It's a pretty impressive debunking.

ALSE CLAIM: “Rick Perry doubled spending in a decade.”
TRUTH: State spending – the non-federal dollars state lawmakers can control – is six percent lower under Gov. Perry than it was under the two-year budget in effect when he took office, adjusting for population growth and inflation. In unadjusted amounts, state spending is $80.5 billion for the 2012-13 biennium compared to $55.7 billion for the 2000-01 biennium. Texas’ population growth plus inflation since 2001 is 54 percent. The current Texas budget funds the state’s vital needs by operating within available revenues and providing tax cuts for small businesses. Gov. Perry is the only Texas governor since World War II to cut state (general revenue) spending.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:21 PM | Comments (337)
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Yes, if I were president in a 9.1% unemployment (17% real unemployment) country about to slip into a second recession, I'd be primarily focused on a speech's scheduling, too.

The White House was well aware the presidentÂ’s speech would conflict with a planned Republican debate sponsored by POLITICO and NBC to be held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. The debate would be broadcast live by MSNBC, CNBC, Telemundo and live-streamed by POLITICO.

Yet the White House did not see this as an obstacle. “With all due respect, the POLITICO-MSNBC debate was one that was going on a cable station,” the White House source said. “It was not sacrosanct. We knew they would push it back and then there would be a GOP debate totally trashing the president. So it wasn’t all an upside for us."

Not sacrosanct, like, say, the President's preferred "We must act now" speech that he's been putting off for two months.

Allah points out:

[T]his entire moronic episode could have been avoided had O simply asked to address Congress later. But he was apparently intent to have it on the night of the debate — note the boldface part in the blockquote — which means Carney did indeed lie shamelessly to the press yesterday when he said the timing was a coincidence. Here he is this afternoon lying again, insisting that no one cares when the speech is scheduled — except for every Democrat in America, apparently — and that the White House is A-OK with it happening on Thursday. Except, of course, that they’re very much not.

The "furious" is quoted from Politico's headline, not from any source. They are greatly annoyed, however. One source grouses the House "will do anything to muck us up," and I that "muck" is probably a soft rhyme for the verb actually used.

And more whining:

The White House is viewing it as very consequential, however. “It is a big deal,” the source said. “It shows the House Republicans will do no outreach, nothing.”

And who does the White House believe was really behind treating the president so shabbily?

“At first, I didn’t think it was Boehner, but his caucus,” the source said. “But maybe not. Maybe it is him.”

The article details how they're only concerned with optics -- they want the grand stage -- and tv viewership, which means this is, in case you were unsure, almost exclusively a campaign event. They are surprised the Republicans aren't eager to join Organizing for America.

How blatant a campaign move is it? They've already leaked their Blame Republicans strategy to the press.

in the forthcoming issue — ‘Can He Step Up His Game? Obama’s next move: if he can’t fix the economy, make sure the Republicans get the blame’

Obama is not looking for solutions; he is looking for campaign attacks. He wants a laundry-list of vague, soundbite-friendly non-initiatives (nonitiatives?) which he knows the Republicans will reject (he's counting on them to reject them) so he can claim all economic troubles are due to Republicans not wanting to throw more money at high-speed rail and high-speed internet.

Posted by: Ace at 02:56 PM | Comments (348)
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Update: Dave @ Garfield Ridge tells me this is really just some inventors trying to stir up interest in their product, and that claims made should therefore be discounted.

Also, I wrote this was a Navy project; that just seems completely wrong. I just saw the reference to the Navy's previous Sea Shadow program and wrote an erroneous sentence in my head.

Lockheed Martin has a patent for a sort-of similar design, but this one featuring a body elevated by two pontoons. But no supercavitation that I see.

Sorry. I thought it looked legit. On FoxNews. But Dave thinks some more skepticism is in order.

...

"Ghost," a stealth ship capable of 60mph speeds. It somehow creates a layer of gas between its lower planes and the water, taking advantage of the supercavitation effect.

It is built for rapid insertions of special operations commandos and for quick surprise strikes on pirate ships.

It could also be effective against ninjas, I'm guessing, should they get into some stealthy shenanigans.

Swiped from dri in the sidebar. The pirate link was also from the sidebar, from ArthurK.

Posted by: Ace at 02:23 PM | Comments (104)
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It's an internal poll from the GOP so, you know, grain of salt but still....

A GOP poll commissioned for Republican businessman Bob Turner has him tied with New York state Assemblyman David Weprin at 42 percent apiece with 12 days until the election.

This is not the first poll to show the race close: A Siena Research Institute poll conducted in early August had Weprin leading by a narrow six-point margin.

...

The poll of 300 voters, conducted by GOP pollster McLaughlin & Associates on Wednesday, had a margin of error of plus or minus 5.7 percent.

That's kind of a big margin of error but it's fine print compared to the big headline people will see. At least it replaces the old headline, "Weprin is an idiot". So there's that.

Notably absent in this heavily Democratic district? One Barack Husein Obama.

Democratic congressional hopeful David Weprin is trying to hide unpopular President Obama from the voters in this month's special election to succeed disgraced ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner, The Post has learned.

In new literature distributed to voters in the Queens-Brooklyn district, Weprin is trumpeting endorsements by fellow Democrats from Gov. Cuomo to Brooklyn Beep Marty Markowitz -- but Obama is MIA.

A State Democratic Committee mailer lists endorsements of Weprin by Cuomo, Markowitz, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, City Comptroller John Liu, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Queens Borough President Helen Marshall.
Obama -- the titular head of the Democratic Party -- is nowhere to be found.

The Weprin campaign sought to downplay the candidate's decision to distance himself from Obama.

Weprin spokeswoman Elizabeth Kerr wouldn't say whether the candidate has sought or will seek Obama's endorsement, but said Weprin supports Obama.

"I think the president is a little busy," she said

Actually, I'm pretty sure he's pretty free next Wednesday, what with his previous plans falling through and all.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:45 PM | Comments (80)
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"The color of his skin," of course.

They really need to elevate their game. They will be demolished if they keep pushing this.

Posted by: Ace at 01:17 PM | Comments (342)
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You have to just read and watch this.

And note a Content Warning, particularly for the the second video, which features a dead little girl, aged around 6, dead by drowning; there is no gore, but a dead girl is itself very graphic.

It's a simple thing: A supposed expert on bite-marks "sees" bite marks no one else notices. Then, to "check" if the invisible bite marks match the dentistry of the alleged perp, he presses a mold of the perp's teeth into the victim's skin -- repeatedly, and hard.

He's not just bringing them close for inspection. He's jamming the dental mold into the skin.

Shockingly enough, after he does this 20 or so times, there is a perfect bite mark from the perp's teeth in the victim's skin.

West doesn't deny any of this. In his court testimony in the Stubbs case, and in a 2009 statement to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger in response to the Duncan case, West claimed that this is simply how he identifies and matches bite marks.

"He says he's the only one who can see these marks," Bowers said. "And that when he pushes the cast into the skin, he says he's just enhancing marks that are already there." Of course, once West has altered the marks in the skin with a cast of the suspect's teeth, he has not only made the marks conform to the cast, he has also altered them so that no other expert can then second guess him as to whether they were bite marks in the first place.

What?

Now he's been disgraced, but many states continue to cling to convictions based partly or largely on this Frame-hanger's fake bite marks.

I'm a law and order guy, but law and order means not jailing people who are innocent, or who, at least, have convictions based on illegal fabricated non-evidence.

Vacate the convictions. Yes, it will be expensive to re-try the defendants. But the state needs an incentive to police its own work, doesn't it?

And then there is that little matter of the good chance these people are innocent, if that matters at all.

Some will say "But they're probably guilty." If there was good evidence they were guilty, why did prosecutors bring in Doctor Dracula to plant bite marks on the bodies?

You can infer these cases were weak by the dangerous means used to make them appear to be stronger.

Via Instapundit, with his own thoughts.

Posted by: Ace at 12:11 PM | Comments (161)
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Link to JWF.

The mainstream media, and even some in the liberal opinion media, have completely missed the point of President Obama’s dust-up with Speaker John Boehner over the date for Obama’s address before a joint session of Congress. MSM yakkers have advanced the “pox on both their houses” meme, while liberals like Ed Schultz accuse the President of “caving,” all ignoring the fact that Boehner has insulted and disrespected the office of the President of the United States, and should resign.

You're allowed to insult the president. I guess Tommy Christopher has forgotten various liberals, including in the House, of war crimes, or for actual complicity in the murders of 3000 people on 9/11.

And the refusal is not "unprecedented." The precedent is for the President to work these things out, privately, with the House and Senate leaders, and then, once private agreements are reached, announce the request publicly -- at which point it's not really a request, as it's already been agreed to in advance.

This is how the President avoids insulting and disrespecting the Speaker of the House, who is the head of one half of a co-equal branch of government.

Boehner is not Obama's social secretary. Boeher is not the equal of the president, in as much as no one in government is the president's equal, but he is not his underling.

Jay Carney is the president's underling, and is ordered to say stupid crap like the timing of the speech is "coincidental."

Boehner does not have to agree to a thing the president requests.

Now, in the past, this has all gone more smoothly, because, in the past, the President waited for the Speaker to agree before making his request/demand public.

He didn't this time. He made his request, then announced it to the press before Boehner said boo about it.

This really shouldn't be a pissing match on either side; it's a small matter, really.

But the President does not get to boss around the Speaker, period.

If he had followed proper protocol, none of this would have happened.

President "Out of Bounds," Says... James Carville. At Hot Air.

A Washington Post blogger seems to think Obama was out of bounds, too.

After claiming Boeher acted worse (no good reasons given for this, other than I suppose liberal pique), he notes Obama's breaches:

But IÂ’m more disappointed with the White House, because this spat sums up so well the image problems that Obama has faced since the start of his term.

● If the White House has spent months working to appear above the partisan fray – as they insist they have – then pulling a blatantly partisan stunt like this torpedoes all of that PR work.

●Pretending the timing was a coincidence has backfired with the press and pundits. Did the White House really think, when it sent Jay Carney to his press briefing, that people would swallow his line that the timing was “coincidental”?

●In the aftermath of the announcement, the narrative of the afternoon on cable news ran in part that the White House had not cleared the date with the speaker, with some outlets suggesting that BoehnerÂ’s office had only been given 15 minutes notice. If true, the White House was disrespectful and should rightly be admonished.

So, yeah, as you can see, clearly Boehner acted more unprofessionally.

Is Tommy Christopher Simply Crazy? He's calling out Adam Baldwin and throwing insults at him and, worse yet, challenging him to settle this face-to-face.

Really, dude?

I know he's not really a soldier or a secret agent but I'm pretty sure he could beat your ass.

Posted by: Ace at 11:44 AM | Comments (265)
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Wow. Dramatic. He's promising that the plan will lower unemployment from 9.1% to 8.9%. Who knows -- maybe even down to 8.7%.

He caveats the hell out of this. Because of course the last plan was supposed to keep it under 8%.

QUESTION: If Congress were to pass the package that the President's going to announce, unemployment would be under 9%?

JAY CARNEY: Based on, when you're talking about economic predictions, yes. Economic analysts, economists will be able to look at this series of proposals and say that 'based on history, based on what we know, based on their collective expertise, that it would add to economic growth and cause an increase to job creation.

And based upon prior assumptions and models that caused them to project 1.4 Keynesian multipliers and sub-8% unemployment.

He forgot to mention that one -- based on the same assumptions of liberal economists' that already proved to be false.

Posted by: Ace at 11:16 AM | Comments (165)
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2% of all jobs are supposedly "Green Jobs." Which is a huge number, actually.

Could that possibly be right? Could so much of our economy actually depend on solar panels and wind-farms?

No.

Most jobs categorized are actually just... waste treatment and management jobs.

And the single biggest employer in the clean economy isnÂ’t a sexy startup like First Solar, or even a giant like GEÂ’s wind division. ItÂ’s the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, followed by the waste management and water treatment operations of the city of Los Angeles and New York. And waste management is followed by mass transit, which employs about 350,000 Americans. There are your most common clean workers: the garbage man and the bus driver.

Yeah, that'll pad the stats. But when Obama speaks of "investing in green jobs" he means "subsidizing 'green power' businesses," which is a tiny fraction of the small fraction of jobs which are designated "green."

Some questions for the President. Would be nice if we had a media interested in asking important questions.

How many “green jobs” need to be created over the next 14 months to fulfill your promise of lowering the unemployment rate to 5.5 percent by November 2012?

What qualifies you, or any other politician, to determine which jobs are worthy of creating?

What evidence do you have that government can create jobs for which there is little or no current market demand?

Oh, here's another question: Solyndra.

Okay, that's not in the form of a question. How about "Discuss the stuttering cluster***k of a miserable failure in losing $535 million (over a half billion) in federal loans to a political donor's nothing-but-subsidies fake 'business.'"

I'd sure like to read Solyndra's applications for those loans. I'd like to see their assertions that they predicted, honestly, that they believed their business model would bring them into the black in a short number of years.

Posted by: Ace at 10:58 AM | Comments (103)
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Actually what they did was downgrade the jobs outlook but same difference.

The Obama administration downgraded its forecast for economic growth Thursday, predicting turmoil in the economy will likely keep unemployment above 9 percent through next yearÂ’s presidential election.

The unemployment rate is considered to be the most important factor in presidential elections, so if the White HouseÂ’s assessment holds, President Obama is in for one of the toughest reelection fights in memory.

When the “substantial” economic “turbulence” of the last two months are considered, the administration expects the economy to grow as little as 1.7 percent in 2011 compared to last year. That is down from a rosier projection of 2.7 percent growth, made in February.

That better be one hell of a speech Obama gives next week. I'll be watching the football game so hopefully somebody will blog about it somewhere.

As much as I want to get excited about any news that means Obama is closer to get kicked out on his ears, a lot of people are going to be hurt because of the policies the Democrats put in place while they were running the government unopposed for two years.

It also means this is going to be an exceedingly nasty campaign by any standard (as if it weren't already). Obama is going to have nothing to run on and about a billion dollars to knock the GOP and every conservative as an America hating racist. It's all they have. It won't work but Team Obama won't care what damage they do in a failed attempt to prop up this SCOAMF. The death throes of this administration won't be pretty.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:58 AM | Comments (234)
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