Let's talk about everything but the important stuff, eh?

The number of U.S. workers filing applications for jobless benefits rose last week, continuing an uneven pattern that suggests job creation was likely modest in July.

Separately, factory orders unexpectedly fell in June, the latest sign that the slowing economy is sapping demand.

Initial jobless claims, an indication of layoffs, increased by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 365,000 in the week ended July 28, the Labor Department said Thursday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast 370,000 new applications for jobless benefits last week.

How about our regularly-scheduled upward revision in last week's numbers?

Claims for the July 21 week were revised up to 357,000 from an initially reported 353,000.

There you go.

More "unexpected" declines in manufacturing.

Stolen from Hot Air, Pethokoukis notes an econometric-type election forecast, which chiefly looks at at economic indicators and US casualties in foreign war. The model is called the Bread and Peace model, appropriately enough.

Based on that forecast, Romney wins 52.5% of the two-party vote, Obama 47.5%. Which is a near-landslide.

The usual caveats about models created to fit, retroactively, already known data apply. Still, that is a nice tight line.

Posted by: Ace at 11:34 AM | Comments (158)
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He may look like a pederast, but underneath that sly pedophile's smile he's all corrupt inside.

HeÂ’s been accused of trying to increase the value of his own property by having a bridge built between Nevada and Arizona. He was also accused of using campaign contributions for personal use, and in using his political power to help a friend who is also one of his sonÂ’s (an attorney) clients to build a golf course. Other accusations include taking donations from four Indian tribes during the Jack Abramoff Indian Lobbying Scandal and it was proven that Reid had a general increase in Indian contributions during that time.

The corrupt likely pederast also repeated his baseless smear on the floor of the Senate.

Update: I have a list of 10 people serving in the Senate and Obama Administration about whom there is secret information suggesting they may be predatory pederasts.

Posted by: Ace at 11:00 AM | Comments (217)
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Hysterical screencap at Instapundit.

He links Stace's piece, wherein Reid actually says "I don't think the burden [of proof re: Romney's "unpaid taxes"] should be on me." It's not Harry Reid's burden to prove the thing he just made up, you see. It's Romney's burden to disprove the thing Reid just made up.

Meanwhile, millions of parents in DC and Nevada send their sons to school every day without knowing whether Harry Reid is, or is not, a pederast.

(Sorry for late start: Power is out. Waited for it to come on; it didn't. Now I'm in a bar, rockin' a diet coke.)

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (236)
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Lovely

The IRS is paying out billions of dollars in fraudulent tax refunds to identity thieves; a problem that the tax service’s inspector general told CNBC is a “growing problem” involving numbers that are increasing “exponentially."

...

The inspector general concluded that the IRS is simply not doing enough to stop identity theft fraud. “Unfortunately, the IRS is not using information that it currently has, nor information that could be available to them,” [IRS inspector general J. Russell] George said.

We often hear that "uncertainty" is holding the economy back. I disagree.

What's holding the economy back, in large part, is certainty. It is certain that politicians in Washington D.C., not to mention states and cities, have irresponsibly spent the taxpayer into a deep hole and the bill, in an amount that is simply unfathomable, is coming due.

The Senate hasn't passed a budget in well over 1,000 days, in violation of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and also any semblance of financial responsibility. The IRS leaks like a sieve, apparently, while its tax cheat head's SCOAMF of a boss vacations and campaigns on our dime and stiffs local communities for the costs of security.

Obama constantly bleats about "millionaires and billionaires" not "paying their fair share".

My question is, why should they? Why should anyone?

The federal government clearly can't manage the money it has now. It takes a special kind of stupid (lookin' at you, Fauxcahontas) to think that any problem we have can be solved by giving it more.

Posted by: andy at 09:45 AM | Comments (119)
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While we're waiting for the Blogger-in-Chief, has this been covered?

We knew that the White House made some shady deals with PhRMA during the Obamacare negotiations, even though he'd promised the American people that healthcare negotiations would be done in public. But we now know that the White House went even further than that in deceiving voters.

Not only did they hold these shady meetings. They held these shady meetings outside the White House, so they could escape federal disclosure law. And the chief negotiator for this, Jim Messina, then deputy chief of staff and current manager of Obama's reelection campaign, concealed even this by using his private email account to arrange the meetings.

A House Energy and Commerce Committee report out Tuesday is stocked with emails sent from private addresses and meetings scheduled away from the building to avoid official record. Among these are several sent to a pharmaceutical industry lobbyist by Messina, then President Barack ObamaÂ’s then-deputy White House chief of staff, making promises about language for the health care reforms despite the resistance of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the measure.

“I will roll [P]elosi to get the 4 billion,” Messina wrote Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) lobbyist Jeffrey Forbes from his personal account just days before the Affordable Care Act cleared Congress in March 2010. “As you may have heard I am literally rolling over the house. But there just isn’t 8-10 billion.”

Messina arranged for these clandestine meetings to take place at a Caribou Coffee near the White House.

Now, the White House isn't denying this. Press Secretary Jay Carney is merely replying that Messina was "diligent in copying his official email address to preserve records of the emails."

That's a fine deflection. It doesn't answer the question at all. Did Messina copy these particular messages to his official account? The White House isn't saying. And that's answer enough.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:10 AM | Comments (324)
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The Romney campaign just put up the next "These Hands" ad, this time focused on a Virginia business. This one's great because it not only continues to press the "you didn't build that" attack, but wraps in Obama's ignorant "it worked!" remark too.

The Obama folks still haven't made an affirmative case that Obama actually knows how to fix the economy, or even a defense of his economic policies to date. I think it has something to do with slurpees and a ditch, but that's about it. The Obamatons would much rather complain about context.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:42 AM | Comments (287)
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Happy Thursday.

Rich Lowry has a good column on the media's pathetic behavior during Romney's overseas trip. "Seriously, we send people to journalism school for this? Why not outsource the work to Media Matters and be done with it?"

Employees at DOD's Missile Defense Agency were warned to stop surfing porn sites and emailing sexually explicit images on their work computers.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is trying to drum up union support (particularly among white men) for the President. He says of union members who didn't vote for Obama in 2008: "Some of this I think was pure racism."

Here's a rundown of summer flicks that are getting sequels. Short version: Snow White and the Huntsman, yes. Battleship, no. Prometheus, yes. There are others.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:57 AM | Comments (139)
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From KRMG's twitter:

I know this area. That refinery is huge.

Update: From KRMG.

The flames could be seen from several miles away Thursday morning when a tanker at the Holly Sinclair refinery was reported to be on fire.

No reports of injury yet. Also, the Tulsa Fire Department is on standby, as the company firefighters are battling the blaze. Maybe it's not that bad after all.

Follow me on Twitter.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 12:28 AM | Comments (23)
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"Not a gay in me," he says.

All right, more information than is usually shared in a routine transfer of chicken, but okay. Duly noted.

Update: Johnny Douchechills deleted his video.

@jtlol realized this must have been an accident, so he reposted it for him. Posted again below.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:04 PM | Comments (527)
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If You Don't Buy Insurance, Will You Really Pay the Obamacare Tax?

It may be a tax per Roberts, but it's not a tax-tax per Congress.

Now that the Supreme Court has decided that ObamaCare's mandate to buy health insurance is a tax, will the IRS be able to collect it?

Generally speaking, if you owe the IRS, it will get the money from you-with the possible exception of the ObamaCare tax. Though ObamaCare's individual mandate imposes a tax on people who do not purchase government-approved health insurance, the law explicitly neuters the IRS's ability to collect the tax.

Finally, even if the IRS has determined that you owe the new tax, it has very limited ability to force you to pay it. Basically, the IRS has two options: To ask you for the money and to reduce the size of your tax refund. But the IRS cannot reduce your refund unless you overpay.

...Under ObamaCare, the IRS cannot seize any of your property to enforce the mandate penalty. The IRS cannot go after the money in your bank accounts, and it can't sell your car. It can't send you to jail, and it can't touch your stuff.

Congress has enacted a law that cannot be enforced.

Well that sure doesn't sound like the Congress *I* know.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:57 PM | Comments (712)
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