PROFESSOR JACOBSON: Snap Out Of Your Funk, Damn It!
Hey, I’m not in a funk.
Archive for 2012
August 21, 2012
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: Box Office Report: Anti-Obama Doc Drawing Big Crowds, Even in New York City.
THE WAGES OF “SMART DIPLOMACY:” U.S. Errors Boosted Iran’s Meddling in Iraq. “A great deal of that success has been undone, alas, by two bad decisions made by President Obama: First the decision to back a coalition headed by Nouri al Maliki in forming a government even after Maliki finished second in the 2010 election. If the U.S. had gone all out to support the winning slate, led by Ayad Allawi, the result might well have been a government in Baghdad far less amenable to Iranian influence than the current one. This initial mistake was made much worse by Obama’s failure to negotiate an accord to allow U.S. troops to remain in Iraq past 2011. With the U.S. military presence gone, and our intelligence and diplomatic presence much reduced, our ability to track and counter Iranian machinations has declined alarmingly. Thus Iraq is now becoming aligned with Iran on a host of issues, helping the Iranians not only to defy sanctions but also to support the Assad regime in Damascus.”
PULP PRESERVATION: Joe Pappalardo: How to Read an Old Sci-Fi Book… Without Ruining It!
PRESIDENT DEADBEAT STRIKES AGAIN: DNC Refuses To Reimburse Conn. Town For Overtime Costs During Obama Visit.
Campaigning as he’s governed — on your dime!
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BICYCLE STARTUP wins uphill race. Another installment in the way small is the new big, but small also needs a new kind of big.
VALERIE JARRETT: Tax Avoider? “Well it’s just another Chicago insider deal that goes all the way up to the White House.”
UPDATE: Reader Randy Wilde emails: “And these are the people who want to tell us what a person’s ‘fair share’ is?” Yes.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Hey, look: White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett’s real-estate investment jumped in value between 2010 and 2011, documents show. “Senior White House adviser and long-time Obama confidant Valerie Jarrett’s role in a number of controversial Chicago housing developments has garnered her investments worth millions of dollars while highlighting the administration’s extensive business ties to presidential donors.” Good thing Obama’s standing up to those tax-avoiding fatcats!
PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: Ryan revives Obama gaffe, says he’s ‘happy to be clinging to guns, religion.’
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) began resurrecting some of President Obama’s most famous gaffes on the campaign trail Tuesday, reminding a crowd assembled at a Pennsylvania steel plant of the president’s remark four years ago that some voters are “clinging to their guns and religion.”
“Remember this other time when he said people want to cling to their guns and religion?” Ryan said. “Hey, I’m a Catholic deer hunter, I’m happy to be clinging to my guns and religion.”
Well, I’m neither, but good for him.
CAMPAIGNING AS HE’S GOVERNED: Obama returns to school district stiffed by his campaign for four years on $25,000 tab. Romney campaign pays school district in advance, while president’s campaign vague on payment plans for current visit. “President Barack Obama is set to hold a campaign rally at Canyon Springs High School in North Las Vegas on Wednesday, his first visit to Southern Nevada since Nevada Journal revealed that his campaign left taxpayers here on the hook for the costs of events at local public schools. Obama’s campaign, Obama for America (OFA), left the Clark County School District with nearly $25,000 in unpaid bills from two rallies at Bonanza and Coronado high schools in 2008. Neither CCSD nor the Obama campaign would confirm for Nevada Journal the campaign’s plans to pay for Wednesday’s event.”
TAXPAYER-FUNDED ELECTIONEERING AND PAYOLA: Labor Department spends stimulus funds for ads during Olbermann, Maddow shows — Contract shows no new jobs were created. No, but it’s all about one job being retained. . . .
SMITTY: Separated At Birth: Kerry Gauthier / Gerry Connolly Edition. “So I’m wondering, Twitter, to what degree does the 17yo boy in MN symbolize the mainstream media, polishing the Democrat…brass, as ’twere.”
SHOCKER: Binge Drinking Makes Students Happy.
WAS TODAY OBAMA’S BUNNYSUIT MOMENT? Heh. Caption contest here.
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EXTORTION: Obama: Massive Defense Cuts Unless I Get a Tax Increase.
Hey, Prez, I gotcher tax increases right here.
TRANSPARENCY: Democratic Convention won’t release donors’ names?
STACY MCCAIN: ‘Because Truth Is an Absolute Defense.’
GOVERNMENT: Phoenix Woman Ordered to Not Give Out Water in 112 Degree Heat Because She Lacked a Permit. But she’s not backing down: “She is threatening to sue the city with help from the Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties group with a focus on religious liberties, if the city doesn’t apologize and swear to train its enforcement officers to not make the same mistake again.”
READER DENNIS MULCARE sends these pictures from Paul Ryan’s rally this afternoon in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He reports: “The crowd was huge, thousands and thousands, a throng actually.”
NEW YORK’S MESSED-UP REAL ESTATE MARKET: Rent or Buy? With Rents on the Rise, New Yorkers Do the Math. “The average Manhattan apartment rented for a record $3,459 in July, according to Citi Habitats, which called the price the highest since it began tracking rents in 2002. And with the vacancy rate hovering around 1 percent, landlords aren’t willing to cut deals. By contrast apartments for sale have held relatively steady in price from the start of the year and are down from the market peak in 2008. Combine that with low interest rates, and the cost of buying an apartment is about the same, if not cheaper on a monthly basis in many neighborhoods, than the cost of renting. But making the leap to homeownership is complicated by tough lending standards, the often hefty down payments and other obstacles that would-be buyers must clear in order to break into the New York market. And even if you clear all the hurdles, there are often trade-offs.”
Such as the fact that you’re paying that much for an apartment that would fit comfortably in my basement. Twice.