Another Romney surrogate on the conference call (unidentified here) said that Obama's polices were tantamount to "socialism."

"The president clearly demonstrated that he has absolutely no idea how the American economy functions. The men and women all over America who have worked hard to build these businesses, their businesses from the ground up is how our economy became the envy of the world -- it is the American way," Sununu said in his opening remarks of the conference call.

He added: "I wish this president would learn how to be an American."

The first question to Sununu later in the call was about that comment, which exploded quickly on Twitter for its stark claim about Obama.

"What I thought I said, but I guess I didn't say, is that the president has to learn the American formula for creating business," he said. "If I didn't give all that detail I apologize."

Well, as various DNC flacks said of Romney, when he asked Obama to get his staff under control: Stop whining.

Posted by: Ace at 10:08 AM | Comments (112)
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Fail.

Mykonos, this Trip Advisor article says, "is a very gay island now."

I'm surprised this isn't a bigger story. But then, maybe I shouldn't be; I barely care myself, so why should other people? Plus, news that John Travolta is gay isn't exactly a jaw-dropper.

Posted by: Ace at 09:53 AM | Comments (212)
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Flags in Idaville at half-mast.

He wrote 80 books.

Posted by: Ace at 09:05 AM | Comments (176)
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Obviously.

But not at Politico. Politico earns high praise for its studious neutrality, with hard-hitting coverage of both candidates.

For example, on Romney:

Romney's Olympics uniforms made in Burma

And similarly probing articles about Obama:

Obama likes Thin Mints best

That's a story about Obama's preferences in Girl Scout cookies.

On the Romney piece -- of course this attack was already orchestrated ahead-of-time; as commenters guessed here, quite correctly, when Reid made an issue of the current Olympics' uniforms being made in China, that was battlespace preparation for the story they actually wanted to leak to Politico, that the Romney Olympics featured outsourced outfits.

Thanks to @benk84

Posted by: Ace at 08:30 AM | Comments (142)
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Piecing together a couple of rants from elsewhere and some other things that have been stewing. Warning: long ranty rant ahead.

One very offensive thing about Elizabeth Warren’s and Obama’s statement that ‘no businessperson is successful alone, other people made them that way,’ is the complete discounting of risk (and hard work). Risk is nearly the whole game. The whole thing, this entire American enterprise, rests on people who are willing to take a risk.

Where, in either of their diatribes, do they acknowledge the (often terribly high) risk required by individual enterprise?

Worse, they fail to mention the people that risk it all, who LOSE. They pretend those people donÂ’t exist. The false assumption behind both these clownsÂ’ statements, is that the successful were guaranteed to be so, by a helpful public sector. But we know thatÂ’s not actually how things go. Most ventures fail.

That bears repeating! Most ventures fail. And not for a lack of roads and bureaucrats. more...

Posted by: LauraW at 07:56 AM | Comments (201)
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Happy Tuesday.

Reactions to Obama's stupid "you didn't build that" comment:

Rep. Paul Ryan had a lot to say.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus: "Says a lot about Obama's big govt philosophy."

The Romney campaign says Obama's insults to business owners "reflect just how unqualified he is to lead us to a real economic recovery."

A Chamber of Commerce blogger was more measured: "the basic idea behind all of these comments is really objectionable and offensive." There was no official statement from the Chamber.*

The National Federation of Independent Businesses (the group that sued over Obamacare) hit the right note in an official statement: “His unfortunate remarks over the weekend show an utter lack of understanding and appreciation for the people who take a huge personal risk and work endless hours to start a business and create jobs."

*UPDATE: I'm told that the Chamber post was written by the Chief Operating Officer, so it's "pretty official."

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (497)
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Barack Obama Channels his Inner Fake Cherokee

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you've got a business -- you didn't build that.  Somebody else made that happen.  The Internet didn't get invented on its own.  Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.  There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own

Yeah Ace covered this earlier but I think it's worth covering again for what it says about the left.

A key trait of the left is that its political positions are almost always emotion-based rather than reasoned out from a set of principles. There may be intellectual arguments for their policies but they're almost always tacked on long after the fact to justify a position that feels right. So it's natural that they will try to sell a position using the same quality that makes it so appealing to them.

One shared quality among humans (and some apes) is that we all have a built-in sense of fairness in our brains - or to be more accurate a keen detector of unfairness. And leftists use this unfairness sensor all the time when they're promoting forms of wealth redistribution e.g. it's *unfair* that the rich have so many boats and houses when there are working people who can't feed their families.

By re-framing a situation into an 'unfair' narrative they're trying to activate people's anti-unfairness brain circuitry to get them to emotionally accept the proposed solutions to make things 'fair' again. Now this works fairly often but it's certainly not the magic bullet that leftists believe it is. In particular it only works if the proposed 'fairness' solution doesn't itself also activate the unfairness-detector.

Now Americans generally admire people who've built up their own successful businesses through hard work, investment of money and huge amounts of time - so much so that this is a key component of the American Dream. So when politicians talk about making these businesses - particularly small ones - pay much higher taxes and fees, it also seems unfair that those who've made risks and worked very hard to build something should be the very ones to be singled out to have more of their earned wealth taken away. That also sets the unfairness neurons a-twitchin'.

The left knows this which is why they're always looking for some way to disqualify and devalue the achievements of successful entrepreneurs. So it's no surprise that both Elizabeth Warren and Obama (using nearly the same words) claim that no one really builds a business by themselves - it's really the result of government help, the work of other people, and plain luck.

Then it follows that business owners don't fully deserve their financial gains either and so it's completely reasonable to make them share it with others. Thus taking more from the successful who earned it is now the truly fair thing to do.

Of course their no-one-is-really-independently-successful argument is wrong for a host of reasons but now you know why they're making it in the first place.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:23 PM | Comments (403)
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I can't believe this is a thing.

So, this stupid shit began June 8.

The unnamed female blogger, who acknowledges preferring the "skinny aesthetic," wrote in a July 8 post on the website "Skinny Gurl" that she has been deluged with angry emails and threatened with rape and death.

The controversy first began back in June when the blogger wrote that Upton was "confidently lumbering up the runway like there's a buffet at the end of it," and also called her a "little piggie" with "huge thighs, NO waist, big fat floppy boobs, terrible body definition Â… ."

She continued: "Did you know that humans are 80% genetically identical to cows? Well, allow me to prove it to youÂ… ." That line was followed by an unflattering photo of the back of Upton's lingerie-clad body on the runway.

Re-butt-al here.

This sort of thing -- tearing into women's bodies for the most absurd of complaints -- can only result in them becoming insecure, depressed, and more willing to have sex with lonely men who'll tell them they're pretty, and--

Okay, carry on.

Bitch, Please: SNL used to lampoon bloggers with a character who ran a blog called "BitchPlease.com."

It was funny, because it's so painfully true. Just awful.

Posted by: Ace at 04:13 PM | Comments (349)
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Great strategy.

One problem: Bane may sound like "Bain," but when Bane talks, he talks like Obama. The whole plot of the movie is Bane's attempt at "hope and change," by which we mean violent revolution against the capitalist class.

Do they not know this, or do they actively want that association?

This summer's much-anticiapted Hollywood blockbuster, "The Dark Knight Rises," is getting an unusual boost from Democrats and other foes of Mitt Romney who are eager to tie the Gotham crushing villain to the GOP presidential candidate. Their angle: the mask-wearing, "Venom" gas breathing bad guy has a name that sounds just like Romney's former investment firm that President Obama has been blasting as a jobs killer.

"Bane" is the terrorist in the new movie who drives the caped crusader out of semi-retirement in the final Batman movie. Democrats, who believe they have Romney on the ropes over the president's assault on his leadership at Bain Capital, said the comparisons are too rich to ignore.

"It has been observed that movies can reflect the national mood," said Democratic advisor and former Clinton aide Christopher Lehane. "Whether it is spelled Bain and being put out by the Obama campaign or Bane and being out by Hollywood, the narratives are similar: a highly intelligent villain with offshore interests and a past both are seeking to cover up who had a powerful father and is set on pillaging society," he added.

Ah. And I guess we should ignore the fact that Bane's army of rabble is actually practicing redistribution of wealth -- something Obama supported, in a rare moment of candor, when asked about taxes by Joe Wurtzlebacher.

By the way-- "highly intelligent, with an intelligent father and offshore interests" sounds more like Batman, dickhead.

I kind of think they really are going for the "Revolution" vibe here.

Posted by: Ace at 02:29 PM | Comments (287)
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This is just such an awful story in so many ways, including that the girl -- daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. -- is named "Kick."

Only someone that rich could be named "Kick."

But given Chris Matthews' leg tingle for JFK -- a tingle only exceeded by his tingle for Obama -- how raging is his marriage-boner right now? You have to figure he's pretty much begging his son to marry him into the Kennedy family.

Let's hope it doesn't work out.

Posted by: Ace at 01:51 PM | Comments (172)
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