She says her husband, an engineer, can't find a job.

Obama says he finds that "interesting" (with the contextual gloss: dubious), because someone who once did a study on people who have real jobs told him there's a big demand for engineers.

I don't think I'm overreading. I can't make the charge stick, but when Obama says "Well that's interesting," I do think he's saying "I find that unlikely."

Ever suspect someone's lying and get him to commit to a story? And then challenge him with a sentence of the type, "Well that's interesting because [fact which undermines the story]"?

In addition, our resident genius referred to ex-Soviet Republic of Georgia as "Russia," which was especially stupid, given that he was supposed to be celebrating the twenty year anniversary of Georgia's independence from Russia.

Barack Hussein Obama

You lie.

Posted by: Ace at 09:03 AM | Comments (202)
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Elections have consequences. And Eric, I won.

Gershon uses the term "abortifacient" so I'm thinking this mandate doesn't cover surgical abortions, but abortion-inducing drugs such as Plan B.

But Catholics (and most pro-lifers) consider that an abortion (a hard-to-avoid conclusion when "aborti-" is right there at the start of the word).

The president had every opportunity to back down from confrontation. In the recent ­Hosanna-Tabor ruling, a unanimous Supreme Court reaffirmed a broad religious autonomy right rooted in the Constitution. Obama could have taken the decision as justification for retreat.

And it would have been a minor retreat....

But the administration insisted that the University of Notre Dame and St. MaryÂ’s Hospital be forced to pay for the privilege of violating their convictions.

Obama chose to substantially burden a religious belief, by the most intrusive means, for a less-than-compelling state purpose — a marginal increase in access to contraceptives that are easily available elsewhere. The religious exemption granted by Obamacare is narrower than anywhere else in federal law — essentially covering the delivery of homilies and the distribution of sacraments. Serving the poor and healing the sick are regarded as secular pursuits — a determination that would have surprised Christianity’s founder.

Both radicalism and maliciousness are at work in Obama’s decision — an edict delivered with a sneer. It is the most transparently anti-Catholic maneuver by the federal government since the Blaine Amendment was proposed in 1875 — a measure designed to diminish public tolerance of Romanism, then regarded as foreign, authoritarian and illiberal. Modern liberalism has progressed to the point of adopting the attitudes and methods of 19th-century Republican nativists.

But bishops are pledging to defy the law.

At least three Catholic bishops have said they will not comply with the mandate the Obama administration put in place recently in Obamacare that will force religious employers to pay for birth control, contraception and drugs that may cause abortions in their health care plans.

The Anchoress finds a silver lining -- maybe this will unite Catholics.

I don't know what to say except the arrogance is breath-taking. Obama doesn't understand the point of government.

The point of government is to run an orderly house in which a great many people may live together in relative harmony despite sharply disagreeing with each other on many things.

A hotelier, if his goal is to just run a successful hotel, should not care very much if some rooms are rented by Jews, and some by Catholics, and some by atheists; and some by families, and some by pairs of cheatin' spouses.

Only if the hotelier puts his own moralism over the business would he attempt to force his guests to live by his specific rules of life.

Obama is a moralist, and an arrogant one. For all the talk of Christians being rigid moralists, the dirty little secret is that the left is far more rigidly, arrogantly moralistic, and it is cheerleaded by our cultural institutions (media, academia) rather than pushed back against, so its arrogance is encouraged.

Obama is pushing, very hard, a rigid moral system, and attempting to "shove it down the throats" of people who do not seek nor need his moral instruction.

It just happens to be that his code of morality is an unconventional one, borne not in the first century but in the twentieth, and which, when taken to extremes, has included conceptions of sexuality which are essentially Satanic in their license.

Can he make a little space for those who do not rush to embrace his Madonna Moralism?

No. For to do so would be to confess doubt about the Moral Scheme he has in mind for people; it would signal that he's not utterly certain of his own moral beliefs.

And few on the political left have any sense of modesty about any of their culture-changing schemes.

They are so right that of course the coercive power of the state -- with its machinery of stripping away the property and liberty of those who run afoul of it -- should be deployed to wipe out mendicants and heretics.

One of the most cherished rights, never expressed anywhere but truly central to any truly free society, is the right to be Wrong. By which I mean, you should not just be free to do the things which the hegemonic culture deems to be "right." No one ever tries to outlaw that which they themselves believe to be right.

What they attempt to do, of course, is outlaw that which they believe to be wrong.

If you do not respect a citizen's right to be wrong -- if your first impulse is to use the frightening machinery of state coercion to compel him to be "right," as you see "right" -- then you do not respect him at all.

This is the chief character flaw of the leftist movement -- their inability to respect anyone at all but their own. A very provincial and solipisitically childish way to view the world, of course, which leads to a vicious arrogance in attempting to pound, pound, pound square pegs into the round holes the state has cut for them.

The left would just be wrong, and not dangerous, if it weren't so arrogant about disposing of people's freedom with a single thoughtless line of legislation.

It is that, the arrogance and the profound disrespect of anyone who does not wear the feathers and warpaint of their tribe, that makes them not just wrong but sinister.

Posted by: Ace at 08:31 AM | Comments (290)
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Helter Skelter.

Co-workers said Poff and Kamin were having some arguments with their son, some of it having to do with him spending too much time in the Occupy Oakland encampment, but nothing that sounded beyond the scope of typical teenage rebelliousness.

The story is being circulated to the media by late-entering candidate Sweet Meteor of Death. Reached for comment, Sweet Meteor of Death noted: "Only I have a plan to stop this."

Sweet Meteor of Death

Taking care of business.

Posted by: Ace at 07:31 AM | Comments (252)
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Current State Of The National Race:

'All Dead Inside Now' still commands an insurmountable advantage over all.
Obama edges both Mitt and Gingrich; Mitt gaining more ground over Gingrich.

Despair not. A new candidate has thrown his enormous bulk into the field. A Mr. SMOD. Campaign announcement materials received by AOSHQ are below the fold.
more...

Posted by: LauraW at 06:12 AM | Comments (265)
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Are federal government workers overpaid? Yes. And the wingnut Republican think-tank that came up with this determination? The CBO.

His Majesty never lies, but sometimes events conspire to make previous statements inoperable. It is impolite -- and a commission of lèse majesté -- to point out such things. Best to let them pass unremarked-upon, for His Majesty loves his people and does not wish them to be unduly confused.
more...

Posted by: Monty at 04:48 AM | Comments (141)
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Good morning. Some headlines to get you started:

Oppo firms get ready: super PACs, campaigns have to disclose donors to the FEC today. This will also likely inaugurate another news cycle on the "dangerous" effect of money on politics.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) intends to introduce a “Buffett Rule” bill in the Senate. Here's a Forbes writer on why the Buffett Rule is a really bad idea. On the bright side, once it has been introduced in Congress, the CBO can be asked to score it, something President Obama has desperately tried to avoid.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:46 AM | Comments (180)
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How Presidential Elections Really Get Decided

We're all political geeks here which means we're OCD on the news and ups and downs of every little minor political skirmish. Mostly because we have no lives enjoy it and find it interesting.

And so it's natural to just assume that all these details that are so very fascinating to us must also be the decisive factors that will determine how the 2012 presidential contest turns out. But this is almost certainly wrong.

In fact it turns out that the results of presidential elections (okay actually the percentage of the two-party vote that the incumbent gets) can be pretty much forecast by the 'Bread and Peace index', a model developed by Douglas Hibbs that only looks at per capita real personal disposable income (RPDI) growth and military fatalities. That's it.

And when you plot his predictions versus the actual election results you get one of the tighter fits you're ever likely to see of human behavior in the real world:

Now this happens to match my gut feeling that most presidential elections already have their basic handicap built in regardless of who the candidates are and what they do. Personalities, policies, campaign strategies, and events have an effect but they're likely at best second or third order factors.

And it's interesting to note that the two most recent 'ideological' elections - 1964 and 1980 - actually fall perfectly onto the Bread and Peace trend line. Which implies that the Goldwater trouncing and the Reagan revolution were less about the American public rejecting and then later accepting conservatism than the vagaries where the elections happened to fall in the economic cycle and the ongoing rate of military casualties. There's an awful lot of luck in life and it rarely gets its full due.

So assuming the model holds true for 2012 what does it say about the prospects of Obama getting re-elected? Well based on the third quarter of 2011 it looks pretty grim for Barack:

Of course Nov. 6th 2012 is almost four quarters away and a lot could happen in between then. But unless RPDI hits 4% by the election Obama is going to stay the under-dog at least by a few percentage points. This isn't grounds for complacency but to me at least it's a sign that panicky mood swings and fatalism over every little development are unjustified. The field is likely to be against Obama and we need to hold steady and play it to our advantage.

Plus we should all have a little humility and accept the very likely possibility that all the things we obsess on and go hammer and tongs against each other over during elections - ideology, policy differences, debate performances, etc - probably matter far, far, far, far less than we like to believe. And may not matter at all.

But that doesn't mean we have to stop fighting over them. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:24 PM | Comments (533)
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Membership (in the Liberal Client Welfare Club) has its privileges.

Posted by: Ace at 02:03 PM | Comments (498)
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Mm-hm.

Demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street movement threw condoms on Catholic schoolgirls, refused to allow a Catholic priest to give a closing prayer, and shouted down a pro-life speaker at a Rhode Island right to life rally on Thursday, according to its organizer. The event marked the third time protesters associated with the movement have disrupted a pro-life meeting in a week.

...

The pro-life organization’s executive director, Barth E. Bracy, told LifeSiteNews.com that, near the end of the rally, the Occupiers “strategically fanned out with military precision.”

That’s when they “started showering condoms down on some of the girls from a Catholic high school.”

I don't want to encourage violence, but I would warn Occupy: If I'm on the jury? No way the guy who beats the shit out of you gets convicted. And I imagine I'd have four or five like-minded people on the panel.

Better ask if you want a "counterprotest" on your teeth.

Posted by: Ace at 01:16 PM | Comments (244)
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Read the whole thing.

The House Chairman of Redistricting says the map can only be drawn in certain ways, due to new legal restrictions on district line-drawing:

The newly approved constitutional amendments, passed by more than 60% of Florida voters, require the legislature to follow a set of standards. This is the first time the legislature has been required to follow these legal standards

These new standards have resulted in disrupting the current districts for incumbents. The Tampa Bay Times stated that the House, Senate, and Congressional maps represent “a record-breaking shakeup in incumbency.” It has been reported that at least 38 members of the Florida legislature do not currently live in their district.

I don't know if I believe that, or believe it partly, or disbelieve it, or what. I just saw this story from a commenter 90 minutes ago.

Depending on the hour, I despair about a base which is so paranoid that they're eager to believe an Establishment is so stupid and suicidal as to boot out a rock star just because he's a threat to them...

...or I despair that they are, in fact, exactly that stupid and suicidal.

Posted by: Ace at 01:06 PM | Comments (184)
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