Democratic Bastion Goldman Sachs Predicts Continuing Poor Economic Performance
— Ace

Down, down, down.

Following another week of weak economic data, we have cut our estimates for real GDP growth in the second and third quarter of 2011 to 1.5% and 2.5%, respectively, from 2% and 3.25%. Our forecasts for Q4 and 2012 are under review, but even excluding any further changes we now expect the unemployment rate to come down only modestly to 8¾% at the end of 2012.

[Discussion of short-term, temporary factors, such as auto supply disruptions due to the Japan Nuke Disaster, omitted; report notes that failing economy cannot be explained entirely by such temporary factors]

...final demand growth has slowed to a pace that is typically only seen in recessions.... Moreover, if the economy returns to recession—not our forecast, but clearly a possibility given the recent numbers …

Obama's obvious play here is to claim the economy was growing, until... those wicked Republicans took over the House in January 2010, and then they undid all his terrific work.

It's obvious, but I don't think many are going to buy that jazz. Obama promised some strong growth in 2011, for example:

Starting in 2011, with Obamanomics fully in gear and the recession over, growth would take off. GDP would rise 4.3 percent in 2011, followed by Â… 4.3 percent growth in 2012 and 2013, too! And 2014? Another year of 4.0 percent growth. Off to the races, America.

But I don't see what else they can say.

Posted by: Ace at 05:30 AM | Comments (373)
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Top Headline Comments 7-16-2011 [Truman North]
— Open Blogger

Take me home, country road. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:26 AM | Comments (22)
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Overnight Open Thread
— Dave in Texas

Maetenloch is on vacation or something ("vacation? What's that" you ask. "How should I know, I'm busy taking care of the soldiers who keep America safe and I'm busy" I answer), so he asked for some help while he's off doing, vacationy things.

Doing my best to stay cool here, it's been 45 days since June 1 and we've already had 30 days over 100. So I'm doing the ONT out on the deck by the pool. Nekkid. It doesn't really help with the heat but I kinda feel better about it, you know what I'm sayin?

Lego Serenity via Andy Levy via yet another guy named Andy.

Here's something from the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices in St. Paul, Minnesota (where it likely isn't 103 today), the RectoRotor. more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:12 PM | Comments (807)
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Laura Ingraham Juxtaposes Carter's Malaise Speech with Recent Obama Comments
— rdbrewer

Brilliant. At Mediaite. Video below the fold. more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 04:46 PM | Comments (123)
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Sheila Jackson Lee: "Read Between the Lines. What Is Different About This President, That He Should Not Receive The Same Respect" on the Debt Limit
— Ace

Oh! Oh! I know!

It's because he's increased the deficit more in two years than any president has before in any 8 year term, right?!

Nope.

It's because our debt is so unsustainable that both Moody's and S&P are threatening a downgrade unless we prove a plausible path to solvency, right?!

Nope.

Oh, I know, it's because with so much capital being soaked up by government borrowing it's permanently stunting the real economy of this country, private sector wealth creation, right?

Nope, not even close.

You didn't read between the lines, dude.

Posted by: Ace at 03:39 PM | Comments (307)
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71% of Military Ballots not counted in the 2010 election. [ArthurK]
— Open Blogger

That's my worst case estimate based on this story. (I plead guilty to headline sensationalism)

Of the 2 million military voters covered by the report, 15.8 percent requested absentee ballots, but only 4.6 percent cast absentee ballots that were counted.

15.8% requested, 4.6% counted = 29% successful or 71% unsuccessful.

Most of the states did a good job counting the ballots they actually got back - the overall acceptance rate was more than 94 percent.

Looks like ballots aren't making it to the troops, they're not filling out the ones they get or the ballots aren't making it back to the states. From my personal experience, when I went to the trouble to request an absentee ballot, I always filled it out and sent it in. I don't know what's going on here but forgive me if I suspect that there's voter supression in action.

... military voters were (28% as)* likely to vote than other voting-age citizens (in the 2010 election)

*innumeracy in linked article corrected.

That doesn't pass the smell test. Perhaps some currently or recently serving troops can enlighten me? Are you guys voting nowadays? (I have no idea how common absentee voting was back in the 1970s when I was in. We did follow the elections closely.)

The linked story also goes on to point out games states like Maryland and New York played to delay sending out ballots until it was too late to matter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:17 PM | Comments (204)
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Call His Bluff
— Ace

Krauthammer: Call his bluff.

Lowry: Call his bluff.

Professor Jacobsen: Obama's not going to call his own bluff.

Histrionic Chris Matthews: Pretty please don't call Obama's bluff.

So it's agreed.

Short posts for a while, I'm interviewing (or will soon be interviewing) Jamie Radtke, who is contesting George Allen for the nomination for US Senator for Virginia.

Input sought!

Posted by: Ace at 11:10 AM | Comments (312)
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Afternoon Open Thread/Great Video
— Ace

Because the darned hamsters double-posted.

Below, another great video from RD. Content warning for the F-word and some hilarious harm.

Anyone ever notice that whenever young men are walking around without shirts (you see this on COPS a lot), bad things are afoot? more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:00 AM | Comments (162)
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NPR Poll Finds That 96% (Ninety-Six Percent!) of the Public Wants Spending Cuts
NPR Reports Poll As 75% Want Tax Increases
— Ace

Both findings are technically accurate, since possible answers (with different percentages of the public siding with each) offered different mixes of tax increases and spending cuts.

Of course NPR latched on to the one finding. Here's sherlock, explaining:

NPR News' Orwellian twisting of reality this morning should remind us of what Mark Twain famously said about statistics.

NPR's newsreader said something to the effect that a recent poll showed that roughly 75% of Americans favored increasing taxes to close the deficit, showing that the current Republican position on spending cuts was misguided, and would backfire on them.

I assume the reference was to yesterday's Gallup poll results, asking Americans how they wanted the deficit reduced:

Only with spending cuts- 20
Mostly with spending cuts - 30
Equally with spending cuts and tax increases - 32
Mostly with tax increases - 7
Only with tax increases - 4

Note that the sum of the last three items, which all include some reference to tax increases, plus item 2, which can be inferred to, is 74%. Of course, by the "logic" NPR uses, it would have been equally valid to report that "96% of Americans support spending cuts"! In fact the latter interpretation would have been considerably less egregious, since an actual majority favor approaches that explicitly call for spending cuts! Of course, NPR clearly contrived to leave the impression that 75% favored tax increases, versus 25% favoring spending cuts.

I sent this to the NPR Ombudsman, with the comment that I hope this blatant shilling for the Democrats' position works out well for them, because they will never get a nickel in pledge money from my household to continue their work of lying to the public.

Another fair reading is also that 50% of the public -- a majority -- supports solving the problem either entirely with spending cuts or mostly with spending cuts.

Posted by: Ace at 10:00 AM | Comments (61)
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Project Valour-IT Follow Up...Look What You Morons Did
— DrewM

From fellow moron and the first recipient of a Project Valour-IT laptop, Chuck Ziegenfuss (He might not like this but as the guys at Blackfive say, he's someone you should know).

You are an Army of Davids Morons.

Friends, Let me be clearÂ…

Okay, I shouldnÂ’t have started that way so early in the morning.

Let me try again.

Thank you. At about 9:AM yesterday, the VALOur-IT fund drive had collected over $39,000 in donations—after thirteen days of blegging. After Drew posted about our efforts, the MoronMenagerie™ took a break from opening hobos, kvetching about the excesses and inadequacies of our Government, preparing for our eventual DOOM! and opened their hearts and wallets instead.

Thanks to your efforts and generosity, our drive took off—like John Edwards after an ambulance. I watched, stunned, as our totals started climbing. My email was exploding with notifications of donations like… like something that explodes. And by explodes, I mean blows up. And by blows up, I mean inflates. And by inflates, I mean taking a point and beating it to death.

Okay, the Valu-rite is wearing off now. The hockey-stick graph (below) showing your altruism wouldÂ’ve made Al Gore add a new wing to his house, and heat it by burning unicorns.

You Morons made this happen—138 service members will get their adaptive laptops now, not “when funds become available.” We didn’t make our $100,000 goal (but the links are still open…) however we should have enough funds to carry us through to our normal November fundraiser. (Think about that—we’ve had so many wounded in the last seven months that we went through an entire year’s budget.) Because of You Morons, they will get that same sense of being able to do one thing that they used to do, to help them feel a little bit normal. I can’t stress enough how much of an impact that has had on me and on others—imagine you couldn’t get your morning dose of DOOM! or find out how Chemjeff has been scoring at the Applebee’s in the ONT—because you lacked the ability to use a mouse or keyboard. AoSHQ withdrawal isn’t pretty; It’d make an Ewok lose its fur.

Again, from the bottom of my heart, and for all those who you have and will help, Thank you.

Chuck Ziegenfuss

Let me just add my thanks to Maetenloch who jumped right in when I asked him to include it in the ONT on Wednesday night and Gabe who pushed it on his highly read Twitter feed. A lot of credit of course goes to Ace, who built this crazy place and then decided to let a bunch of people post pretty much whatever they want here. I've joked before that if Ace ever figures how to revoke my password, I hope he'd at least let me write the occasional piece pointing to the amazing things our military does around the world.

And you guys...the comment section here is always opinionated, occasionally obnoxious but when push comes to shove, always caring. We've seen it time and time again. It's a strange world when there's a direct link between smart political analysis, Ewok masturbation jokes and helping wounded warriors but there you have it.

Of course the biggest thanks goes to the men and women who voluntarily serve their country and their families who support them.

Finally, if a picture is worth a thousand words, than a chart of donations is worth life changing equipment for 138 wounded American heroes. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 09:14 AM | Comments (75)
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