Why no one cares Obama is a miserable failure

48.5 million prescriptions in 2013

41.4 million prescriptions in 2013

Prescriptions for the top 25 psychiatric drugs have soared almost 37% from 2009 to 429 million in 2013. Data here and here. 

Scott Walker pulls a Romney, flip-flops on amnesty

This weekend, Scott Walker disavowed amnesty for illegals, as reported here:

“My view has changed. I’m flat out saying it. Candidates can say that,” Walker said in an interview that aired on “Fox News Sunday.”

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The-girl-can-change-her-mind excuse is fine, except that this is obviously a political ploy, a fake to the right by an otherwise libertarian immigration enthusiast, coming as it does in 2015 after the election of 2014 as Walker dips his toe in the water for 2016 and finds the temperature acceptable.

Genuine conservatives have usually thought things like this through long before they have become candidates and have formulated their policy positions accordingly. It doesn't speak well for the depth of Walker's convictions that he's only just suddenly realized that illegal immigrants are law-breakers. Walker's conversion to this point of view is welcome, but he hasn't yet earned the right to sing in the choir about it, let alone lead the choir.

Walker gave every indication that serving out a second term as governor of Wisconsin was his intention, too, and that's gone out the window:

“It was only about two months ago he was running for re-election and when people asked him if he was going to serve his term or run for president, his standard line was ‘I`m committed to being Governor,'” [UW Professor] Lee said.

In fact, during the October 10th gubernatorial debate in Eau Claire, Walker was asked whether he’d serve a full term if re-elected.

“My plan if elected is to be here for four years,” Governor Walker said at the time.

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It's already clear that a President Walker would be another president we cannot trust, whose promises come with expiration dates.

The tripod goes up on the Tanana River in Nenana, AK next Sunday, March 8th at 3:30pm

The Tripod Days schedule is here, inaugurating the Nenana Ice Classic 2015.

The latest ice-out ever was May 20th, 2013, covered here. The earliest was April 20th, 1940. In 2014 ice-out was pretty early, on April 25th.

You can watch for the ice-out on the Nenana Ice Cam, which is updated every 30 seconds, here. Next week you can watch this cam as the tripod is installed on the frozen Tanana River. A raffle is held awarding a big jackpot to the closest guesser of the ice-out. When the ice goes out, the tripod goes whoosh! with the ice. People have been known to park in the parking lot on the shoreline and amuse cam-viewers with their antics in the runup to the ice-out.

Great Lakes average ice cover climbs to 88.75% after 59 days of 2015

Here's the recent history of day 59 data for average ice cover in the Great Lakes:

2011: 34.87%

2012: 06.09%

2013: 18.67%

2014: 85.40%

2015: 88.75%.

Ice cover conditions can change rapidly in the Great Lakes as temperatures drop.

2014 began the year with just 20% coverage, surpassing 60% by the first of February as the average air temperature plunged in January. For example, Grand Rapids, Michigan finished January 2014 6.3 degrees below normal on average. Ice coverage peaked above 92% by the end of the first week of March after a much colder February than normal. Again for example Grand Rapids air temperature finished February 2014 9.1 degrees below normal on average.

2015 is repeating this pattern to a significant degree. Beginning the year with just 5.65% ice coverage, the average cover climbed to only 38% by the first of February 2015 as January was not as cold as the previous year. For example, average air temperature in Grand Rapids was only 3.2 degrees below normal vs. 6.3 degrees the year before. Ice cover rocketed up on average in February, however, as the temperature plunged to finish the month 13.5 degrees below normal on average in Grand Rapids vs. 9.1 degrees below normal the previous year. It took just 11 days in February 2015 for average ice cover to surpass 60%, and just 16 days to surpass 80%.

Average ice cover in the Great Lakes may well surpass 92% as average air temperatures have averaged 1.3 degrees colder in the first two months of 2015 than in 2014.

Temperature in Grand Rapids, Michigan, averaged 13.5 degrees F below normal in February

The average temperature in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was 13.3 degrees F in February 2015. The normal average is 26.8 degrees.

So far in 2015 Grand Rapids is 16.7 degrees below normal. In 2014 at this point average temperature was 15.4 degrees below normal.

Scott Walker's immigration problem is that he doesn't put Americans and legal immigrants ahead of violators

"If people want to come here and work hard and benefit, I don't care whether they come from Mexico or Ireland or Germany or Canada or South Africa or anywhere else. I want them here."

"Not only do they need to fix things for people already here, or find some way to do it, there's got to be a larger way to fix the system in the first place. Because if it wasn't so cumbersome, if there wasn't such a long wait, if it wasn't so difficult to get in, we wouldn't have the other problems that we have (with people living here illegally)."

-- Scott Walker, July 3, 2013, "Walker Endorses Path To Citizenship"

We know from this that there's a way to make the enemy cry

Here.

Cry he must.

The Euro for Europeans but Germany, Raus!

Seen here:

German actions have not themselves been entirely pure. In 2002, Germany, along with France, began the process of easing the strict rules of the Maastricht Treaty when it was able to get an exemption from the cap on budget deficits at 3 percent of GDP, essentially scrapping the Stability and Growth Pact. German banks also had their eyes wide open in awarding loans to Greece and the other weaker European economies, throwing prudential caution aside. In fact, some major financial and corporate entities have allegedly facilitated deceptions by earlier Greek governments or to have been involved in outright corruption in connection with some loans. Then, there is also the inconvenient fact that outstanding German debt is itself well above the 60 percent cap in the euro zone ground rules. Another inconvenient fact is that just 11 percent of the facilities extended to Greece have been used to support the Greek state, as the facilities have ultimately been used to prop up the banking sector in the lending countries.

Although Germany was not responsible for the financial collapse of 2008 that set the stage for the long crisis in the euro zone, its neo-mercantilist economic and trade policies, which one Philippe Legrain dubbed Merkelism, has exacerbated the situation and impeded an effective response. Germans take justifiable pride in the excellent quality of their industrial products, which produced yet another record trade surplus of €215 billion in 2014, second only to China. Yet, large balance of trade surpluses in Germany mean that other European countries are running large balance of trade deficits, which exert downward pressure on those other economies. The counter that other countries should attempt to be more like German industry rings only partially true. Once again, Germany is itself not adhering to European rules in that a trade surplus of 7.4 percent of GDP well exceeds the target cap under the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure. Even worse, that cap was set abnormally high as, on the flip side, euro zone countries are not supposed to run trade deficits greater than 4 percent of GDP. The very rules build in and sanction a balance of trade advantage to Germany. This advantage is enabled not just by German industrial competitiveness but by the fact that the euro confers a much more favorable exchange rate than were Germany still operating under its own independent Deutsche Mark. This fact has led some commentators to brand Germany a stealth currency manipulator and even for the country itself to be removed from the euro zone.

When Muslim fanatics destroy artifacts, now that's extremism to CNBC

Cutting off heads and burning people alive in cages is one thing, but destroying priceless artifacts? O.M.G!

Seen here.

Liberal National Journal runs time clock counting down to DHS funding deadline

Here.

Hype. Advocacy. Partisanship.

Latest graph from the CDC shows Ebola epidemic is still out of control in West Africa

Oh yeah that'll work: Amazon hires Obama's liar to run PR and lobbying

Jay Carney.

Story here.

Senator Rand Paul is clearly desperate for attention, accuses Jeb Bush of marijuana hypocrisy

Seen here:

Paul, who like Bush is considering whether to seek the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, contrasted Bush's opposition to legalizing medical marijuana with his admitted drug use while a student at Phillips Academy, an elite prep school in Andover, Mass.

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Notice the libertarian Paul isn't going after Bush's amnesty stand. No, it's not that Jeb isn't conservative enough, it's that he isn't libertarian enough.

Meanwhile Scott Walker and Jeb Bush have sucked all the air out of Rand Paul's room. Paul is way back in the polling, pulling 9.5% compared to 13% and 14.5% for the respective front runners in the latest Real Clear Politics average.

At this stage of the game it looks like this is going to be a Bush Walker ticket in 2016.

US Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain remind me of the spineless Michigan Republican legislature

Here's Lindsey Grahamnesty:

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopolous” Sunday that he supports voting for a clean DHS bill and letting the court decide on immigration.

“I hope that Republicans will come together and back the court case, file a friend of the court brief with the court, and fund DHS,” Graham said. “I am willing and ready to pass a DHS funding bill and let this play out in court. The worst possible outcome for this nation is to defund the Department of Homeland Security, given the multiple threats we face to our homeland, and I will not be part of that.”

Graham’s main Senate cohort, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, had a similar sentiment Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“We now have an exit sign. And that is the federal court decision saying that the president's actions unilaterally are unconstitutional,” McCain said. “And I think we have got a great argument to the United States Supreme Court, where it will go, because 22 times the president of the United States said it was unconstitutional for him to take the action that he had decided to take.”

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In other words, elected representatives to Washington DC should do everything but represent their constituents in order that nothing may make them a target on election day.

These spineless cowards hide behind the skirts of the judicial system in a way which reminds me of nothing so much as the politics of the state of Michigan, where legislators defer everything controversial to the decision of the electorate.

Here in Michigan incendiary issues like taxes and spending are typically put to a referendum and made a part of the constitution, which can't be changed without another such vote of the people, giving the politicians a skirt to hide behind less black than the robes worn by the judiciary, but just as effete.

We might as well dispense with the expense and farce of representation, and let the courts decide everything, or the people, since we have no men left to lead us.

Great Lakes Ice Cover is 25% ahead of this time last year: a warning for GDP?

Last year on this date the total ice cover was just 67%, when GDP was going negative supposedly because of the terrible winter we were having. The year before, ice cover on this date was 74.3%. As of yesterday, ice covers 84.4% of the Great Lakes, 25% ahead of last year.

Will GDP tank in 1Q2015 because of this?

We won't have what passes for complete knowledge about this until the end of June.

Data here.

If Obama can say Edward Snowden and George Bush aren't patriots, then Rudy Giuliani can say whatever he wants about Obama

Obama called Snowden unpatriotic in August 2013

Obama called Bush unpatriotic July 3, 2008

WaPo worries about Jeb's wife's spending of personal money, totally ignores Michelle Obama's marathon milking of the taxpayers

It took a FOIA request of the most transparent government ever to find out that Moochelle Obama milked the taxpayers for a $250,000 vacation in Ireland in 2013, but the Washington Post is all abuzz tonight over Jeb Bush's wife's personal spending on jewelry.

Keith Koffler reported here in April 2014 about Moochelle:

"First Lady Michelle Obama’s egregious use of the G-8 Summit in Northern Ireland last June to stage a luxury, touristy side-trip for herself and her daughters to Dublin cost taxpayers at least $251,161 according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch.

"But the cost is almost certainly much higher. For example, a separate Air Force jet that appeared to be Air Force Two, which costs more than $10,000 an hour to fly, was dispatched to Ireland to handle Michelle’s vacation-related travel. This cost is not included in the figures provided to Judicial Watch."

But WaPo's story, "Documents show the expensive tastes of Jeb Bush’s low-key wife", here, only has this to stay about the extravagant and unethical spending of President Obama's wife:

"First lady Michelle Obama drew fire for wearing a pair of sneakers that cost upward of $500 when she went to bag groceries at a food bank in 2009."

Senate Democrats to mount fourth filibuster to block funding of Dept. of Homeland Security before it runs out of money

Here's the lede from Politico:

Late Monday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will force the fourth vote in three weeks on a bill to fund the massive agency that protects Americans from terrorists, floods and incursions across the borders. Senate Democrats will almost certainly block it again.

Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani tells it like it is about Obama the commie

Quoted here:

“I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that this President loves America. He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up: To love this country."

“Look, this man was brought up basically in a white family, so whatever he learned or didn’t learn, I attribute this more to the influence of communism and socialism. I don’t (see) this President as being particularly a product of African-American society or something like that. He isn’t. Logically, think about his background. . . The ideas that are troubling me and are leading to this come from communists with whom he associated when he was 9 years old."

Germany blinks: Greeks win time, funding and an end to previous austerity agreements

Reported here:

Mr Tsipras added the extension would finally put an end to the "asphyxiation" Greece has suffered since 2012.

"Yesterday's agreement with the Eurogroup cancels the commitments of the previous government for cuts to wages and pensions, for firings in the public sector, for VAT rises on food, medicine," added the prime minister.

"We averted plans by blind conservative powers, within and outside the country, to asphyxiate Greece on February 28," he said.