As Winston Wolf's paternal uncle and famed chicken-farmer Walter Wadsworth Wolf observed, "Let's not start plucking eachother's cocks just yet."

But the chickens are come a-roost.

The end hasnÂ’t come yet, not quite. But you can feel it coming, a dull, oppressive presence like the heaviness of the air before a storm or the quickly widening fissures that consumed the House of Usher. Future historians, looking back on the wreck of the Obama administration, will mark with wonder the presidentÂ’s darkly frivolous assertion of executive privilege this week. It was then, they will say, that his administration, that the President himself, officially entered the Period of Panic and Flailing.

It’s not going to be pretty. Expect a season of recriminations, grandiosities, and sudden reversals. The usual narrative holds that Obama asserted executive privilege, denying Congress the documents it requested in the murderous case of gunwalking called “Fast and Furious” in order to save his Attorney General Eric Holder. Perhaps. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, at the end of the day, this spectacular piece of recklessness wasn’t regarded as the beginning of the end for Eric Holder, who will likely face a Contempt of Congress citation next week.

I don't know if Fast & Furious itself will sink him. I don't think the swing bloc which will decide the election knows much about Fast & Furious, or would even care much if they bothered to inform themselves.

As I've said, I don't think they do their homework.

But this is a dangerous thing for Obama, even among people who don't do their homework. At some point they take a look at all the questions they would have to resolve in Obama's favor in order to vote for him, and decide: The hell with that. That's too much work. I'd have to do an awful lot of homework just to feel comfortable clearing Obama of all this accumulate crap. It's just easier to assume he's halfway guilty on all of it.

And that's how I think people who don't do their homework tend to think. They split the difference.

But even splitting the difference does not look good for Obama. Not when you also have to say (if you're determined to not do your homework, and just split the difference on everything), "Well, he's not really responsible for the depression per se, but he sure doesn't seem to have done much to reverse it." Because the economy is so horrible (and getting worse, not better), "splitting the difference" is a posture that is lethal for Obama's reelection chances. If he's half responsible for a depression, and only credited for half-measures that half-worked, he's halfway out of the White House already.

I often chide people for mistaking independent, disinterested voters for conservatives. You can't mistake them for argument-loving, passionate partisans for your cause -- obviously they're not that, or they would be argument-loving, partisans for your cause.

But that's exactly what Obama needs them to be -- passionate partisans on his side -- in order for him to prevail. All of these independents who don't really follow the news too closely would have to suddenly decide to read a lot of left-wing blogs and stew themselves in left-wing apologias for Obama, before they could feel comfortable clearing Obama of all charges and criticisms.

Just as there is no way in hell they'd do that on behalf of a conservative candidate, there's also no way in hell they're going to do that on behalf of Obama. The amount of homework -- in this case, massive quantities of Kool-Aid drinking -- they'd have to do to find in favor of Obama is just too much.

I was saying two years ago that my Secret Bonus Prediction is that Obama might choose to not actually run for reelection. Although we're into election season now, we're not past the conventions.

I do expect things to get worse for Obama. I do expect the long-predicted preference cascade to show up in polls. And I do expect that the polls will register -- at least a month before the election, if not sooner -- that Obama has no realistic shot at winning the election.

Whether he steps aside or not will depend on when the public's Obama Fever (and associated Obama Hallucinatory Disorder) finally breaks. If he's got time left to bow out, he just might.

And on Fast and Furious in particular-- the press can thank itself for pushing this into campaign season. If they'd done their jobs properly, and pressured Holder to be forthcoming with answers about a massive hostile covert operation against Mexico including 2500 guns and 300 deaths, this issue might be long past. Holder might have either disclosed or resigned, and it all might be a half-remembered scandal.

But they didn't. Once again, they Loved Their Liberal Champions To Death. They loved Obama so much they never even asked "Is this constitutional?" Had they asked, they might have prevented a political, and soon to be legal, catastrophe.

They're his Number One Fans.

But Number One Fans sometimes don't realize how much harm they do.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:06 PM | Comments (358)
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They just got four Pinnochios for calling Romney a "corporate raider," a term with a pretty well understood meaning (quick hostile takeover, loot the assets) which simply doesn't apply to Bain.

And now a bullshit claim about Romney's job creation figures as Massachusetts governor.

Pfliffle claimed that for every private sector job created in Massachusetts under Romney, six public sector jobs were created.

As for PlouffeÂ’s claim about the Bay StateÂ’s employment gains, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show Massachusetts added 22,400 private-sector jobs during RomneyÂ’s tenure. That means the state would need to have created 134,400 public-sector jobs in the same period for the White House adviserÂ’s claim to be true.

ThatÂ’s not even close to what happened. Massachusetts gained just 5,300 state-government jobs while Romney was in office. As such, the state added more than four private-sector jobs for every state-government job. This is pretty much the reverse of what Plouffe claimed.

The best reasoning we could find to support Plouffe’s claim is that the rate of public-sector job growth for the state (4.7 percent) was about six times that of private-sector gains (.79 percent) during Romney’s tenure. But this is very different from having six times the number of new government jobs, which is what the White House adviser clearly implied when he said, “for every private-sector job created in Massachusetts by Governor Romney, six public sector jobs.”

...

In this regard, the state added more than 11 private-sector jobs for every government job. Again, this contradicts what Plouffe said.

It's good to see the press occasionally do their job, and it's good to see the Obama administration sweating so badly. You don't trot out weaksauce like this if you've got anything good.

Now, Obama does have something strong: Mediscare. And he'll unveil that when the public's paying attention, and no one should be surprised when he does.

And we'll have to see how that works out for him. Given that Obama stole $500 billion from Medicare to fund ObamaCare (and Romney loves saying so), his narrative on "protecting Medicare" is going to be a little nuanced.

But this crap is currently their best possible line of attack, and it's weak, and makes Obama look even worse than he already does. He looks a like a loser soaked in flop-sweat, and no one is ever going to think of his pledge to transcend petty, nasty politics without a rueful chuckle.

Posted by: Ace at 11:27 AM | Comments (183)
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Via the stalwart Michelle Malkin, David Hogberg of IBD reports some good news.

Aaron Walker has retained the services of attorney Reginald Bours to fight the peace order. Uploaded here is a letter Bours has sent to Kimberlin. Bours does not mince words:

This is a complex case, and, as a lawyer, I try to see both sides of an issue. However, based on my review of the facts, I do not believe you have had a proper basis to file either of the peace orders you have presented to District Court Commissioners, usually late at night on weekends.

The attached motion addressed every citizenÂ’s right to free speech. If you truly respect that right, you should withdraw this peace order.

The motion Bours refers to is an emergency motion he has filed for a partial stay or a modification of KimberlinÂ’s peace order that would in effect lift the peace order until the Appeals Court hears the case on July 5th.

She also links and quotes Curt Levey's op-ed on Fox, The Left Can Protest All It Wants, But It Can't Use Government to Silence Critics.

“There is a growing threat to political speech in America,” warned Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell in a speech in Washington, DC last week. “Sadly, a growing number of people on the left … appear to have concluded that they can’t win on the merits. So they’ve resorted to bullying and intimidation instead.”

McConnell focused on “an [Obama] administration that has shown an alarming willingness itself to use the powers of government to silence [conservative] groups.” I focus here on the other half of the threat, intimidation and harassment by private groups on the left.

Some people dismiss the threat from outside organizations as beyond the scope of the First Amendment, which applies to actions by government. Indeed, some unsavory intimidation tactics – such as shouting down speakers or strong-arming companies to drop their sponsorship of conservative broadcasters – actually enjoy First Amendment protection. However, the Constitution affords no protection to criminal acts, which the left is increasingly turning to to silence conservatives.

Most importantly from a constitutional perspective, groups on the left are increasingly enlisting the coercive power of government in their intimidation and harassment campaigns. When they do, they threaten the First AmendmentÂ’s guarantee that government shall not abridge the freedom of speech.

Levey expressly connects this to the George Soros-funded catspaw Brett Kimberlin.

Why Isn't Rush Talking About This? As Stace McCain reports, the StopRush campaign is itself astroturf, and part of the (non-criminal but also non-ethical) effort of the left to shut up conservative voices in advance of the 2012 elections.

And that effort is also linked to Kimberlin, through his "security" expert Neil Rauhauser. When the organizers of the protest suspected they had a mole or some other interloper, they turned to Rauhauser for his help.

The StopRush effort may be, in bold strokes, itself non-criminal and protected by the First Amendment (though why the astroturf?), but it is interesting that a host of a supposed news organization (Krystal Ball on MSNBC) is coordinating with the effort.

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (222)
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Semi-funny, and he does a reasonably good job of actually reporting on Fast and Furious -- something the media refuses to do.

It will be a little harder for reporters to claim there's nothing worth investigating in Fast & Furious when their designated Truth Teller just contradicted them.

The most biting part of it is his characterization of Fast and Furious as a program to smuggle guns into Mexico... in order to find out who's smuggling guns into Mexico. Turns out, he says, it's the US government. "Circle of life," Stewart says.

Posted by: Ace at 09:04 AM | Comments (363)
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Forbes published a nifty interactive map that grades the business climates of the various states on a number of different criteria.

Worth a look.

Posted by: LauraW at 07:56 AM | Comments (250)
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For those of you who can still afford what my household now calls 'outside coffee,' Starbucks has announced their intention to stop using a red dye made out of crushed bugs in their products.

No response on whether or not they will take the burnt fecal pellets out of the coffee, though.

Posted by: LauraW at 07:30 AM | Comments (172)
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While the likes of John McCain call for military action in Syria to foster democracy or something, Robert Caruso has a different rationale for a more limited involvement...kill our enemies.

Instead of committing American manpower and materiel to be captured and killed ‘helping’ the Syrian populace, policymakers should strongly consider taking concrete steps to actively confront the oft-dismissed but very real Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qods assholes elements and MOIS.

How do I propose we do this? Simple: we prolong the civil war. We draw in the Iranians. And then we kill them, one by one. By VBIED, and whatever else we choose to utilize. Properly motivated, IÂ’m sure DARPA IARPA junior enlisted in the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity can dream up an even better IRAM

Caruso also reminds us that Syria and the Iranians were instrumental in running fighters and arms into Iraq that led to the death of thousands of Americans.

In other words the Syrian civil war isn't an opportunity for America to exercise "leadership", it's...payback time.

It's a controversial notion because as Americans we like to see ourselves as the noble do-gooders making the world safe for democracy and not just ruthless power players who put our interest over our more nobler values.

I think democracy, freedom and improving the lives of others should be a pleasant byproduct of American policy but the main goal should always be our interests. We've tried plenty of "do good" missions like Bosnia, Libya and even Afghanistan. How much good will has that bought us in the Muslim world?

The world is a nasty and brutish place and sometimes social work by military force isn't going to get what we need done. If we can't kill them with kindness, perhaps it's time to try just killing them.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:00 AM | Comments (167)
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Joe Williams is an idiot and he works at Politico (sometimes coincidence and causality match up). Yesterday on Martin Bashir's daily diatribe of a show Williams said Mitt Romney is only really comfortable around white people.

That was too much for even the hacks at Politico.

Politico journalists have a clear and inflexible responsibility to cover politics fairly and free of partisan bias. This expectation extends to all of the public platforms in which we and our reporting and analysis appears, including cable TV and social media platforms like Twitter.

Regrettably, an unacceptable number of Joe WilliamsÂ’s public statements on cable and Twitter have called into question his commitment to this responsibility. His comment about Governor Romney earlier today on MSNBC fell short of our standards for fairness and judgment in an especially unfortunate way.

Joe has acknowledged that his appearance reflected a poor choice of words. This appearance came in the context of other remarks on Twitter that, cumulatively, require us to make clear that our standards are serious, and so are the consequences for disregarding them. This is true for all Politico journalists, including an experienced and well-respected voice like Joe Williams.

Following discussion of this matter with editors, Joe has been suspended while we review the matter.

Harris VandeHei

Personally, I'm kind of meh on this. The issues isn't the occasional times liberal activists masquerading as reporters let the mask slip and are too honest for even Politico management to ignore, it's the 99.9% of the time they simply do a better job of hiding their true feelings.

I'd rather the media as a whole spend less time pretending to be something they are not and just be honest about their rooting interests.

Here's the link to the video. Note the headline of the story, "Politico Reporter: Romney Only Comfortable Around ‘White Folks’. I think a better alternate title would be, "Martin Bashir Only Comfortable Around Other Assholes". Tomato/Tomahto I guess.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:17 AM | Comments (122)
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Happy Friday.

Seems like President Obama is a hard sell these days, even for Democrats. Georgia Democrats just cut the ticket price in half for a fabulous reception with the Lightbringer. Apparently, they just couldn't move seats.

The Catholic Church in the U.S. just began the 'Fortnight for Freedom,' two weeks of prayer and public action to call attention to the issue of religious freedom.

Gov. Romney is out with new state-specific "First 100 Day" ads in Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, and Iowa. Here's Virginia's:

As Cuffy says, it firmly plants the "President Romney" seed.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:52 AM | Comments (436)
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Interactive Books Are Coming

Now this is just an animated GIF but it's interesting how the addition of even a little motion turns it into something more than just a comic panel. For an even better example with sound, motion, and perspective check out this sample of the graphic novel, Soul Reaper.

And given advancements in smart paper, cheap low-power computing and new multimedia features in HTML5 it's not hard to imagine that full-on interactive books with active graphics and sound will be available within the decade.

Add in more computing and ubiquitous networking and eventually everyone will own their own personal "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer". You can already see hints of what's possible in this ipad app.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:57 PM | Comments (586)
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