Obama just the other day said "our plan worked" (see video below the fold). Today reality offered its rebuttal.

The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of just 1.5 percent from April through June, as Americans cut back sharply on spending. The slowdown in growth adds to worries that the economy could be stalling three years after the recession ended.

The Commerce Department also said Friday that the economy grew a little better than previously thought in the January-March quarter. It raised its estimate to a 2 percent rate, up from 1.9 percent.

...

Growth was weaker mostly because consumer spending slowed to a growth rate of just 1.5 percent. ThatÂ’s down from 2.4 percent in the first quarter. Americans bought fewer autos, computers and other long-lasting manufactured goods. Spending on services increased.

Consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, was offset somewhat by a slightly smaller drag from the government. Spending by governments fell at an annual rate of 1.4 percent in the second quarter, just half of the 3 percent rate of decline in the first quarter.

Clearly these numbers have been taken out of context.

Remember that unemployment is a lagging indicator....almost non-existant economic growth last quarter means little if any job growth now. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 04:54 AM | Comments (318)
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FRIDAAAAY!

Police are investigating the phone harassment of the businessman featured in Romney's first "you didn't build that" ad.

They're mostly calling last night's storms in the Northeast a derecho. Mostly.

If you haven't seen it yet, scroll down for Slu's take on the British hissy fit.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:48 AM | Comments (162)
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We need to talk.

Mitt Romney, a guy who has run an Olympics ceremony, offered some tepid criticism of your security for the games and you folks pretty much freaked the hell out over it.

Could Romney have answered the question differently? Of course. But in this case, he chose honesty over political nicety and you pummeled him for it. I don't mean to be impolite, but your citizens haven't been paragons of diplomatic nicety in criticizing my country's political leaders. I'm just spitballing here, but I cannot recall a protest in the United States where our citizens created and toppled a statue of either Tony Blair or David Cameron. Or where, encouraged by a demagogue, a large group of Americans booed any of your political leaders or candidates.

I have no particular affection for Mitt Romney but I will vote for him in November. However, watching a crowd of Britons jeering an American citizen at the prompting of London's mayor really pissed me off. Watching our media collectively wet themselves in support of those Britons moves my mood from pissed off to blood boiling/higher blood pressure. The special relationship should go both ways. In reality, I guess it doesn't.

So Britain, based on the recent behavior of your leaders and citizens, I fixed your famous poster:

My grandfather fought to secure your freedom, but if you want to be butthurt over this nonsense, go ahead. I'll just say this...

You're welcome.

Posted by: Slublog at 07:33 PM | Comments (228)
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I'm not sure what you guys did to get punished with me doing tonight's thread but I hope it was worth it.

First up....spiders. Lots of spiders. Lots and lots of poisonous spiders.

Dylan Baumann said he began finding the brown recluse spiders in his Omaha home four months ago. And they're everywhere, “in the entryway, the bedroom, under the fridge.”

He’s counted 40 spiders so far — but he hasn’t yet been bitten by the venomous arachnid.

Baumann said he contacted his landlord, who has called an exterminator “about five times.”

...

“People say ‘why don’t you move,’ but they could be inside my stuff, inside my couch. I’ll try to go through everything with a fine tooth comb, but you can’t catch everything.”

Meantime, he is shaking out his shoes and clothes before putting them on and has moved his bed away from the wall. His landlord, who he said has been very supportive, will move him into a new unit in the building in August.

“It could be worse,” Baumann said. “There was a house in Kansas City with 2,000 brown recluse,” he said.

Turns out if he gets bit he doesn't get cool superpowers or a hot redheaded girl friend, he just gets...dead.

The Canadian Mounties always get there man, even if he's going 180mph on a motorcycle.

A motorcyclist turned himself into Canadian police earlier this week, after a video that seems to show him traveling at speeds up to 186 mph on a highway in British Columbia went viral.

Randy George Scott, 25, surrendered to authorities at the Kelowna, B.C., police department on Tuesday. Canadian law enforcement had issued a warrant for Scott's arrest earlier this month.

"The man allegedly responsible for the infamous YouTube video 'Victoria Highway Run 299km' is in custody," Kelowna police said in a statement. Scott was charged with reckless driving. The speed limit on the stretch of the the Trans-Canada Highway where Scott was allegedly speeding is 50 mph.

The video shot from a camera mounted on the bike--which appears to show Scott weaving in and out of cars near Saanich, Vancouver Island--has racked up more than 1 million views since being uploaded to YouTube in April.

I don't know much about doing illegal things but I'd think Rule Number 1 would be, don't post yourself committing a crime on YouTube. YMMV.

The "don't try this at home" video beneath the fold. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 05:56 PM | Comments (561)
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As much as I detest Michael Bloomberg, keeping shrieking banshee and 0/32 Cherokee Lizzie Warren out of the United States Senate is imperative. But this is difficult to stomach.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, one of the most outspoken defenders of Wall Street, has sided against one of the financial industryÂ’s biggest critics in a hotly contested Senate race in his native Massachusetts.

Mr. Bloomberg has agreed to host a fund-raiser at his Upper East Side town house for the re-election campaign of Senator Scott P. Brown, a Republican, who is being challenged in the November election by a fiery consumer advocate, Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who is also a professor at Harvard Law School.

Posted by: Guest Blogger at 03:39 PM | Comments (229)
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This afternoon, for the first time since January 31 of this year, President Obama met with his Cabinet.

Today, President Obama convened a meeting of his Cabinet to discuss the ideas he laid out in the State of the Union. Joining the meeting was a new member of that Cabinet -- Karen Mills, the head of the Small Business Administration.

Discussing the State of the Union? Now?

Wait, wasn't Obama's last Jobs Council meeting around the same time in January? What in the hell has this guy been doing?

From MittRomney.com:

President Obama Hasn’t Made Time For His Jobs Council For 191 Days – But He’s Made Time For Many Other Activities:

President Obama Held His Last Jobs Council Meeting 191 Days Ago. (President Barack Obama, Remarks, Washington, DC, 1/17/12)

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, On President Obama’s Missing Jobs Council: “There’s No Specific Reason, Except The President Has Obviously Got A Lot On His Plate.” “‘There’s no specific reason, except the president has obviously got a lot on his plate, but he continues to solicit and receive advice from numerous folks outside the administration about the economy about ideas that he can act on with Congress or administratively to help the economy grow and help create jobs,’ Carney said in the White House’s first on-the-record response to a POLITICO story noting the hiatus.” (Josh Gerstein, “White House: Obama’s Plate Too Full For Jobs Council,” Politico, 7/18/12)

President Obama Has Attended 117 Campaign Fundraisers Since His Last Jobs Council Meeting. (National Journal’s “Daybook,” 7/26/12)

President Obama Has Played 10 Rounds Of Golf Since His Last Jobs Council Meeting. (PolitiFact.com, 7/19/12)

Oh, right. Golf and fundraising.

Posted by: JohnE. at 03:09 PM | Comments (147)
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-Warden

On the heels of a scathing statement that Chick-fil-A does not share Chicago's values because of their anti-gay marriage stance, Rahm Emmanuel has reversed himself and forged a public partnership with the openly religious enterprise that condemned Barack Obama's position on gay marriage as an endorsement of sinful behavior.

So sayeth looney tunes anti-semite and UFO abuctee, Louis Farrakhan.

Minister Louis Farrakhan recently responded to President ObamaÂ’s endorsement of gay marriage calling him "the first president that sanctioned what the scriptures forbid."

That's right. The same person who made that statement is Rahm's brand new, bestest best buddy.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday welcomed the army of men dispatched to the streets by Farrakhan to stop the violence in Chicago neighborhoods.

Oh, dear. Oh, dearie dear dear! What is an angry gay marriage activist to do with such troublesome information? Best to just ignore it, I suppose.

Yes, that should do.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 03:03 PM | Comments (31)
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Updated.

New ad by American Future Fund.

Via @JimGeraghty. more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 12:56 PM | Comments (296)
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First, Jake Tapper asks Carney, how is not taking more money from people in taxes "a give away".

TAPPER: You used the word “giveaway,” and President Obama, in his statement yesterday, used the word “giveaway,” referring to the extension of the Bush — lower — the lower Bush tax cut rates for the — I guess, the top 1 or 2 percent of the country, people making over $200,000 a year or couples making 250. What do you say to a small-business owner who says, that’s not a giveaway; that’s my money, and by the way, I’m going to need some of that money in order to help pay for health care of individuals that I’m now mandated to do; it’s not giving anything away; it’s allowing me to keep my money?

CARNEY: Well, the phrasing of the question leaves out a few things, which is, one, this tax cut that the Senate passed and that the president supports would go to 97 percent of small businesses in America, 97 percent. Further, this president has cut the taxes of small businesses in America 18 times, independent of this. So he’s — his focus on assisting small businesses, which he considers the engine of economic growth in this country, the engine of job creation in this country, has been intense and will continue to be.

TAPPER: Yes, I left out people I wasnÂ’t talking about.

...

TAPPER: I’m not — the question is this: Why is it a “giveaway”? Why are you guys using — you and President Obama — using the term “giveaway” when even if you support the Senate Democrats’ bill, it’s not technically a giveaway; it is allowing people to keep the tax cut that they got in 2001 and 2002?

CARNEY: Right, but these are tax cuts that we cannot afford, that do not, by — as — by the estimates of credible, independent economists do not measurably help the economy and do not — in the way that tax cuts to working and middle-class Americans help the economy.

And you know, we have to make choices. And it is a — it is a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans that we simply can’t afford.

There's more at the link but that's pretty awesome.

Carney also got tripped up on a very difficult question, "Is Jerusalem the capital of Israel". If you watch the video you can see "reporters" laughing at the question since it was meant to make Carney look stupid. Fortunately he was obliging.

If as Carney says everyone knows the administration's position and it's not changed, why didn't he just reiterate it?

For the record, according to the CIA World Factbook, the capital of Israel is wait for it....Jerusalem.

The level of incompetence in this White House is amazing.

Posted by: DrewM at 12:12 PM | Comments (141)
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Either that or he found it strangely uncomfortable being on the opposite side of an issue from the rightwing h8rz! at the Boston Globe.

He's apparently come to his senses. Somewhat.

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino repeated today that he doesnÂ’t want Chick-fil-A in Boston, but he backed away from a threat to actively block the fast-food chain from setting up shop in the city.

“I can’t do that. That would be interference to his rights to go there,” Menino said, referring to company president Dan Cathy, who drew the mayor’s wrath by going public with his views against same-sex marriage.

The mayor added: “I make mistakes all the time. That’s a Menino-ism.”

Finally, something we can both agree on. That part about him making mistakes all the time, I mean.

I wonder if this had anything to with the discovery by Michael Graham of Menino's prior support for the notorious gay-bashers at Chick-fil-A.

Oh, wait. Did I say Chick-fil-A? Sorry, I meant the Muslim Imam who wants to kill gays, not serve them a tasty chicken sandwich.

If you're a conservative who holds the same position on same-sex marriage that Barack Obama publicly held up until a couple of months ago, you're a bigot unworthy of even getting a business license. If you're a practitioner of the Religion of Peace™ who advocates putting gays to the sword, though, no problem.

Does anyone have a flowchart that explains the left's pecking order here? Or do they just make this shit up as they go?

(h/t CDR M)

Posted by: andy at 11:19 AM | Comments (173)
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