He says if he knew then what he knows now he never would have voted to uphold the landgrab (and the 4-3 majority for the landgrab would be a 3-4 majority for blocking it).

If Anthony Kennedy (the swing vote on the US Supreme Court) has similar doubts, he probably ought to say so.

Posted by: Ace at 10:52 AM | Comments (222)
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Supposedly.

Read Nice Deb's link for a round-up for the chatter, which seems to have been provoked chiefly by Paul Gigot's belief that he must be thinking about it.

But note that Paul Gigot offers no claims that he knows anything factual -- his belief is based on what he imagines is going on behind-the-scenes.

Posted by: Ace at 10:35 AM | Comments (248)
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From the AtaaaackWaaatch people. Misfit Politics.

Here's the real video of these clowns, but below, the parody video.

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Posted by: Ace at 09:51 AM | Comments (189)
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He was part of Team Hillary!, so maybe he doesn't know what he's doing, either.

But add another voice to the Democratic chorus of criticism.

Obama's team actually believes that in the last six months they have courted independent voters and that didn't work, so now they are turning to activating the base with higher taxes on the wealthy. However, he never made any meaningful appeal to those voters in terms they would understand. He supported extending the Bush tax cuts, temporarily zoomed up in the polls, and then promptly repudiated what he had done, only to then fall back down.

The 2010 mid-term elections were fought over Obama's healthcare plan and on his plan to raise taxes on the wealthy by ending the Bush tax cuts. The results were, in his own words, a "shellacking." After his most recent speech to Congress, voters in New York City's Ninth Congressional District just elected a Republican for the first time since 1920.

And now, Obama is pressing the case for higher taxes, following in the footsteps of Walter Mondale. Higher taxes always seem to poll well, but in reality the country sees that as a last resort.

...

America wants to see the president focused on stimulating jobs and innovation, not on raising taxes in a near recession. The president could be out there with tax reform that promotes America's greatest asset -- the country's hard working and ever successful professionals -- and yet raises funds by closing the gap on taxes on capital. He could have tax reform that righted the balance between capital and wage income without opening up class warfare. And he could be moving forward on immigration reform, on trade deals, on new policies and programs that put America at the frontier of new technologies on energy and pharmaceuticals.

Instead, the president has wandered into the thicket of class warfare that will only compound the difficulties before his climb to re-election.

The Washington Post calls Obama's play a "more populist approach." Absent from that approach is any kind of genuine reform.

Steven Hayward has similar thoughts at Powerline. He notes that 36 Senators from both parties gave a press conference urging not tax hikes but tax reform, and wonders why on earth Obama would pass up on the politically-popular (and policy-prudent) issue of tax reform.

Obama is so besotted with class warfare mentality that he is unwilling to grasp the one huge bipartisan opportunity that is in front if him—an opportunity that has been in front of him for months. He doesn’t care about economic growth; he cares only about redistribution and gaining more political control over the economy. His dismissal of his own deficit commission last year showed his inclinations on this.

I reckon Obama has only about four days to see the light on this. Harry Reid has said the Senate won’t take up his urgent jobs bill Stimulus bill until after their next recess. If Democratic Senators go home without a course change from Obama, you can count on them coming back to DC with the attitude of “Obama jobs bill? What Obama jobs bill? Obama? Obama who?”

Obama's proposing "The Buffet Rule," a bit of class-warfare and pure populism that would impose a minimum tax on millionaires.

President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials. Â…

Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the “Buffett Rule,” in a reference to Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained repeatedly that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do middle-income workers, because investment gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages.

Maybe my populism-sense is all screwy, but I do always think that that sort of thing should sell well with the public. Which isn't an endorsement. I'm just noting I usually fear that that's going to work, in inciting class-warfare sentiments against the GOP.

Dick Durbin says they'll get to this incredibly urgent Pass This Jobs Bill Now jobs bill sometime next month.

But Obama did want to show how really urgent he said the situation was, even though it had taken him 961 days as president to say them. And even though from Day #1 of the brief Obama Era polls had shown jobs and the economy were the No. 1 priority among voters but he pursued healthcare and financial reforms first. And even though unemployment had been at or above 9% for 26 of the last 28 months.

So, given the president's professed urgency, the next day, Sept. 9, everyone asked where was his jobs legislation?

And, well, it seems the urgent jobs bill hadn't actually been written yet but should be ready in a week or two. When the laughter died, the White House said on second thought the legislation would be ready for a photo op the next Monday.

Well, here we are on the next Monday after that next Monday and we've just learned from the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin, that actually it seems that body won't really be seriously getting into the legislation for a while yet. The Senate has some other more important business to handle. And then there's this month's congressional vacation, which in Washington is called "a recess," like elementary school.

Here's the revealing exchange with a persistent host Candy Crowley on CNN's "State of the Union:"

CROWLEY: When is the bill going to get on the floor?

DURBIN: The bill is on the calendar. Majority leader Reid moved it to the calendar. It is ready and poised. There are a couple other items we may get into this week not on the bill and some related issues that may create jobs. But we're going to move forward on the president's bill. There will be a healthy debate. I hope the Republicans will come to...

CROWLEY: After the recess, so next month? Or when will it actually begin to act on?

DURBIN: I think that's more realistic it would be next month.

So, as of right now, "right now" uttered on Sept. 8 really means sometime at least one month later.

Good thing the president's own Democratic party controls the Senate. Because, otherwise, there might be some kind of silly, unnecessary delays in deliberating Obama's urgent jobs bill that he says will surely help the nation's unemployed millions if only those Republicans don't connive to slow things down.

Because the liberal base wants Obama to "get tougher" and "be more of a fighter" and show some netroots passion, Obama is dutifully complying.

President Obama warned he will veto any deficit plan brought to him by Congress that wasn’t ‘balanced’ between taxes and spending cuts.

‘We are not going to have a one-sided deal that hurts the folks who are most vulnerable,’ Obama said Monday morning, speaking from the Rose Garden.

He rejected accusations that tax increases for the wealthy was ‘class warfare’.

The president argued, as he has repeatedly, that wealthier Americans ‘shouldn’t get a better deal than ordinary families.’.

“This is not class warfare, it’s math. The money’s going to have to come from some place,” the president said, speaking to reporters. “If we’re not willing to ask those who’ve done extraordinarily well to help America close the deficit, the logic, the math says everybody else has to do a whole lot more. “

Obama acts as if both taxpayers and taxspenders have contributed equally to this problem, so both will now have to pitch in equally.

Of course that's not quite accurate.

Posted by: Ace at 09:25 AM | Comments (173)
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So titled because it adds an identical amount of new content to the blog as one of Obama's speeches does to our national discourse.

Except for the comments, of course. But Breitbart has the naming rights to those.

Enjoy.

Posted by: andy at 09:11 AM | Comments (121)
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KABOOM! Looks like Uncle Sugar decided to bail Europe out after all. Hey, what's a trillion or so between friends? It's not like we're broke or anything....

The worst kind of “stuck” is when you can’t go forward and you can’t go back and no one can reach you. That’s where the Eurozone is right now.

Europeans find “unity in inanity”. Hey, I’m sympathetic to ignoring Timmah -- believe me, I understand. But still...don’t ignore good advice, even when it comes from a jerk. Separate the message from the messenger.

To stave off disaster, the Greeks will have to learn to be completely different people, culturally. Greeks have not been known for fiscal prudence since...well, the memory of man does not run that far. I suspect that in the end they will be unable to completely transform themselves in the way the rest of the Eurozone wants them to. The Greeks are, well, Greek, and that culture will not change in the span of a year or two. Even if the Greeks wished to transform themselves, it would be a project of decades; and it is not clear that the people of that bankrupt nation are even willing to make the change.

This is why the PIIGS are boned. You can repeat this same story, with small variations, tens of thousands of times.

Europe 2011 may be worse than America 2008.

$1.5 Trillion in new taxes now, $3 Trillion in cuts later. Pinkie swear.

The accounting on ObamaCare is even more screwed up than you thought it was. It's certainly lived down to my expectations: I expected it to be a fiscal disaster, and so it proved. Pass it to find out what's in it!

California Democrats donÂ’t just suck at looking after taxpayer money. They suck at looking after their own money as well. So itÂ’s not venality so much as simple ineptitude.

The Empire Manufacturing Survey brings on the suck.

European banks are hiding a lot of crap off-balance-sheet. This is one of the big fears in the Eurozone -- that the already-undercapitalized banks are in even worse shape than thought due to huge amounts of hidden debt and other obligations. (EDIT: Recall that this is the sort of thing that took down Enron.)

Universal social programs vs. cost-benefit analysis. If there is no cost-effective way to fund programs for the poor, should we still try to do it for ethical reasons?

American Jews finally realizing that ObamaÂ’s just not that into them. The alien being Waxulon opines:

There are Jews who are trending toward the Republican Party, some of it because of their misunderstanding of ObamaÂ’s policies in the Middle East, and some of it, quite frankly, for economic reasons. They feel they want to protect their wealth, which is why a lot of well-off voters vote for Republicans.

The future of jobs. The employment model won’t be as stable as in the half century after World War II, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing; the “Detroit model” had a lot of defects and didn’t promote much in the way of either R&D or “creative destruction” in the Schumpeterian sense. We must learn to innovate better and move faster to compete globally. The future workplace needn’t be *worse* than what we have now -- in fact it may be much better in many ways -- but the change will be a wrenching one for many people.

Fraud in unemployment programs? The hell you say! Our governmental bodies have proven themselves honest and fair caretakers of our public funds, and I for one will not stand here and see our public servants so basely slandered!

I just wouldn't be me if I didn't take the opportunity to bash on Social Security. It's like getting a fat pitch with the bases loaded: if the pitcher's gonna serve it up, I'm gonna swing at it. The evils of Social Security.

Someone always has to pay the bill, folks. Always. There ain’t no such thing as “free”.

Even perma-bull Kudlow is sensing a disturbance in the Force.

The recession call is not conclusive. I'm the first to admit it. And my optimistic instincts rebel against the downturn scenario. But facts are facts. They must be reported. And the numbers aren't good.

Do adult job-training programs work? It depends on the individual to a great extent, but the track-record of government-sponsored jobs-training programs is not good. ItÂ’s also a fact that as a person ages, they donÂ’t assimilate or retain new information as well as they did when they were younger. ItÂ’s essential to keep your job-skills up-to-date, but training programs are not a panacea: you canÂ’t make up for a lack of skills in an eight or ten-week program.

End the FedÂ’s dual mandate? Better yet, just end the Fed entirely. ItÂ’s done far more harm than good over the years.

Remember those “bumfights” videos that were all the rage some years back? Well, it's like that, only with Russian billionaires.

UPDATE 1: Here's the thing about inflation: it's never a problem, until all of a sudden it is. And it is devilishly hard to get rid of once established.

UPDATE 2: Take heart, you poor overburdened peasants! His Majesty the King has a plan to realize $4 Trillion in cuts...and it'll only take 120 years! A mere eyeblink compared to the long ages of the cosmos, really. (EDIT: This was an error in the original story which has since been scrubbed corrected.)
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Posted by: Monty at 04:51 AM | Comments (368)
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Arrrrr! Talk Like a Pirate Day be upon us, lads.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:54 AM | Comments (170)
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Alrighty let's get down to it. It's not like you had something better to do.

Coming To America - In Real Life

What it's like coming to America from Africa when you're not a prince of Zamunda.

In 1987 Sudan's Muslim government pronounced death to all males in the Christian south. 27,000 boys fled to Ethiopia and later to Kenya on foot; 12,000 of them survived and grew up in refugee camps. Later a lucky few were brought to the US by Catholic Charities and settled in Philadelphia and Syracuse. The documentary, God Grew Tired of Us, follows these Lost Boys of Sudan as they come to America and struggle to fit in.

The boys come from a place about as far from modern American life as it's possible to be so it's fascinating to see what's most confusing to them in the US (mainly escalators and electric lights, Santa Claus, and why Americans don't talk to strangers more).

What I particularly liked is that the documentary followed them for several years, long enough for the initial excitement to wear off and the daily reality of working multiple menial jobs to become apparent. Here the movie shows the boys' struggles to understand and fit into American society, their occasional loneliness, and the tension between bettering their own lives by going to school and working yet more jobs so they can send money back to help their friends still in the camps.

As is often the case you learn the most about your own country when you're able to see it through the eyes of outsiders. Despite having gone through hell the boys remain good people, industrious and lacking in self-pity, so you can't help but root for them to become successful. Even a cynical misanthrope like myself felt a sudden urge to help others after watching this movie. But as usual I laid down until the spell passed.

You can watch the entire documentary online here. It's 89 minutes long and you won't regret watching any of them. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:54 PM | Comments (704)
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If you're watching.

Modern Family has won in every category it was nominated in (and it was nominated for most, except for lead actors in a comedy, because it apparently only has supporting actors).

Posted by: Ace at 04:52 PM | Comments (35)
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Most of the teams that looked like contenders last week are actually behind now.

Here's a funny video about a forgotten hero from the early days of pro football.

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Posted by: Ace at 11:16 AM | Comments (466)
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