Where Are My Keys?

We've always been at war with Eastasia..

One day after holding the same view as Mitt Romney, Barack Obama launches an ad attacking his own previous view:

 

Stop talking with forked tongue, Ms. Warren..

This issue isn’t going away until Ms. Warren either makes this statement or offers verifiable proof of her claim. Fessing up is the best option for a campaign that is presently on life support. I can with certainty say that dozens of genealogists are going to take a very close look at any new evidence offered up by the Warren campaign. Based on the results of their previous efforts to offer “corroborating evidence,” who knows where that may lead?

Read the whole thing.

Not a good night for Dems in WI..

The primary elections for the recall of Scott Walker in Wisconsin happened yesterday.  Big Labor tossed a ton of money tothe campaign of their candidate (Falk), who then was soundly defeated 58-34.

Meanwhile, Scott Walker ran unopposed to be the Republican candidate.

What's interesting is that Walker supporters had nothing to get excited about, and no real reason to come out to the polls to vote for him.  Regardless of what happened on the Dem side, Walker would be the Republican choice.  History tells us that in Wisconsin, when there is nothing at stake, turnout for that Party is relatively low:

Traditionally, vote totals in contested primaries vastly exceed vote totals in corresponding primaries that are essentially uncontested. Take, for instance, the 2010 gubernatorial election, when Walker faced off against former congressman Mark Neumann, and Barrett ran for his party’s nomination essentially unopposed. Over 618,000 people voted in the GOP primary, while only 236,000 voters cast ballots in the Dem primary, where there was nothing at stake. That same year, Ron Johnson ran in a U.S. Senate GOP primary against several other candidates, while incumbent Russ Feingold was unopposed. The GOP primary drew 596,000 voters, while Feingold garnered only 224,000 votes. The Republican gubernatorial and Senate primaries drew 263 percent and 266 percent more voters, respectively, than the Democrats.

The same effect traditionally occurs for Democratic primaries. In 2002, a Democratic gubernatorial primary featuring, coincidentally, Tom Barrett, Kathleen Falk, and eventual winner Jim Doyle, drew 554,000 votes. Incumbent Republican governor Scott McCallum, running virtually unopposed, saw 230,000 votes in his primary — giving Democrats a 241 percent vote advantage.

That bit of history is what makes last night's result in Wisconsin so interesting:

Walker garnered about 15,000 more votes than Falk and Barrett combined. Republican voters had absolutely nothing to vote for, and yet they turned out in droves to send a message.

What will Walker's turnout look like when the actual vote takes place in a month?  If you are a Democrat in Wisconsin today, you can't be too happy.  The Union candidate got an old fashioned whuppin', and the "evil" Scott Walker got 15k more votes than your top 2 options did, combined.

Walker supporters will be even more energized by the results last night, the Unions will now have to double-down on a candidate that wasn't even their first choice.  They are in for an uphill battle:

Since the recall was announced, Democrats boasted that the wind was at their backs; they beat their chests about turning in “1 million” recall petition signatures, assuming everyone that signed was going to come out and vote against Walker. Yet even a second-grader can figure out that having 60 days to collect signatures from both registered and non-registered voters is much different from having one day to get actual registered voters to the polls. Consequently, the number of signatures they bragged about collecting ended up outnumbering their total live primary voters by about 350,000.

This is a tough one to spin..

An inmate in West Virginia gets a sizable amount of Democrat primary votes.

Just how unpopular is President Obama in some parts of the country? Enough that a man in a Texas prison received four out of 10 votes in West Virginia's Democratic presidential primary.

Inmate Keith Judd, 53, is serving 17 years for extortion at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution. He was sentenced in 1999 for making threats against the University of New Mexico and is due to be released on June 24 next year.

With 93 per cent of precincts reporting, Obama was receiving just under 60 per cent of the vote to Judd's 40 per cent.

Perhaps some West Virginians haven't forgotten this promise from Obama back in 2008 on the campaign trail:

 

There is an explanation of course, for the inmate giving Obama a run for his money: Racism.

Bye, France..

The results of this election clearly mean that there are more folks with their hands out, than there are those that produce.

François Hollande has won France’s presidential election, giving the country its first Socialist president in almost two decades, exit polls showed Sunday.

According to Ipsos polling institute, the left-wing candidate took 51.7% of the vote to incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy’s 48.3%.

Celebrations are underway at the iconic Place de la Bastille in central Paris, the same spot where the last Socialist to win a presidential election, François Mitterrand, celebrated his first victory back in 1981.

Good luck, France.

Maybe they couldn't afford the gas to get to the event?

What a difference 4 years makes:

Saturday was supposed to be President Barack Obama’s day, dominated by headlines of successful campaign holding its first rally. Instead, reports prominently included references to thousands of empty seats at the president’s first rally here — just as the Romney campaign wanted it.

At The Ohio State University, over 5,000 seats in the 20,000-person venue went unfilled on the upper seating deck and behind the press cameras —a sharp contrast to Obama’s events in 2008, and even a 2010 event with then-Gov. Ted Strickland which drew 35,000.

ABC News had reported Saturday morning that the campaign expected “overflow” crowds at each event, crowds which never did materialize.

The New York Times quoted Obama senior adviser David Plouffe, not about the president’s remarks, but about the crowd size — with reporter Mark Landler comparing the rallies to “a concert by an aging rock star.”

Reporters had some help in noticing the empty seats. Romney spokespeople made it into both events, waiting in line like everyone else. They worked their way close to the press risers, ready to provide rapid response to Obama’s speech.

Romney Deputy Press Secretary Ryan Williams was in the audience at the OSU rally, and tweeted a picture of the empty seats — which instantly got picked up by conservative blogs. After Obama’s remarks he was swarmed by local reporters, and after giving them a standard response to the speech, he commented on the empty seats.

References to the crowd size made it into local papers and television reporters, all distracting from Obama’s message.

 

Good ad by Romney..

 

Chicago Politics being played in D.C...

You guys on the Left are okay with tactics like this, right?

Try this thought experiment: You decide to donate money to Mitt Romney. You want change in the Oval Office, so you engage in your democratic right to send a check.

Several days later, President Barack Obama, the most powerful man on the planet, singles you out by name. His campaign brands you a Romney donor, shames you for "betting against America," and accuses you of having a "less-than-reputable" record. The message from the man who controls the Justice Department (which can indict you), the SEC (which can fine you), and the IRS (which can audit you), is clear: You made a mistake donating that money.

Are you worried?

Richard Nixon's "enemies list" appalled the country for the simple reason that presidents hold a unique trust. Unlike senators or congressmen, presidents alone represent all Americans. Their powers—to jail, to fine, to bankrupt—are also so vast as to require restraint. Any president who targets a private citizen for his politics is de facto engaged in government intimidation and threats. This is why presidents since Nixon have carefully avoided the practice.

Save Mr. Obama, who acknowledges no rules. This past week, one of his campaign websites posted an item entitled "Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney's donors." In the post, the Obama campaign named and shamed eight private citizens who had donated to his opponent. Describing the givers as all having "less-than-reputable records," the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that "quite a few" have also been "on the wrong side of the law" and profiting at "the expense of so many Americans."

These are people like Paul Schorr and Sam and Jeffrey Fox, investors who the site outed for the crime of having "outsourced" jobs. T. Martin Fiorentino is scored for his work for a firm that forecloses on homes. Louis Bacon (a hedge-fund manager), Kent Burton (a "lobbyist") and Thomas O'Malley (an energy CEO) stand accused of profiting from oil. Frank VanderSloot, the CEO of a home-products firm, is slimed as a "bitter foe of the gay rights movement."

These are wealthy individuals, to be sure, but private citizens nonetheless. Not one holds elected office. Not one is a criminal. Not one has the barest fraction of the position or the power of the U.S. leader who is publicly assaulting them.

Is this the new "normal" in politics now?  Used to be, qualified, capable people shied away from public office because they didn't want people digging through their trashcans for dirt.  The Obama Crew is now doing that with donors.  Politicians wonder why people hate them so much.  Perhaps this latest tactic will help educate them.

Disgusting.

As always, the Devil is in the details..

POTUS is out on a college tour, pitching his plan to lower student loan interest rates by cutting them in half.  Sounds great, right?  Lower their rate, save the new grads a few bucks while they are underemployed/unemployed.  What's not to like?

With great fanfare, the president will embark on the #DontDoubleMyRate tour, “an effort to get Congress to prevent interest rates on student loans from doubling in July” according to the White House. For details see here.

Sounds serious. After all, there are 39 million Americans with student loans owing over a trillion dollars of debt, and interest rates doubling from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent would be a huge hit at a time when households are already struggling.

Serious, except that the president’s plan would apply only to those 23 million loans being borrowed directly from the federal government. Except that not all of those would benefit; it would apply only to the 9.5 million loans being borrowed through the so-called subsidized Stafford loans. Except the lower rate would apply only to new borrowers who apply this year. Except that no payments are made until after graduation, so it would not help anyone for several years. Except that it would lower monthly payments by an average of only $7.

As a policy, the only thing that is serious is its inequities.

President Obama is demanding that Congress discriminate unfairly among the many borrowers trying to finance college education costs this year. 

Worse, President Obama is also demanding that Congress discriminate unfairly against those borrowing next year and beyond. Extending the 3.4 percent rate costs $6 billion for a temporary one-year extension. Congress cannot afford to and will not extend the rates past this year.

So at the end of the day, the grads aren't really saving enough money with a lower rate to make any kind of significant impact, and the immediate cost of the program is $6 billion.

Sure sounds a lot less like helping college kids, and a lot more like trying to buy votes from a demographic that the President has been losing support from.

I'm sure this will change come November..

In the heady days of 2008, starry-eyed pundits predicted that the election of Barack Obama would lead to a complete rehabilitation of America’s image in the world. President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, less than a year into his first term, reinforced this narrative.

Three plus years later, that shiny new president smell is gone, and the flashy new car as a few nicks and dents. A new Gallup poll finds that the “Obama bounce” in foreign views of American has lost momentum and in some countries, (in Africa and Latin America and in a number of European countries) has fallen significantly. Overall, confidence in the US fell 13 pionts in three years to 40 percent in Latin America. international community is nearly universally losing confidence in America’s leadership.

Obviously, those polls are racist.