I'd say "Recovery," in quotes, but at least they addressed the issue.

(Well that's not quite fair -- they do mention the most important issue in America (and the world) from time to time. But obviously they far prefer the saga of the gay haircut.)

The recession that ended three years ago this summer has been followed by the feeblest economic recovery since the Great Depression.

Since World War II, 10 U.S. recessions have been followed by a recovery that lasted at least three years. An Associated Press analysis shows that by just about any measure, the one that began in June 2009 is the weakest.

The ugliness goes well beyond unemployment, which at 8.3 percent is the highest this long after a recession ended.

Economic growth has never been weaker in a postwar recovery. Consumer spending has never been so slack. Only once has job growth been slower.

More than in any other post-World War II recovery, people who have jobs are hurting: Their paychecks have fallen behind inflation.

...

The AP compared nine economic recoveries since the end of World War II that lasted at least three years....

Here is a closer look at how the comeback from the Great Recession stacks up with the others:

—FEEBLE GROWTH

America's gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic output — grew 6.8 percent from the April-June quarter of 2009 through the same quarter this year, the slowest in the first three years of a postwar recovery. GDP grew an average of 15.5 percent in the first three years of the eight other comebacks analyzed.

The engines that usually drive recoveries aren't firing this time.

Investment in housing, which grew an average of nearly 34 percent this far into previous postwar recoveries, is up just 8 percent since the April-June quarter of 2009.

That's because the overbuilding of the mid-2000s left a glut of houses. Prices fell and remain depressed. The housing market has yet to return to anything close to full health even as mortgage rates have plunged to record lows.

They throw in this stat, which seems true, and irrelevant:

Government spending and investment at the federal, state and local levels was 4.5 percent lower in the second quarter than three years earlier.

Three years into previous postwar recoveries, government spending had risen an average 12.5 percent. In the first three years after the 1981-82 recession, during President Ronald Reagan's first term, the economy got a jolt from a 15 percent increase in government spending and investment.

This is the most underreported story of the past three years. The press have never underplayed economic misery to this degree before.

I'd like to see an analysis of that -- press coverage of this recession versus the previous ones.

Posted by: Ace at 09:54 AM | Comments (85)
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"One More Term," just an awful parody of Les Miserables, with lots of anti-conservative lyrics like "feminazi rage."

Oh, it's so bad. When I tell you it's bad, keep in mind I'm the guy who saw the Nick Cage remake of The Wicker Man and strongly recommended it, and not ironically. I thought it was good.

So... when I say something is bad, it's bad.

Favorite part...? I want to say it's hard to say but of course it's not. If pressed for time, go to 4:00 and hear them hyperventilate about the Gay Haircut, or "Hunt the Queer," as they call it.

Posted by: Ace at 09:22 AM | Comments (293)
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A security guard and the suspect have been shot.

Obviously with all the hate spewed at the group by the left, it's fair to wonder if this is politically motivated. It's early but reports are it might well be.

Expect the left to be suddenly uninterested in politically motivated violence.

Via Gabe, sounds like the guard is going to be ok.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:08 AM | Comments (318)
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Yes, sue me. I woke up this morning and, over at the Rumble, wrote about Romney's plan to repeal and replace Dodd-Frank.

Romney/Ryan would be good for Wall Street, sure . But we shouldn't ignore how good a Romney/Ryan administration would be for Main Street too. Let's consider the anti-prosperity effects of one of the President's major legislative achievements, the Dodd-Frank banking bill.

Click over for the whole thing.

Dodd-Frank is the type of policy engineering that Democrats excel at -- selling big legislation on the lie that it's good for Joe Consumer when it's really nothing of the sort.

Dodd-Frank was simply the Democrats' misguided attempt to punish Wall Street. And in their zeal to give the finger to the financial sector, and thereby demonstrate their liberal bonafides, Democrats swept up community banks too. And, of course, every person that uses a bank.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:01 AM | Comments (346)
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I'm not much for "past is prelude" but if you're looking for another sign of hope consider this....no President, starting with FDR* has failed to win more electoral votes in their second election than they did their first.

For all the talk about Romney having to "expand" his map, the reality is unlike successful incumbents, Obama's map is shrinking.

(Shameless plug: You can do the electoral collage math yourself with the phone app my business partner and I developed. Right now we have Android and Kindle Fire versions.)

There's simply no red state from 2008 that anyone thinks Obama is going to be competitive in, let alone win. He might still hang on to win but history, the economy, and the state of the country are against it.

*Thanks to @projectiondesk for pointing out that FDR qualifies for this trend if you discount his historically anomalous third and fourth terms. Not since Woodrow Wilson, almost 100 years ago, has an incumbent won reelection while losing Electoral College votes.

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't point to CAC's rules for flipping control of the White House.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:09 AM | Comments (179)
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Happy Wednesday.

On the stump last night, Gov. Romney hit the Lightbringer hard, saying that he was "intellectually exhausted" and that the President's "wild and reckless accusations . . . disgrace the office of the presidency." More, please.

Even more DHS employees are coming forward with claims of abusive behavior at J-Nap's "female frat house." (I really don't get that "female frat-house" line that shows up in all these stories. I get it -- it's like a frat-house, but with women being disrespectful party animals instead of men. There must be a word for that...)

The despicable Priorities USA ad accusing Romney of killing a woman "accidentally" aired in Ohio yesterday morning. At least, according to Priorities USA jackhole Bill Burton it was an accident. He seems like a trustworthy guy, right?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (238)
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#AOSHQDD WISCONSIN R PRIMARY CALL: THOMPSON

FL
CT
WI
MN

Big items:
Wisconsin US Senate race. I say Thompson by 5 with Hovde/Fitzgerald a 2nd/3rd.
Florida US Senate race. Mack by a mile.

Florida CD-7, where blog favorite Sandy Adams is up against John Mica in a Republican incumbant-on-incumbant fight. Currently Mica leads 62-38% with 42% of the vote counted.

We will also be watching Republican turnout for the primary. If it is higher than what we saw during the Walker debacle AND the Presidential primary, I'll be dancing. On par, I'll be politely clapping the Badger State GOP.

*update- AOSHQDD calls FL SENATE R for Connie Mack IV. In R v D primaries, Democratic Incumbant US Senator Bill Nelson has 79% in his own primary, Mack has more votes (in a primary with 4 choices) than Nelson outright.
*update- AOSHQDD calls FL-7 R primary for Mica.
*update @ 8:08pm EST: AOSHQDD calls CT Senate primaries: Linda McMahon will be the Republican, Chris Murphy the Democrat facing each other in November. Murphy is favored to beat McMahon currently by 9 points.
*update @08:14pm EST: AOSHQDD calls FL-9 R primary for Todd Long, who wins the right to embarass Alan Grayson in November.
*update- I have Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington numbers up and ready to read, these counties will likely dictate who wins the primary. I'll be making projections ahead of the AP for the US Senate primary race after sampling a few other counties.

*Watching Wisconsin now...0 results from Waukesha-Ozaukee-Washington
#AOSHQDD WI R PRIMARY CALL: Neumann Thompson Fitzgerald Hovde
*update
Hovde leading Thompson by about <1% with county results I have seen so far, 6% of precincts in. WOW beginning to trickle in. (calc'ing numbers slightly different from AP, so there may be a lag in overall numbers) Dane County is favoring Thompson, Brown favoring Hovde.

*update with 0.7% in, Fitzgerald is out.
*updated with 4% tracking, Neumann is out.
*updated- Thompson is losing Ozaukee county, barely trails in Waukesha County. Brown almost all in.
*Update- here's the deal: Washington, Ozaukee and Waukesha has the highest concentration of Republican voters in the state. Regardless his performance in Dane county, if Thompson doesn't leap ahead in the WOW, Hovde has won.

*Update- Thompson enjoying a 34% to 31% lead over Hovde.
Waukesha outstanding. Washington not in at all. Dane rolling in for Thompson, Ozaukee rolling in for Hovde (BARELY).
*Update Thompson has taken a narrow lead in Waukesha county with 64% of the county still outstanding. If he carries it, Hovde is doomed.

*Update- #AOSHDD call for WI race imminent.

Posted by: CAC at 05:47 PM | Comments (413)
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FYI as of 21:30 blog time both Margaret Thatcher and Abe Vigoda are still alive.

67 Years Ago Today

Both the sailor and the nurse are still alive and tell their story here. You'll also find out who the woman smiling on the left is.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:42 PM | Comments (804)
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Pretty devastating refutation of the "facts" Soledad has been offering her audience, in defense of her own Big He.

She begins the segment with a description of the coming Medicare cuts in Obamacare, presumably to remind her guest of the facts and prompt a defense, that is wrong on essentially every point:

People listening to both [Mitt Romney] and [Paul Ryan] today might get the impression that they actually opposed the $700 billion cut, but in fact the congressmanÂ’s plan not only includes this cut, but instead of restoring it to the funding, he puts the same yearly cap on growth in spending per beneficiary, and unlike the presidentÂ’s plan, he doesnÂ’t put the savings back into the system. It actually uses that money to finance deficit reduction and tax cuts.

OÂ’Brien is correct on one thing: Paul RyanÂ’s House budgets have preserved the reduction in the growth of Medicare spending included in Obamacare (though thatÂ’s hardly a good starting point for a real discussion of the issues like the ones that, say, the vastly more fair-minded Anderson Cooper often encourages). But here are the mistakes she makes in the above statement:

1. Mitt Romney has consistently opposed the $700 billion cut, and has pledged to restore that funding to Medicare; people would be “getting the right impression” from him, and the wrong one from O’Brien.

2. She claims that Ryan’s plan does something other than “restoring [the $700 billion] to the funding,” insinuating that Obamacare allocates the savings from the cuts to funding future Medicare obligations (i.e., the Medicare trust fund); but Obamacare spends that money on exchange subsidies, Medicaid expansion, and various other health-care expenditures.

3. Ryan’s plan might use essentially “the same yearly cap on growth in spending” as Obamacare, but it’s important that Romney’s plan would not; it would remove this cap entirely for the next ten years.

4. There is no cap on “spending per beneficiary” in any plan; it’s a global cap. Such a term doesn’t make sense in the fee-for-service system that will persist over the next ten years.

5. Ryan’s plan does “put the savings back into the system,” by restoring them to the Medicare trust fund (as a matter of budgetary reality, he might borrow from that to reduce the deficit or cut taxes, but that will leave behind government bonds which shore up Medicare’s assets and extend the trust fund’s life, which Obamacare has shortened).

6. Ryan’s plan is indeed “unlike the president’s plan,” but Obamacare takes the funding out of Medicare, or “the system,” to spend on other health-care priorities.

O’Brien’s presentation of the “facts” includes an error every dozen words, roughly. Her evasive maneuvering on the issue is further evident later on, after Comstock begins to explain why current seniors and everyone over 55 need not worry about any effects of the Ryan plan. Posturing as if she’s stopping to provide a fact check, O’Brien interrupts Comstock to provide a new distortion on an unrelated issue....

Read the whole thing.

Soledad either needs some satisfaction for her Love Jones, or she needs to start reading more fact-based left-wing blogs.

Posted by: Ace at 03:26 PM | Comments (95)
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No words.

In the original letter, Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Joe Lieberman, (I-Conn.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) asked the debate commission to devote “specific and extensive attention to the question of how the candidates would get our nation’s fiscal house in order during the first debate dedicated to domestic policy.”

“Specifically, we request that you ask the presidential candidates which of the recommendations of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform they would adopt as part of their plan to reduce the deficit,” they wrote.

But that caused Reps. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) to cry foul, writing in their own letter to the debate commission on Tuesday that although the Simpson-Bowles commission’s plan “may contain proposals helpful to our recovery…to hold it out as the only pathway to fiscal responsibility and economic success is foolish and wrong.”

“We urge the [Debate] Commission to fight any effort to unnecessarily narrow such an important debate by placing disproportionate attention on one set of proposals over another,” they wrote, adding that such a question would “cheapen the debate” and “thwart the candidates’ ability to explain alternative proposals.”

I have a feeling they wouldn't support questions about the stimulus or unemployment or Solyndra or Israel, either. Pretty much we'll only be able to talk about Seamus and tax returns.

thanks to @justgrunt

Posted by: Ace at 12:56 PM | Comments (447)
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