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

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

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

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

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

How crazy is that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fox had the story here, WaPo here.

Michigan Democrat Calls Truly Closed Republican Primary "Phony"

The Detroit News has the story, here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like that's the only thing.

From Margaret Carlson for Bloomberg, here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks a lot, pal.

American Idle Presidency: Doing Everything Except His Job

(source)

We Already Got The Change From Obama, And It Sucks

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

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

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

Drudge Makes 'People for the American Way' Story Against Santorum Lead

Today.

The left had the story five days ago here, and later here.





Is Drudge's sin of "talking like the left" the same as Newt's attacking "capitalism" back around January 11?

Georgia Boys Are In The Militia Whether They Know It Or Not

So says James Garland here:

According to the state code, “the unorganized militia shall consist of all able-bodied male residents of the state between the ages of 17 and 45 who are not serving in any force of the organized militia or who are not on the state reserve list or the state retired list and who are, or who have declared their intention to become, citizens of the United States.” Thus, the vast majority of military-aged men in the state are in the unorganized militia, whether they realize it or not. ...

[T]he long-established expectation concerning volunteer organizations such as the State Defense Force and the unorganized militia is that they outfit and equip themselves. They traditionally have been expected to arm themselves and be ready to take action on behalf of the community should the need for such action arise. Given this fact, any contention that the Second Amendment prohibits the private possession of firearms would seem irreconcilably flawed.

Dutch Protest They Euthanize At Most 3.2 Percent Of Elderly, Not 10 Percent

Jawohl. And the Holocaust of Jews is just exaggerated by Zionists.

See, we're not such bad people . . . we don't kill anywhere near the number extremists claim we do.

Buzzfeed has the story, here:

Dutch sources estimate that legal euthanasia is the cause of what the Christian paper Nederlands Dagblad put at 3.2% of deaths at the most liberal estimate, and others put around 2%. Public statistics, which have been reported since the practice was legalized in 2002, cite 3,136 reports of euthanasia out of a total of 136,000 in the Netherlands in 2011, a bit more than 2%.

From the Wikipedia entry on the Jews in the Netherlands:

Another explanation is that vast majority of the nation accommodated itself to circumstances: "In their preparations for the extermination of the Jews living in The Netherlands, the Germans could count on the assistance of the greater part of the Dutch administrative infrastructure. The occupiers had to employ only a relatively limited number of their own. Dutch policemen rounded up the families to be sent to their deaths in Eastern Europe. Trains of the Dutch railways staffed by Dutch employees transported the Jews to camps in The Netherlands which were transit points to Auschwitz, Sobibor, and other death camps." With respect to Dutch collaboration, Eichmann quoted as saying 'The transports run so smoothly that it is a pleasure to see.'".


The Dutch are as morally hollow now as they were then.

The Cost of Food Stamps? $75 Billion. 'Disability' Dwarfs That: $200 Billion Annually.

So says this story from The New York Post:

As of January, the federal government was mailing out disability checks to more than 10.5 million individuals, including 2 million to spouses and children of disabled workers, at a cost of record $200 billion a year, recent research from JPMorgan Chase shows.

The sputtering economy has fueled those ranks. Around 5.3 percent of the population between the ages of 25 and 64 is currently collecting federal disability payments, a jump from 4.5 percent since the economy slid into a recession.

Mental-illness claims, in particular, are surging.

During the recent economic boom, only 33 percent of applicants were claiming mental illness, but that figure has jumped to 43 percent, says Rutledge, citing preliminary results from his latest research.


The annual cost of the food stamp program is detailed here annually going back to 1969.

More On Santorum's Weaselly 'My Wife Wrote It' Excuse: Isn't He Now An Admitted Plagiarist?

From Dan Amira at New York Magazine here:

George Stephanopoulos brought up a controversial passage from Santorum's 2005 book, It Takes a Family, in which Santorum contends, "The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness." Santorum insisted to Stephanopoulos that he isn't saying women shouldn't work, only that there's nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home mom, if that's what they choose. The explanation wasn't new; Santorum has been asked about that quote many times. What was new was that this time, Santorum added that, oh, by the way, "that section of the book was co-written, if you want to be honest about it, by my wife." ...

You also have to wonder why Santorum is only now bringing up his wife's co-authorship of that controversial passage. When the book initially came out, in 2005, Santorum was constantly on TV defending this very same "radical feminists" quote. But, curiously, he never mentioned that his wife helped to write it, according to a search of Nexis transcripts — not in a July 25 interview on Hannity and Colmes, or in a Today show interview that same morning, or a July 27 interview on Hardball, or a July 28 interview on CNN's American Morning, or a July 31 interview once with ABC's This Week (deja vu!), or an August 5 interview with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC.

More recently, Santorum was asked about this very same passage during a May 2011 Fox News presidential debate in South Carolina, and again, he neglected to credit his wife.

A failure to provide proper attribution for someone else's words in order to make them appear to be your own is called plagiarism.

Sen. Rick Santorum's Anti-Protestantism: They are 'Gone From Christianity'

As usual for the senator, the following is inarticulately stated, but nevertheless it is clear enough that Sen. Santorum operates under an anti-Protestant Catholicism which was more common in the past and which finds the short-comings of Protestantism's more liberal denominations too good to pass up.

Excerpted from remarks made in Florida in 2008, referenced here and here:

"We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic, sure the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it."


A bunch of us Protestants think the same thing, but that's another story.

Moochelle Obama's 16 Vacations in Three Years Fly in Face of Economy in Shambles

Detailed here.

The president here a year ago obviously was talking about a different family cutting back, not his own:

Just like every family in America, the federal government has to do two things at once. It has to live within its means while still investing in the future. If you’re a family trying to cut back, you might skip going out to dinner, you might put off a vacation.