Europe as a whole recently came in at 0.2% "growth;" now Germany -- the engine of Europe -- comes in at 0.1%.

Meanwhile, Obama declares we're in no danger of a second recession.

Allah just wrote on Twitter: Who wants to be the one to tell him?

Posted by: Ace at 02:26 PM | Comments (185)
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As you probably realize, my education, especially my political education, is very, very hit-and-miss. A few things I know. Most I don't.

I'd never heard this quote by G.K. Chesterton before, and I'm pretty sure that it's an embarrassing thing to have never heard it before, because it seems pretty important.

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.

From Megan McArdle, who reminds herself of it when she thinks about doing away with a particular tax loophole without first ever discovering why it exists in the first place.

Posted by: Ace at 02:01 PM | Comments (139)
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Romney 36%, Perry 18%. Um, Ron Paul has 14%, and Bachmann 10%.

Good poll for both Romney and Perry -- Perry gets second place after announcing, but Romney holds his critical first-in-the-nation primary state with a strong lead, guaranteeing he can't be knocked out (if that even seemed a possibility).

Among all voters surveyed Romney remains very popular with a favorable rating of 66% and an unfavorable rating of 24%. Perry also has a significantly favorable image ratio of 51% F / 27% U.

Other candidates though are seeing their negative image ratings rise. Bachmann is still more popular than not with a 49% favorable rating. But 39% say they have an unfavorable opinion of her.

Posted by: Ace at 01:55 PM | Comments (69)
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It had been around 36-37% just a few months ago. Likewise, disapproval shot up from 60% or thereabouts to... 71%.

Now, I guess I could post John E's excellent "SCOAMF" photoshop.

But that would just be piling on. So I won't.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:39 PM | Comments (255)
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This is their moment to strike. Obama's destroyed the economy of the country, so pretty soon people will start looking for a Plan B. They want it on the record that socialism can be that Plan B.

And so, the stupid.

A truly strange thing has happened to American Christianity. A set of profound contradictions have developed within modern conservative Christianity, big and telling inconsistencies that have long slipped under the radar of public knowledge, and are only now beginning to be explicitly noted by critics of the religious and economic right.

...

But to understand just how non-capitalistic Christianity is supposed to be we turn to the first chapter after the gospels, Acts, which describes the events of the early church. Chapters 2 and 4 state that all “the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need… No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had…. There were no needy persons among them. From time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.”

Now folks, thatÂ’s outright socialism of the type described millennia later by Marx - who likely got the general idea from the gospels.

Um, yeah, or the Paris Insurrectionist Communes of the French Revolution (Reign of Terror period 1793-94 especially, natch) which advanced early communistic ideas. See, that's where the word came from. Since one of the Commune-ist (see?) radicals is credited as being the first Communist, yeah, I think I'm going to go with the French Revolution radical communes which came fifty years before Das Kapital, rather than all the way back to the Gospels.

By the way, the enrages, as they were known (Enraged Ones, or "madmen") tended to be extremely anti-Christian and atheist, carrying out widespread violent dechristianization efforts in Paris. The least of such efforts consisted of destroying all religious art and artifacts; the more strenuous efforts consisted of murdering priests wholesale. They became very fond of drowning dozens of priests at a go, by tying them into boats whose hulls had been bored through with holes. They called this a "Republican baptism." (Republican, from the French Republic which had just a year or two back been declared.)

They also created a fake atheist religion devoted to the goddess "Reason," who they acknowledged didn't actually exist.

They were such violent lunatics (and also, inept) that even the Jacobin leader Robespierre -- he who declared that state-fostered terror would create virtuous citizens -- got sick of them and put them all to the guillotine.

Socialism and terror and anti-christian agitation have been hand in hand in bloody glove since the beginning.

The pro-capitalist Christians who are aware of these passages wave them away even though it is the only explicit description of Christian economics in the Bible.

To get just how central collectivism is to Christian canon, consider that the Bible contains the first description of socialism in history. Anti-socialist Christians also claim that the Biblical version was voluntary. Aside from it being obvious that the biblical version of God was not the anti-socialist Christian capitalists commonly proclaim he was, some dark passages in Acts indicate how deeply pro-socialist the New Testament deity is. Chapter 5 details how when a church member fails to turn over all his property to the church “he fell down and died,” when his wife later did the same “she fell down… and died… Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.”

Dear readers, does this not sound like a form of terror-enforced-communism imposed by a God who thinks that Christians who fail to join the collective are worthy of death? Not only is socialism a Christian invention, so is its extreme communistic variant. The claim by many Christians that Christ hates socialism is untrue, while no explicit description of capitalism is found in the Bible - not surprising because it had not yet evolved.

Oh dear. This is of course written for Sally Quinn's nasty "on faith" section of the Post, which is about as serious about faith as I am.

Two men fire back against this stupidity.

God’s people should “strengthen the hand of the poor,” not create poverty. Yet socialism impoverishes. How can a Christian be socialist?

Jesus also preached charity, not state-enforced extraction of wealth. Charity is ennobling; paying socialist-level taxation levels is merely avoiding jail.

If only there were some study, some empirical evidence, that demonstrated that liberals, believing they had checked that charity box by simply thinking good thoughts and voting for liberals, actually gave far less in actual charity than conservatives...

If only such studies demonstrated that the conventionally-pious were in fact far more virtuously charitable than those who yap about socialism and atheism.

Posted by: Ace at 12:04 PM | Comments (315)
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August 27th. Rhode Island. Newport area. Jackstraw hosting. I've met him; he knocks off hobos like popcorn shrimp. You will like.

Email your intention to attend to lauraw at: ctmorons AT gmail Doot Cooomm.

Posted by: LauraW at 12:00 PM | Comments (39)
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Thanks to rdbrewer. I had been wondering. Now I know. more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:56 AM | Comments (240)
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Now, I'm lost: According to Ed Schultz, "reminding" the public that the president is black (did they not realize?) is racist.

So Maxine Waters, by focusing laser-like on the black president's problems with black voters, must be extremely racist.

She's actually making excuses for herself. The crowd wants her to pressure the president to do something for the black community (wouldn't doing something for the American economy generally do something for the black community?), and her excuse is that she hasn't gone after him because "Ya'll love him" (y'all -- what a giveaway, racist) too much.

Video at the link (which should be watched, because the crowd here is "fired up, ready to go!" in ways Obama would not like), but here is some print:

During a sometimes-raucous session of what's being called the "For the People" Jobs Initiative tour, a key member of the Congressional Black Caucus told an audience in Detroit Tuesday that the CBC doesn't put pressure on President Obama because he is loved by black voters. But at the same time, Rep. Maxine Waters said, members of the CBC are becoming increasingly tired and frustrated by Obama's performance on the issue of jobs. Even as she expressed support for the president, Waters virtually invited the crowd to "unleash us" to pressure Obama for action.

...

As she discussed her dilemma -- frustrated with the president but hesitant to criticize him lest black supporters turn on her -- Waters asked the crowd for its permission to have a "conversation" with the president. "When you tell us it's alright and you unleash us and you tell us you're ready for us to have this conversation, we're ready to have the conversation," she said. Some members of the crowd immediately voiced their approval.

"All I'm saying to you is, we're politicians," Waters continued. "We're elected officials. We are trying to do the right thing and the best thing. When you let us know it is time to let go, we'll let go."

"Let go!" some in the audience yelled.

Well.

He did say he would unite us.

Check.

Drudge twists the knife by running this publicity picture from Obama, featuring an all-white group of kids, precisely reinforcing the Congressional Black Caucus' complaint that not a single event in the Magical Misery Tour is planned in a black neighborhood.

I think I need to do a top ten "Almost as White as" list.

Posted by: Ace at 10:34 AM | Comments (304)
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40/52.

Here's something: Obama's approval rating (in another poll) in New York has fallen to... 36%.

The poll finds that just 36% of New Yorkers approve of Obama's job performance -- a 17-point plummet from the 53% rating he received in May. Meanwhile, 63% of voters give the president a negative job performance rating.

"His job performance has not fallen, it has tanked," said Siena pollster Steven Greenberg.

"Even Democrats are evenly divided. For the first time since March, fewer than half of voters say they are prepared to re-elect the president."

Oh well, that's just one poll; probably doesn't mean a thing. One in 20 polls are completely wrong, after all.

But a poll in NJ also finds him underwater. Not at that eyepoppingly low 36%, but a very low 44%.

President Barack Obama is headed in the wrong direction as New Jersey voters disapprove 52 - 44 percent of the job he is doing, down from a 50 - 46 percent positive score June 21 and the president's lowest score ever in the Garden State.

...

New Jersey voters say 49 - 45 percent that Obama does not deserve to be reelected, but say 45 - 37 percent that they would vote for Obama over an unnamed Republican challenger in the 2012 presidential race.

Christie has a higher approval rating (at 47%).

By the way, JWF notes that Perry speaks fluently without a teleprompter. Imagine that.

Perry's full address to the Politics & Eggs breakfast in NH here. His global warming answer is at 31:15 (the question begins about 30:25).

And who's up for some smack-talk from Giuliani? Giuliani says Jimmy Carter had a better sense of the economy than Obama.

No leadership, no articulated plan, says Giuliani.

Christie similarly calls out Obama for failing to lead.

You can't lead from behind. Leading is not a political strategy. It's a moral strategy. You know, I've said many times about the President who I have admiration for, and who I agree with on a number of issues. But man, get out there and tell us what you believe and be willing to fight for it even if people disagree with it. They're going to give you points. They're going to give you points for being willing to speak your mind. I can't tell you how many times I was walking along the beach in various parts of New Jersey this past week where I had people come up to me and say I don't agree with you all the time but at least you're doing something. People will give you credit for that even if they don't agree with you every time. Nobody agrees with me all the time. I barely agree with me all the time. So, you know, so you go out and you do the best you can.

Obama seems to realize he has a problem.

White House to Counter Leadership Drag

[N]o one in the White House is amused at the further deterioration of Obama's standing – nor at the National Republican Senatorial Committee that turned that remark into a TV commercial mocking his leadership skills. The ad shows him playing ping-pong and drinking Guinness in an Irish pub while the screen scrolls “76 rounds of golf, 48 days of vacation, 149 fundraisers.”

The decline in what one White House aide called “the leadership brand” is clear from the polling. In April 2009, Gallup found 73 percent of Americans who said that Obama was a “strong leader.” In May 2010, that had declined to 60 percent. In March 2011, Gallup had it down to 52 percent. There has been no more recent polling on that issue, but aides fear that after Libya and the debt-ceiling debate, the number almost certainly has dropped again.

According to the two senior officials, the plan to arrest that decline is for Obama to no longer be seen as above the fray. While they believe Republicans were both wrong and unfair to claim the president had no plan to bring down the deficit, they know it hurt him. So they will try to show the president as having specific plans and then show him fighting for them. No more will the president be focusing primarily on issues that can attract bipartisan support and appeal to a Republican House.

Um, when did he do that?

And no longer will he be so willing to let Congress work out the details on its own.

Oh, he's going to start actually working then. What an amazing idea.

And of course repairing the country and his "leadership brand" will begin, as always, as soon as he gets back from vay-cay.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:47 AM | Comments (240)
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Karl Rove seemed to tip his hand that he knew something about this the other day. Slublog figured he was all wet, but I figured he actually had heard something.

In the past 60 days, this has become a Republican nomination very much worth having. Sixty days ago the Conventional Wisdom (outside of the blogs) was that Obama couldn't hardly lose.

Now it's that he can't hardly win.

I don't know how much stock I put in Jonathan Alter, but he claims:

BREAKING: My sources say NJ Gov. Chris Christie is conducting focus groups in preparation for a possible run for president in 2012.

This might turn into a real embarrassment of riches.

Two months ago I was hoping that one of Perry, Ryan, and Christie jumped in.

Now... could be all three.

"Not true." A Christie associate has denied Alter's claim.

Alter Retracts: Another source who he calls "v reliable" says the story is false, and Alter says he believes him.

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (215)
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