WASHINGTON POST: Economic news is bad for Obama’s reelection bid. “Any notion that President Obama’s reelection campaign was gaining momentum was shaken this week by a string of worrisome economic reports showing weakness in the job market and new lows for housing prices.”

Heinlein: Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded- here and there, now and then- are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.This is known as ‘bad luck.

It’s well-established that in good times and bad, Republicans call for lower taxes. Always. So lefty blogger Joel Mathis threw down a challenge to William Voegeli over at the NoLeftTurns blog.

How low is low enough?

Voegeli's response in 20th (and 21st) Century American political theory in a nutshell.  One way to describe the difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals want government spending to be the independent variable that determines tax levels, and conservatives want government spending to be the dependent variable determined by taxes.

You might wanna read it all.

Two years ago she wrote of Clare Booth Luce’s observation that all presidents have a sentence: “He fought to hold the union together and end slavery.” “He brought American through economic collapse and a world war.” You didn’t have to be told it was Lincoln, or FDR. I said that Mr. Obama didn’t understand his sentence. But Republicans now think they know it.

Four words: He made it worse.

Obama inherited financial collapse, deficits and debt. He inherited a broken political culture. These things weren’t his fault. But through his decisions, he made them all worse.

remember how awful, crude, barbaric and downright EEEEEvil Governor Palin was when the Alaska DoNR used helicopters to cull wildlife herds?

Guess if there's a few hogs loose in San Diego it now warrents the same treatment  by the Obama Administration.

Obama Administration Suddenly Likes Palin Wildlife-Management Strategy.

Unemployment tops 9.1%. But not to worry folks, O-media says we are in full recovery. Things are fantab! Vundaba! Nevuh bettuh. The mantra is, it was horrible under Bush at 4.6%. Bankruptcy is good. Losing our lead in the world is good. One world government is good. "One neck, one leash." 40 billion of your taxpayer dollars to the Muslim Brotherhood Spring is good. A billion to the genocidal group Hamas is good. Tax increases on your dwindling income is good. Jew-hatred is good. Banning oil exploration on our soil is good. Enriching jihad nations is good. Empowering thug unions with unquantifiable power is good. Inculcating our young minds in leftist claptrap in our public schools is good. Keeping the poor prisoner in the public schools is good. Junk science is good. Demonizing business is good. Destroying the public sector is good. The individual is bad. Statism is good. Collectivism is good. Leftism is good.

by Pam Geller

I now favor the One State Solution

because SOME people STILL haven't gotten it ..... the good folks over at Watt's Up With That have provided a refresher regarding Mann's broken hockey stick:

Say what you will about Cuccinelli’s motives, but the American justice system provides protections for the accused and standards of procedure that do not exist in the court of public opinion.

We have arrived at this point in history along the following path:

(1) Steve wanted to replicate MBH98 and asked for data. Mann initially complied, but then began to obstruct.

(2) Steve successfully obtained the needed data and demonstrated serious flaws in Mann’s approach.

(3) Mann defended his work by saying that other Hockey Stick reconstructions validated his method and his conclusions.

(4) Attention turned to replicating the other reconstructions. By now, the Team had become extremely defensive and a sort of bunker mentality took over. Years of obstruction followed.

(5) Those seeking the data and methods used in the HS reconstructions became more and more aggressive, eventually turning to FOIA as a tool to pry loose the information.

(6) Then “a miracle happened’. A file containing materials and emails requested under FOIA turned up on the internet. Most everyone would agree that the contents of the emails warranted an investigation. The only investigation that specifically looked into Mann’s conduct was undertaken by Penn State. Penn State cleared Mann noting that Mann stated:
(a) he had never falsified any data, nor had he had ever manipulated data to serve a given predetermined outcome;
(b) he never used inappropriate influence in reviewing papers by other scientists who disagreed with the conclusions of his science;
(c) he never deleted emails at the behest of any other scientist, specifically including Dr. Phil Jones, and that he never withheld data with the intention of obstructing science; and
(d) he never engaged in activities or behaviors that were inconsistent with accepted academic practices.

(7) Critics have charged that the Penn State investigation was inadequate. Michael Mann has subsequently stated that he did, in fact, participate in an orchestrated effort to delete emails covered under FOIA, raising questions about the veracity of statements he made to the Penn State investigators. Penn State seems untroubled by this.

A real, independent investigation, subject to rules of evidence and judicial procedures, is needed. Such an investigation is the only way to put and end to Climategate and is the only way to restore the tattered reputation of climate science. I think both Virginia and Pennsylvania should conduct an investigation. However, if UVa continues to obstruct the CID, then FOIA is the only option and Mann will be afforded no protection of his privacy.

Mann and UVa are playing a losing game. Its sheer folly to attempt to frustrate a State AG in a law enforcement investigation. Cuccinelli has nuclear weapons at his disposal and UVa has water pistols. If Cuccinelli loses the CID battle, he will simply file a lawsuit and obtain the materials through discovery. Or, if UVa really pisses him off, he will convene a Grand Jury. For Mann personally, this would be catastrophic. Mann and UVa should cooperate with the CID process.

or at least perhaps from SOMEBODY's eyes.

Been flowing the oral arguement frm the 6th Circus hearings on Obamacare?  Of COURSE you haven't.  You have ME to do it for you.  And here's the two take-aways from this weeks questioning.

In respose to a question from Judge Jeffrey Sutton, Obama Solicitor General  Neal K Kaytal responded by noting that the there’s a provision in the health care law that allows people to avoid the mandate.

“If we’re going to play that game, I think that game can be played here as well, because after all, the minimum coverage provision only kicks in after people have earned a minimum amount of income,” Kaytal said. “So it’s a penalty on earning a certain amount of income and self insuring. It’s not just on self insuring on its own. So I guess one could say, just as the restaurant owner could depart the market in Heart of Atlanta Hotel, someone doesn’t need to earn that much income. I think both are kind of fanciful and I think get at…”

Sutton interjected, “That wasn’t in a single speech given in Congress about this…the idea that the solution if you don’t like it is make a little less money.”

In other words: Obama suggests people should mak less money.  THAT'LL get the economy going again.

And the second?  Judge, James L. Graham, pressed this question on Wednesday with Katyal:

“Where, ultimately, is the limit on Congress’s power?” the judge asked.

Mr. Katyal responded that the government had never suggested that there were no limits.

“Where are they?” Judge Graham continued. “I want to find them.”

I wish Judge Graham good luck with his quest, but I don't expect he'll have much success. He may want to find and define the limits of congressional power, but apparently the Obama administration doesn’t. Rather than answer Graham's question directly, the lawyer arguing the case for the mandate instead made the odd claim that the law’s individual mandate to purchase health insurance coverage is not, in fact, a requirement to buy health insurance coverage. The NYT continues: 

Mr. Katyal then argued that the law’s insurance mandate, which takes effect in 2014, does not so much require individuals to buy coverage as it does regulate the way they pay for health care they will inevitably consume. Without the mandate, Mr. Katyal said, the law’s requirement that insurers provide coverage to all applicants, regardless of their health status, would simply encourage people to buy insurance after they got sick.

“Congress is not regulating the failure to buy something, but the failure to secure financing,” Mr. Katyal said.

Given the Obama's long history of flip-flops on the mandate, it is perhaps not surprising that the administration is now trying to pursuade judges that a provision requiring the purchase of health insurance is not really a requirement to purchase insurance at all.

Employment department.

Back in 2004 when Bush saw jobs being created “unexpectedly” MSNBC scoffed that it was anything that Bush was doing right. So what did these lefty “news” folks blame on the false high that explained, in their opinion, the Bush hiring jump? Why, what else but natural disasters?

After reporting that the 2004 job stats had increased “at the fastest pace in seven months,” the big brains at MSNBC explained that it was just a false high.

Some analysts were skeptical about the latest surge of hiring, pointing out that much of the unusually large jump in October stemmed from cleanup and rebuilding in Florida and other states that were ravaged by four hurricanes in August and September, the Labor Department said.

But of course, that was THEN.  Now?

On Monday, MSNBC contributor Eve Tahmincioglu lamented that, “Disasters wipe out jobs along with lives .” In her piece, Tahmincioglu blamed job loss directly on the tornadoes and floods that have bedeviled the central US.

The hardest-hit states already are seeing claims pour in for unemployment benefits. Since a deadly wave of tornadoes swept through Tuscaloosa, Ala., and other Southeast towns in late April, more than 6,000 people have applied for disaster-related jobless benefits, said Tom Surtees, director of the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations. Typically about 24,000 people file for jobless benefits each month in the state, where the jobless rate is 9.3 percent, a bit above the national average.