Obama flashback 2008: "My Muslim faith"

Here.

Oops. I meant the totally opposite thing. 

George Bush didn't keep us safe: 911 happened under his watch

Two doors down there's a memory that won't ever end

Rush Limbaugh can't remember shit about taxes under Reagan: Why do we listen to this guy?

Here yesterday, wrong on both years, and forgetting that G. H. W. Bush raised taxes by adding a 31% bracket in 1991, getting himself defeated by Clinton in 1992:

"What did Ronald Reagan do? When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 the top marginal tax rate was 90%. And the amount of money raised by the tax code was about $500 billion back then. When Reagan left office in 1989, there were three tax rates, essentially two, but there was a 31% bubble in there. But the top 90%, that marginal rate of 90% had been dropped to 28%. And the amount of money generated by the tax code had doubled, almost a billion dollars, by reducing tax rates."

Revenues in 1981 were $599.3 billion nominal, in 1989 $991.1 billion, up 65%, not 100%. Revenues did not double until 1993-1994, after Bush and then Clinton raised marginal rates as high as 39.6%. Revenues did not double again until 2006. The record shows that whether marginal rates were higher or lower, revenues took twelve to thirteen years to double.

What Rush Limbaugh means by "doubled, almost a billion dollars" is anybody's guess. Only his pharmacist knows for sure.

The facts are that Ronald Reagan persuaded Democrats to bring the top marginal rate down from 70% in 1981 to 50% 1982-1986. After the tax reform of 1986 the top marginal rate dropped to 38.5% in 1987. For three years 1988 through 1990 there were just two marginal rates: 15% and 28%. That was the brief golden age of taxation under Reagan, which his successor totally screwed up.

Reagan had NOTHING to do with the introduction of a 31% bracket. That was all on George Herbert Walker Bush, for which the Democrats recently gave him the Profiles in Courage Award.

Carly Fiorina was against the bailouts in 2009 after the wind changed, but was for them in 2008 with John McCain

Against.

For.

Just like Sarah Palin.

Donald Trump has Tom Brady, Mike Ditka and Bobby Knight on the team

Charles Cook embraces the impotence of contemporary conservatism faced with Donald Trump

Where else but in National Review here, the locus of conservatism as ineffectual cult and ideology, which finds it impossible to revolt against anything except for the rebels:

"As it happens, Trump’s critics do grasp the appeal [of revolt]. What they do not do, however, is act upon it in this manner. The temptation to deliver a bloody nose to one’s ideological enemies is a human and comprehensible one, by no means limited in its allure to the disgruntled part of the Republican primary electorate. But temptation and reasonable conduct are two separate things entirely, and they should always be treated as such. Can one understand the instinct that is on display? Sure. Can one look beneath the surface and do anything other than despair? I’m afraid not. Such as they are, the explanations provided by Trump’s discordant choir are entirely risible and easily dismantled. Great, you’re annoyed! But then what?"

He's obviously proud of it. In 1776 he'd be called a royalist.

Was taking up arms against England "reasonable conduct"? Only a Catholic sensibility could fail to grasp the point. "But then what?" Well, a long war of several years, full of privations and without guaranty of success, followed by another long period of several years preparing for and culminating in a constitutional convention, during which local and colonial institutions were strong enough to support the absence of a centralized framework. The same is still true today, if only the locals more frequently told the federal courts to go to hell, as the Kentucky county clerk recently did.

By definition, an ideology ought to have some ideas in it which form a system, and should be, when all is said and done, unrealistic. That pretty much describes American conservatism since forever: unable to roll back anything, including the income tax, direct election of Senators, universal suffrage, the Federal Reserve Act, the Reapportionment Act of 1929, Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage, Obamacare, and the enormous regulatory code, and unable to permanently refound the country on any constitutional principles, say, of limited government or separation of powers. Conservatism has a massive record of zero achievement while liberalism's untruths keep marching on like tanks in Tiananmen Square.

Trump's camp, meanwhile, thinks three modest things: the way to make America great again is to restore law and order by starting with enforcing its borders and putting an end to illegal immigration, to bring jobs back to Americans by reforming the tax code, developing energy independence, cutting wasteful spending and punishing unpatriotic corporations who profit from exporting jobs, and to rebuild the military to protect freedom at home and for our friends and allies abroad.

It takes near religious nuttery to call the proponent of these measures "a self-interested narcissist and serial heretic whose entirely inchoate political platform bends cynically to the demands of the moment."

To understand Trump, it takes a village . . . of Protestants.

Pompous ass Steve Gruber Show doesn't fact check while imagining it possesses journalistic integrity

"49 million on food stamps."

"McCain got more votes than Romney."

Marco Rubio, the intellectual who played football for Tarkio College in 1989-1990

Donald Trump again brought NFL-level ratings to Republican debate, this time 23 million to CNN, its most-watched program ever

Reported here:

"Wednesday's prime time GOP debate averaged 22.9 million viewers, making it the most-watched program in CNN's history. ... CNN's most-watched program overall was a special "Larry King Live" episode in 1993. The episode featured Al Gore and Ross Perot debating NAFTA and averaged 16.8 million viewers. ... These are NFL-level ratings -- affirming that the Donald Trump fueled Republican debate slate is one of the most popular television shows of the year."

Republicans in denial: 911 happened under George W. Bush's watch, as did the 2008 financial panic

George W. Bush remains the elephant in the Republican debate room. We're not safer since he was elected in 2000, and we're not richer, either.

Obama has failed miserably to fix it, and the "it" still needs fixing.

Discussed here. 

Destroying Trump means even disgraced Rolling Stone becomes a credible source

The Daily Beast, here:

'Asked what she thought of the comment and of Trump’s explanation that he was referring to her “persona” when he told a Rolling Stone reporter to “look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?" Fiorina paused and then went in for the kill.

'“I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” she said.'

Feminism uber alles, even if all you've got is a made up story about campus rape.

Obama says America is great right now, on same day his own Census Bureau reports people are 6.5% poorer than in 2007

Obama here.

Marketwatch here:

"The Census Bureau reported that median household income was $53,657 in 2014. That’s less than the 2013 median of $54,462, but not statistically different. What is of significance is that, when adjusted for inflation, the median household generated 6.5% less than they did in 2007, the year before the recession."

Ben Carson's church believes carbon dioxide is a pollutant causing climate change and should be reduced

Here:

"To keep climate change within bearable limits, the emissions of greenhouse gasses, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), need to be significantly reduced. Industrialized countries are the main source of these emissions, while the first victims are the small island states and low-lying coastal countries."

Real Clear Politics poll average updated to show Trump in first with 30.5% in September first half

Something down is up in Russia

Normally traffic from Russia represents over 10% of my blog audience, going back years, but in the last week that has dropped off the cliff to zero.

It's like somebody turned off the spigot.

Reuters provides clues here:

"The large Moscow street protests of 2011 and 2012 illustrated the connection between economic growth and demands for greater political participation by the chief beneficiaries of Russia’s then-prosperity. Now, as the collapse in oil prices and Western sanctions undermine the economy, the mood inside Russia could hardly be more different. The creative class in big cities like Moscow is depressed and increasingly disengaged from political life. Some have given up and are just leaving the country. The combination of economic crisis, heavy propaganda, patriotic mobilization and hybrid war inside Ukraine have produced conformism, passivity and insensitivity."

CBS/NYT poll drags down Trump in Real Clear Politics average on eve of debate two, fewer than 30% of those polled were Republicans

Trump climbs above 30% for first time in Real Clear Politics poll average out this morning

Joke of the day: Rick Perry said he had three reasons for ending his campaign for president . . .

. . . but he could remember only two of them.

h/t Chris Plante

Warming over 100 years from 1990 predicted by IPCC is falling short by 62% due to 18 year, 8 month pause

Reported here:

"From January 1979 to August 2015, the trend was just 1.21 K/century.

"In 1990, the IPCC had predicted near-straight-line warming of 1 K to 2025, equivalent to almost 2.8 K/century. Of this warming, more than 0.7 K should have happened by now, but only 0.26 K has actually occurred. ...

"The UAH and RSS satellite data both show the Pause, though the terrestrial tamperature datasets have all been altered in the past year with the effect of concealing it."

Gold King Mine disaster video released by the incompetent EPA: let's dig here and see why it's leaking!

Link here for the video.

When you plug leaks at other old mines nearby, the water has to go somewhere. Minor toxic leaks are obviously preferable to releasing by accident 3 million gallons of heavy metal contaminated water into the Animas River.