Actual Journalism and a Rage Inducing Obama Performance

Wow.  How embarrassed must the national media be - Brian Williams, I'm talking about you - after watching some no name local Denver newsreader actually practicing real journalism which the MSM hasn't practiced in years.

It is also a worthwhile watch for seeing Obama 1) be visibly annoyed that he was getting real questions, and 2) bob and weave like a cornered chicken.

Finally, I bristled at one little thing that is the opposite of a grace note.  How offensive is the Lightworker when he says that these Americans killed in Benghazi "served under me".  I guarantee that Chris Stevens, Ty Woods, Sean Smith and Glen Doherty didn't think think they were "serving under"  Barack Obama.  I am pretty sure they thought they were serving their country.  We already knew what a narcissistic motherfucker the Lightworker is, but this is so off-putting to see him equate service to the country with service to him.  The sooner we cashier this SOB the better.

Stagflating Away, Hey (Sung to Jethro Tull's "Skating Away")

Latest GDP report says "stagflation".  We've been over that quite enough here, although here are some golden oldies for your enjoyment:

That is stagflation my friends. You have "the Ben Bernank" to thank for the flation and Barack Obama and the ReidPelosicrats for the stag. Told you so.

And as I also told you, we ain't pulling out until the end of next year. Businesses have hunkered down and cowered for nearly three years, they can do it for one more. They see the light at the end of the tunnel, they are not going to loosen the purse strings and hire and invest until they are out of the tunnel. But the stock market will anticipate this roughly six months prior to the fact. If, come May 2012, the light at the end of the tunnel is clearly not more of the Lightworker, the stock market should start to rally, really rally.

and

 That is not the only theory that has taken a beating in recent times. Those that obsess over "aggregate demand" have discredited themselves as a trillion dollars of spending has done nothing to have "aggregate demand" come to the rescue of the unemployed. I have described for you what happens when these two erroneous theories get together (and you add a little populist, anti-business rhetoric as lubricant). The offspring is called "stagflation." We have it and the remedy is tight money and pro-growth tax cuts and deregulation. We have the exact opposite right now...in the absence of a change of course expect this baby to grow into one obnoxious youth. Buy inflation-hedging stocks, like resources and big metal things. Avoid bonds and too much cash.

Great Moments In American Political Rhetoric

The Bullshitting Dunce with Romnesia.

That's kinda like:  "Eat Your Peas, You Bitter Clingers that Didn't Build That!"

How To Measure An Implosion?

Help me dear readers.  Even though I've already made two of the greatest predictions evah, I am close to pulling it off again, with my Obama Will Implode prediction.  But I'm not one for taking false credit where no credit is due, so if I'm going to tout my own bloody genius I want to know I've earned it.  So the question becomes, how do we quantifiably measure whether the Lightworker has truly imploded.  Of course, I think losing the election is fairly definitive proof given the outsized confidence of all his supporters; but, perhaps the race has been closer all along than people have let on. Perhaps it's not an implosion unless Romney clears 300 electoral votes.  It's a conundrum.

So how to measure this puppy, how to make sure the puck is in the net?  What about a ten point distance between R and O?  The Lightworker is just a tick over 45% in some polls and Romney seems to just be hitting 51-52%, so just bit more of a surge from Romney, 2 or 3 points, and one or two ticks down for Dear Leader and we could have a 10 point gap.  That seems pretty definitive to me.  Is that sufficient evidence to put +1 up on scoreboard for DB?  Let me know your thoughts.

Maybe we need a panel of experts to judge whether the implosion call is a +1.  An Independent Implosion Advisory Board perhaps????

I Scooped the NY Times on Greek Healthcare

Little old me is WAY out in front of the local newspaper here, the New York Times, on this one.  I said awhile ago that a socialized healthcare system that by design is destined to catastrophically fail is hardly compassionate.  Well, the local ink-stained wretches are on to it, but maybe not coming necessarily to the same conclusions.

"Things like that are described in textbooks, but you never see them because until now, anybody who got sick in this country could always get help.”

On Obama's Economic Wrecking Crew

Over at Instapundit (which is now basically Instapundit & Co. wot with all the contributions from ED, SH, EPF, and MT), the Good Professor links to a Real Clear article saying that Obama's economists, namely Romer and Bernstein, doomed him with their failed models.  That may be true, but I've covered Romer's disastrous tenure before and to be fair to her, I don't think for a minute that she produced these models in good faith and believed in them.  I think she was told to make the models fit the narrative, to make them good sales tools for the Stimulus.  Democrats rolled 30 years of pent up policy frustration into the stimulus and Romer was told to give it an economic gloss.  She served her political masters well.

Finally, I actually don't agree that the stimulus will be decisive in dooming Obama if indeed he goes down as a one term President, but I do believe - and this might be worse for Romer and her ilk - that the stimulus's monumental failure may ultimately prove devastating to Keynesian economics.

Will Both NYC Tabloids Endorse Romney?

The New York Post has endorsed Mitt Romney.  No shocker there.  And totally irrelevant.  Romney will not win New York State no matter what.  But it will be interesting to see how NYC metro's other tabloid paper, The Daily News, endorses.  The Post is our conservative Murdoch-owned tab and the Daily News is our liberal Zuckerman-owned tab.  But Mort Zuckerman has been scathing and relentless in his criticism of Obama's economic policies for pretty much the last three years.  If Mort's tab endorses Romney it won't matter to the outcome in NY State but it will speak volumes and take alot of the wind out of Obama's sails.  Stay tuned.

The Real Headlines

Here's a great headline:  "President Embroiled in Lies and Cover-Up Scandal, Calls Choir Boy Opponent a "Bullshitter."

UPDATE:  Drudge is a genius.  "Hope and Change" has become "He's a Bullshitter."  Denouement? Or Implosion?

NY Times Catches a Whiff of My Insight

Ya know, for a big city paper, the NY Times can sure come off like a bunch of rubes.  In this blog post, they speculate that maybe Bill Clinton wound up hurting Obama with his involvement...

Really?  No way?

Way.  I have gone chapter and verse over the theory and the numerous instances where Clintonite loyalists and even Bubba Himself have clearly overtly and covertly undermined the Lightworker.  I must have done 25 blog posts on this over two years and here comes the NY Times with an 'Aw Shucks' story that maybe it isn't all lovey-dovey within the Democratic Party between the Clinton camp and the Obama camp.  They can't be that stupid as to not know the state of play between the two camps, which makes this sort of article rather dishonest by pretending that the camps are intent on pulling the oars in the same direction and acting shocked when it appears that's not what's going on.

I'm Sure the Media Will Get Right On These...

Tax Foundation:  Romney's Tax Plan Numbers DO Add Up

Former CIA Chief:  Romney is Right About Threats to America

Big stories, right?  Bet we'll see these on the front page of the NY Times anytime soon...?

My Message to the Jewish Community...

No, not mine...Bernie Marcus's...

World's Most Famous "Undecided" Blogger Says BenghaziGate Evokes Watergate

I got a kick out of Bill Whittle making fun of Ann Althouse for still being undecided in this segment of Trifecta (sub. req.).  Now Althouse interprets Drudge's latest headline as evocative of Watergate.  But she's still undecided no doubt! 

Forget Ohio, which way will Althouse go?  Should we have an Althouse Watch?  Or has she already dropped a hint?  Passion for the job...hmmmm.

"Qualified" Is a Ridiculous Analytical Lens for this Election

Can I tell you what irks the shit out of me?  Of course I can because it's my blog, so let me tell you that it irks the shit out of me that a dominant strain of political analysis hews to the notion that voters need to see that Romney is qualified to replace Obama.  Qualified to replace Obama?  Huh?  WTF?  Are you effing kidding me? 

Let's get this straight America.  Obama was never qualified.  Ever.  And still isn't.  We gambled on an unqualified candidate.  We lowered the bar for this man.  We all know this.  But we bought what he was selling.  Romney is infinitely more qualified than Obama, that is not in dispute and not the relevant question.  The question is 'are you buying what the more qualified guy, Romney, is selling'?  Or is it time to raise the bar again?  Those are the questions.  Toss out this rubbish about who is qualified or not.

The only sense in which we can view Obama as qualified for the job is by virtue of having done the job for nearly four years, albeit poorly.  Why on earth is anybody who has analyzed this election concluding that Unqualified + Failed should trump Qualified + Untested?  Clint Eastwood gets it, fire the guy and move on.

Great Minds Think Alike: Brian Wesbury Edition

In this video, Brian Wesbury makes the prediction that Glenn Hubbard or John Taylor will be the next Fed Chairman under a Romney administration.  (Watch the whole video, it's good.)

Where have I heard that before?  Oh yeah.

Who served as a Romney advisor during the last campaign? Hubbard. Obamacare is also a sore spot with Americans and intelligent reform of this beast will be both an attractive campaign focus as well as a high legislative priority. Who wrote a book outlining a comprehensive vision for healthcare reform based on free-market principles? Hubbard. Who is ambitious and was palpably miffed when Ben Bernanke got the job he wanted? Hubbard. Conclusion: in a Romney White House it is virtually a lock that Hubbard would be offered either CEA Chairman or Treasury Secretary.

and

Another economist to watch is John Taylor. Paul Ryan's star is on the rise and his fiscal roadmap stands a good chance of becoming the congressional Republicans' defining policy stance. Who has jumped in to defend it in the face of the inevitable attacks from the left? Taylor. Who knows a thing or two about monetary policy? Um, yeah. Who has served in the government before and is civic-minded enough to do it again? Talyor. Look for Taylor to take over for Bernanke in a Romney administration. 

That would be an August 2010 prediction mind you.  You heard it hear first...

UPDATE:  Bingo. +1 for DB.

DEFCON 5?

Just a reminder, I started the Obama Unravel Watch way back in 2009.  We're at DEFCON 4 moving to DEFCON 5.  Someone at Lightworker Campaign HQ oughta piss on a spark plug or something.

Again...

For those who remember well, Begala is a Clintonite

Democratic strategist Paul Begala, asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer if the Obama campaign has given up on North Carolina, said "Yes. I'm not supposed to say that Wolf. I work for the pro-Obama super PAC, so I'm being paid to help reelect the president, but if you look at where he's going and where he's spending money, yes, it looks like Governor Romney is likely to carry North Carolina."

With all these Clintonite friends, who needs enemies?

Obama's Got a Booklet!

Uh Oh!  Obama's got himself a booklet he wants to share with you, Americans.

Same gambit as when he rolled out those "talking points" to mollify the Jews after NY-9 went Republican in the aftermath of WeinerGate.

Two Prominent Guys, "Ah Yeah, Illinois Is Hosed"

High-powered mucky-mucks do a big expensive study to tell us the obvious and try to spur action by using the most useless word in our lexicon of political discourse.

A group headed by Paul Volcker and Richard Ravitch will argue in a report tomorrow that Illinois’s budget is unsustainable and threatens growth in the fifth-most- populous state.

The report from the State Budget Crisis Task Force, which includes policy analysts and politicians and was formed in 2011, will show how “past fiscal choices and future threats challenge Illinois’ ability to meet its population’s basic needs,” according to a press release. Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, and Ravitch, a former lieutenant governor of New York, are co-chairmen of the group’s advisory board.

Powerful indeed, coming from those two dudes, especially since they aptly described things as "unsustainable"!  Whew, am I relieved!  Now something will get done.

Jews In Politically Correct Chains

Biden-esque chains!  Truly pathetic.

"It absolutely . . . is . . . My best friends would disown me, and I would lose all credibility and professional effectiveness, if I came out of the closet as an Obama-skeptic, let alone a potential Romney voter."

Sad.  This guy needs to get different friends and maybe even a new job, although I know that is a tall order.  Who knew there were such intolerant people among Obama supporters?

On the other hand, this guy is loud and proud.

Emptiest Threat Ever?

If ever there was a laughably empty and silly threat made in global politics, this is it.

Debate Analysis From Guy Not Watching Debate

Hope is not a strategy and "attacking me is not an agenda."  This the CEO in Romney making Obama look small, like a regular political hack.  He is deflating the bubble - or I should say further deflating the bubble as Obama has self-deflated his own bubble fairly effectively over the last four years.

Plus I caught a dash of Reaganism with the "America hasn't dictated to nations, America has freed nations" bit.

I'm watching intermittently, but I'm getting the sense that Mitt has looked as presidential as he needs to look in this one.

UPDATE:  I've finally figured out my frustrations over the last two debates.  I have been frustrated at Romney's performance but I haven't understood why. I just now realize that what has dogged me is that Romney has had multiple hanging curve balls but hasn't smashed them out of the park.  That is frustrating, our side wants to see that walk-off homer, but if you are playing excellent small-ball, hitting alot of singles and moving runners around the base-pads, the homers are not necessary.  And why should I feel bad about this?  I laid out the over-riding strategy a long time ago and should have seen Romney's small ball strategy.

Mitt Romney (who is FINE btw) chooses a VP nominee that solidifies his support with true conservatives just enough to complete his primary electoral strategy of 1) be the "non-scary" Republican that independents and moderate Dems can feel comfortable voting for and 2) be good enough for conservatives and libertarians to turn out like they need to turn out to defeat the constitutional democracy/individual liberty disaster that is Barack Obama.

Homers are for an aggressive conservative candidate.  Homers are for Chris Christie.  Singles.  Moving around the base pads is Mitt Romney.  Small ball wins games too.  A win is a win.  We'll see.

"Crawl Across Ground Glass" for Romney? Americans Are Getting It

This comment thread was linked to over at Instapundit for a quote that ends the first comment about Romney.

Romney was not my first, second, or third choice, but I will crawl over ground glass to vote for him. 

But I am particularly interested in the one a few spots down by Gene about healthcare providers asking for "cash on the barrel."

Who predicted that?  I did.  In fact I used that very expression, although the better off among us will be using our American Express cards.

No Love I Tell Ya'

Steven Hayward at Powerline asks if the wheels are coming off the Obama campaign.  He might just as well have asked, 'Is Donny Baseball's "Implosion" call coming true?'  Alas my call languishes in obscurity while the major leaguers of the blogoshpere can be only slightly ahead of the curve and still look brilliant relative to the MSM.  Sigh.

And, the scandalously outrageous "not optimal"comment just brings me that much closer to the Mother of All Plus Ones.  Characterization of needless deaths as "Not Optimal" is the utterance of candidate who doesn't want to win or a man out-of-touch beyond all redemption.

Tomorrow Is "Sub-Optimal Field Day"

...because the forces of mockery will be having a field day.

Photoshop of Shepard Fairy poster with "Sub-Optimal" coming in 3, 2, 1...

UPDATE:  Done.

Michelle Obama's HUGE Recovery Update

The recovery is so HUGE that The Coca-Cola Company will spend $19 billion dollars on ... shrinking.  Like I call many moons ago.

What?  Didn't the prognostications from Michelle Obama, prominent economist, make it to Atlanta yet?

Self Back-Patapalooza

OK, time for a little commercial.  I just wanted to let readers know what sort of political analysis has been on offer here at NBfPB, for which you pay nothing I might add.

1) The conventional wisdom for the last two years has been that Obama is a lock for a second term.  I said he's not a lock, far from it in fact.

2) I said that Romney would rake in the campaign contributions.  And he has.

3) The conventional wisdom among conservatives and libertarians was that Romney sucks and has no mojo.  I said Romney was fine and would actually show some mojo.

4) I said Romney would take a risk and choose a Tea Party-ish reformer as VP, and he has.

5) I said that Obama would implode.  It appears he is in the process of imploding (but we are not acquiring the cockiness, mind you)

6) I said gas prices would be at $4 and unemployment would be at 10% and effectively that is where we are.

7) I said the Clintons would be constantly undermining Obama, and they are.

And all of these calls were made well in advance of them hitting the MSM or becoming conventional wisdom.

Another True Clintonite/Phony Obamaite, "Yeah Obama Sucks."

I don't need to remind regular readers of my long-standing view - slightly conspiratorial I admit, but not without tons of strong evidence - that the Clintons are purposefully and passionately undermining the Lightworker.  The theory is laid out here.

Today comes another example of a Clintonite who is, let's call it "off message."

Steve Rattner, the former “car czar” for Barack Obama, explains why voters may have narrowly given Obama the edge in the debate on Tuesday night, but give Mitt Romney a 31-point advantage on the economy.  You have to go all the way back to the 1930s, Rattner explains after Willie Geist presses the point, to find a President with a worse record on economic growth in a first term

Rattner is most often described in the press as an "Obama czar" but Rattner has been in and around power Democrat politics for a long time and make no bones about it, he is a Clintonite through and through.  He was of a small army of Clintonites who were "borrowed" at the onset of the Obama presidency to make it a success and cement the party's power.  But now that Obama has wreaked devastation on the Democratic Party, the poobahs are taking back the reins and ushering the Lightworker out.  Rattner is just part of the broad effort.

UPDATE:  And as my all-knowing and perspicacious colleagues over at SayAnything have discovered, the Big Dog Himself is not quite singing effusive praise of the Lightworking.  There's video.  Check it out.

Allahu Akbar! No More Quantitative Easing!

Whew, good work by the Feds and the NYPD or we coulda had more of that "workplace violence."

Federal officials have arrested a suspect that they say was plotting to attack the Federal Reserve's building in New York City, according to a report from NBC 4 News.

Officials arrested Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, a 21 year old Bangladeshi national, in downtown New York and charged him with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, and attempting to provide material support to Al-Qaeda.

Or maybe this dude was protesting Helicopter Ben's loose monetary policy...

The Mind Reels or The Funniest Thing You'll Read All Night

Famous economist Michelle Obama turns to psychology.

"You know, Barack doesn't have a big ego," Michelle Obama said in an excerpt from an interview with CNN that aired Tuesday.

Really?

"I think I'm a better speech writer than my speech writers," he reportedly told an aide in 2008. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm . . . a better political director than my political director."

Really?

"I'm LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got game."

Really?

Flawless.   Eye Candy.

Really?

Slow the rise of the oceans.  Heal the planet. 

FLOTUS is about as good of a psychologist as she is an economist.

Michelle Obama, Macro-Economist

You may know her as a world-class traveler and fabulous expensive sneaker-wearer or as a famous life-long non-proud American, but what I bet you didn't know about Michelle Obama was that she is also a great economist. So, great, in fact, that she can make a bold economic analysis that is at odds with the consensus view that the economy is struggling.  That bold call is that the economy is undergoing a HUGE recovery.

Yes, the huge-ness of the recovery is so subtle that companies such as Cummins Engine can't detect it, but it's out there...promise. 

Orders for Class 8 trucks, the largest models, fell 35 percent in North America last month to 15,205, according to FTR Associates. Cummins yesterday trimmed its profit and sales outlooks and said it expects to eliminate as many as 1,500 jobs by year-end. Accuride said today it will miss its annual projections and has cut its salaried workforce by 14 percent.

Cummins’s revised forecasts were “worse than feared,” said Kristine Kubacki, a St. Louis-based analyst at Avondale Partners LLC with a market perform rating on the shares. “My sense is the Street thought there would be a guide down, but this is sizable.”

Her model is also so sophisticated that it has moved beyond the tired and hackneyed models that typically use Fedex as a bellweather for economic activity, because why would people sending stuff to each other be indicative of anything, right?

FedEx Corp. (FDX), the operator of the world’s biggest cargo airline, lowered its annual profit outlook on Sept. 18 after a weakening economy prompted shippers in the U.S. and overseas to switch to cheaper delivery. The Memphis, Tennessee-based company, viewed as an economic barometer, this week trimmed its forecast for 2012 U.S. economic growth to 2.1 percent from 2.2 percent.

Ignore the biased media trying all it can do to undermine Barack, the recovery is here and it's HUGE!

Jewish Vote??

Snapped in deepest Blue New York...


















Some further context - this was taken in a city that is thoroughly dominated by Democrats with a D mayor and a 6-1 advantage on the City Council.  Plus, this photo was taken mere steps outside the gates of a university in said city.  So, either I've stumbled upon one of an extremely small number of odd-ball NY Jewish Republicans residing spitting distance from a university in a deep blue city in a deep blue state...or something else is going on...

Told Ya' So

Ford assiduously avoided government assistance, and it paid off with consumers.  Just like I said it would as I instructed them to play it for all it's worth.

Peace Prize Now Means Less Than Nothing

I have long chronicled the ongoing tarnishing of the once great brand that is the Nobel Peace Prize. 


They've done it again.

Revealed: Unified Theory of Obama's Libyan Shit Show

Wow, wow, and wow!  Follow me here.

I have chronicled the interplay between the Obama camp of the Democratic Party and the Clinton camp.   To summarize, Obama is renting the assets of the party, the Clintons own them.  The Clintonites are undermining Obama in every way possible short of overt non-endorsement.  I have also posited that Obama knows he's cooked, short of what he can pull off himself, he ain't getting any help from the Clintons.  That explains a whole load of Twilight Zonish behavior from the Lightworker, from  atrocious optics to doubling down on the policies and ideologies that got him shellacked in 2010.

So let's turn to Libya.  If ever there was a Twilight Zonish head-scratcher, this whole affair is it.  A fourth grader could see this was a pre-planned terrorist attack and yet the Smartest President Ever in the History of Everything thought he could lie about it to the American public for days upon days.  Furthermore, he managed to get a putatively intelligent woman, Susan Rice, to be point person in propagating this sure-to-be-exposed lie.  It is so daft and inexplicable as to make one's head hurt.  Well, I just read this over at Althouse and I think the Unifying Theory is coming together...

Quite aside from the wrongness of lying, generally and specifically, in this case, and quite aside from the motivation to lie — I'm going to presume, without more, it was campaign politics — why did Obama think he could get away with this lie long enough, and why was he not daunted by the risk entailed in going on and on, doubling down on the lie, and even lying in a U.N. speech? How did he have the nerve to co-opt our U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, and subvert her credibility and honor? How did he get this millstone around the neck of Hillary Clinton, who has such a strong interest in her independent career and who knows a thing or two about the devastation of getting caught lying?

He got the millstone around Hillary's neck...and that, dear readers, is MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.  You see, the Clintonites have waged covert warfare against Lightworker 2.0 and he knows it.  Among the many thousand Clintonite cuts, Hillary caused severe embarrassment by leaking to the press that she turned down the VP slot in Lightworker 2.0.  

Don'tcha see it?   My theory was missing its keystone, and Althouse has happened upon it.  Obama knows its over.  The Clintonites are not interested in some sort of accommodation or power-sharing agreement over party assets.  They've abandoned the Lightworker, they want to usher the Era of Obama out.  So what is Obama's priority faced with running on his record without the full torque of the Clinton Machine?  Win or lose, Obama's key mission is to poison the well of Hillary's career.   The media's got his back, so he can take a chance - if he wins, the Clintons are a footnote and he reigns supreme as an all-conquering two-term Democrat who passed a healthcare entitlement, and Libya is forgotten.  If he loses, he can play up the Libya Shit Show and blame/tarnish Hillary for years to come as payback for Clintonite machinations that cost him.  Post November 6th, the Libya Shit Show has either been a non-factor or served its purpose.  Heads Obama wins, tails he ties.  He'll make that trade all day.

Your head can stop spinning now.  You're welcome.  And thank you Althouse.

John Maynard Biden

Ed Driscoll reminds me of my All Time Favorite Biden Idiocy and the Worst Thing to Happen to Keynesian Economic Theory Since...Well, Ever:

"We Have to Spend More Money To Keep from Going Broke."

I know it is hard to believe Dear Reader, given my status as a Master of the Universe money manager type guy, but the financial crisis in 2008 was none too kind to the Baseball Clan; and casting for a way out of the misery I proposed what I called "The Biden Plan" for the Baseball family finances to the Ever Ravishing Mrs. Baseball.   I said, "Sweetie, Joe Biden says we need to keep spending to keep from going broke, so I propose a case of Chateau Latour '05 and a Softail Fat Boy."

As one would expect, the Ever Ravishing Mrs. Baseball, who holds a PhD. in Homemaker Economics, kicked me in the balls.

And that's what we need to do to these Marxist/Keynesian Numb Nuts on November 6th.

How Close Is the Obama Implosion?

I am still tracking my Obama Implosion prediction from June of this year.

There were so many milestones along the way that could have been the spark that lights the flame that signifies the implosion.  Was it "You Didn't Build That"?  Was it the retreat from the Stadium venue in Charlotte?  Was it the Libya Debacle and Subsequent Coverup?   Was it gas prices?  Was it the first debate shellacking?  Can we now add the Big Bird ludicrousness to the array of potentially implosion-inducing developments?

Each of these could seemingly have been enough to assure me a score on my prediction in normal circumstances, but it seems that our teflon god of progressivism has skated through with enough dousing of fire retardant by his subservient media.  What's it gonna take for Donny Baseball to have a triumphant and glorious victory over the Lords of Conventional Wisdom and the Guild of Professional Political Punditry (because ain't no one was predicting what appears to be unfolding)??

We shall see.  Of course, Obama could pull himself up by his bootstraps and the media can declare that the universe is back in balance, that the genius and comportment of Dear Leader is restored and visible for all to see.  Or the Lightworker can continue to merely flicker small flashes of muted light in the face of a strong Romney push across the finish line.  Still too early to give myself the Ultimate +1 but as we stand today, my prediction is indisputably operable.

Is This About Maureen Dowd?

Advice for MoDo?

The 15 Most Overrated Black People

Mark Lamont Hill - Mark Lamont Hill Ph.D that is, so this must be an intellectually fruitful exercise, and devoid of racism to boot - got us started.  But nobody has the balls to rebut, because we've been so cowed by political correctness and the race-baiters.  But people are people, so if there are phonies and overrated pretenders amongst white folk, the same must be true of black folk.  And if it is acceptable for Mark Lamont Hill to point out the overrated honkeys, then goose, gander, and all that...so let's have those balls and let's get started.

The 15 Most Overrated Black People:
Barack Obama
Malcolm X
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Aretha Franklin
Cornell West
Jesse Jackson Sr.
Jay-Z
Samuel L. Jackson
Harry Belafonte
Halle Berry
Marcus Garvey
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Maya Angelou
Colin Powell
Chris Rock

Just my opinion.  There you go MLH, PhD.  Back atcha'.

BTW, the only exceptions I have with MLH's list of overrated caucasians are the two clear errors, Ronald Reagan and William Shakespeare.  The Gipper and the Bard are underrated if anything.  The rest though, no objections from this cracker.

Yet Another "I Told Ya' So" on Economy

The employment report today is ripe for commentary - and I have commented on them - based on the details but they also merit commentary on what they say about the employment environment generally.  And what they say is not very good - that not only is the economy stagnating, but that the economy is switching away from full-time workers to part-time workers.  Charlie Martin at PJ Media has a quick parsing:

In fact, if you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, it’s unlikely that anything has been manipulated — which would be hard to do without being caught anyway — because you can see exactly how the change happened.  Here’s the net-net:

• net 114,000 new full-time jobs
• net 456,000 people who left the unemployed list — discouraged or whatever
• net 600,000 people added to part-time workers.

What distinguishes part-time workers from full-time? In general, part-time workers don’t get benefits — like health insurance.
 
What these numbers seem to be telling us is that it’s too expensive to pay for benefits.

 Of course, as is usually the case, Donny Baseball was prescient, insightful and early to this call...I talked about the part-timing of America many moons ago.

Going John Galt has become Going Robert Half.

In the depths of a recession and financial crisis that was being exploited by radical progressive politicians who found themselves with unfettered power, our creators, innovators and productive citizens embraced the notion of rebuting this assault on free enterprise and personal liberty with an economic boycott of sorts - a deceleration of their risk-taking/spending and a self-imposed restriction on offering their talents into the economy - that went by the phrase "Going John Galt" after the famous Ayn Rand character. See here (my own term for John Galtism is Job Market Vigilantes).

Well, we are two years out and we've made, well, er, um, progress if you can call it that. We're not going Galt anymore, we are going Robert Half. Robert Half is, of course, a company that will hook your business up with temporary workers. Judging by this (see #2) it seems that they are busy these days. With Nancy Pelosi defanged, Barack Obama sporting pedestrian approval ratings, and a global economy that decided it couldn't afford to indulge in the progessive rubbish that we Americans foisted on ourselves (here, here, and here), the business climate is looking less awful, so going the full Galt may not be justified. But going the full Milton ain't justified either, after all we are still living with the spectre of the regulatory blobs of ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, Obama's EPA is in overdrive trying to raise our energy costs, and the rule of law is still being flouted from on high. So how does one make a halting, tentative commitment to the prospect of better times? Hire temps. If Obamacare survives judicial muster (or if Kath Sebelius is ordered to just implement it anyway) or if the economy shows signs of weakness or if another regulatory push seems like it's making traction, as a business operator you'll want to have the flexibility to ratchet back your commitment in a hurry. With temp workers, you just say "bye-bye", no difficult firing procedures, no wrongful termination lawsuits, no pension obligations, no union goons protesting layoffs. Easy peasy Japanesey. Thus, we are now Going Robert Half.

Is Welch Right? Did BLS Cook the Books for Obama?

Wow, Jack Welch has accused the Obama administration of cooking the employment numbers.  I don't dismiss this as crank theorizing.  Government agencies have been campaigning for Obama for years (some even in clear violation of federal law, and then doubling down on violating the law) and the report doesn't jibe with conditions that people who follow the economy understand to prevail.

So let's turn to a well-known numbers guru to see what he has to say.  TD's verdict:  total farce.

Complete preelection "massaging" farce.

The reason: the biggest reported jump in the number of employed people since January 2003, at +873,000 to 142,974. At least according to the Household data survey, which just happens to be used in the calculation of the unemployment rate. Just little bit off from the Establishment survey of +114,000.

Crawling inside the numbers it looks like the real story is not one of improving employment conditions, the U6 is still dismal.  The bump appears to have come from the household survey, which is quite curious.  I await more analysis, but this looks very fishy.

UPDATE:  Hot Air has some good points on the report.  Fishy indeed.

UPPDATE: I just remembered that many moons ago, I predicted the MSM's shift in focus from the establishment survey to the household survey as we moved from not just a Republican president to a Democrat president but from ChimpyBushHitler to the Lightworking "Sort of a God".  Anyhow, it is the household survey which is the locus of the fishiness in today's numbers.  Kevin Hassett has a good take:

The establishment survey was terrible. The 114,000 number of jobs created on net in September is well below the average for this year (146,000) and the average for last year (153,000). This is wholly consistent with the story that the economy is decelerating sharply as we head into the fall.

The household survey, on the other hand, portrays a September that was booming, far more so than could possibly be true given the other indicators. According to it, the unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent, with total employment jumping by a whopping 873,000. I wish it were true, but it will likely be a blip when we have a few more months of data.

To believe today's report you'd have to believe that we have two economies, one of large established businesses that are swimming upstream and barely growing, and another made up of small enterprises that are shooting the lights out.   Given what we know about the mood of small business owners from numerous survey data, this doesn't pass the smell test.

UPPPDATE:  So, will this cooked up 7.8% number matter?  It'll certainly give the Lightworker campaign a talking point, that's for sure.  But, as I have long argued, people know how the economy feels.  If it still feels crappy, I'm not sure a government stat is going to make them disbelieve their own lying eyes. 

Also, while the numbers may start to look better, the economy will still feel crappy, and that matters come election time. If voters don't feel times are better, they won't vote like it regardless of what the numbers say. Ask George Herbert Walker Bush about that one.

Paul at Powerline agrees:

Will the specious report of a lower unemployment rate help Obama? Perhaps it will in some very marginal way. But voters have a pretty clear sense of what the job market looks like in their locale. They know whether their children, friends, and neighbors are struggling to find full time work, or have given up the effort. To the extent they witness or experience such struggles, they aren’t likely to be pacified by a government number.

Hey Mitt Romney, Call This Girl Up

If I were Mitt Romney, I'd call this girl up and thank her for her support and courage.  Would be a great move.

UPDATE:  Score!  All Hail the Powerful Donny Baseball!  Either that or great minds think alike or the Romney campaign actually reads its suggestion box and can act quickly.

Vindicated On Romney

The two smartest guys on the Internet machine, Spengler and myself, have long bucked the conventional wisdom on Mitt Romney.  I have said that Romney will be formidable and pleasantly surprise conservatives and libertarians.  Spengler has said, contrary to public lore, that Romney is actually quite dynamic.

Last night vindicates our impressions and Spengler puts forth a modest gloat as well as yet another devastating psychoanalysis of our dime-store, faculty lounge Marxist President.

The Election and Stocks

Business Insider is ruminating over today's stock market action...is it a "Romney Rally"???

Stocks are taking off. Now up a bit less than 1%.
Romney rally? It could be, since there's no equivalent rally happening in the European sovereign bond market, so it would imply that the rally is based on something stateside.
A couple other quick points:

• It's pretty well accepted dogma on Wall Street that Romney would be better for stocks.
• Also, stocks got a bit of a lift last night right after the Romney victory.
• The Romney win was the #1 talking point on morning analyst notes today.

Bottom line: Quite plausible.

Lest anyone forget, I posited the possibility of a "One Term Rally" back in August 2011.

So, what is my point? My basic conclusion is this - the mega-trend, or the "big idea", is that Americans have always known deep in their bones that Obama was a gamble and they are now 90% convinced that they have lost that gamble. There is almost nothing that can stop this trend from playing out....

Secondarily, I think this is good for the stock market.  The economy will muddle through for the remainder of this year and into next, but the further Obama slides and the lower his chances at reelection get, I think we will see an inversely proportional growth in economic optimism. The more it looks like Obama is a goner, the more American business leaders will feel like a giant weight is being lifted, the more entrepreneurs will feel like the sky is clearing. I predict a rough inverse correlation from here on in between Obama's poll numbers and the stock market - call it the "one term rally."

and this

Did someone say "one term rally"? Yes, someone did and the more that someone thinks about it, that someone thinks it could be rather huge. Corporate profitability has more than held up, it's at record levels. Corporate financial soundness is at record levels as debt as a percentage of anything - equity, assets, cash flow - is as low as it's been in decades. The only thing that is missing is growth. If we get a reversal of the damaging policies inflicted on us by the Lightworker, there will be growth opportunities for American businesses. Put together profitability, financial soundness, and growth and it could be off to the races.

 and, of course, this

 As a matter of fact, I think I called a long-term, secular bull market a couple days into Obama's presidency on theory that it would be so bad that the market predicted an utter decimation of the progressive wing of the Democratic party.

My Prediction Getting Soooooo Close

On June 21, 2012 I predicted Obama would implode.  I assessed the status my prediction in August:

OK, so remember that on June 21 I said that the Obama campaign would implode.

 While I predicted that Obama would meltdown almost on the day that he took office, we sit on the cusp of his re-election battle and he has stubbornly hung on to stay in contention, at least superficially.  So I am making another prediction, actually more of an update, I guess, to my original meltdown trajectory.  So here goes.  The Obama presidency/campaign/phenomenon will shortly implode.  Yes, "implode", as in spectacularly fail and wind up in ruins.

Shortly after, Chief Justice Roberts saved Obamacare by converting the mandate to a tax, so I was looking dead wrong.  But look what has happened since:
- Romney out-raises Obama by $60 million over two months and has a cash advantage over Obama
- Tina Brown runs "Hit the Road Barack" on the cover of Newsweek
- It is leaked that Hillary turned down the VP slot AND urged a reluctant Obama to strike bin Laden
- Joe Biden turns the Gaffe-o-meter up to a Spinal Tap-ish 11
- It is leaked that there is turmoil in the Obama Campaign HQ
- The MSM shines a light on Obama's brutally negative campaigning
- The Romney-Ryan ticket is playing to packed venues everywhere it goes
- gas prices are rising again and there are reports of a desperation tapping of the SPR
- a Cook County poll showed Obama's lead slipping in Cook County, IL
- and OF COURSE, on July 13th Obama gave his now infamous "You Didn't Build That" speech

I'm not claiming a score here on my prediction, but all this is a solid foundation on which a definite +1 could be built.  If Romney keeps out-raising Obama (which I also predicted a looooong time ago) and the MSM starts to feel their man might be doomed, they might bail on him and we might see more stuff like Tina Brown's recent Newsweek cover.  We may even see someone who is the apotheosis of the MSM, say George Stephanopolous or Eleanor Clift say flat "let's face it, Obama is going to lose."  Then he's toast and I will chalk one up for DB.

 Obviously the polls through September have been making this look a little foolish, but you can count me solidly in the "the polls are MSM bullsh*t" camp.  Still, since the above list was assembled, we've had the phony weather excuse to bail on the 70K stadium address at the DNC, the  Libya Cover Up debacle, and now this debate performance.  Throw these in the pot and we are very very close to having Implosion Soup.  Not there yet, but very very close.

Oh did I mention that I predicted $4 gas and 10% unemployment (which we have given the underemployment stats) in the heart of the election season back in 2009 !!!

Rumble In the Jungle Redux

First, "Wow."  Second, "Ouch."

The title of this ad is "The Smirk" but it could have been called "Rope-A-Dope."  As I watch it, George Foreman's voice is in my head, specifically when he said "You heard of the Rope-a-Dope?  Well, I was the dope."

Are the Days of Wine and Projection Over?

There is so much commentary (and hilarious commentary at that, just go to Iowahawk's twitter thingy and keep scrolling) floating around the 'sphere in re the debate last night so I won't venture too deep, except to ask the penetrating question on the small minds of libtards everywhere.

How could the Smartest President in the History of Everything sh*t the bed so badly?

Um, easy.  As us wingnuts have been saying for years - you're f**king delusional.  Not only is the Lightworker not the smartest ever, he might even rank up there with the dumbest ever.  A complete fool, a dime-store faculty lounge Marxist.  A doofus who doesn't even get basic common sense tenets like 'if you never stop talking, people eventually stop listening to what you have to say.'

You've been wishfully projecting all these years, libtards.  You think you are the smartest people ever, you love Barack Obama, ergo Barack Obama is the Smartest Ever. That is the Syllogism of Liberal Progressive Essence.

And you just got taken to the woodshed by the Mittster.  Not BullyBoy Chris Christie.  Not Scott NaziWalker, not TexasExecutioner Rick Perry.  The Mittster.

A Suggestion for Althouse

Ann Althouse confirms my experience when the Lightworker came to my neck of the woods, namely the slightly ridiculous over-obsessiveness of the Secret Service.

Ann, might I suggest a "Colombian Hookers, Good Rates, Inquire Within." sign???  Then you won't have to worry about fulfilling your instructional responsibilities to students for a good long while!

UPDATE: Another suggestion for Ann would be "Puhleeze, come off it lady."

And the Obama campaign isn't ugly for manufacturing vicious attacks on Romney the choir boy - kills women, yadayada?  And yet when nothing is manufactured, when the Lightworker speaks words out of his own mouth, Republicans look ugly?  This is the journalism that wasn't done in 2008.  If Ann can't see politics as a adversarial affair and/or distinguish between made up mudslinging and reporting candidates words and deeds, maybe she is one of those undecided voters.

UPPDATE:  Great minds think alike.  Glenn all but says 'Ann, puhleeeeze...'

 SO, ANN, criticizing Obama’s racial hypocrisy looks ugly? I see your point, actually, but I think that’s largely in response to a media environment in which any pointed criticism of Obama has been defined as ugly. And that’s a common lefty-media trick, setting things up so that any effective argument is somehow pre-defined as somehow impolite. There’s an instrumental argument that folks on the right need to take this into account, but beyond that, I confess I don’t much care. Obama’s politics are, and have been, ugly in the extreme: Dishonest, personal, vicious. Compared to that, noting that the whole post-racial feelgood vibe of 2008 was, to put it in ugly-but-true fashion, a complete and total lie, seems minor. Perhaps it will nonetheless alienate swing voters, but if swing voters are that easily alienated, and that immune to facts, then maybe it doesn’t matter anyway.

UPPPDATE:  Ann says don't toy with emotions.  Huh?  War on women?  Ladyparts?   "Put y'all in chaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!"  Quit while you're only slightly behind Good Professor.

Josh Barro Is Doing Something Pathetic With His Life

The other day I read a story at Bloomberg News that was an assemblage of complete gibberish on which taxes should be raised (answer: many of them.  the column is here if you must).  My eyes caught a glimpse of the author, "Barro," and I was dumbfounded that the prominent economist Robert Barro could be spouting such inanities.  The stunned state lasted a minute or so until I realized the article was written by a Josh Barro.  After a big "whew!" I dismissed it as the "Journolist" tripe that Al Hunt's minions at Bloomberg News consistently churn out.  Not blogworthy, not even for my ongoing chronicling of Bloomberg News as the new Journolist.

Well, it turns out that Mr. Josh Barro, the not-at-all-prominent anything, factors smallishly into the "Other Race Speech" coverage by the MSM.

@JBarro: I don’t get how you can work somewhere like Breitbart or Drudge and not feel like you’re doing something pathetic with your life.

Hinderaker nails it.  Just another faux-objective Journolist hack.  Hardly a surprise from Al Hunt's Bloomberg "We Invented "Unexectedly'" News.

Obama's "Other Race" Speech Incredibly Damning...for Media

I can't get worked up over the content of the Lightworker's Hampton speech, revealed by The Daily Caller and Fox News yesterday.  The notion that Dear Leader is a radical, redistributionist, race-mongerer is not particularly shocking to me, or any of those who were paying attention.  (Actually, what is shocking is that he has such a low opinion of his racial brethren.  Maybe this is the white half of him talking.)

In addition, Obama insisted, we need a series of new federal programs, including one to teach punctuality to the poor:

We can’t expect them to have all the skills they need to work. They may need help with basic skills, how to shop, how to show up for work on time, how to wear the right clothes, how to act appropriately in an office. We have to help them get there.

What is shocking is that this speech was delivered when the Lightworker was already a candidate for the Presidency of the United States.  So how in the hell is this the first that anybody has seen of it?  How in HELL? A candidate for POTUS gives a speech at a university and it doesn't even go down the memory hole, it never even sees the light of day.  ?????????  

Before I internalized this fact, I thought Roger Simon at PJ Media was a tad over the top with his "Media Coup d'Etat" theme.  Now, I think he maybe understates the case.