Results will be here.

If you haven't voted yet, what are you waiting for?

Nearly all the voting booths were occupied with Wauwatosa voters on Tuesday just before noon at Madison Elementary School, 9925 W. Glendale Ave. The site covers Districts 23 and 24 for Wauwatosa. Poll staff said that more than 600 voters had cast their ballots, which was an unusually high number for the time of day.

November 2010, I would have said good for us. High turnout means we're the ones coming to the polls.

Now... I don't think so. I think the unions have turned out.

Thanks to Ben. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:14 PM | Comments (263)
Post contains 176 words, total size 1 kb.

Boehner didn't say that, but he should have, and I invite him to say that the next time he has the chance.

Speaking after Obama's typical droning hum of flabby nothing, Boehner said the Democrats were employing "smoke and mirrors" and accounting tricks to create a false budget, one that would look like it was cutting when it really was not.

Boehner should hit this point harder and accuse the Democrats of trying to conjure up an illusion and then attempting to enlist the Republicans in joining them in selling a lie to the public; that is, cast them as the villains they are, attempting to enlist fresh recruits for a conspiracy.

The American public wants a cut -- but it is true, if they falsely tricked into thinking substantial cuts have been made, that will suffice for most. They can be tricked; after all, they're not reading the budget line-by-line. (Neither is Obama, for that matter, but he has some advisors.)

The Democrats are trying to cook up some cover for themselves -- and offer that cover to Republicans too -- and enlist the Tea Party in a game of Let's Con the Public Into Thinking We've Done Their Will.

Nothing, I think, would be more pleasing to the public than an exposure of the deceit being cooked up for them. Nothing would be more politically appealing than a party which comes up the plate and says, "Here are the lies they've suggested we tell, which, frankly, would benefit us politically too, but we're rejecting them. Here they are, and here's why they're false; be on the lookout for similar snookering to come."

The GOP must insist on being transparent. Truth in cutting. No fake cuts and shifting money from account to account or back in time to previous quarters to cook the books.

We've seen enough of that, haven't we?

No more Enron accounting.

This would have the benefit of innocculating the public against such future attempts at viral deception. A deception revealed and explained to the public will become radioactive and won't be offered again.

Posted by: Ace at 12:34 PM | Comments (146)
Post contains 370 words, total size 2 kb.

At Hot Air, Joe Scarborough wants an apology from Obama. Either he really believes that Bush's terrorist policies were evil and un-american, and yet is continuing that evil, or else he never believed it to begin with, and should apologize for conning the public.

This isn't just about inconsistency. It's about partisanship bordering on sedition and shallow, callow thinking run riot through our supposed leadership.

Matt Lewis notes this isn't just about cheap points:

n retrospect, it is painfully obvious that much of the anti-Bush rhetoric that helped propel Obama to the White House in 2008 was unwarranted, irresponsible, and transparently political. (Yes, itÂ’s water under the bridge, but setting the record straight on history is an important task for opinion leaders.)

It's not just setting the record straight. It's adopting the correct policy for the future.

Military Tribunals Are "Fair," Sayeth Eric Holder: Obama and his leftist minions castigated the War in Iraq as a war of choice -- a war that wasn't forced on us.

Eric Holder, in deciding to try KSM at a military tribunal, now spins such a tribunal as fair and (implicitly) as Constitutional.

Ergo, this is what the Constitution demands. This. This, and not more -- such as a civilian trial.

Given that that is the case -- and Holder has now declared it to be so -- can he now explain to me why he and his boss were choosing to grant KSM more lenient treatment and a greater chance of getting off than necessary?

KSM did not have a right to a civilian trial; Holder now says so. So trying him in a civilian court would have been a privilege. A privilege of choice.

Why? Why are we treating a mass-murderer (and a confessed one, by the way) more softly than our system requires?

Why were/are Obama and Holder so hell-bent to offer them more generous treatment than necessary?

Peter King: Holder Should Stand on Principle and Resign (And Do the Country a Favor): Obviously.

Posted by: Ace at 11:28 AM | Comments (214)
Post contains 353 words, total size 2 kb.

Paul Ryan released his new deficit-cutting budget plan today, saving almost $6 trillion over the next 10 years, which is very nice. Really. The National Committee on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform released a similar plan last December, saving almost $2 trillion by 2020, and it too was nice.

Really.

Despite my tone, I am a big fan of these plans, and earnestly hope that at least most of their features will be implemented. But lest we violate the guiding maxim of the estimable Winston Wolfe, let's remind ourselves of exactly how bad things are, so that we understand just what these plans can and can't do for us.

In FY 2011, we are running a $1.425 trillion deficit. This single year of spending will take our public debt from 62.1% of GDP up to 69.1% of GDP. Now, in our daily life, whenever we run up a debt the first thing we ask is: How long will it take me to pay this off?

So, how long will it take to pay off the debt we're adding just this year? Or, a slightly easier task: how long will it take to get the debt/GDP ratio back to what it was only 6 months ago?

Please understand that we're talking about money we're burning right now. We're halfway through the fiscal year, so we're right in the middle of running up this tab that we're going to have to pay off. And the Dems won't let us slow our spending to any significant degree.

So, how long? Let's point out right away that the White House budget never pays a penny of the 2011 debt back. In fact, the public debt keeps climbing and climbing, reaching 87% of GDP by 2021. So only the two budget reform plans are even trying to pay that money back. And just how fast are they hoping to do that?

Have a look:*

The gray line is where we were at the end of September 2010 ==> that's our target. The blue line is the Obama administration's baseline budget. As you can see, it sails off into the stratosphere. This is the budget plan the Democrats are defending.

The teal line and red line are the Deficit Commission and Ryan's plan, respectively. The teal line makes it back to the gray line by the end of 2022. Ryan's plan? Well, you'll have to wait another 10 years.**

So here's the bottom line. If you believe that the GDP will start growing at a healthy rate and continue at that rate forever, and if you manage to reform Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and if you reform the budget process, and if you reform the tax code, and if you accomplish all these reforms in FY12, then you might be able to pay off this year's spending within 11 to 12 years. Or maybe the decade after.

This is what the President and his crackerjack economic team have wrought. A one-year deficit that is so large that it can only be paid back if everything goes exactly right. And if everything goes exactly right, we're still looking at decades before we can get back to the debt level we had only 6 months ago.

But, on the bright side, perhaps as early as 2023 we can start working on paying off the FY10 deficit.

So when the Dems start their caterwauling about how "extreme" the GOP's suggestions are, just remind them that these "extreme" suggestions may not succeed in paying back even 1 year of Obama's spending.

more...

Posted by: Geoff at 10:02 AM | Comments (314)
Post contains 723 words, total size 5 kb.

Via Miss80sBaby, a plan vs. a punchline.

Here's some of Obama's numbers:

$3.73 trillion — total spending this year (25 percent of GDP, highest levels since World War Two).

$46 trillion — total spending over the next decade.

$8.7 trillion — total new spending over the same period.

$26.3 trillion — Total new debt, including entitlement obligations, predicted by 2021.

$7.2 trillion — Total deficit predicted by the end of the decade.

Maybe it's a pun. I never get puns.

Posted by: Ace at 08:05 AM | Comments (250)
Post contains 92 words, total size 1 kb.

On FoxNews. The White House just called to say it was going to play the government shutdown card, despite an offer on the table to keep the government going for another week.

Of course, this newest one-week budget contained $12 billion in cuts (and would have funded Defense throughout the year, and defunded Planned Parenthood).

So, the Democrats are going to shut down the government.

It's hard to make a deal when you think you don't even need to negotiate -- and that's what the Democrats think. They think if they shut the government down, they win, and will extract from the Republicans almost everything they want in the next round of negotiations, so why negotiate?

We'll see if they're right about that.

Posted by: Ace at 06:48 AM | Comments (103)
Post contains 139 words, total size 1 kb.

Update: Ryan and his gang can be seen previewing the plan on CSPAN3 or their live feed here. Oh, he just hit the "faster growth" argument, noting an analysis indicates the plan will increase economic activity by $1.5 trillion over a decade, and reduce unemployment to... 4% by 2016.

Terrific video, and I think that line is great-- politics is the art of forming coalitions, after all, and people have a natural tendency to dislike those telling them lies and like those telling them truths.

I do have a complaint: The relationship between reduced government spending and increased economic activity isn't hit nearly hard enough. The public's number two concern is debt and the future, but their number one concern is the economy in the present. An argument about all the scared money sitting out of the economy due to quite-rational beliefs that the country is going to implode, and how a safe, secure, certain economic environment would ignite the economy, would have been helpful.

Oh, I know he mentions that obliquely, sort of, by mentioning a "diminished future" and lower growth if we don't take the Path to Prosperity, but it would be better to also include the positive version of that statement -- the good stuff that happens if we do choose this path. And yes, he throws in a disposable line about "getting the economy growing today," but he's not making an argument about how that would happen, explaining the mechanism by which Policy Choice A translates to National Goal X.

I see in the post-queue that the Doom Master Monty notes that Ryan's plan is 'necessary, but not sufficient." I take that position on all of these things -- no single plan, even one as big and comprehensive as this, is enough. We still need to do more after this.

But still, every journey begins with a single step.

The stagecraft of the video is good. Ryan doesn't begin addressing the camera. He's shown doing his homework, burning the midnight oil, near a display case showing photos of his family.Visually pushing the idea that this isn't just a campaign pitch, it's a hard-thought plan that took a lot of work and expertise, and establishing, with just a suggestive photo, that this is of crucial importance to our ultimate legacy, our children.

Only after that preparatory work does Ryan walk down the hallway and stand, uncomfortably (another useful visual cue -- as if he doesn't like the politics part of his job) in front of the camera to explain, as if a scientist, his findings and predictions.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 06:28 AM | Comments (110)
Post contains 468 words, total size 3 kb.

Speaker Boehner says the Democrats' offer of $33 billion in cuts isn't enough and is mostly accounting gimmicks anyway.

“Despite attempts by Democrats to lock in a number among themselves, I’ve made clear that their $33 billion is not enough and many of the cuts that the White House and Senate Democrats are talking about are full of smoke and mirrors. That’s unacceptable,” Boehner said in a statement.

In a coordinated move, Boehner and the entire House Republican leadership team, including the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Rep. Hal Rogers (Ky.), issued statements indicating that an agreement to fund the federal government beyond FridayÂ’s deadline was not close at hand.

At today's down-to-the-wire meeting with the President, Boehner plans to offer a military budget for the rest of the year and another short-term CR to fund the rest of the federal government for another week. A military budget is becoming more important and a likely get from a President who started a war of choice and yet will have no means to pay military service members starting next week. Another CR seems questionable, which explains why the House GOP is distributing a shut-down plan this morning. The Administration responded by finally allowing federal agencies to share their shutdown plans with federal employees.

Boehner's price for the military budget and another week-long CR will be $12 billion in cuts plus an abortion-funding ban in the District of Columbia.

What is the President bringing to today's meeting? Only his winning personality, so far as anyone knows. Why he chose two days before the deadline to insert himself into the budget debate is a matter for speculation. For my money, somebody told him that he better start looking presidential now that his reelection campaign is officially under way. As Reince Priebus says, Hope isn't hiring.

Whatever the case, Congress won't be getting around to Rep. Ryan's mega-cutting FY2012 budget until the rump FY2011 funding is dealt with. Anyone think that's going to actually happen this week? Don't forget, Senate Democrats (plus Liza Markonski, Scott Brown, and Susan Collins) are threatening to filibuster any budget that attempts to defund Planned Parenthood. On the other hand, with a genuine long-term reform plan on the table, maybe the fractured Senate GOP (I'm looking at you too, Senator DeMint) will get its act together.

Rep. Ryan will hold a presser today at 10:30 a.m. to introduce his budget.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:28 AM | Comments (130)
Post contains 417 words, total size 3 kb.

They have an engine called the press whereby the people are deceived.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:52 AM | Comments (78)
Post contains 20 words, total size 1 kb.

Meet The Bow-F*cker

This is Erica. She's a world class archer who has won several championships. What's her secret to shooting so well? Well you see she really, really loves her bow, "Lance". And by love I mean has sex with.

FILMMAKER: Mechanically, is it similar to a woman having sex with a man?
BRIDGE F*CKER: I would say yes.

And how did she come to start doing the wild thing with bridges and bows? Well like a lot of sad, odd tales it involves a samurai sword, one of her first lovers:

After suffering abuse as a child, and bouncing between foster homes, she joined the US Air Force but during her training, was sexually assaulted, and defended herself with a Japanese sword, which was her lover at the time. She refused to part with the sword, and was discharged from the military for psychological reasons.

But, for better or worse, La Tour Eiffel does not want to experiment with any changes. "I do not wish to be fixed," she says. "If it is true that all that has happened to me in my childhood made me the person I am today, I am fine with it. I do not want to change."

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:45 PM | Comments (818)
Post contains 812 words, total size 8 kb.