Another RINO joins the establishment.

What we really need to beat Obama is a candidate who peddles all sorts of fringe-y positions, and who either reports, without checking, or simply makes up stories about fringe-y paranoids' daughters getting a dose of late-onset mental retardation.

Call me crazy, but shouldn't "Doctor" Bachmann have a little bit of skepticism about a claim that a 12 year old girl became mentally retarded after a vaccination?

Ah well, any political club will do for the candidate whose only executive experience was as a tax collector for the IRS, a woman who began running for president months after she first ran for Congress (and served without distinction as a back-bencher of little influence), a woman who's always had a bucket-full of clawing ambition and a thimble-full of actual qualification.

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Posted by: Ace at 10:48 AM | Comments (438)
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This right there is what I'm talkin' about with this crony capitalism and Mr. Obama there pickin' the winners and losers.

( Juneau, Alaska) ─ The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services announced today that an increase in federal funding will make it possible for all Alaska girls ages 9 through 18 to receive Gardasil ®, the vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, at no cost.

[Editorial comment by PJM:]
At no direct cost, perhaps. But being federally funded, it had a cost. Millions of Americans outside Alaska bore that cost, involuntarily.

Earlier this spring, the department had said it could provide free Gardasil only to Alaska girls who met certain eligibility requirements. Since then, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided additional funds for Alaska to obtain more vaccine. This boost in federal aid will enable more Alaska girls to receive Gardasil. Distribution of this vaccine to providers is just beginning, so state health officials suggest calling providers before visiting local clinics to find out if the vaccine is available.

“We are thrilled that this unanticipated funding will allow us to provide the vaccine for all eligible girls,” said Laurel Wood, Alaska’s immunization program manager. “Although we have no guarantee that this funding will be available in future years, we hope to immunize as many Alaska girls as possible while we have this unique opportunity.”

How much money did she take from Merck? Bear in mind, federal dollars roll in to pay for this. And who gets paid? Merck. These crony capitalists with the pickin' the winners and the losers like Mr. Obama over there. I'm proud to post this because like Sarah Palin said we have to keep each other accountable and never mind the 11th Commandment we have to point out this there crony capitalism where we see it you betcha.

Thanks to "lu."

Was I Dreaming? I could have sworn that last night on Greta, The Only True Conservative Fighter Who Can Save us announced that we had to put aside the 11th Commandment and vet all candidates with negative information, because that's the only way we "keep each other accountable."

Did I dream that?

Well, I just checked the tape again, and no, I didn't dream that. She said that.

But apparently when she said we have to vet all candidates, I'm to have understood that as "all candidates except Sarah Palin," according to Sarah Palin's fans, who think their True Conservative fighter gets to sit on the sidelines lobbing spitballs and if you toss one back you're guilty of a hate crime.

Posted by: Ace at 09:33 AM | Comments (657)
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Precious bodily fluids.

That's not just a throwaway movie line. There is strain of "body paranoia," for lack of a better term, that infects the public from time time; first it was fluoridation, a communist plot to sap our spirits and our manliness with fluorine in the public water; and lately this has morphed into the anti-vax movement.

Where did this theory come from? On the "scientific" side, it came from The Lancet, the leftwing British medical journal that also told you they had determined theup to nearly a million Iraqis died "due to" the war. When you hear that "million dead" claim, that's from the Lancet, and the Lancet still stands behind it.

What they don't stand behind is their previous Great Big Scare article which claimed vaccinations led to autism -- they retracted the 1998 paper, stating that Wakefield and his colleagues had been unethical, as well as "dishonest and irresponsible."

That actually understates things. That's the Lancet looking for an easy way out.

It's worse than that.

"Mr. 11" was one of a tiny, tiny number of parents of children with autism whose kids had been examined by Wakefield et al. His kid, "11," was part of the "proof" of a link between autism and the vaccination.

Yeah here's the thing: When "Mr. 11" checked Wakefield's reportage of his own child's medical history, he caught Wakefield lying. Child 11 had actually developed his first signs of autism before he was vaccinated.

So it's difficult to prove that the vaccination caused autism.

Unless, of course, you simply claim he got his vaccinations earlier than he actually did, as Wakefield did in fact claim. Only Mr. 11, checking up on the report, would have known this and could have called bullshit. (Mr. 11 is an American engineer -- wrong guy to fake the data about.)

And why would Wakefield go to such lengths to prove a vaccine-autism connection?

Why else?

He backed his concerns with medical records, including a Royal Free discharge summary.5 Although the family lived 5000 miles from the hospital, in February 1997 the boy (then aged 5) had been flown to London and admitted for WakefieldÂ’s project, the undisclosed goal of which was to help sue the vaccineÂ’s manufacturers.6

Unknown to Mr 11, Wakefield was working on a lawsuit,7 for which he sought a bowel-brain “syndrome” as its centrepiece. Claiming an undisclosed £150 (€180, $230) an hour through a Norfolk solicitor named Richard Barr, he had been confidentially 8 put on the payroll two years before the paper was published, eventually grossing him £435 643, plus expenses.9

Curiously, however, Wakefield had already identified such a syndrome before the project which would reputedly discover it. “Children with enteritis/disintegrative disorder [an expression he used for bowel inflammation and regressive autism10] form part of a new syndrome,” he and Barr explained in a confidential grant application to the UK government’s Legal Aid Board11 before any of the children were investigated.12 “Nonetheless the evidence is undeniably in favour of a specific vaccine induced pathology.”

The two men also aimed to show a sudden-onset “temporal association”—strong evidence in product liability. “Dr Wakefield feels that if we can show a clear time link between the vaccination and onset of symptoms,” Barr told the legal board, “we should be able to dispose of the suggestion that it’s simply a chance encounter.”13

So now an anti-vax lunatic buttonholes Michelle Bachmann (or so she claims, at least) and tells her the story of how Gardasil caused her child's autism. At age 12. Late onset autism, I guess. And despite there being absolutely no connection between Gardasil and late onset autism (whatever that is), she broadcasts her new medical findings out to the public.

Well. She did used to style herself "Doctor Bachmann," I guess.

Michelle Bachmann is desperate. She's an ambitious, egotistical woman who started running for President just two short years after she first ran for Congress. In the past two months her support went from 13% and rising to 4% and falling.

So she needs something, doesn't she, and Rush Limbaugh warned her off her planned Social Security demagoguery.

So, instead, this bullshit.

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Posted by: Ace at 08:42 AM | Comments (426)
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Below are the results after week 1, results tracked and compiled by Ben and CDR M.

Jimmytheleg 12
Pelf Picks 11
The Plague 11
Cheese Dynasty 10
The Buddy Roemer's 10
Dover Pro Sticks 10
Dem Retards 10

Teams of Note
RDBrewer 9
Ace 8
Andy 7
CDR M 7
DrewM 6
Ben6
DiT 5
Gabe 4

"of note" is Latin for "who suck" [DiT]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:19 AM | Comments (30)
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I've long advocated that Republicans focus on the job killing nature of regulations and I'm glad it's really taking hold. Unfortunately, I don't think the GOP presidential candidates quite have the hang of it yet.

Last night and at other times multiple candidates took shots at the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill. That's a great start but most people haven't a clue what it is or why it's bad. Simply invoking the name isn't enough, candidates need to offer real world examples of how the Democratic regulatory regime is killing this country.

Fortunately for them, the Wall Street Journal gets it. They connect Bank of America's decision to cut 40,000 jobs in part to new rules in Dodd-Frank.

Mr. Durbin's amendment instructed the Federal Reserve to limit the amount of "swipe fees" that banks can charge merchants when customers use debit cards.

How exactly does forcing banks to charge Wal-Mart less money for operating an electronic payment system prevent the next financial crisis? Readers may wait a long time for a satisfactory answer, but the cost of this Dodd-Frank directive is straightforward.

The Fed dutifully ordered banks to cut their fees almost in half. Bank of America disclosed in its most recent quarterly report that this change will reduce the bank's debit-card revenues by $475 million in just the fourth quarter of this year. The new rules take effect on October 1, so BofA seems to have sensible timing as it begins to shed workers from a consumer business that has become suddenly less profitable by federal edict.

That might not be the best example because cutting fees will be popular but there are likely to be hundreds of such examples in Dodd-Frank alone. Toss in ObamaCare and you'll have a campaign season full of examples. But unless candidates make this stuff real tossing out Beltway terms will be meaningless to most voters.

Republicans in Congress would be wise to get on this as well, especially since they are in a position to actually do something about them. Start passing bills that repeal egregious job killing regulations and tell Obama he can't have any new debt funded "stimulus" to "create or save" jobs until his regulators stop killing them.

Make Obama and the Democrats OWN every bit of this economy and do it with examples that resonate with voters.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:09 AM | Comments (51)
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Let me start by saying, I want to like Rick Perry. Of all the candidates he's the one I'd support at the moment but he hasn't closed the deal for me. In fact, his first two debate performances have given me pause to say the least.

One of my biggest problems with him to date is his inability to concisely explain some of his more controversial decisions like Gardisil and the Texas DREAM Act. I'm not going down the Gardisil rat hole, it's just not a giant issue for me. YMMV.

The DREAM Act stuff on the other hand could very well be a big issue, even a potential deal breaker.

Here's how Perry addressed it last night.

In the state of Texas, if you've been in the state of Texas for three years, if you're working towards your college degree, and if you are working and pursuing citizenship in the state of Texas, you pay in-state tuition there.

And the bottom line is it doesn't make any difference what the sound of your last name is. That is the American way. No matter how you got into that state, from the standpoint of your parents brought you there or what have you. And that's what we've done in the state of Texas. And I'm proud that we are having those individuals be contributing members of our society rather than telling them, you go be on the government dole.

That, in short, is an awful answer.

First, "And the bottom line is it doesn't make any difference what the sound of your last name is", is dangerously close to Lindsay Graham territory. People can disagree about how to deal with border security and how to approach illegals already here with it coming down to "the sound of your last name". Perry needs to lose that talking point really fast.

Second, the only options are college or a life on "the government dole"? Does the Governor not know that illegal immigrants aren't eligible for welfare? (Correction: They do.)

Even with those problems I still think there might be some chance of this being reasonable policy, at least at the state level (where the amnesty element isn't on the table) But Perry's answer was still lacking.

Perry said eligibility was based in part on students being in college and, is "...working and pursuing citizenship in the state of Texas,". Now, I take that to mean US citizenship because he already said you had to live in Texas for 3 years. Despite the all the Texas pride, there's no special requirements for Texas citizenship.

Even to a hardliner like me, kids who were brought here as minors and are working on getting their status regularized seems like a fairly narrow class and a reasonable one to work with. As always though, the Devil is in the details. What does it mean under Texas law to be "pursuing citizenship"? If it's an active process that's likely to lead to a successful outcome, fine. If it's more nebulous, well, that's a problem for me.

A little research shows it's not a very strict standard at all (pdf).

In addition, if the student was not a U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident, he/she had to file an affidavit with his/her institution, indicating an intent to apply for Permanent Resident status as soon as able to do so.

That's from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board handbook and a huge problem for me. There's no sort of control or requirement that shows that the student is in the process of getting their status regularized, let alone that it is likely to succeed. Just a promise that they will try someday. What if the law isn't changed at the federal level are never eligible to apply for Permanent Resident status? That's just not good enough for me.

As I've said before, every candidate has a problem or two in their record. That's just reality. This isn't a deal breaker for me but it certainly is a big question mark.

It does at least answer one question for me. Now I get why Perry sticks to talking points on this and doesn't want to get into how the policy works because it's a lousy policy.

Added: For a defense of Perry's support of the Texas DREAM Act, see this post by Kathleen McKinley.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:28 AM | Comments (311)
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AP works overtime for Team Barack.

MICHELE BACHMANN: Obama "stole over $500 billion out of Medicare to switch it over to Obamacare. ... These are programs that need to be saved to serve people, and in their current form, they can't."

ROMNEY: "He cut Medicare by $500 billion. This is a Democrat president. The liberal, so to speak, cut Medicare. Not Republicans, the Democrat."

THE FACTS: "Stole" is a hyperbolic way to describe the kinds of shifts in budget priorities that happen every day in Washington. To pay for expanded insurance coverage, Obama's health care law cuts $500 billion in payments to the Medicare Advantage program, which a congressional agency said was being overpaid — and to hospitals and nursing homes. Nearly all House Republicans, including Bachmann, later voted for a GOP budget plan that retained the same cuts Obama had made.

Interesting point here -- on CNN, when a similar "fact-check" was done, the $500 billion was misstated -- repeatedly, and with text on a chart -- as $500 million.

CNN's own "fact-checkers" understated the problem by three orders of magnitude, claiming Obama had cut one one thousandth of what he'd actually cut.

So there's "fact-checking," right there.

As to the AP: They too pretend that "stole" is some sort of fact-checkable word. (CNN dwelled on this.)

The AP does not state which "congressional agency" said that Medicare Advantage was being overpaid. They cite this "agency" as if it's a nonpartisan, independent source, when in fact at the time Democrats controlled Congress. So they're citing a Democrat-controlled agency for the proposition that Democrats were right to cut half a trillion from Medicare Advantage.

Does anyone believe the AP would cite Daryl Issa's subcommittee as an authoritative source to check the facts in Fast and Furious?

Either way, this is true, and cannot be repeated enough: Obama stole, or "repurposed," or whatever euphemism you like, half a trillion dollars from senior health care to pay for ObamaCare.

But the Democrats are going to run on Mediscare, huh?

PERRY: The $814 billion economic stimulus program pushed by President Barack Obama "created zero jobs."

THE FACTS: There is no support for that assertion. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last year that the stimulus increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million as of mid-2010. It cut the unemployment rate between 0.7 and 1.8 percentage points, the CBO found.

Economists debate whether the stimulus lived up to its promise or was worth the cost, but no one seriously argues that it created no jobs. Many believe it helped to end the recession even while falling short of its employment goals.

There is plenty of support for this assertion: Fewer Americans are employed today than when Obama took office in 2009. Right there, that seems to strongly support the idea that "zero" jobs were created, and in fact, suggests that jobs were destroyed.

Look at the exact word Perry used -- "created." Perry is talking about jobs created.

Is that what the AP is talking about?

No. The AP obscures this by avoiding the phrase "saved or created," but when they write "increased the number of people employed" they are deliberately avoiding what they mean -- "saved or created." It is the "saved or created" estimates that yield that fanciful 1.4-3.3 million figure.

Quick question, AP: How does Obama's "saved or created" figure stack up with Bush's? Or Clinton's? Or the first Bush's?

Trick question, of course, as there are no "saved or created" figures for those Presidents. The "saved or created" figure was invented by Obama, and thusfar has been applied to exactly one president.

When they speak of Bush only creating one million net jobs through his presidency, note they do not add in the number of jobs he might have also "saved."

This is critical, because all previous presidents were held to account by strict, simple arithmetic: Number of jobs existing at the end of your term minus number of jobs existing at the beginning of your term equals your net job creation (or loss).

It is only President Precious who added in the "or saved" figure, and this can only be estimated, and of course we employ liberal economists' formulas for guessing how government spending translates to job "saving" for this.

Obama has lost jobs while President. Period. That is the only statistic that has ever before mattered, net jobs created or lost. There is no third category of "saved," and even if there were, one would have to calculate previous presidents' "saved or created" numbers (much more generous!) to find an apples-to-apples comparison.

Instead, the AP and Obama and the rest of the media insist on this apples-to-orange comparison.

Note how dishonest they are -- if they wrote "saved or created" in their "fact-check," it would be immediately clear that they were shifting the terms of comparison from Perry's correct, historically-justified "created" terminology, to Obama's invented, obscuring, overly-generous "saved or created" figure.

So instead of alerting the reader that the terms of comparison are being shifted, they re-write "saved or created" to "increased employment."

This is a lie. By the standard jobs now minus jobs originally figure that all other presidents have suffered by (or even profited by), Obama is a net-jobs loser, a net-jobs destroyer.

By the conventional way of figuring this, Perry is wrong. Obama did not create "zero" jobs; he created negative million and a half jobs, or whatever the current grim figure is.

In fact, since so much comparison is made of Perry's job creation vs. Obama's -- if we're discussing Obama's saved or created jobs, then to have an apples-to-apples comparison we must stop talking about the jobs Perry merely created (something like 450,000 over the past two years) and add to that figure the jobs he also "saved."

For surely he, like Obama, must have "saved" some. In an ailing economy, many restaurants would go under, and many construction workers would be laid off; surely the 450,000 jobs actually added "saved" a great many more jobs that otherwise would have been lost!

So why does the media never think to calculate Perry's "saved or created" figure? Why does Perry get the hard standard -- a simple subtraction of jobs we know exist now, minus jobs that existed two years ago; a perfectly factual determination -- whereas Obama gets to add in this guestimation fudge-factor of jobs he imagines he may have had a role in not losing?

Why don't other politicians get this easy-peasy fudge factor? Romney had a not-so-good-jobs creation record as governor of Massachusetts; but what would his saved or created record be?

Better, of course; it has to be.

If Obama can "save" 1.4 to 3.3 million jobs while actually losing 2.5 million jobs, think how many more Romney "saved" while creating 100,000, or how very many Perry "saved" while creating 450,000 over just two years!

And yet, no one thinks to do these calculations at AP or CNN. One special soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations standard for Obama; a much tougher standard -- the normal, conventional one used for every other office holder in American history -- for everyone else.

And yet, even by this standard -- Obama's awful.

Posted by: Ace at 06:45 AM | Comments (170)
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Today begins the 72-hour observance of the Climate Reality Project's "24 hours of reality" info-event on the so-called "climate crisis" on Facebook and Twitter. I know, I know. Why call it "24 hours of reality" when you're going to spend 72 hours doing it? Because SHUT UP YOU DENIALIST NAZI SYMPATHIZER!

I'm not on Twitter, but let me share what I've communicated to my friends on Facebook:

If ANYONE allows that fat bastard access to their Facebook account in order to spam me with their "THE SKY IS FALLING AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT, WINGNUTZ" crap; not only will I de-friend you and refuse to speak to your dumb ass strictly out of principle, I solemnly vow that I will mail a LIVE OPOSSUM to your house in a big box full of styrofoam peanuts.

LIVE. OPOSSUM.

Please don't test me. I'm serious here. Much like me, live opossums don't care about fake science. They're more interested in breaking stuff and having panicked bowel movements on the top shelf of your china hutch*. Now dead opossums? All they're worried about is "Why couldn't I make it across that road?" I figure that since I've got less than 200 friends on The Book, it would only take me 2 years to make good on my threat if EVERYONE spams me with Gore's crap (catching & mailing 2 opossums a week isn't unreasonable, if I get serious with the live trapping).

And family? Not exempt from this rule. I've got a LOT of extended family, so one or two of you won't be missed. (Plus, my father isn't on the internet yet, so I'm pretty safe making that threat).

*Despite the inference, I do NOT want to take a dump in your china hutch. First, that's just wrong. Second, have you ever squatted halfway up a ladder with your pants around your ankles? Not an easy task. No, I'll just let my opossum minions do all my dirty work for me. And trust me, they relish that sort of thing.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 05:45 AM | Comments (93)
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King Barack the I to the GOP: How about jacking up taxes to pay for my new jobs plan? GOP to King Barack: How about no.

But no one tell Michael Hiltzik at the LAT: he's too busy conjuring up the similarities between Obama and FDR. In Hiltzik's mind, those similarities are a good thing. A chicken in every pot, and a bailout check in every union wallet!

The unintended results of Obamanomics.

Finally, the president said, yet again, that he wants the “wealthiest Americans” and largest corporations to pay their “fair share,” but fairness is never defined. The president keeps confusing the terms “wealth” and “income,” but they are not the same thing. You can be wealthy with a low income, or have a high income and a negative net worth. Which group does he want to tax more? If he puts a higher tax on job creators, will not fewer jobs be created? His whole discussion of this issue is devoid of reality.

You know what would fix the economy? If everybody was like Greece! Defaults all around! Moral hazard is for chumps!

Greece must leave the Eurozone and revert to their old national currency so they can devalue. This was obvious to most observers right from the start; only the EUÂ’s intransigence and incompetence has drawn the pain out this long. Spiegel has more.

Angela Merkel has to decide if she represents the German citizens who voted for her; or unelected EU bureaucrats who want her to disregard the plain wishes of her own electorate.

Confirmed: Perry is right, Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Almost a Platonically perfect example of one, in fact. Relevant Social Security Fact: current ratio of workers to beneficiaries? About 1.75 and falling.

Obama: Trapped in the Keynesian Twilight Zone. (YouTube video.)

Slouching towards socialism.

Ironically, many of the problems in our current healthcare system that lead to demands for public policy fixes—the underpayment of primary care providers, overpayment for certain specialty procedures, excessive payments for medical supplies—actually originate in government-run health programs. Expecting things to get better by expanding the reach of government in medicine appears to be a triumph of hope over experience.

Financially-strapped but gorgeous Mediterrannean beauty seeks well-heeled Asian gentleman for conversation, companionship, possible romance.

I've always thought that “follow your dreams” is often really lousy career advice. You may love being a street-mime, but you will starve in the cold if you try to do it for a living. Find a job you like and can do well, and make your living that way. You can do the mime thing on weekends.

Pundits are still frantically trying to figure out ways to keep the USPS relevant in the 21st century. None of these hare-brained schemes will work; the USPSÂ’s business model is as obsolete as the Pony Express. They have neither the agility nor the institutional mindset nor the workforce to make funamental changes. They are like a mastodon lumbering in the tarpit, and with the same inevitable outcome.

Andy sends this story: student loan defaults on the rise. Who could have forseen that loaning tens of thousands of dollars to unemployed (and often unemployable) college students in the middle of the worst recession in decades would lead to mass defaults? Who, I ask you?

Given the mess in European banks right now, the next big crash cannot be far away unless something miraculous happens. (In other words, if we avoid a crash it will be due more to luck or the grace of God than any intelligence on our part.)

UPDATE 1: Amity Schlaes muses on the continuing relevance of French economist Frederic Bastiat and his "broken windows" fallacy.

"Life, liberty and property do not exist because men have made laws," Bastiat said. "On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." The perversity was that laws often legalize plunder, or "spoliation," as Bastiat put it. Laws take from someone, and give to someone else, even though this was not always the intention of their authors. Such plunder could hurt an economy by reallocating resources from productive areas to ones that were politically rewarding.

UPDATE 2: There is only one commandment in His Majesty's Kingdom: Thou shalt not embarrass His Majesty. Oh, for the days when lèse majesté could be punished by hanging!
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Posted by: Monty at 04:46 AM | Comments (149)
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Info is still sketchy as this is an ongoing attack. The best coverage I've found is being live-updated at the Guardian.

The latest:

A series of explosions can gunfire [were] heard in the Wazir Akbar Khan neighbourhood of Kabul where there's a lot of of embassies and aid agencies and the first reports were that five or six militants had got into one of the tallest buildings, unused, from which they were firing towards the US embassy and the Nato mission here in Afghanistan. Local TV is showing ...smoke coming from the area where, apparently, rockets had landed.k There were wounded people in the streets. The head of the secret poilce was on TV saying at least one policemand and at least one civilian had been killed.

The attackers are reportedly armed with suicide vests.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:21 AM | Comments (68)
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