But there's a catch. Obama is keeping him on solid blue state lock-down.

After a gaffe-filled week, Vice President Joseph R. Biden will go back on the campaign trail next week with visits to three relatively "safe" Democratic states.

Mr. Biden will travel on Tuesday for campaign events in Minnesota, where President Obama leads presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney by an average of 10.5 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics average of polls.

On Wednesday, the vice president will campaign in Michigan, where the Democratic ticket is ahead by an average of 7.7 points. And on Friday, Mr. Biden and his wife, Jill, will attend campaign events in New York state, where Mr. Obama leads Mr. Romney by an average of 25.5 percentage points.

Well, Michigan is regarded as a swing state by some. So, with any luck he'll say Michigan women dress like hookers or claim to be a big fan of Appalachian State or something. I'm having trouble coming up with a too-outrageous-to-be-believable joke here.

We have a quickmeme going of the pic below. Have at it. more...

Posted by: JohnE. at 05:10 PM | Comments (233)
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Or is it just me?

Posted by: Ace at 03:28 PM | Comments (273)
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Stay classy, left.

During DarlingÂ’s remarks, the protester, Mary Hoglund, 83, of Appleton, interrupted the event to ask about Republican opposition to Planned Parenthood.

A local Romney supporter began arguing with Hoglund, who then spit in her face.

A mostly peaceful gob of spit.

Repulsive. But I guess this is going to be a consequential election; we unfortunately have to expect crap like this from some.

Sure would be nice if the media would remind their more unhinged leftist partisans that violence is unamerican. But of course they don't care if Republicans get shot.

Meanwhile, Occupy occupies Obama campaign offices.

The video depicts protesters tussling with Obama campaign staff, most of whom are female, while another protester speaks on his cell phone with an unnamed individual as he summarizes the demands of the occupiers. At just about the 1:30 mark, the situation escalates and chaos ensues. Yelling can be heard from both sides, chairs can be heard being tossed around, and pushing and shoving is seen on camera.

“This is our space, get out of here!” screams one of the campaign office staffers to the protesters. “This man is a veteran!” one protester responds. “These are Obama’s wars!” yells another of the protesters.

It's my nature, said the scorpion.

Posted by: Ace at 02:43 PM | Comments (188)
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So he's giving interviews to ESPN, Entertainment Weekly, People, and regional media, in which the questions tend to be about sports of local cuisine. So you know, the hard questions.

I think even President Waffles could make it through such interviews. "Yes, I like your local sports clubs and I enjoy your local cuisine."

Just a series of "humanizing" interviews-- nothing about policy.

Now, my headline is not a lie. Obama really does think the national political press is too tough on him, and doesn't give him enough credit.

Remember 2008 and the Honeymoon Swoon of 2009? Yeah, Obama considered that a period of difficulties with a hostile press.

A few months after President ObamaÂ’s $787 billion economic stimulus package passed, he began to notice news reports, but not about the jobs the bill might create or how much of the countryÂ’s infrastructure it would repair. Instead, the articles focused on traffic jams.

“Traffic Set to Slow as Stimulus Gears Up,” as the headline on a 2009 article in USA Today read.

Jared Bernstein, an economist in the administration at the time, said the articles exemplified the White House’s problems with news media coverage. “The feeling was, ‘man, we can’t catch a break,’ ” he said.

Eyebrows raised.

Skipping a little:

The news media have played a crucial role in Mr. ObamaÂ’s career, helping to make him a national star not long after he had been an anonymous state legislator. As president, however, he has come to believe the news media have had a role in frustrating his ambitions to change the terms of the countryÂ’s political discussion. He particularly believes that Democrats do not receive enough credit for their willingness to accept cuts in Medicare and Social Security, while Republicans oppose almost any tax increase to reduce the deficit.

Privately and publicly, Mr. Obama has articulated what he sees as two overarching problems: coverage that focuses on political winners and losers rather than substance; and a “false balance,” in which two opposing sides are given equal weight regardless of the facts.

Yeah, the press completely gives equal weight to both sides and in no way expresses its strong preference for Obama's.

And three days ago he knocked he press corps thus:

Asked about how playing sports was similar to being president, Obama said: "It also turns out that political reporters are a lot like sports reporters. They've all got opinions, even if they didn't play."

Quite a statement who was quite certain that Presidenting was soooo easy that he'd be able to actually reduce the level of the seas before he'd done more than serve as an undistinguished, over-exposed senator for a eighteen months.

Balls, this guy, some assembly required.

On Fox Now: They just played a local reporter's question. It was "If you could have a superpower, what would it be?" Obama said, "Well this is kind of a weird one, but I'd like to be able to speak any language."

There you go.

Oh, then they played this new ad from the RNC:

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Posted by: Ace at 02:00 PM | Comments (260)
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When the stated policy of a government agency is to regulate an industry, but the unstated, *actual* policy is to destroy that industry, personal livelihoods must die to satisfy the whims of bureaucrats.

In a decade-long battle, Yacubian was thwarted at every turn. When he was ready to show that the NOAA's equipment was so unreliable it couldn't prove he had been in a forbidden area, his expert witness -- a respected Massachusetts Environmental Police officer -- came under pressure and asked to be excused from testifying. Yacubian lost his case, his permits, his boat and his income.

When Yacubian asked for a discretionary appeal -- inside the agency -- he was refused, and had to make to make a costly appeal to a federal court. He won the appeal, and the federal judge ordered his vessel permit and operator permit restored, and sent the case back to the NOAA for reworking according to his instructions. The NOAA ignored the federal judge, withheld Yacubian's permits and went through the same motions and same decision as before.

Yacubian's attorney's fees mounted to more than $250,000, and he tried to sell his boat and permits, worth nearly a million dollars. The NOAA blocked the sale three times by refusing to release the permits -- without which the boat was unsalable. Without an income and out of resources, in July 2005 Yacubian gave up and settled with the NOAA. The agency got everything, and he got less than half the boat's sale price.

It just so happens, in an odd bit of good fortune for the NOAA, that the money corruptly stolen from the NOAA's victims is then used to furnish lavish party boat cruises for NOAA employees and their kin. Go figure! Who coulda seen that coming, right?

So. That's nice. For them. I don't see any conflict of interest here. Only justice.

Yep.

Thanks to Andy.

Posted by: LauraW at 12:58 PM | Comments (184)
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It's all about turnout. As there are, apparently, only 3-6% (or so) of actual undecided voters, this is all about base maximization.

Telling a group of people whose ancestors had once been slaves that the opposing party intends to reinstitute slavery could sort of motivate people.

The latest Rasmussen poll of likely voters finds Romney pulling in 9 percent of African American support, and African Americans making up 12 percent of the total electorate. If that turns out to be the case in November, Obama would still do better than Kerry, but about 1.5 points worse than he did in 2008, taking into account the black vote alone.

The vital context here is ObamaÂ’s decline among white voters. This week, the Rasmussen poll finds him winning the support of just 35 percent of likely white voters, compared to 43 percent support from whites in 2008....

So, Obama really needs African Americans to come through for him about strongly as they did in 2008. Right now, that looks like a questionable proposition, which may help explain BidenÂ’s remarks this week.

Moving forward, we should expect more of the same from the Democrats.

I made this point to my punching bag @dumme -- it sure seems like there's a coordinated effort to stoke enthusiasm among Obama's base, and since he can't run on his record, that enthusiasm will have to come from hatred of the opposition.

I Wish Conservatives Would Stop Injecting Race Into This Campaign At Every Turn: How dare us.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: “In many ways — especially for progressives — [Obama] is too white for them. He plays golf, he’s too cozy with bankers. But when it comes to knowing how to fight, he’s black."

Oh wait, that wasn't Rush Limbaugh. That was Bill Maher.

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (323)
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Weakest "recovery" since the Depression. Because it's not a recovery. We're still in a depression.

In [swing] states - Nevada, Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia and Iowa - jobless rates all rose in July. Moreover, Nevada again had the highest rate in the nation at 12 percent, while Florida's 8.8 percent and Colorado's 8.3 percent were both at or above the July national rate of 8.3 percent.

..

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, the rate rose to 9.6 percent in July from 9.4 percent.

There are other numbers in the article but I can't quote them all.

At the New York Times, their poll analyst Nate Silver continues to claim that the economy is, in net, a plus for Obama.

By the way, "The Cycle" on MSNBC will be watched by more than the pets of the elderly for the first time today, as Dumme is coming off his "n***erization" triumph. It's on now.

Posted by: Ace at 11:00 AM | Comments (348)
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Apparently we're still debating whether you can spend the same $716 billion twice.

Perhaps the easiest way to understand this is to look at Social Security. If we generate $1 in savings within that program, then that's $1 that Social Security can spend later. If we also claimed this same $1 to finance a new spending program, we would clearly be adding to the total federal deficit. There has long been bipartisan understanding of this aspect of Social Security, which is why Congress's paygo rules prohibit using Social Security savings as an offset to pay for unrelated federal spending.

No such prohibition exists in the budget process against committing Medicare savings simultaneously to Medicare and to pay for a new federal program. It's this budget loophole, unique to Medicare, that gives the health law's spending constraints and payroll tax hikes the appearance of reducing federal deficits. But it is appearance, not reality. If you have only $1 of income and are obliged to pay a dollar each to two different recipients, then you will have to borrow another $1. This is effectively what the health law does. It authorizes far more in spending than it creates in savings.

How much more? Charles Blahous's study, "The Fiscal Consequences of the Affordable Care Act," published last month by the Mercatus Center, found that the health law would add over $340 billion to federal deficits over the next 10 years. Over the longer term, deficits would run into the trillions.

We are at the point where the guy needs to use an analogy to explain why you can't spend the same dollar twice. He actually has to tease this chain of reasoning out for people.

And yet, he must, because Obama's Media Palace Guard is attempting to claim otherwise.

MYTH THREE: OBAMACARE SLASHES $700 BLN FROM MEDICARE

Facts: The Romney-Ryan campaign has trotted out this scary-sounding number to deflect attention from Ryan's voucher plan. But it is largely a false claim because it implies that the health reform law slashes benefits.

The Affordable Care Act actually delivers expanded benefits to seniors. It closes the prescription drug donut hole over time, with 3.6 million seniors saving a collective $2.1 billion last year; it also expands preventive services, including an annual wellness visit, mammograms and prostate cancer screenings with no out-of-pocket cost.

Obamacare does cut $700 billion in Medicare spending over a 10-year period. But the cuts are adjustments in payments to Medicare providers, which are mostly meaningless to patients. According to the CBO, the ACA's 10-year cuts include $415 billion in fee-for-service payments to healthcare providers, $156 billion in reduced payments to Medicare Advantage plans, $56 billion to hospitals, and $114 billion in other miscellaneous cuts far too numerous to detail here.

That article -- from Reuters, natch -- is worth reading in its entirety. It is breathtaking. It is simply an Obama press release, and not a word of it is true.

And it further contends that cutting $718 billion from the program will, for the first time in the history of history, not impact beneficiaries at all.

Amazing. Every time Republicans propose a cut it's going to kill people. But when Democrats cut $718 billion, it actually "shores up the system."

This is the sort of claim that could only be made by the borderline-retarded.

Speaking of.

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Posted by: Ace at 09:57 AM | Comments (302)
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Tom Morello -- if you've forgotten his name, don't worry about it, so has he -- whines about Paul Ryan.

Ryan named his band, Rage Against the Machine -- is this still a thing? -- as one of his favorites. I don't know when Ryan said this. Probably twenty years ago, when Rage was marginally relevant.

Anyway, Tom Morello, who is, at best, a year away from opening for David Cassidy at the Mohegan Sun, is determined to make his brief moment of reprieve-relevancy count.

Posted by: Ace at 09:26 AM | Comments (375)
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Good-looking guy.

No, but seriously, here's the picture you've been waiting for.

Posted by: Ace at 08:41 AM | Comments (239)
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