Financial Briefing: Use Tucks(tm) medicated pads to ease the burn.
— Monty

Generational warfare is all but a certainty at this point as the lie that is Social Security festers and grows unchecked. All I can say is: reality will assert itself, sooner or later. Don't get caught short -- save enough of your own money to fund your own retirement, because Uncle Sugar is going to screw you just as surely as the sunrise. Pull quote:

There will be pain. The system will gore a lot of oxen. The obvious victims will be the oldsters who have become dependent on Federal handouts. They are a powerful swing vote today, but they are in the minority. When the majority of working citizens finally perceive that it is an inescapable choice between handouts to oldsters vs. their families' solvency, they are going to vote away the oldsters' handouts.

Social Security only survives at the suffrance of the taxpayers who fund it. Pay particular attention to the part where it's explained in terrifyingly clear detail that it doesn't matter how much you paid in: you were paying a tax, not a contribution to a savings account. Uncle Sam can legally stiff you at any time.

more...

Posted by: Monty at 03:44 AM | Comments (207)
Post contains 862 words, total size 7 kb.

Top Headline Comments 11-5-10
— Gabriel Malor

FRIDAY!!

No word yet on the House or Senate contests. This counting thing always takes longer than I'd like, and I've long since run out of fingers and toes. But... FRIDAY!!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:15 AM | Comments (48)
Post contains 39 words, total size 1 kb.

Remarkable Prognostication
— Russ from Winterset

We haven't been relentlessly cribbing from Hot Air as much as usual lately. How about a piece by Patrick Ishmael that was featured in their "Green Room" right before election day?

He rated the GOP's chances in House Democrat-held seats, and listed them in order of probability of these seats being GOP flips. One hundred and thirty-four races, and he assigned a statistical probability to each & every one of them.

How did he do? Pretty damn good. His Top 50 included one that was too close to call (#42, CA-11) and one failed chance (#49, NY-23, which was rated as a 57% chance for a pickup). In fact, if you look at every race he rated as >50%, Republicans only failed to pick up two more than what I've already listed (#53, GA-2 and #55, NC-8 ). The four races he called as 50-50 tossups? Split down the middle two to two. And if you look at the races he called as less than 50% chances? Out of those 70 races, there was one still too close to call and SEVEN races where the GOP pulled off the upset. Of those seven, four of them were rated 40% or better for the GOP, and in the remaining three races, one of them is going down to the wire with a recount (IL-8 ). The only longshot race he whiffed on was Oberstar's shocking loss to Cravaack in MN-8.

Patrick, if you're reading this......do you know anything about the NFL? Because I could sure as hell use some help with my Moron Picks.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 05:50 PM | Comments (196)
Post contains 267 words, total size 2 kb.

Overnight Open Thread
— Maetenloch

Eisenhower In COLOR

This is from a speech Eisenhower gave on 22nd May 1958 that was carried on WRC-TV. And it's also the earliest known surviving color videotape recording.

The first few minutes are in B&W and then Robert Sarnoff (VP of NBC and later president of RCA) hits the color switch. For being 50+ years old the video quality is amazingly good.

more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:37 PM | Comments (743)
Post contains 611 words, total size 7 kb.

Surprise! Bag of Uncounted Ballots Found in CT
— Slublog

Never saw this coming, huh? Except, we kind of did.

In what has become one of the stranger twists in an already bizarre Governor's race, a bag of uncounted ballots was found in Bridgeport Thursday night.

Republican officials were approached by Democratic operatives and told about the surprise ballot bag, according to Bridgeport GOP Chairman Marc Delmonico.

Delmonico said Democrats asked to have several people deputized to count the uncounted ballots, but Republicans objected, claiming that wasn't proper procedure in the vote-counting process.

Instead the GOP asked police to take custody of the bag of ballots until the matter could be sorted out.

I'm sure there's an innocent explanation for all of this, so get those cynical thoughts out of your heads.

Just a thought: the innocent explanation would be incompetence by those we entrust to safeguard our votes. Yeah, that makes me feel a lot better, too.

Thanks to sTevo for the tip.

Posted by: Slublog at 05:25 PM | Comments (91)
Post contains 168 words, total size 1 kb.

The Down Ticket Tidal Wave
— Dave in Texas

It's been discussed here and there, but let's take a moment to ponder the significance of what happened in Tuesday's elections at the state level.

Death and destruction, that's what happened.

680 seats picked, bigger than the 94 Republican wave (472), bigger than the post-Watergate Democrat wave (62 .

Not since 1928 have Republicans controlled this many state legislatures.

Here's a pretty map.

Ace hit the numbers early Wednesday morning. The ramifications are going to be felt for years, first with post-census redistricting. States that have been growing in population are largely in Republican hands (for example, Texas will pick up at least 3 House seats and very likely a 4th, while California is going to lose seats may lose one seat* for the first time in 50 years).

So, barring the (fewer than we had before) Dem state reps high-tailing it for Oklahoma to avoid a vote on new district maps, this is, what's the word I'm lookin for?

Friggin huge.

UPDATE: Sorry, CA projection was from an LAT article I read from 09 but can't find, so I'll call loose shit on me. Current projections I can find say it stays static like this one.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:36 PM | Comments (137)
Post contains 206 words, total size 1 kb.

Is Nancy Pelosi Really Thinking Of Hanging On To Leadership Position?
— DrewM

Maybe the gift that keeps on giving, will give some more.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is gathering input from colleagues as she weighs whether to stay in Democratic leadership and run for minority leader after losing control of the House Tuesday night, according to two senior Democratic aides and one lawmaker.

Pelosi has made some of these contacts herself but has had surrogates reach out to other Democrats to test her support level within the caucus.

For members of her inner circle, the calls suggest that she may not be ready “to turn the keys over” while she’s gauging the more general feelings of Democrats outside her tightest clutch of backers, according to one of the aides.

A Democrat who spoke to Pelosi today said she is "just trying to figure out the mood of the caucus." This member told her "to do what she wants, I support you."

I could have sworn I heard her yell "palomino! PALOMINO!" the other night but maybe not.

It actually makes some sense. Those pesky Blue Dogs who didn't like her are gone and all that's left is her hard left base. Sure she'll lose the plane as Minority Leader but she'd still get a car and driver. She may not want to go cold turkey on tax payer goodies.

Posted by: DrewM at 04:02 PM | Comments (134)
Post contains 238 words, total size 1 kb.

The Third Trend in Initial Unemployment Filings: The Healing Begins
— Geoff

The Department of Labor released the initial unemployment claims data this morning: claims rose to 457,000, from last week's adjusted 437,000. Here's where that sits on the chart:

I call the fall from the peak in March '09 the "First Trend." It was a dramatic drop in initial claims, paralleled by a similarly dramatic slowing in job loss. The "Second Trend" started in November 2009, shortly after the Dems announced their health care reform bill. The improvement immediately stopped, and employment stagnated for about 9 months.

But the overall trend since about mid-August has been slightly downward, i.e., improving - I'm calling this the "Third Trend" because I totally rock when it comes to naming things. It's a barely perceptible improvement, but enough to suggest that unless another economic hit comes our way, the worst of unemployment is behind us.The question is: "Why? What changed in mid-August?"

Well, I have a theory, and it goes a little something like this:

What you're looking at is the improvement in initial unemployment claims vs. the prediction of GOP seat gains in the House. As you see, the improvement in initial unemployment claims was approaching zero, but in mid-August things started improving again. The remarkable thing is that this was just after pundits started predicting that the GOP would take control of the House.

So as long as it appeared that the Dems would retain control of the House, the healing of the job situation slowed to almost zero. As soon as the GOP's fortunes waxed, the healing started climbing back up. Businesses realized that the cavalry had finally arrived.

What does this all mean to you? Well, had the First Trend continued, we would have seen the unemployment rate start dropping last summer. Thanks, Nancy!! If the GOP hadn't taken back the House, we'd probably have seen the Second Trend continue indefinitely, as predicted by Geithner. But if the Third Trend continues, I think we'll start seeing recovery much sooner.

If only we'd taken the Senate, too.

Posted by: Geoff at 12:46 PM | Comments (313)
Post contains 355 words, total size 3 kb.

Obama to Businesses: "I really love you guys. Really. Now hire somebody!! Please"
— Geoff

The President finally realizes that he can't make it without support by, and support for, American businesses. But does he really get it? I don't think so:

...in his post-“shellacking” news conference Wednesday, Mr. Obama came close to conceding the chamber’s main argument, that American businesses have concluded — wrongly, in Mr. Obama’s view — that his policies are antibusiness.
...
“And so I’ve got to take responsibility in terms of making sure that I make clear to the business community as well as to the country that the most important thing we can do is to boost and encourage our business sector and make sure that they’re hiring,” Mr. Obama said.

Emphasis mine. You see, Mr. President, there are two things wrong with your statement. First, it's not your business as to whether they're hiring - they'll hire when they need to. Don't micromanage our businesses.

Second, "boosting" and "encouraging" the business sector is only indirectly related to hiring, because success in business doesn't necessarily depend on number of bodies. Successful businesses are profitable, stable, and strategically positioned to prosper in coming years. If hiring supports those goals, then they hire, but if downsizing, outsourcing, or freezing hiring supports those goals, that's what they do instead.

So telling business that you're now going to support them so that they can start hiring is like telling someone you're going to start a restaurant so people can poop more. It's a likely consequence of feeding them, but it has nothing to do with why you're running a restaurant.

If the President really wanted to overcome his communications problems, he would say, "I want to support a business environment where businesses can be strong, stable and profitable." That's a message that businesses can understand and respond to. And I think he would have said it that way if anybody in his administration had the slightest clue as to how business thinks. But as we all know, those people are in very short supply in his Cabinet.

So it's no surprise that Obama thinks of businesses as a social works program, existing solely to provide people with income and benefits (and pay corporate taxes, of course). And no wonder that he thinks it's just their inherent, obstinate evil characters or being miffed at the President that prevent them from hiring. If only his teleprompter would give him the key words needed to convince business to forswear evil profits and start hiring!! Just. Need. The Right. Words.

I swear, I think I'd rather have the Constitution require that Presidential candidates have at least run a lemonade stand than that they be natural born citizens.

Posted by: Geoff at 12:02 PM | Comments (151)
Post contains 465 words, total size 3 kb.

Lost In The Election News...Alaska TV Station Fires Two Employees For Plotting Against Joe Miller
— DrewM

Talk about burying bad news. It's old but I didn't want to let it go without note here.

Reporters for an Anchorage TV station were caught on voicemail plotting to hit Joe Miller with false stories right before the election. Station management denied any ill intent but the explanation offered that day was clearly BS.

They can spin it anyway they want now but actions speak louder than words.

The station's statement.

"KTVA today released findings of its internal assessment of allegations that the "news director for CBS Anchorage affiliate KTVA, along with assignment editor Nick McDermott, and other reporters, openly discussed creating, if not fabricating, two stories about Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Joe Miller," as alleged by the Miller campaign. KTVA states that its review included multiple staff interviews, a review of that day's actual news coverage and a forensic transcript of the recorded audio conversation.

General Manager Jerry Bever stated, "As we worked through this fact-finding process we noted that actual story assignments for that day had already been decided before the recorded conversation took place. At no time did any of the elements associated with the recorded comments become part of any coverage or broadcast. The recorded conversation in question specifically involved how that evening's Miller rally might be promoted and the ensuing dialogue went down hill from there. These particular comments were not in line with KTVA standards."

As a result of this incident, the two producers involved in the recorded conversation are no longer with the station. As a matter of policy KTVA did not identify the staff members involved, however KTVA clarified that neither the News Director, Assignment Editor Nick McDermott nor any other KTVA reporters were involved in the recorded conversation as previously reported by the Miller campaign.

KTVA believes that its actual broadcast coverage of Miller has been sound and fair during this election cycle and the history of our coverage speaks for itself. Bever noted that in the coverage of this issue, FOX News correspondent Dan Springer reported that in a review of recent Miller coverage by KTVA, Fox News could not find any articles or stories that showed any obvious bias or hit pieces against Joe Miller.

KTVA has contacted the Miller campaign to set up a meeting to review its findings. "

The plotting only came to light because one of the employees was stupid enough not to hang up their phone, otherwise we never would have heard about it.

How many other times a day does this go on and we never know about it?

But don't worry Media Matters For American is listening to Rush!

RELATED: Alaska election officials are speeding up the write-in counting process.

From Slu:

Posted by: DrewM at 11:32 AM | Comments (73)
Post contains 482 words, total size 3 kb.