CHANGE: Romney’s Target Map Expands.
Archive for 2012
October 9, 2012
NO. NEXT QUESTION? CNBC: Is The Housing Recovery As Robust As The Headlines? Bottom line, after all the happytalk: “Recoveries, with attendant price increases, were anticipated in the spring and summer of 2009, 2010 and 2011; by the fall and winter the predictions of price changes were amended to reflect further price declines. In actuality, after netting out the seasonal factors, home prices have been little changed in the past few years.”
UPDATE (From Ed): Well, it’s as robust as CNBC’s headlines…
HYDROGEN CARS: A Dream That Won’t Die.
HEY, IT’S NOT LIKE THERE’S MUCH BREAKING IN THE NEWS, ANYHOW: No White House Press Briefing in Last 15 Days.
THE KILLER MUPPET: It Looks Like Carter All Over Again, Michael Ledeen writes. “Back then, the symbol of a failed president was a big rabbit. Now, it’s a big bird.”
RELATED: “The Republican National Committee points out that in the last few days, Obama has mentioned Big Bird eight times, and Elmo five — and Libya not at all.”
VIDEO FLASHBACK: Obama Energy Secretary Chu — Lower Gas Prices Not A Goal.
RELATED: Carbon Tax Will Double U.K. Electricity Bills.
This is seen as a feature, not a bug by Chu, his boss, and the MSM.
[youtube zDAmPIq29ro]
ANDREA MITCHELL/OBAMA ADMINISTRATION (But I repeat myself): Remain calm, all is well!
Meanwhile: Report: Shake-Up in Works at Obama Campaign Headquarters.
POLL DANCING, HIDE THE INCREASE EDITION: NYT’s Nate Silver Exposed as Obama Propagandist. I wonder what Jornolist is called these days?
REDEFINING MEDICINE with Apps and iPads.
Related: The Doctor’s Bag For The New Millennium. Plus, the revival of “bedside medicine.”
DOES REPORTING ON GOVERNMENT WASTE MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE? Well, The Washington Examiner Watchdog Team has in recent weeks put the spotlight on outrageous spending by USDA and VA on employee conferences. And people on the Hill are beginning to demand scalps. And, oh by the way, the newspaper is just getting started in reporting, for example, how federal bureaucrats throughout the government routinely use tax-funded conferences as vacation planning tools.
AT AMAZON, warehouse deals on Logitech. Keyboards, webcams, headsets, and more.
Also, today only: Autodesk Sketchbook Pro 6, $28.99.
A GOAT OWNED IN COMMON ALWAYS STARVES: In my USA Today column, I talk about “community” resources and more. (Bumped).
OBAMACARE, RECONSIDERED?: The Supreme Court has given the government 30 days to respond to a request by Liberty University to grant a rehearing on its constitutional claims against Obamacare. Specifically, because the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against Liberty on technical grounds that the US Supreme Court disagreed with (the Anti-Injunction Act), Liberty’s petition for rehearing argues that its claims should now be given their day before the Supreme Court. And Liberty’s claims go well beyond the claims presented in the NFIB v. Sebelius case decided by the Supreme Court this summer. Specifically, Liberty claims that the individual mandate violates the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, by forcing religiously-affiliated entities to indirectly subsidize abortions, which must be covered by post-Obamacare health insurance policies.
ALSO, NON-YOUTH VOTES: Obama risks millions of youth votes due to economy, debate performance. But the young have been particularly hard hit by Obama’s redistributive, job-killing programs:
September jobs data showed that 11.8 of younger would-be workers are unemployed, with another 4.8 percent stuck in part-time jobs.
Only “29% of Millennials believe that the economic policies coming out of Washington are helping them, while 47% of Millennials say that the economic policies coming out of Washington are hurting them,” according to a July poll conducted for Generation Opportunity by the polling company inc./WomanTrend.
“If you were at 66 percent [in 2008], and you’re sitting between 49 percent and 54 percent, you’ve got a major problem,” Conway said.
Sounds like some are wising up.
TRANQUILITY BASE HERE, THE EGO HAS LANDED: “When President Barack Obama stepped off the stage in Denver last week the 60 million Americans watching the debate against Mitt Romney already knew it had been a disaster for him,” Toby Harnden writes in the London Daily Mail. “But what nobody knew, until now, was that Obama believed he had actually won.”
And note this, later in the same article:
Obama also decided to take a break to visit the Hoover Dam. ‘Its spectacular, and I’ve never seen it before,’ he told reporters during the visit, which came about because an aide had mentioned the dam was nearby. I said, ‘Well, we’ve got to go check it out”.’
Talk about two administrations in one, or as Joel Kotkin noted in late 2010 in the Politico:
When FDR commissioned projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, he literally brought light to darkened regions. The loyalty created by FDR and Truman built a base of support for liberalism that lasted for nearly a half-century.
Today’s liberals don’t show enthusiasm for airports or dams — or anything that may kick up some dirt. Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Deanna Archuleta, for example, promised a Las Vegas audience: “You will never see another federal dam.”
The Obama administration is as for-gainst dam building as its parent company, MSNBC.
RELATED: “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.” — or to put it another way, “You know, I actually believe my own bullsh*t.”
14-YEAR-OLD GIRL SHOT IN THE HEAD for generating “negative propaganda” about Muslims, say the Pakistani Taliban, generating negative propaganda. “She considers President Obama as her ideal. Malala [Yousafzai] is the symbol of the infidels and obscenity.” Multiple ironies, but nothing here is funny.
READER BOOK PLUG: Stella Paul writes to ask that I plug her new book, What I Miss About America: Reflections From The Golden Age Of Hope And Change. $1.99 on Kindle. (Bumped).
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
What’s stopped us is the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics — the ease with which we’re distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our preference for scoring cheap political points instead of rolling up our sleeves and building a working consensus to tackle big problems.
— Then. Senator Barack Obama at start of his presidential campaign in 2007, as seen in a new post by Charlie Spiering at the Washington Examiner, “Video: With Big Bird ad, Obama plays the small politics he once denounced.”
Meanwhile, at Commentary today, Alana Goodman asks, “When Will Obama Respond to Benghazi Attack?”
The Obama administration may want to wait until after the election to respond, but each day of inaction makes him look weaker to the American public and our allies and enemies abroad. Thursday, the day Vice President Biden debates Paul Ryan, will mark one month since the consulate attack. Obama won’t be able to put off a response — or at least an explanation for the delay — for much longer.
In the meantime, leave no Muppet behind.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): A reader emails: “Lost by Obama: Wall Street, Main Street and now Sesame Street.”
And another reader emails: “Today’s Obama for President commercial was brought to you by the number ‘1.1 trillion’ and the word ‘deficit’.”