You know how these senile Democrats are. All those black guys Communists look alike.

It's been what, three or four days since the walking gaffe machine last blundered?

He's slowing down.

Van Jones was appointed by President Barack Obama in March of 2009 to the newly created position of Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council of Environmental Quality. Politico reports that Van Jones was vetted by Joe Biden himself. Van Jones wrote about the VP on the White House website.

Posted by: Guest Blogger at 09:30 AM | Comments (292)
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All sources say that Big Man is once again going to announce that he is not running for the presidency. All sources except for Fox News, which spent a good 30 minutes suggesting that it had sources who said he would be running for the presidency. Guy Benson's take is probably the best I've seen.

The announcement will take place at 1pm EASTERN (just under half an hour from now). You can watch it live on the web and probably on every news channel in the United States.

Confirmed: Christie says "now is not my time." Note that unlike the President Christie managed to show up just when he said he would.

So . . . second look at Paul Ryan?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:39 AM | Comments (388)
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Well, that's not exactly what he said. It's what he said before about those millionaires and billionaires (which are exactly the same except for, you know, that x1,000 thing).

No, this is what he said about Bank of America

“[Bank of America's $5/month debit card fee] is exactly why we need this Consumer Finance Protection Bureau that we set up that is ready to go," Obama said. "This is exactly why we need somebody who's sole job it is to prevent this kind of stuff from happening. ... You can stop it because if you say to the banks, ‘You don't have some inherent right just to – you know, get a certain amount of profit. If your customers – are being mistreated. That you have to treat them fairly and transparently.” (emphasis added)

Same as the other quote, really. But can he honestly be this dumb? (yes, that's rhetorical).

Does he not understand that the Dodd-Frank law that created his Consumer Finance Protection Bureau also contained something called the "Durbin Amendment" (named of course after Dick Turban)? The Durbin Amendment significantly reduced the amount of fees banks could charge merchants for debit card use, which was great for the Wal-Marts of the world who lobbied for it. Bank of America, not so much.

How did he expect Bank of America (and other banks) to respond? He and the Dems took billions of dollars out of their pockets and they're supposed to just lie there and take it?

Why yes. Yes they are.

Of course, clown prince Durbin also had this to say about the issue

"Get the heck out of that bank," Durbin said Monday on the Senate floor. "Find yourself a bank or credit union that wonÂ’t gouge you for $5 a month. ... What Bank of America has done is an outrage."

I actually agree with Durbin to a point. A customer is free to go elsewhere if they feel "mistreated" to quote the SCOAMF. Or they can, you know, pay for the convenience of using the debit card, use cash, write checks, use a credit card and pay off the balance each month, etc.

But Durbin should look in the mirror for the source of his outrage.

November 2012 can't get here soon enough.

Posted by: andy at 07:37 AM | Comments (276)
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Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill is one of 23 incumbent Senate Democrats who have the misfortune of trying to defend their seats in 2012 with the SCOAMF at the top of the ticket. The GOP only needs to pick up four seats--a near certainty--but with the rapidly deteriorating approval of Obama, McCaskill and others will be looking to be anywhere but near him when he shows up in their states.

Last Friday, an indignant McCaskill scoffed at the notion that she would avoid Obama when he shows in Missouri for some of his 867 fundraisers scheduled for this week. Today she suddenly realized she's got other plans. more...

Posted by: Guest Blogger at 05:45 AM | Comments (226)
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You say you want a revolution? I would remind the Democrats of something: if you keep asking for a fight, sooner or later someone is going to give you one.

A funny little man was standing on the streetcorner this morning, hectoring the passers-by. He was wearing a sandwich board upon which was scrawled: SPEND, SPEND, SPEND!!! I was told that once upon a time, this crazy dude was actually a respected economist. It's sad, really.

The emergence of money: compensation for pain and suffering inflicted on others? I’m skeptical, but then again I’m a proponent of the Austrian school that Graeber apparently hasn’t much regard for. (Whenever I hear an academic, especially a “social sciences” academic, blathering about economics, I want to reach for a heavy club.)

The “judicial recession”. (Also: California is boned.) This is what happens when the government runs out of other people’s money. The socialist state starts eating itself.

This isnÂ’t financial DOOM; this is sure enough, grade A, End of Days DOOM. Part of the problem is that the low-hanging technological fruit has been plucked. Our technology growth going forward isnÂ’t going to be a huge steep incline, but more of a slow expansion marked by long plateaus. This is the norm for most of human history, actually -- the last two centuries are highly atypical in terms of technological progress. And take note of this:

Like technology, credit also makes claims on the future. “I will gladly pay you a dollar on Tuesday for a hamburger today” works only if a dollar gets earned by Tuesday. A credit crisis happens when earnings disappoint and the present does not live up to past expectations of the future.

Neal Stephenson on “innovation starvation”. My view? The missing ingredients in the modern age are optimism and confidence. You have to believe in yourself, and in the future, to invent new things and start big projects. No one really believes that we can do the “big stuff” any more. We’re too risk-averse -- which is a signal of an aging society. We want to hoard what we’ve already got rather than build more. Our time-horizons stop with our own deaths; we no longer care much for posterity or legacy.

Why the crisis in Europe might cause a recession here. It's become a cliche to point out that the world's financial systems are deeply intertwined, but it's a cliche because it's true.

The Most Boned Cities. New Jersey holds the distinction of hosting three of the most boned cities in America. Michigan gets two: Detroit and Pontiac. Interesting note: all of the most boned municipalities are east of the Mississippi -- I fully expected to see several California cities on this list. Of course, this article concerns itself only with bond ratings and not other metrics.

The Neverending Recession has apparently turned us all into a bunch of penny-pinching cheapskates. We only thought the motto was “Hope and Change”; it was actually “I hope I get some change.”

The modern version of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff bill picks up steam in the Senate. It probably (probably) wonÂ’t get past the GOP-controlled house, but this is just more evidence that our politicians donÂ’t even bother to study our own history any more. This would be a colossally stupid move if the effort succeeds, but I have learned never to underestimate the stupidity, venality, or cowardice of our political class. (China swears to retaliate if the bill passes, by the way. And thus does the bloodletting begin.)

Greece’s “death spiral” was in large part caused by the stubborn refusal of the EU and ECB to allow Greece to default back when it might have nipped this crisis in the bud. Now Greece’s sickness has already spread to the peripheral countries of the Eurozone and threaten the core.

In related news, Greece’s October 13 finance meeting with the Eurozone finance ministers has been delayed until November. This may be a prelude to some kind of formal Greek default -- though I suspect the EU will tie itself in rhetorical and legal knots thinking of ways to call it something other than a “default”. But it will end with the holders of Greek sovereign debt taking steep haircuts on their holdings. And these cuts won’t be voluntary.

Gold is way off its highs, but is trending back up again. I ought to buy some more before it gets out of reach again. Silver likewise is off its highs at $30/oz or so.

Investor's Business Daily finally finds a reason to praise President Obama. If I were Bammer, I'd clip that article and put it in the scrapbook; he's not likely to get much praise on his economic policies again any time soon.

Is economic uncertainty the primary reason our economy is not recovering? The GOP has been insisting that uncertainty is a primary factor in the stagnant economy, but the Democrats have been airily dismissing that argument. James Pethokoukis shows why the Democrat dismissal of the "uncertainty" argument is chock full of FAIL.

UPDATE 1: The markets are breaking bad today. Most of the unease stems from worries about the Eurozone, but there is also a lot of generalized alarm in the investing public right now -- that alarm is in part why things are so volatile. Investors are in full herd behavior, stampeding to and fro on news, rumors, and gossip. It's the endless war between yield and safety.

UPDATE 2: Interesting discussion on gender and personality differences in an economic context. (NOTE: I am neither type "A" or type "B". I am type "C" -- pay me the money you owe me or I'll send a large fellow around to redecorate your face.)
more...

Posted by: Monty at 04:41 AM | Comments (88)
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In the WSJ this morning, Bret Stephens writes of Barack Obama and love. Read the whole thing, but here's the conclusion.

What is it that Mr. Obama doesn't like about the United States—a country that sent him hurtling like an American Idol contestant from the obscurity of an Illinois Senate seat to the presidency in a mere four years?

I suspect it's the same thing that so many run-of-the-mill liberals dislike: Americans typically believe that happiness is an individual pursuit; we bridle at other people setting limits on what's "enough"; we enjoy wealth and want to keep as much of it as we can; we don't like trading in our own freedom for someone else's idea of virtue, much less a fabricated concept of the collective good.

When a good history of anti-Americanism is someday written, it will note that it's mainly a story of disenchantment—of the obdurate and sometimes vulgar reality of the country falling short of the lover's ideal. Listening to Mr. Obama, especially now as the country turns against him, one senses in him a similar disenchantment: America is lovable exactly in proportion to the love it gives him in return.

This brings to mind a quote I read recently while Obama was on his jobs tour. Compare and contrast, if you will, this story from a few weeks ago:

“A gentleman came in yesterday and started talking trash about ObamaÂ… He hired a new employee last week, so he made a comment that ‘IÂ’ve created one new job — what has Obama done?Â’ ”

With this one from yesterday:

“For somebody’s who’s going to come in and be the great unifier — you know, that hopey-changey stuff — it hasn’t worked very well. The country is more divided now than it’s ever been. And he doesn’t appreciate other people and what they do.”

The first is a quote from Apex, North Carolina, from a small businessman. The second is from New York CityÂ’s Diana Taylor, Mayor BloombergÂ’s girlfriend. How in the world did this SCOAMF unite them both? more...

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Jonathan Last has a must-read article in the Weekly Standard explaining and defending the Texas tuition law that Rick Perry's been taking hits for the past few weeks. Last starts by noting that Perry has done an awful job defending a law that's easily defensible, and I agree.

Let's start with the obvious. Perry's first answer when asked about the Texas law should have been: "What's right for Texas may not be right for every state. We in Texas decided that we wanted all of our students to be able to go to college at in-state rates. Now that's not a free education, they've still got to pay the in-state rate, but it's something. And it gets all of our students in a position to be healthy, productive members of society. This wasn't like the federal DREAM Act, which is an amnesty. I don't support amnesty."

Easy-peasy and it would have been the last we'd heard of it. Since that didn't work out, I highly recommend Last's explanation of the law and its benefits and the incoherence of the law's recent detractors. And they have been recent. The law at its time of creation and presently remains exceptionally popular in Texas. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:28 AM | Comments (112)
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Contrary to conventional wisdom, Dick Cheney actually has the bleeding heart of a liberal...He keeps it in a jar under his desk.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:54 AM | Comments (65)
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Welcome to my second ONT. As befitting a blogger here at the HQ, I put a lot less effort into this one than I did my first one. And it will show.

Someone sent this to me today. It might be old but it's pretty amazing: The Dogs of 9/11.

During the chaos of the 9/11 attacks, where almost 3,000 people died, nearly 100 loyal search and rescue dogs and their brave owners scoured Ground Zero for survivors.

Now, ten years on, just 12 of these heroic canines survive, and they have been commemorated in a touching series of portraits entitled 'Retrieved'.

The dogs worked tirelessly to search for anyone trapped alive in the rubble, along with countless emergency service workers and members of the public.

Are you a "Beta Male"? If so, take heart! You might be just one gene away from getting the girl!

Two mice run headfirst into one another in a narrow plastic tube that isnÂ’t wide enough for both of them. One of them must give way. In their earlier encounter, the first mouse exerted its dominance by forcing its rival to reverse down the tube. This time, things are different; the second mouse pulls rank and the first one backs down.

Mouse hierarchies donÂ’t change this readily, but the second mouse has been given a boon by Fei Wang at the Chinese Academy of Science. By injecting a single gene into one part of its brain, Wang turned the subordinate animal into a dominant one.

Most of the AoS gang on Twitter. Follow us! Pimp your handle in the comments! more...

Posted by: DrewM at 05:34 PM | Comments (669)
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Or, as she would be like to be known as now, "Totally Megan McKane."

I am, so horrific in fact, have taken steps to have my name legally changed. It turns out some jerk already owns the name Totally Meghan OchoCinco, so I have decided to go with Totally Megan McKane, which is how, it should be spelled anyway (the silent “I” in McCain doesn’t make any sense!)

[snip]
To continuing my point, this “Meghan McCain” actually had, the nerve to have a lawyer send a letter to, the good people of Red State.org, demanding that I stop impersonating her! Hello! Is my name, Totally Meghan McCain, a part of “Meghan McCain”? No. Is “Meghan McCain” a part of my name, Totally Meghan McCain? I think, as the old people say, that is QDE. Or putting it, in such a manner that independent, young voters who decide the next election, will understand, FACE!

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