I was in and out for a week without planning ahead for it (in fairness, it was a last-minute thing occasioned by a sudden event).

I wanted to thank the cobloggers for carrying the show on my days off, and the readers for sticking by; but I couldn't think of how to do that.

But then I found it. A gift to you, to show my gratitude.

For you. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:28 AM | Comments (232)
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If you like your doctor, you can have this other doctor over here.

As many as 20 million Americans could lose their employer-provided coverage because of President Obama's healthcare reform law, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a new report Thursday.

The figure represents the worst-case scenario, CBO says, and the law could just as well increase the number of people with employer-based coverage by 3 million in 2019.

The best estimate, subject to a "tremendous amount of uncertainty," is that about 3 million to 5 million fewer people will obtain coverage through their employer each year from 2019 through 2022.

Given the CBO's flacking for ObamaCare, and the reliability of government "estimates" (I won't get you pregnant if I just put in the tip), I'm thinking the "worst case" scenario is really the most likely scenario.

But the good news is -- this will cost double what the CBO claimed it would.

The Congressional Budget Office has extended its cost estimates for President Obama's health care law out to 2022, taking in more years of full implementation, and showing that the bill is substantially more expensive -- twice as much as the original $900 billion price tag.

In a largely overlooked segment of the CBO's update to the budget outlook released Tuesday, the independent arm of Congress found that the bill will cost $1.76 trillion between now and 2022.

That only counts the cost of coverage, not implementation costs and other changes.

"The bill spends more than the president promised, it covers fewer people -- probably 2 million fewer people -- and it taxes more than was expected," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee.

Sessions notes that while we're dismantling our Navy to save $2.1 trillion, ObamaCare itself costs $2.6 trillion (when you take into account all costs).

Seems like we don't have that money, and people don't like this program.

Breitbart.com notes that while this double-the-costs story broke yesterday, the networks all failed to mention it.

Instead, Dianne Sawyer chose to lush about the economy "heating up."

Posted by: Ace at 10:40 AM | Comments (304)
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Good article. Rumors of a billion-dollar warchest may have been greatly overstated.

[Mmany of Mr. Obama's 2008 donors are reluctant to give again. The Obama campaign itself reported that fewer than 7% of 2008 donors renewed their support in the first quarter of his re-election campaign. That's about one-quarter to one-third of a typical renewal rate: In the first quarter of the Bush re-election campaign, for example, about 20% of the donors renewed their support.

There are other troubling signs. Team Obama's email appeals don't ask for $10, $15, $25 or $50 donations as they did in 2008, but generally for $3. Nor are the appeals mostly about issues; many are lotteries. Give three bucks and your name will be put in a drawing for a private dinner with the president and first lady.

This is clever marketing, but it suggests the campaign has found that only a low price point with a big benefit can overcome donor resistance among people who contributed via mail or the Internet in 2008. It also points to higher-than-expected solicitation costs and lower-than-expected fund-raising returns.

The final financial challenge facing Mr. Obama's campaign is how fast it is burning through the cash it is raising. Compare the 2012 Obama re-election campaign with the 2004 Bush re-election campaign. Mr. Obama's campaign spent 25% of what it raised in the second quarter of 2011, while Mr. Bush's campaign spent only 9% in the second quarter of 2003. In the third quarter it was 46% for Obama versus 26% for Bush; for the fourth quarter it was 57% versus 40%. In January 2012 the Obama campaign spent 158% of what it raised, while the Bush campaign spent 60% in January 2004.

At least he's consistent. He spends his money like he spends ours.

Thanks to Dave in Fla.

Posted by: Ace at 10:01 AM | Comments (256)
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Washingtonitis.

These were Democrats voting, however, sticking together to vote 2-1 over the lone Republican. They found that Lugar had abandoned his Indiana home and did not actually live there, but instead lived in Virginia.

With so little facts I've got nothing to add.

More! And now there are some more facts.

ndiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar is running for re-election in a state he has not lived in for over 30 years.

Lugar sold his home at 3200 Highwoods Court in Indianapolis shortly after first assuming office in 1977. But due to a loophole in Indiana law, both he and his wife Charlene Lugar are still registered to vote at that address.

Greg Wright, an Indiana tea party member and certified fraud examiner, told The Daily Caller that he has been investigating Lugar’s residency situation “for a few weeks” and has not been paid for his efforts. He just heard one day from some tea party friends that Lugar didn’t actually live in the state, and took it upon himself to find out if it was true.

Since then Wright has filed a series of inquiries with Indiana officials and dug up more than a dozen documents pertaining to LugarÂ’s residency, such as voting records and property tax information. But, despite filling out all the necessary paperwork, most of his questions went unanswered, and local papers appeared unwilling to look into the matter.

“Nobody really wants to touch this for one reason or another,” Wright told TheDC.

Indiana has a loophole, or a law, to cover this. Someone performing the duties of the state outside the state keeps his voting privileges.

So actually this was sort of legal, maybe.

I'm not sure what the Democrats could have determined reversed that long-understood loophole.

Thanks to DrewM.

Posted by: Ace at 09:40 AM | Comments (126)
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By the way, I don't agree that these statements are "misogynistic." They're crude (and, of course, unfunny) jokes from a never-was comedian. They're mean, but I don't take any of these words to be proof of misogyny.

But that is how the debate gets framed by the Outrage Squad. By their definition, Maher's remarks are misogynist.

So:

From Reason, which has more on this hypocrisy.

Posted by: Ace at 08:51 AM | Comments (206)
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Educational purposes?

In the Village Voice interview, Carusone acknowledges he talked to advertisers all weekend, and that the Carbonite Saturday night announcement was a key turning point:

I started talking to advertisers on Thursday, and got a lot of feedback on Friday, and I knew a lot of movement was taking place. This was important to think about from a business perspective. The very clearest example was when Carbonite came out on Saturday night. That was significant because they had been one of his biggest advertisers, and they announced their drop after the so called apology. They said the apology didnÂ’t matter. Rush had exposed himself as too volatile to do business with.

Carusone doesnÂ’t state that he communicated with Carbonite, but itÂ’s certainly implied in his interview.

While Carusone was contacting advertisers, Media Matters began running almost daily counts of how many advertisers had “dropped” Limbaugh. Media Matters did not disclose that advertisers were “dropping” Limbaugh as a result of the efforts of Media Matters’ own employee, Carusone.

Carusone did not try to hide his efforts in his media interviews, but Media Matters itself did not attribute the success of the campaign to its own efforts.

The weekend Twitter and Facebook campaign by Carusone paid dividends, as many of the initial advertisers cited online complaints as one of the reasons for dropping Limbaugh.

Media Matters also inflated the numbers, including advertisers who never advertised on Limbaugh but merely acknowledged a pre-existing policy. Yet those inflated numbers (50? 100? 140?) then were picked up by the media, to create the appearance of momentum.

One of the things I know as a partisan is that fellow partisans give you a little leeway when you're bullshitting -- for the cause. In 2008, I could pretend I thought McCain was going to win, and Republicans might perform okay in Congress.

No one came up to me later and said "You lied." People understood.

Media Matters is a dishonest, unethical organization. Does this ever provoke any response from the media giddily running its non-stories?

No. Because they're partisans, and they understand that sometimes The Team needs to bullshit a little.

Compare this with the true exposes posted by Breitbart. The ACORN sting? 100% true. Yet the media hated him for it, and claimed James O'Keefe had "deceptively edited" his videos, though to this day they remain conspicuously vague as to where the deceptive edits occurred.

I understand why announced partisans might give me, an announced partisan, some leeway on this stuff.

What's the media's excuse for giving leeway to Media Matters?

They have no excuse, but the reason is exactly the same.

Posted by: Ace at 08:28 AM | Comments (101)
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11 ships, 6 Perry Class Frigates, the aircraft carrier Enterprise and 4 Ticonderoga Class Cruisers, will be decommissioned next year alone.

Now the frigates and the Enterprise are at the end of their useful life. They've done their time and it makes sense for them to go. But 4 Ticonderoga Class Cruisers (CGs), each with at least another decade of useful service left? What the hell.

From Information Dissemination:

In my opinion, unless there are serious undisclosed material condition problems on these ships [the cruisers], this is a Bullshit Popsicle. The over 500 VLS cell missile capacity of these 4 warships exceed the combined missile capacity of the Royal Navy, the French Navy, the Italian Navy, the Spanish Navy, the Dutch Navy, the German Navy, the Turkish Navy, or the Danish Navy. These four ships are about equal in total missile capacity to the existing surface combatant force of the Royal Navy today.

That's a lot of bang going bye-bye in one year.

It's especially puzzling since the Navy is picking up an increased Ballistic Missile Defense mission and 3 of the cruisers can be cost effectively upgraded to the mission while the fourth, Port Royal already is BMD capable (of course Port Royal has it's own problems).

The oceans aren't any smaller and our interests and missions haven't decreased at all, so I'm not sure how shrinking the Navy makes any sense. You can say today's ships are more capable and able to perform multiple-missions than ever before but one thing they can't do is be in more than one place at one time.

History has a way of repeating itself and I'm sure that in due time people will look back at this time as we look back on others and wonder what in the world we were thinking. Of course the answer is...save money. Of course, it's funny how we never hear about these kinds of cuts coming out of any other federal departments.

Priorities.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:01 AM | Comments (162)
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Government Motors.
Obamacare.
The Tax code.
Energy Policy.
Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Listening to the various salesmen peddling servitude for Big Brother reminds me of this bit on Turbo-Encabulators.

A whole lot of high-falutin' gibberish.

The difference is that while Bud Haggart's presentation was only intended to poke a little fun at himself and the work he did, the gub'ment aims to sooth those too stupid to understand that [Dollars In] MUST be equal to or greater than [Dollars Out] for an economic plan to be viable, by providing them with a sense of intellectual superiority by association.

The gibberish reassures them, because while they aren't sure what the words mean, they are presuming that everyone else is dumber than they, and most certainly are dumber than the person spouting all the fancy words in support of an agreeable conclusion.

Without further ado, and courtesy of the Intertubes^TM which never forgets, I present to you:

The Turbo-Ecabulator

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:43 AM | Comments (192)
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Happy Thursday.

Santorum went to San Juan, Puerto Rico yesterday, where he told a newspaper, El Vocero, that Puerto Rico should only gain statehood if the territory makes English its main language.

"As in any other state, you have to comply with this and any federal law. And that is that English has to be the main language," Santorum told the paper. "There are other states with more than one language as is the case in Hawaii, but to be a state in the United States, English has to be the main language."

Santorum is apparently unaware that English is compulsory in Puerto Rican schools from first through twelfth grade. He's also apparently unaware that there is no federal law that says that "English has to be the main language." The immediate response of the newspaper staff should have been: "Just what language do you think you're speaking with us right now, idiota?"

Santorum then went to a town hall where he charmingly referred to himself as "Senator Puertorriqueño." Next it was off to an evangelical church on the 85% Catholic island where he campaigned on social issues again. But please, he's really tired of the media always bringing up social issues.

There are 20 Puerto Rican delegates at stake in Sunday's primary. If a candidate wins a majority, he takes all 20 delegates. If no candidate wins a majority, delegates will be awarded proportionally to each candidate who gets more than 15% of the vote.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:00 AM | Comments (698)
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Barack Obama and Derrick Bell

Okay sure Obama may have spoken at a rally for Prof. Derrick Bell while a law student at Harvard but that was a long time ago and doesn't mean that he subscribed to his racial views or anything, right?

Well here's what Prof. Barack Obama was teaching at the University of Chicago Law School. This is his Spring Term 1994 Syllabus for his "Current Issues in Racism and the Law" seminar. And guess whose works appear in the required reading.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:40 PM | Comments (754)
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