. However, the vast majority of the increase was the result of 8.99 million individuals being added to the Medicaid rolls. While enrollment in private individual-market plans increased by almost 4.79 million, most of that gain was offset by a reduction of 4.53 million in the number of people with employment-based group coverage. Thus, the net increase in private health insurance in 2014 was just 260,000 people.

I know that when I wanna store some food, I always build one of these first . . .

Investor's Business Daily comes out for abiotic crude oil and natural gas

Here.

You can take your Hubbert's Peak and shove it up your hind end.

To pay for highway bill, US House relies on selling strategic oil reserve and privatizing IRS employment instead of raising gasoline taxes

From the story here:

"The bill is in fact financed with a collection of offsets that many lawmakers find objectionable, such as raising $9 billion by selling oil from the country’s emergency oil reserves. Roughly $2.5 billion comes from requiring the Internal Revenue Service to use private debt collectors, reviving a controversial program opposed by many Democrats, consumer groups and the union that represents agency employees."

Trump is ahead of Carson 25 to 23 in two post-debate polls

Obama's gift to America

Looks like Real Clear Politics won't be including Reuters/Ipsos post-debate poll, so here it is: Trump 31% over Carson 19%

Explore it here.

At new book launch, Trump accuses Janet Yellen of keeping interest rates low to protect Obama's reputation

Donald Trump, quoted here by AP/Obama:

'"In my opinion Janet Yellen is highly political and she's not raising the rates for a very specific reason: because Obama told her not to," Trump said. "Because he wants to be out playing golf in a year from now, and he wants to be doing other things and he doesn't want to see a big bubble burst during his administration." ...

'The central bank decided in October to keep its key short-term interest rate at a record low in light of a weak global economy and slower U.S. hiring.'

Michigan Republicans increase gasoline excises by 7.3 cents, taking the state from 12th to 5th for highest gas taxes paid in America

Here's the current list of highest combined federal and state gasoline taxes per gallon paid in the top paying states, from highest to lowest:

PA: 73.70 cents per gallon

WA: 62.90

NY: 62.67

HI: 61.55

CA: 59.32

CT: 55.91

FL: 54.82

NC: 54.65

WV: 53.00

RI: 52.40

NV: 52.25

MI: 52.24

IL: 51.87

IN: 51.70

WI: 51.30

GA: 51.02

MD: 50.50

IA: 50.40

ID: 50.40

The tax increase in Michigan will bring the current level to 59.54 cents, ahead of California!

Lest you tree-hugging electric and hybrid drivers think you'll escape, you get slapped with $100 and $30 surcharges (hahahahaha!), according to the story here, on licenses, the rest of us 20% increases:

"Registration fees for passenger vehicles and trucks would rise by 20 percent in 2017, meaning an average $100 bill would rise to $120. The state would also assess a new $100 annual surcharge on most electric vehicles and $30 on hybrids."

And you thought Republicans were against raising taxes.

Real Clear Politics poll average has Carson +1, adds Quinnipiac poll but not Reuters poll out yesterday showing Trump way ahead

Raw temperature data have all been changed, 20% of it 16 times in the last 2.5 years

So says Marcia Glaze Wyatt here:

"Raw data is adjusted, sometimes justifiably (yet still injecting uncertainty), yet sometimes, arguably not justifiably, adding more uncertainty!!! Raw data have all been changed – 20% of it changed 16 times in the last 2 and a half years. This plot shows NOT the average surface T trend between 1880 and 2010, but rather the trend of changes made in the temperature anomalies (1880 to 2010) between May 2008 and May 2015. Take the month of January for comparison b/n 1915 and 2000. In May of 2008, the difference b/n January temperature anomalies for those years was 0.39oC. As of May 2015 note, the difference is 0.52oC (almost a degree F). ... And while one assumes that good intentions motivate the adjustments, one thing is obvious: temperatures adjustments prior to 1950 have resulted in a substantial cooling of the early century (20th) and adjustments made after 1950 have substantially warmed the record; consequently, the trend of temperature increase has significantly steepened over the years – a product of data changes. Is this an accurate reflection of reality? Uncertainty..."

Debt ceiling follies: The total public debt hit $18.152 trillion in mid March, but somehow the Treasury Dept. kept paying the bills for eight months without defaulting

March 2015

November 2015

Still waiting for Real Clear Politics to add the Reuters poll released over two hours ago

As usual Paul Krugman is full of crap about Republicans and jobs

Here:

"[P]rivate-sector employment is eight million higher than it was when Barack Obama took office, twice the job gains achieved under his predecessor before the recession struck."

When Barack Obama took office, W-2 employment stood at 155.4 million, and promptly fell 4.5 million. At the end of 2014 it stands at 158.2 million, 2.8 million higher than at the end of 2008, not 8 million higher.

At the same point in his presidency, George W. Bush had added 5.8 million W-2 jobs, and 7.3 million by the end of it.

Give 'em hell, Harry: The South China Sea is no more China's than the Gulf of Mexico is Mexico's

Admiral Harry Binkley Harris, Jr., Commander, USPACOM, quoted here:

Harris has been a forceful advocate within the military for challenging China’s claims to vast areas of the South China Sea. He told a Senate hearing in September that “the South China Sea is no more China’s than the Gulf of Mexico is Mexico’s.”

Carson beats Trump in another national poll, this time NBC/WSJ (last time CBS/NYT -- when ABC/WaPo flip you'll know it's a conspiracy)

Just 2 extreme heat events in Grand Rapids in the last 50 years, but 14 in the 70 years before that

Of course Ben Carson wants the debates taken off television

Television is Donald Trump's home turf.

An El Nino forecast for winter in Grand Rapids Michigan July 2015 - June 2016

Mean snowfall 66.7, predicting 47.85 inches

Mean heating degree days 6719, predicting 6148

Grand Rapids Michigan was warmer on average in October 2015 by 1.1 degrees F

The cumulative anomaly for 2015 thus declines from -18.2 to -17.1 degrees F.

That's now two months in a row with above average temperatures, helping to erase the big negative anomaly built up in the winter, and in February in particular.

Summer temperatures in GR in 2015 were below normal, so the warmer September and now October have offset that. A late or extended summer, you might say.

The cumulative anomaly in 2014 was -30.3 degrees F, and would have been even worse if not for a warm and snowless December. November set snow records here with 31 inches and the negative temperature anomaly reached -33 degrees F.

The peak negative anomaly in 2015 so far has been -22.6 degrees F through August.

It is amazing . . .

(seen here)

"Elixor" at the beginning was the tell.

China's nine-dash-line claim in the South China Sea will finally get its day in court

But China won't be there to defend it.

From the story here in The Diplomat:

On Thursday, October 29, the Permanent Court of Arbitration awarded its first decision in the The Republic of Philippines v. The People’s Republic of China. The court ruled that the case was “properly constituted” under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, that China’s “non-appearance” (i.e., refusal to participate) did not preclude the Court’s jurisdiction, and that the Philippines was within its rights in filing the case. In short, Thursday’s decision means that the Permanent Court of Arbitration rules in the Philippines’ favor on the question of jurisdiction. With the jurisdictional issue resolved, the case can move forward to evaluating the merits of the Philippines’ legal assertions in the South China Sea. ...

First, and most vexing for China, is the status of Beijing’s nine-dash line claim in the South China Sea. Manila argues that the nine-dash line is an excessive maritime claim and not in line with the entitlements for coastal states under UNCLOS. With jurisdiction question resolved, we can look forward to China’s nine-dash line getting its day in international court (although, notably, without China taking part to defend it). China has kept the scope of its nine-dash line ambiguous under formal and customary international law, but once the Court decides on the matter, its ability to maintain ambiguity will be limited.

Second, based on the first point, that the nine-dash line is an excessive claim, the Philippines is arguing that China’s occupation of various features in the Spratly Islands is illegal.

The New York Times criticizes Republican tax plans, pretending revenues are needed to cover spending

Here:

"All of these candidates deny fiscal reality. In the next 10 years, revenues will need to increase by 40 percent simply to keep federal spending even, per capita, with inflation and population growth. Additional revenues will be needed to pay for health care for the elderly, transportation systems and other obligations, as well as for newer challenges, including climate change. And interest on the national debt will surely rise because interest rates have nowhere to go but up."

Who is the Times trying to kid?

Revenues have never been needed to cover expenditures and they know it, and rarely have covered expenditures. Expenditures will continue to grow whether the Times or the Republicans like it or not. They are baked into the cake of the legislation that drives them. The only way to fix that is to rescind the legislation or modify it, with its built-in cost of living increases and added population coverage assumptions.

This country has run minor annual surpluses in just twelve years since 1939, doing nothing but slowing down our present arrival at $18.2 trillion in debt.

Spare us the histrionics.

The heavy hitters when it comes to spending are:

• HHS ($1 trillion, 91% of which is Medicare and Medicaid)
• Social Security ($.96 trillion)
• Defense ($.59 trillion, protecting the world without reimbursement)
• Treasury Dept. ($.57 trillion, $.4 trillion of which is interest on the debt overspending)
• Veterans ($.16 trillion, which does such a good job veterans die waiting for appointments)
• Agriculture ($.14 trillion, over half of which is the food stamp program).

Together those six account for 88% of federal spending, and the Times dares the Republicans even to think about reforming Social Security and Medicare, calling instead for higher taxes.

Meanwhile there's plenty else to cut just by axing all the other departments which account for the remaining $.48 trillion making up the 2015 fiscal outlay total of $3.9 trillion.

Let's start with the Education Dept., $76 billion, then International Assistance Programs, $22 billion.

Ka-ching! Ka-ching! You're 20% of the way there, just like that.

See how easy that was?

Latest IBD poll reverses Trump to up 11 points to 28% from 17% last time, Fiorina down 6, Kasich down 3, Bush down 2

US Senate passes House sequester buster, budget and debt ceiling package this morning at 3:00 AM

They do nothing most "weeks", which run from Tuesday to Thursday, and then ram utter crap through in hours. Bunch of goose poopers.

From the story here:

"The bill cleared on a 64-35 vote, with just 18 Republicans joining all Democrats in backing the bill. ... The debt deal had already cleared the House on Wednesday, as part of a rush by Republican leaders to get it done as quickly as possible, leaving little time for scrutiny. The 144-page deal was written late Monday, and the final Senate vote came at 3 a.m. Friday, meaning it was sped through in less than 100 hours."

Just 79 Republicans voted for new budget, blowing sequestration caps, lifting the debt ceiling to March 2017, and attempting to decide all spending for two years, a complete rout of the conservatives

The Roll Call vote is here, taken at 5:21 PM yesterday, before today's activities electing Ryan.

Boehner voted for it after engineering it. So did Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan, Fred Upton, Steve Scalise, Peter King, and Kevin Brady among others.

I note Peter Roskam voted No.

The story is discussed here.

A complete travesty abdicating spending responsibility just like Cromnibus, but worse. 

Ryan did not vote for Speaker this morning, nor did Webster, but Nancy Pelosi voted . . . for herself!

Outgoing Speaker Boehner voted for Ryan.

The Roll Call is here.

The only Democrat not voting was Meeks.

The Blue Dog Democrat Cooper who got one vote to be the new Speaker was the guy who voted for Colin Powell! Being a good guy, unlike Pelosi, Cooper had to vote for someone other than himself, so Colin Powell it was. And it sure as hell wasn't going to be Pelosi now was it?

Freedom Caucus caves, Paul Ryan elected Speaker of the House

Ryan received 236 votes for the Speakership on the floor of the House this morning, Nancy Pelosi 184. 432 votes out of 435 were cast. I'm assuming Boehner, Pelosi and Ryan didn't vote.

The Republican Caucus in the House numbers 247 in the 114th Congress. The Democrats 188.

Story here.

45 Republicans voted against Ryan yesterday in caucus, but today Florida Republican Dan Webster received just 9 votes of the 12 cast for candidates other than Ryan and Pelosi (Webster voted for himself?).

Blue Dog Democrat Jim Cooper (TN), Democrat John Lewis (GA) and Colin Powell (!) each received one vote.

Rand Paul's warped view of unfunded liabilities

"Your grandparents had too many kids."

No Rand, we didn't have enough.

Libertarian moron.

Huge flip-flop tonight by Ben Carson on oil subsidies and ethanol

Said he was wrong to propose taking away oil subsidies to support others, never mentioning he originally meant Iowans and their ethanol back in April. Now he's supposedly against helping any industry.

So Carson finally gets ahead in the polls in Iowa pledging to boost ethanol at big oil's expense and then throws Iowa under the bus.

Breathtaking. The guy's a liberal at heart. 

Paul Ryan, who voted for CROMNIBUS, is just fine with the budget deal and the cowardly Freedom Caucus will still support him for Speaker

Paul Ryan, quoted in Politico, here:

"[U]nder new management we are not going to do the people's business this way. We are up against a deadline — that's unfortunate. But going forward we can't do the people's business (this way). As a conference we should've been meeting months ago to discuss these things to have a unified strategy going forward."

Sure, sure Paul. It'll be business as usual under you, too.

To Paul Ryan, conservatism means preserving Medicare for future generations, no going back on gays in the military, et cetera et cetera et cetera.

Under Paul Ryan's "conservatism", if you lose, nothing will EVER be rolled back. And that includes the spending.

His expressions of outrage are simply red meat thrown to his Neanderthals.

JUST WORDS!

Ben Carson used tissue from aborted fetuses in medical research

Politico had all the gory details of Ben Carson's very complicated anti-abortion position here in August.

Carson extends lead in Iowa to national lead in CBS/NYT poll to +4 over Trump, whose average lead tightens to +4.8

Gallup says Tea Party support hits low of 17%, peak support was in November 2010 at 32%

Polling results here.

The unending fascination of Sarah Palin for little Democrat minds

Dunderhead Democrat Party hack William Daley is stuck on stupid.

Here he is in full flutter in WaPo, like a moth drawn to a lightbulb, typing "The GOP’s dysfunction all started with Sarah Palin". It proves nothing but that it takes a dunderhead to know a dunderhead. The GOP has failed, he says, to distance itself from this simpleton who flunked Newspapers 101, and her ilk. Reading it one wonders when Democrats will distance themselves from ignoramuses like Bill Daley, but then you realize they're all ignoramuses. Where would they go?

Certainly not Chicago.  

Bill Daley, it must remembered, comes from the same Democrat family which presided over the decades long ruination of the finances of that once great city, and with it of the state. The place is now so bankrupt it can't even pay lottery winners. Those who can flee the state, do. Illinois ranks first in America for out-migration in 2014. These nincompoop Daleys are the same people who seriously thought they could afford to host the Summer Olympics next year, forgetting how all those $100,000+ pensions for unionized teachers can really add up. As it is Chicago's bonds have this year achieved junk status, despite the highest sales taxes in the nation and the highest property taxes of any state, save New Jersey. The place is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy because of perennially spendthrift Democrats.

In charge of the Department of Commerce under Bill Clinton, Bill Daley long ago proved his own incompetence. The man couldn't even manage to find a staffer at the Bureau of Economic Analysis to give him the correct figure for year 1900 gross domestic product in a 1999 speech commemorating the invention of the metric under FDR. Daley was only off by an order of magnitude and fifty years at the time, saying the year 1900 $20 billion economy was actually $300 billion in size, a level which it did not reach . . . until 1950! Bill Daley only ran the place. You'd think he could at least get its monthly claim to headline fame right.

But Democrats have good reason to forget the size of things, especially GDP. After all under them it took eleven long years to restore the 1929 $100 billion economy back to its size, in 1940. And presently the chief Democrat holding a veto pen in one hand and a copy of Rules for Radicals in the other is on schedule to produce the very worst GDP record since that Great Depression.

At least Sarah Palin has learned a few things along the way since her quixotic candidacy, for example rejecting the appropriateness of bailouts and crony capitalism. Democrats on the other hand have learned nothing, and only keep repeating the mistakes of the past.

She's YUGE!

Big mistake: Donald Trump says he's 100% in favor of ethanol

The Donald, quoted here on September 22nd:

'Trump said that he supports the RFS at Iowa’s Faith and Freedom Forum, “I am totally in favor of ethanol, 100 percent.” This is the first time Trump gave his stance on the topic publicly.'

So far this only amounts to Trump supporting the current Renewable Fuel Standard signed into law by George W. Bush in 2005, but that's still bad policy. Ethanol is inefficient as a fuel, bad for engines and does zero to reduce carbon emissions. It diverts corn from animal feed, driving up the cost of food supplies from beef, pork and poultry, and from corn added to other products. Ethanol also makes it more lucrative to put more and more land into corn production than would otherwise be the case, potentially stressing the environment.

Arguably Ben Carson's success in Iowa over Trump in part has to do with Carson's pledge to push for 30% ethanol fuel blends, a tripling of the current standard.

The crony capitalism involved with ethanol is YUGE, making Iowa more important politically than it otherwise would be were it not for federal gasoline dictates:

"Iowa produces nearly one-third of the nation’s ethanol and nearly half of Iowa’s corn goes into ethanol production, according to the Iowa Corn Growers Association.

"Iowa’s renewable fuels industry, which includes biodiesel production, supports 47,000 jobs and accounts for $5 billion of the state’s gross domestic product, according to the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association."

That's about 3.2% of 2014 Iowa GDP.

Nebraska estimates Iowa production capacity at 25% of the nation's capability, ahead of Nebraska in second at 13%. Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana and South Dakota round out the top six, who all exceed the 1 billion gallon level of capacity per year. At 10.8 billion gallons of available capacity, the top six states produce almost as much as they can at 10.6 billion gallons, over 70% of total national production.

A number of the current crop of Republicans running for president is more or less opposed to ethanol:

"Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former New York Gov. George Pataki and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio have all expressed interest in eliminating or phasing out the ethanol mandate that requires a certain percentage of ethanol in transportation fuel."

Trump's position may reflect a conviction that he generally needs to be supportive of ethanol in these states to win them in the general election even though it appears Carson has outbid him in the primary season.

Maureen Dowd names Hillary the Valkyrie of Libya intervention, accuses her of negligence

Here, still pining for Joe:

'When you are the Valkyrie who engineers the intervention, you can’t then say it is beneath you to pay attention to the ludicrously negligent security for your handpicked choice for ambassador in a lawless country full of assassinations and jihadist training camps. ... [T]here were 600 requests from J. Christopher Stevens’s team to upgrade security in Benghazi in 2012 and 20 attacks on the mission compound in the months before the Sept. 11 siege. ...There were no call logs of talks between Stevens and Clinton, and she said she could not remember if she ever spoke to him again after she swore him in in May. “I was the boss of ambassadors in 270 countries,” she explained. But Libya was the country where she was the midwife to chaos. And she should have watched that baby like the Lady Hawk she is.'

But of course the Valkyrs picked who should die in battle, and who should live. In addition to picking Gaddafi, Hillary also picked four Americans.

Trump doesn't get why Carson is ahead in Iowa citing religion when it's support for ethanol giving Carson the leg up

Trump, quoted here:

'“I love Iowa, and I honestly believe those polls are wrong,” he said. “I’m a Presbyterian, I’m a great Christian.”'

Forty percent of Iowa corn gets diverted to ethanol production, without which food prices would drop as feed prices normalize. All of which would mean harder times for Iowans.

Carson wants to add ethanol infrastructure and increase its share in gasoline to 30% instead of the current 10%:

'“Therefore, I would probably be in favor of taking that $4 billion a year we spend on oil subsidies and using that in new fueling stations" for 30 percent ethanol blends, he added.'

If Trump were smart he would exploit the unpopularity of ethanol with the American people revealed in polling to marginalize Carson nationally on the issue, but that will never sway Iowa voters tied to ethanol for their livelihood, sort of like preaching against gambling in Vegas.

Trump can afford to lose Iowa, and probably will.

He should move on.

Obama Injustice Department closes IRS investigation without bringing charges against anyone

Reported here:

'"We found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution," the letter [to Congress] stated.'

Rush Limbaugh doesn't understand the number one reason Ben Carson is doing so well in Iowa

Ethanol.

Crony capitalism in nutty Iowa: Nearly 40% of Iowa's corn ends up as ethanol, not feed, driving up food and fuel costs

Since 2010-2011, Iowa has produced an average of 12.7 billion bushels of corn, with an average of 5 billion bushels going to ethanol production, as reported here.

It is estimated food prices would fall 13% by repealing the Renewable Fuel Standard signed by George W. Bush in 2005. Ethanol also reduces MPG by 25%, is bad for engines and does nothing to reduce carbon emissions.

Republicans should kill ethanol! 

45 minutes after blaming Benghazi on a video, Hillary e-mailed Chelsea to say it was terrorism

"YOU LIE!"

She lies like a rug, like the rest of Obama's vermin.

Kim Strassel lays it all out, here:

'At 10:30 on the night of the attack, Mrs. Clinton issued a statement about the violence, blaming the video. ... Here’s what the Benghazi committee found in Thursday’s hearing. Two hours into Mrs. Clinton’s testimony, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan referred to an email Mrs. Clinton sent to her daughter, Chelsea, at 11:12 the night of the attack, or 45 minutes after the secretary of state had issued a statement blaming YouTube-inflamed mobs. Her email reads: “Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an Al Queda-like group.” Mrs. Clinton doesn’t hedge in the email; no “it seems” or “it appears.” She tells her daughter that on the anniversary of 9/11 an al Qaeda group assassinated four Americans. ... The next afternoon, Mrs. Clinton had a call with the Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil. The notes from it are absolutely damning. The secretary of state tells him: “We know that the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack—not a protest.” And yet Mrs. Clinton, and Ms. Rice and Mr. Obama for days and days continued to spin the video lie.'

Recent Republicans who won the Iowa caucus but not the presidency

Gerald Ford, 1976

GHW Bush, 1980

Bob Dole, 1988

GHW Bush, 1992

Bob Dole, 1996

Mike Huckabee, 2008

Rick Santorum, 2012

Boston Herald bloviates against Trump, defends Bush for DHS, DNI and Patriot Act

Here:

“The FBI and the CIA and various agencies were not talking to each other,” Trump said. They didn’t like each other, they were jealous of each other, and a lot of things skipped through.”

All true. But who was the one man to successfully tackle that problem, to propose and get passed legislation to create a Department of Homeland Security, a director of National Intelligence, the Patriot Act?

That would be George W. Bush.

Oh yeah, creating another huge, unwieldy and costly bureaucracy which is unanswerable to the public, spies on its citizens, routinely lies to Congress and botched Hurricane Katrina response was a real resume enhancer for George W. Bush.

Jim Webb abandons ship, Joe Biden abandons ship . . .

. . . it's all on Hillary to scuttle now.

Biden won't be a candidate in 2016

Announcing it live right now on the radio.

"Honey, it's going to be OK."

Yes, it will.

The thing about the Bush clan

Four years of George Herbert Walker Bush gave us 8 years of Bill Clinton.

Eight years of George W. Bush gave us 8 years of Barack Obama (in progress).

And you people seriously want us to consider !Jeb?

For the record Ben Carson has been a Republican for less than a year, Trump a conflicted Republican for 17 years

Story here.

Obviously Ben Carson has not been a conviction politician.

Donald Trump registered as a Republican in New York in 1987 (under Reagan), 2009 (under Obama) and 2012 (under Obama). In 1999 (under Clinton) he had switched to the Independence Party, in 2001 (under Bush) to the Democrat Party, and in 2011 (under Obama) he affiliated with no one, according to this source.

So that's seventeen years (12 + 2 + 3) as a Republican, two as an Independence Party member, eight as a Democrat, and one year unaffiliated.

Obviously Donald Trump is a conflicted Republican, but can't possibly be described as an Obama Democrat, if anything just an anti-Bush Democrat. 

Hey Paul Ryan grow up already!

Trump pulls 32% and +10 in latest ABC/WaPo poll, climbs to 27.2 and +5.9 in Real Clear Politics poll average

Caroline Baum should be Treasury Secretary: She knows there's no reason even to think defaulting on the debt is possible

. . . unlike the rogues running the place currently, who are playing chicken with the full faith and credit of the US government.

Once again Caroline Baum cuts through the silliness and explains that there's plenty of revenue to pay what must be paid, here:

'The U.S. Treasury can’t cover all its monthly payments with incoming monthly revenue. But it can avoid default . . .. In any given month, the tax revenue flowing into the Treasury far exceeds interest payments — by a lot. Last month, for example, the Treasury took in $365 billion in tax receipts and made $21 billion in interest payments. For fiscal 2015, which ended Sept. 30, those figures are $3.2 trillion in tax receipts versus $402 billion in net interest. The U.S. government’s ability to service its debt — the principal can be rolled over — should not be an issue. But Treasury has made it one, claiming in 2011 and 2013 that it lacks the authority to prioritize debt payments, something households do all the time. ... [I]n written communications with the House Financial Services Committee in May 2014, the Treasury admitted that it would be “technologically capable” to prioritize debt payments.'

Real Clear Politics updates its poll average again to show Trump in front by 5 points with 26.2%

And another poll lifts Trump to 24.5% in first in Real Clear Politics poll average

Trump retains lead with 24% in Real Clear Politics poll average

Paul Krugman, comedian: The Danes aren't melancholy

Here:

'Nor are the Danes melancholy: Denmark ranks at or near the top on international comparisons of “life satisfaction.”'

Denmark also ranks at or near the top for antidepressant use. 

(chart source)

Real Clear Politics peels away older polls, Trump rises but lead narrows, expect fresher inputs this week

It's not just the satellite data showing a pause in global warming

The land record kept by NOAA does too. The decadal trend is actually slightly negative since January 1997: -0.19 degrees F per decade.

The warming models predict neither a pause let alone such a decline.

It's significantly warmer in Michigan, but it's nothing to get hysterical about

This graphic from Climate Central showing Michigan annual average temperature increasing 0.622 degrees F per decade 1970-2011 is pretty amazing.

I went to NCDC's Climate at a Glance page and reproduced that same result for myself just to verify it (0.6 degrees F per decade).

But one has to ask, Why confine results to 1970-2011 (the terminus ad quem for the study, published in 2012, was 2011) when you can easily go back to 1895 and get a per decade trend result for a much larger sample?

The change in average temperature on a per decade basis for the whole available sample period 1895-2014 produces 0.2 degrees F per decade in Michigan, three times less per decade than for 1970-2011 alone. The result is identical also through 2011. Despite the significant warming since the year 2000, the long term trend remains unmoved and the current period of warming may actually have run out of gas.

Michigan average temperature is increasing 0.2 degrees F per decade 1895-2014

I thought it would be interesting to use the length of the sample period in question (42 years) and go back to the beginning of the record in 1898 and look at each 42 year period from then going forward to 1973 (which takes you through 2014) to see if there are any periods of decadal warming trend comparable to +0.6 degrees F per decade in 1970-2011. I chose 1898 to avoid some gaps in the record in some places in prior years in Michigan.

The results are graphed below.

It turns out there are five 42-year periods showing temperature trend of +0.5 degrees F per decade on the left side of the graph, beginning in 1903, 1912, 1914, 1915 and 1916. (Students of the Dust Bowl beginning in 1930, take note, as also those studying economics. Weak GDP of the era may be associated with warmer climate, as it also seems to be now.)

These correspond to six 42-year periods showing temperature trend of +0.5 degrees F per decade on the right side of the graph, beginning in 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1973.

If that were all that were to it, there would be no discussion of global warming today, despite the consecutive nature of the recent examples. The two data sets are almost a wash.

What is remarkable about the more recent data is the presence of four 42-year periods of +0.6 degrees F decadal trend (beginning in 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1970), and four of +0.7 degrees F (beginning in 1965, 1966, 1971 and 1972), all in conjunction with the +0.5 degrees F periods. It's a trifecta of warming data.

Still, overall the results show that there are two distinct periods where the decadal trend is consistently +0.2 degrees F or above: the 27 years from 1898 to 1924, and the 20 years from 1954 to 1973. In the former the average of the decadal uptrend is +0.3555 degrees F per decade. In the latter the average of the decadal uptrend is +0.4950 degrees F per decade. Clearly the latter period, contemporary with us, is significantly warmer than the former, by 39%, about which some of us have become hysterical.

The antidote to this is the trough of downtrend years in the middle of the graph which coincides with the period of the global cooling hysteria of the late 1960s and 1970s. The 42-year trend record went negative for 1928-1969 and stayed negative to flat until the period 1946-1987, nineteen years straight, twenty if you count the flat period 1927-1968. Year after year, the 42-year trends ended -.1 degrees F decadal trend or -.2. Many climate scientists predicted the return of an ice age while unbeknowst to them the seeds of a warming era were already germinating.

The record shows how quickly things can turn, for example 0.5 degrees F in trend in just seven years from 1923 to 1930, from above trend on net to well below it.

The decadal trend fell by a whopping 50% between 1917-1958 and 1918-1959, from +0.4 degrees F to +0.2.

More recently the decadal trend fell by 28.5% between 1972-2013 and 1973-2014, from +0.7 degrees F to +0.5. (It's entirely within the realm of possibility that decadal trend could revert to normal by the close of 2017.)

There was just one similar abrupt change to the upside. Between 1964-2005 and 1965-2006 the decadal trend shot up 40% from +0.5 degrees F to +0.7.

Otherwise the record shows incremental change in the trend from year to year, 0.1 degree F up or down at the most.

Don't be surprised when you see it.

Trump is averaging 23.6% in Real Clear Politics poll average, in first by +4.0

Surprise, The New York Times thinks Denmark, the land of the drunk, mean and discriminatory, is just wonderful!

Here, lying through its teeth, as usual:

'[Hillary] also said, “We are not Denmark.” Nope. Not by any stretch. Denmark has a slightly higher tax load on its citizens than the United States. But it also has budget surpluses, universal health care, shorter working hours, and was recently rated by Forbes magazine as the best country in the world for business.'

Hm, the same place as this:

"Yeah yeah, I’m being too harsh. Every country has problems, Denmark’s are just different from the ones I grew up used to. Overall, Denmark is quiet, introverted and socialist, my three favorite things. Also, if I ever want to spend a weekend being drunk, mean and discriminatory, at least now I know where to go."

The Danes lately excel at being in hock, in addition to being drunk, mean and discriminatory:

"Danish households owe their creditors 321 percent of disposable incomes, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That’s the highest ratio in the world and a level that’s prompted warnings from both the OECD and the International Monetary Fund to rein in borrowing. Danish authorities have argued that households aren’t at risk thanks to high pension and household equity levels."

Denmark has the top tax rate in the OECD in 2014, 60.4%, ahead of Sweden (56.9%), Portugal (56.5%), and France (54.5%). The rate for the US is listed at 46.3%.

Denmark's top tax rate is 30% higher than in the US. That's what The New York Times means by "slightly higher".

Denmark not coincidentally is a global frontrunner in depression and mental illness. It consumes 84 antidepressant doses per day per 1000 of population, second only to Iceland (101 doses).

Bernie Sanders call your office: The poor have higher incomes in the US in real terms in most cases

Bernie Sanders' debate claims about poor US children are eviscerated here by an adherent of Austrian economics:

"Thus, the fact that the US has higher poverty rates says very little about the actual living standards of the poor. The poor have higher incomes in the US in real terms in most cases. The countries that should really give us concern are the countries that have high levels of poverty and low median incomes. ...  Greece, Mexico, Israel, Spain, Italy, Ireland, UK, and Portugal -- are the ones that have the least to offer the poor."

Obamacare's been fabulous . . . for investors in healthcare company stocks

Story here:

"Since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act took effect two years ago in the rockiest of rollouts, American health-care companies outperformed every industry in the U.S. Taken together, they are the best collection of stocks among worldwide peers."

Profiteering off of human misery is standard operating procedure in the United States of Crony Capitalism.

Bush W-2 employment 2004-07 narrowly beats Obama's 2011-14

Bush gains in W-2 employment:

2004 1.7 million

2005 2.2 million

2006 2.3 million

2007 1.7 million

total  7.9 million

Obama gains in W-2 employment:

2011 1.0 million

2012 2.2 million

2013 2.2 million

2014 2.4 million

total  7.8 million

The first six years of Bush:    5.8 million

The first six years of Obama: 2.8 million