A little bit of turbulence at take-off:

Perry had the support of 30.5 percent of people who were "definitely planning on voting in the 2012 Republican presidential primary." Romney was second with 27.3 percent. The next nearest competitor was "not sure," with 11 percent.

Bachmann dropped to 3.5%.

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (167)
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Uh, don't call my bluff?

“It is fair to say we’ve entered a new phase,” said Dan Pfeiffer, Mr. Obama’s communications director. But he disputed what he called the conventional wisdom behind the president’s shift.

“The popular narrative is that we sought compromise in a quixotic quest for independent votes. We sought out compromise because a failure to get funding of the government last spring and then an extension of the debt ceiling in August would have been very bad for the economy and for the country,” Mr. Pfeiffer added. “We were in a position of legislative compromise by necessity. That phase is behind us.”

In this new phase, Mr. Obama must solidify support among Democrats by standing pat for progressive party principles, while trusting that a show of strong leadership for the policies he believes in will appeal to independents. Polls consistently suggest that perhaps the only thing that unites independents as much as their desire for compromise is their inclination toward leaders who signal strength by fighting for their beliefs.

I'm pretty sure if you a President are pretending to be "the adult in the room" by claiming to try and govern in a balanced and above it all way, it doesn't help that your communications director is saying, "nah, we don't want compromise, we just want to rally our base".

In Pfeiffer's defense he's probably worried that the Democratic base is too stupid to realize they are being pandered too. Judging by this post from Greg Sargent, it would be a reasonable concern.

A variety of commentators and news outlets are responding to Obama’s new approach — his vow to take his jobs bill to the country, his call for tax hikes to be included in the deficit package, his veto threat — by reductively insisting that it’s only about winning back Democrats.

Politico today is a case in point, insisting that his plan reads “like a blueprint for shoring up his restless Democratic base.” There’s been tons of other chatter along these lines today.

The unstated assumption here is that Obama’s policies — in particular hiking taxes on the wealthy and corporations — couldn’t possibly have any appeal to the middle of the country.

Why are folks so reluctant to embrace the obvious truth that a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts to reduce the deficit is the mainstream American position?

So, the White House says they are simply pandering to their base and not really trying to forge a compromise and a liberal hack says, no you're not!

Ok.

As for how Obama's gambit will play, I think actual Democratic politicians who have to get elected in moderate to conservative states and districts probably have a better read on this than a guy like Sargent.

Centrist Democrats, a dwindling breed on Capitol Hill, were quickly faced with another rough choice once Obama went public with his plans: Reject their president or back what Republicans are already calling the largest tax increase in the nationÂ’s history.

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, who is up for reelection in 2012, has supported raising taxes on millionaires but was still weighing whether heÂ’d support higher taxes on those who make more than $200,000 a year, said spokesman Dan McLaughlin.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a key moderate who’s up for reelection next year, didn’t mince words: “There’s too much discussion about raising taxes right now, not enough focus on cutting spending.

Seems to me if Obama's tax hikes were as super popular as Sargent seems to think, these guys in tough races would be racing to embrace them. But what do they know about actual voters compared to a guy toeing the White House line from the safety of the Washington Post?

Posted by: DrewM at 07:01 AM | Comments (375)
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The New Republic is stealing my gig! The outrage! The scandal! But no pictures of ugly, lazy, bored felines, so I still have that going for me. I also try to be less clueless in my economic editorializing. (The meat of the article? Apparently, the GOP is evil and wants everyone to starve in the streets or something. Stand well back lest you be struck by flying spittle. Judis is as innocent of economic theory -- and history -- as the weeds in my garden.) EDIT: I just noticed that in this whole screed, Judis never says a harsh word about the liberal saint FDR in spite of the fact that FDR was at least as much to blame (if not more so) for the depth and duration of the Depression. This isn't so much historical anmesia as willfully ignoring the obvious.

S&P downgrades Italy. This is further pressure on the Eurozone, and further evidence that the currency union is on the verge of collapsing in on itself. The more prosperous northern states (Germany especially) will not tolerate the Eurozone turning into a transfer-union.

Reading this piece from Victor Davis Hanson makes me think that California may be moving out of "boned" status and into "DOOMED" status. California cannot go on this way for much longer.

Also, you can add Florida to the list of LOTB members who have moved from “pending boning” status to “fully boned” status.

Greece and the crisis of the governing elite. With a bonus quote from Frederic Bastiat: "Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone."

Teh Krugman: WEÂ’RE BLEEDING TO DEATH, YOU WINGNUTS!!! We need a money-poultice, stat! Transfusions of money! Money will cure all ills! (We can use Krugman's own metaphor against him: if the austerity advocates are like doctors who "bleed" their patients, then Krugman and his ilk are like the carnival-tent faith healer who promises that a mere laying-on of hands will cure everything from gout to paralysis.)

This is the equivalent of a gauntlet being thrown down, a challenge to his adversaries. Obama has declared an ideologcal war against half the country. He doesn’t intend for any of this nonsense to get passed into law; he knows full well he wouldn’t get it past his own party, much less the GOP. No, this is the opening move of the Obama 2012 campaign, Barack Obama in full leftist warrior mode. Obama seems to have convinced himself that his message of “huge tax increases now for tiny cuts later (maybe)” will resonante with voters. He will make no Clintonian move to the center because he doesn't have it in him. He has marinated in the leftist fever-swamps for his entire life; it's the only world he knows, and the only veiwpoint he understands.

Just a reminder to those who think that China will bail out the rest of the world: China has debt problems of its own.

CNBC's Jim Cramer is a perfect reverse barometer. Whatever he says, you can be sure the opposite is actually the case. So working from that model...we are all doomed.

What the--? I thought I smelled something! Man, I just bought these shoes! Gimme a stick so I can scrape it off, willya?

"Applying macroeconometric models to questions of fiscal policy is the equivalent of using pre-Copernican astronomy to launch a satellite." The "experts" fail yet again.

Dr. Doom jumps aboard the Keynesian stimulus train.

Bankrupt and bailed-out GMÂ’s UAW workers get...a $5000 signing bonus! Charlie Brown sez: All I got was a rock.

King Dollar shows some strength. We're still drawing the "safe haven" money, apparently.

We have a popular and growing brand, gentlemen! But I am not satisfied! No, we need to move upward, ever upward. So, hereÂ’s my plan: We will charge our customers half-again as much for the same service as before -- and in the teeth of the worst economy in generations! But thatÂ’s not all! Let us take the brand-name that made us famous, and change it to something stupid! Let us bifurcate our online presence and make it as difficult as possible for our existing customers to continue to use our service! It can't miss! You may sit back and bask in the heat of my brilliance, gentlemen, as we await the plaudits and praises of our customers and shareholders.

Ask the citizens what they want to do? Well, as a last resort. If lying, cheating, stealing, perfidy, obfuscation, delay, incompetence, cowardice, and stupidity have no effect, we can always fall back on the democratic process.

UPDATE 1: From Arthur comes this tip: The Greek Solyndra? And they're asking the Germans for the money? This seems...ill-advised. On many levels.

UPDATE 2: More and more people seem to be advocating this particular alternative to a Greek ejection from the Eurozone -- have the Germans and strong Northern economies leave instead. France would howl; one of France's goals in the Eurozone project was to shackle Germany to the weaker southern European nations and at the same time increase their own leverage over their Teutonic neighbors. If the Germans and others leave to form a "neue-Duetschemark", it would ruin all of France's plans. And it would throw the rest of the Eurozone into a major financial crisis -- though that will probably happen in any case.

UPDATE 3: Bammer: Everyone should pay their "fair share"! Except for that 47% who pay no federal tax at all. If you want a truly "fair" tax system, then everybody should have to pay something, if only to prove that government isn't free. (I pay about 30% of my yearly wage to the federal, state, and local Leviathan. Even God only asks for 10%.)

UPDATE 4: Keith Hennessey confirms -- Bammer's "balanced approach" is a giant pant-load.
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Posted by: Monty at 04:57 AM | Comments (201)
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Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:31 AM | Comments (146)
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Okay as late last night's commenters may have read I suffered a minor sword wound last night. And no I'm not kidding or exaggerating - my thumb really did get sliced open by a Japanese katana. Which meant I got to spend 2 hours in the ER, get multiple shots, and leave with 5 stitches. Joy.

But contrary to the rumors, Breitbart's goons weren't involved in this particular incident - sadly this was what the authorities would term a 'solo sword accident'. So a now chastened Maetenloch has learned 3 important lessons from this episode:
1. Always lift a sword by the handle - never the scabbard. (yeah this is like Samurai 101)
2. Do not multitask while handling the sword.
3. Always keep your tetanus shots up to date.

Okay tonight's Moron PSA is now concluded.

Is This Really True About North Dakota?

If you have a license and no criminal record, you can get a six-figure trucking job almost overnight.

Well Tyler Cowan was initially skeptical but after poking around a bit, it seems to be only a modest exaggeration:

You can find some of the ads here, and more broadly here. My poking around showed that some of them start at 75k a year, though with raises for good performance. It is also required that you have no DUI convictions.

Some commenters claim that this is only for independent operators and glosses over the difference between gross and net pay. But others point out that company drivers without child support garnishments or DUIs who can pass a drug test are at quite a premium. And some companies are even willing to pay for your CDL training if you commit to working for them for a while.

This site has lots of ND trucking jobs listed but the ones with salaries shown seem more in the $50K range than $100K. So now I'm skeptical again. I guess we'll need some Moron input to definitively answer the question.

But if you're fed-up, unemployed, or just bored, all this could be yours (maybe):

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:42 PM | Comments (667)
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Heard this one on Levin this afternoon on my way home from the airport, but I had heard it before, just seems timely and all.

What was the plan here, to encourage economic recovery, and growth? For the national interest? I think he was saying we should cut taxes, call me crazy and dip my nuts, did I hear that right?

So how badly did Kennedy's tax cuts impair federal revenues? "Tax revenues climbed from $94 billion in 1961 to $153 billion in 1968, an increase of 62 percent (33 percent after adjusting for inflation)."

Well darndy darn. It's almost as if a healthy economy is better than punishing a badly damaged one with tax increases.

Stupid math.

OH! Also, the Giants, they're goin down. You know why? Because I picked em to win against the points that's why.

Kiss of death. Davepick.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:13 PM | Comments (145)
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If you think I write long and am badly in need of an editor, read this guy.

I pretty much hate this article because it's written in such a cutesy, I-think-I'm-funny way. It doesn't state its thesis simply or directly. It's a lot of affected stream of consciousness, questioning and halting stuff like this:

He is only one man, after all. It may even be said — if we may say so — that he is just a man. May we? We may, because that's how Stewart likes it. But we all know that some men become more than men by how they respond to their times. Such a man is Jon Stewart. He has stepped up. He might have started out as a great comedian, but when he saw that the times were no laughing matter, he became also a great man. He transformed himself, and so was himself transformed. Even as the media and politicians he mocked so relentlessly lost their moral compass, he found his. He saw wrong and tried to right it; saw suffering and tried to heal it; saw war and tried to stop it; saw his old friend Anthony Weiner's penis and tried to make jokes about it...

Pretty much it's 15,000 words to say not a great deal more than Jim Treacher did so long ago: "Clown nose on, clown nose off."

Occasionally there's a halfway decent point...

Was he funny? Well, there is a sound that comedians know is always there, waiting for them. It's not laughter. Nor is it the sound of booing or catcalls. It goes like this: Whooooo ... and American audiences make it to signal not that they find a joke funny but that they get it and agree with it. Comedians fear it, because they know it's easy to get. They know that it's the end of something and the beginning of something else — the end of comedy and the beginning of "humor," in which they get no more laughs but bask in the applause of the audiences whose prejudices they flatter.

Jon Stewart has made a career of avoiding "Whooo" humor. He has flattered the prejudices of his audience, but he has always been funny, and he has always made them laugh. At the Juan Williams taping, however, at least half of Stewart's jokes elicited the sound of Whooo! instead of the sound of laughter. He's been able to concentrate his comedy into a kind of shorthand — a pause, or a raised eyebrow, is often all that is necessary now — but a stranger not cued to laugh could be forgiven for not laughing, indeed for thinking that what was going on in front of him was not comedy at all but rather high-toned journalism with a sense of humor. Which might be how Jon Stewart wants it by now. But outside the building there's still a giant version of him standing with clasped hands, and he looks ready to take the piss out of anyone, including the gray-haired man inside, talking seriously to a Fox News analyst about starting a network something like Fox, without the laughs.

... which is just a wordier way to say "Stewart does a lot of clapper humor and seems to take himself too seriously."

I think Stewart is dishonest -- he is at the very least dishonest with himself, as he makes very thin distinctions in order to claim he's not himself ideological. But the writer of the Esquire piece does not fault him for that. Instead, the Esquire piece faults him for seeming "self-parody" in faulting Rachel Maddow for being too ideological.

That last clip is pretty interesting, as he mostly defends Bush from the most outrageous "He lied us into war" claims and punctures Maddow's self-flattery of herself as an unblinkered, unbiased Searcher For Truth.

That's what I think the Esquire writer objects to-- because, in his better moments, Stewart does occasionally fault the left for its un-nuanced, black-and-white, smug self-righteousness. Stewart's chief fault, in this view, is spoiling the left's good time. The left wants to pat itself on the back for being qualitatively different than (by which I mean: superior to) the mindless, conspiracy-mongering partisan hacks on the other side. It tends to not enjoy having it pointed out they are, actually mindless conspiracy-mongering partisan hacks most of the time.

Now, Stewart's a hypocrite and willfully blind to his own biases, and he looks like a total jackass in that Wallace clip. Still, people tend to be better critics of others than of themselves, don't they?

When Machmoud Abbas was revealed to be a Holocaust denier, apologists pointed out a sad fact about Palestine: Holocaust deniers were the moderates of Palestine.

Holocaust enthusiasts were the extremists, in that nasty little land.

Similarly, Stewart might deny his own bias, and general bias in the liberal media, but at least he knows enough to wish to disassociate himself from the partisan hackery of MSNBC, rather than celebrate it as "liberals finally having the courage to hijack media 'news' shows towards ideological ends.

Which, if I understand Equire Writer's thinking (and I might not -- he doesn't seem to understand his thinking, either), is really the central complaint made about Stewart here.

Eh. Writer fail on that Esquire piece. He took a guy I don't think is funny or particularly thoughtful and wrote such a long, meandering, pointless, and archly smug piece about Stewart I'm actually inclined to defend Stewart.

Jon Stewart's Problem Is That He's Committed To Stopping A Trivial Problem. What most distorts politics?

Media bias which favors one ideological agenda, while claiming itself to be non-ideological? Not only does that result in an unfair advantage for one ideology, it breeds cynicism: Conspiracy theories flourish because few actually have an authority as straight-shooters. And that's the media's fault, because it has given up all but the thinnest pretense of objectivity.

Stewart does not think that is a problem. He denies the media even has such a problem at all.

Rather, he thinks media has a bias towards "conflict" and "simplicity." This, he thinks, causes us to view each other with more suspicion and hatred. It coarsens the dialogue and tends to reduce the chances of good compromises.

That's true but that is a rather minor problem compared to the first. And, in the scheme of things, someone might be justified in noting that both are comparatively minor problems to obsess about; that media criticism is, necessarily, a relatively trivial pursuit. Add into that that among the various ways one could engage this relatively minor topic, Stewart's chosen the least important way, and that means that for all his influence, his mission itself concerns the most trivial critique in a field that is already rather trivial.

And men who pursue trivial goals are generally not afforded the honorific of Hero, even if they're relatively skilled in pursuit of those trivial ends.

Although media bias is a problem, it is a proceduralist concern. And right now, at this point in history, proceduralist stuff is pretty thin gruel.

If Stewart wanted to achieve a mighty purpose, he could weigh in forcefully on substantive matters -- like the Democratic Party's attempt to demonize reforms that virtually everyone who is not running for office in 2012 admits are necessary.

But instead he contents himself with the easy crap, the nothing-burgers, small worries about the indirect effects of putative "coarsening" of our debate and the speculative erosion of supposed possibilities to achieve hypothetical (and viewpoint-dependent) political outcomes.

Stewart may appear large in his self-defined field, but that is only because the niche he's created for himself --the problem that so consumes him -- is so tiny.

If you want to criticize Stewart, then do so by noting that while he occupies a space in the public mind not seen since Walter Winchell or Walter Cronkite, his animating belief is the trivial "We ought to be nicer to each other and not demonize each other so much."

It's a nice thought, certainly, and hard to dispute, but then, no one ever gave the writers of Blossom a Pulitzer Prize for Very Special Episodes containing the same basic message.

Posted by: Ace at 02:31 PM | Comments (285)
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A "balanced approach:"

That means in terms of actual new proposals, the presidentÂ’s plan totals about $1.2 trillion, of which the lionÂ’s share comes from his longstanding vow to raise taxes back to Clinton-era rates on the top income brackets. The rest is $580 billion in reductions to formula-driven entitlement programs such as Social Security, with much of the savings coming from reducing overpayments and finding waste.

Those $580 billion in newly proposed cuts are dwarfed nearly three-to-one by the $1.5 trillion in additional taxes the president wants to see going forward.

Mr. Obama said his plan calls for $2 in cuts for every $1 in tax increases, but he reaches that by re-counting cuts already in law or in the planning pipeline, and by factoring in lower debt service costs.

AP notes that Obama's planning on taxing pretty much everybody:

Airline passengers would see their federal security fees double from $5 to $10 for a nonstop round-trip flight and triple to $15 by 2017, raising $25 billion over the coming decade.... And it'll cost corporate jet owners a new $100 fee for each flight.

...

Many of Obama's proposals are retreads from earlier budget proposals, including those submitted by his predecessors. Most have been rejected year after year. Some ideas, like requiring wealthier veterans to pay more for their health care, stir up opposition from powerful interest groups. Others, like the bigger security fee for flyers, seem too close to a ticket tax increase.

Administration budget documents describe the fees as savings.

I've cut one proposal out of there that I like a great deal: He proposes that federal workers should pay more towards their pension benefits, for example.

Not all of this is absurd. Just most of it. And the accounting is absurd: Calling increased taxes and fees "savings."

Obama is determined that he will not cut spending at all. That makes it impossible to even consider the "savings" he proposes. A drunk needs to acknowledge he has a problem with alcohol before anything else.

Most of this is in bad faith, anyway. Obama's "proposals" are not true proposals. He doesn't want a law; he wants an issue for the 2012 election. Every fake proposal he makes has a built-in poison pill to make it objectionable to Republicans, by design.

He's already announced his plan for 2012 is a Harry Truman-like run against a "Do-Nothing Congress." Obviously that plan can only work if Congress rejects his ideas; and he's making sure they will, by always sticking a poison pill in.

That's not an accident. And that's not Republican recalcitrance. That is a cynical non-plan by a man who is willing to let the economy tank further so long as he can claw some political advantage out of the wreckage.

One point five trillion in tax hikes from the man who just recently said "He's absolutely right, you don't want to raise taxes in the middle of a recession."

It should be noted that his wiggle-room there is always his claim that these taxes will not actually kick in for a couple of years, when the recession has ended.

You know, like it's already ended, supposedly.

Posted by: Ace at 01:28 PM | Comments (224)
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We all know from his Paula Jones deposition that Bill Clinton is rather good at avoiding answering questions.

He doesn't really answer this one.

Scarborough, who's an idiot but whatever, talks up the possibility of a SCOAMF step-aside in favor of Hillary. Obama's approval with liberals is at an all-time low (68%), and a group backed by Ralph Nader vows a primary challenge.

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Posted by: Ace at 12:53 PM | Comments (186)
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I had a few emails last week from Palin-boosters noting that Sarah Palin had managed the coup of a favorable write up in the New York Times.

Of course, they were not impressed by her ability to convince them of things they didn't believe -- like the prudence of expanding domestic energy production.

No, they were impressed at her ability to say things they already agreed with:

Let us begin by confessing that, if Sarah Palin surfaced to say something intelligent and wise and fresh about the present American condition, many of us would fail to hear it.

That is not how weÂ’re primed to see Ms. Palin. A pugnacious Tea Partyer? Sure. A woman of the people? Yup. A Mama Grizzly? You betcha.

But something curious happened when Ms. Palin strode onto the stage last weekend at a Tea Party event in Indianola, Iowa. Along with her familiar and predictable swipes at President Barack Obama and the “far left,” she delivered a devastating indictment of the entire U.S. political establishment — left, right and center — and pointed toward a way of transcending the presently unbridgeable political divide.

Ralph Nader is also praising Palin, but I think Ed sums up the reasons for this fairly well:

And just like when the NYT suddenly discovered PalinÂ’s anti-establishment cred, I suspect that the newfound respect from Nader and Salon doesnÂ’t have much to do with surprise as it does with trying to take a few indirect shots at the Republicans running for President. If Palin does toss her hat in the ring, donÂ’t expect this late media infatuation with Palin as a smart crusader to last very long.

Those shots were not "indirect;" they were aimed directly at the media's new designated Hate Figure, Rick Perry.

It's nice to see the media and leftists (but I repeat myself) note that Sarah Palin is not, in fact, the right-wing Wolf Genocidalist caricature they have long informed the public she was. (But note, in neither Strange New Respect piece is there any acknowledgement of being wrong in perpetrating this caricature; both the NYT and Ralph Nader imply that this is entirely new information, so they can't be faulted for having previously missed this aspect of Palin.)

On the other hand, I'm not buying the claim put forth by Palin-supporters that good reviews from the NYT and Ralph Nader are suddenly good reasons to support someone. I had thought the rule was entirely the opposite: I have heard again and again that Rush Limbaugh's vague statement, "They will tell you who they fear," was a covert endorsement of Palin, for, after all, by pouring so much hate on her, they told us they feared her, and (in a bit of logic that's never been quite clear to me*) ergo we ought to do the opposite and support her.

But if Rick Perry is now the designated Hate Figure and Sarah Palin praised as the Republican We In The Media Sort Of Agree With, doesn't that mean that now they're telling us they fear Perry and ergo we should rush right out and do the exact opposite of what they tell us and support him?

And aren't the nice comments about Palin a warning that she's a terrible RINO?

I don't actually believe that. But then, I never believed this bullshit that "They will tell us who they fear" and that we should all therefore subcontract our decision-making to liberals, by supporting, without any evaluation of our own, whoever they most opposed.

I guess I'm just looking for some consistency in politics.

And given the history of politics, I suppose I'll keep on looking for it for some time.

* Most offensive to me in this formulation is the notion that we conservatives are too dumb to figure this stuff out for ourselves, but apparently liberals are smart enough to figure it out. So we should just watch what those smarty-pants are doing or saying, and then do the opposite.

When you key your decisions entirely on the decisionmaking of someone else -- even if you will do the exact opposite they urge -- you are giving up your own decisionmaking and giving that power to someone else.

I've never wanted to give that power up to anyone. Nor have I ever believed that liberals were smarter than myself, so that I would make better decisions if I watched their decisions and then simply opposed them. I always sort of thought I (and other conservatives) could figure out what we wanted for ourselves, with no need of checking the Liberal Caucus about it.

And Ron Paul, Too: At 6:11, Jon Stewart demands to know why FoxNews doesn't treat Ron Paul better.

He plugs Ron Paul a lot. Because of the Peacenik hippy thing.

Posted by: Ace at 12:26 PM | Comments (122)
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