Obama campaign American flag with Barack's logo replacing the stars

From the land of You've-Got-To-Be-Fucking-Kidding-Me???

What would you say if I told you that the Obama campaign took the US flag and replaced the stars with the Obama logo?
You'd think I was full of shit, and that I made it up.  Right?
Because only a cult would do something that dumb.

Well guess what?  Its a fucking cult.  Here's a screen grab:

Honestly... if I was at a meeting of Republicans and you told me that this had happened , I'd tell you to go check on Snopes, because you'd been had.
If I hadn't taken a look at it myself, I would have never believed it.
Remember when this happened, and they told us that it wasn't really authorized by the campaign?

Its a cult.
Say it with me:
Its a cult.

Obama's job record

I really can't state it better then Investor's Business Daily did in an editorial:

The White House, during its convention, repeatedly claimed to have "created" 4.5 million jobs. Leaving aside the fact that businesses, not government, create jobs, it's still factually incorrect.

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, payroll jobs in August totaled 133.3 million. The month Obama entered office, there were 133.561 million. So the number of jobs has shrunk.

Obama's convention speech moved back indoors on account of ego

Here's the official story according to the Daily Mail:

We have been monitoring weather forecasts closely and several reports predict thunderstorms in the area, therefore we have decided to move Thursday's proceedings to Time Warner Cable Arena to ensure the safety and security of our delegates and convention guests,' said convention chief Steve Kerrigan.

However, the weather doesn't sound that threatening:

The latest Weather Underground forecast for Charlotte on Thursday states that there is a 40 per cent chance of rain tomorrow and only the possibility of thurnderstorms: 'Overcast with a chance of a thunderstorm and a chance of rain..Chance of rain 40% with rainfall amounts near 4.8 mm possible.' The chances of rain in the evening drop to 30 per cent.

Huh.
So... there is a 40% chance of rain... of 4.8 millimeters of rain.
Or roughly ¹³⁄₆₄ of an inch of rain.  -And that's during the day.  At night, the chances of rain drop to 30 percent.

Do you suppose it could be that they're worried about filling 74,000 seats?  The Daily Mail thinks so, and it quotes a convention worker to back them up:

A convention worker told MailOnline on Tuesday: ‘It looks like a done deal to me. The decision’s apparently been taken and it’s just a matter of spinning it as being forced on us by the weather.’ As the source was speaking, Democrats were saying publicly the event would go ahead as planned. 

Interesting...

Dem Fundraiser runs for exit at DNC

I'm just going to suggest that if one of your fundraisers is running for an exit at your convention... it doesn't bode well for the ethics of your party:

How Bush isn't responsible for the FY 2009 budget

Lets talk about the United States budget for Fiscal Year 2009.

The left has tried repeatedly to blame Bush for the FY 2009 budget, and most of the time, this would be completely legitimate.  After all, when Obama came into office, it was in the middle of FY 2009.  So logic would dictate that whatever budget was in place when he came into office, he had no say over.  Moreover, one would think that the previous president had his voice in the FY 2009 budget.

But then you'd be wrong.
Let me explain.  As soon as the Democrats came into office, they started ignoring Bush's budget.  By the time Bush turned in his FY 2009 suggestion, it was dead on arrival.
Then the Democrats proposed their budget.

They loved their budget compared to the president's budget, because it didn't involve cuts:


When the Democrats proposed their budget, Bush similiarly declared it dead. This is from Feb 2009,  Bloomberg:

Democrats postponed work on the appropriations bills last year after they were unable to reach an agreement with former President George W. Bush on how much to spend on domestic programs. Bush had demanded lawmakers freeze most domestic spending. Most federal agencies, except those related to defense, have been funded by a stopgap measure that expires March 6.

Democrats did vote on the "idea" of the budget in March of 2008.  However, it was a non binding budget... meaning, it meant nothing.  According to USA today:

Democrats gave final approval on Thursday of a budget blueprint for 2009 that rewards domestic agencies and the Pentagon with generous budget increases while leaving wrenching decisions about curbing Medicare costs and increasing taxes to the next president.

The House approved the $3.1 trillion budget plan by a 214-210 vote; senators passed the measure Wednesday. The nonbinding measure does not go to President Bush but instead sets guidelines for future action by Congress.

The House-Senate compromise relies on questionable assumptions to predict a small budget surplus by 2012 after seven years of deficits under the Republican president.

Wait... what was that?

The next president actually will inherit a deficit in the $400 billion range, or higher, under current estimates. Some Wall Street economists fear record deficits of up to $500 billion.

Republicans lamented the lost opportunity to tackle the biggest budget challenge: the rapidly spiraling cost of Medicare, Social Security and the Medicaid health care program for the poor. The Democratic plan would not impose any cost-cutting on them.

Democrats are generous, however, in the near term with the annual spending bills passed by Congress. Over the five years of the Democratic plan, appropriated spending would rise $241 billion. In line for large increases are education, energy and public works.

Huh.   Okay.
Here's the vote in the house:

	Yeas	Nays	PRES	NV
Democratic	214	14		7
Republican		196		3
Independent
TOTALS	214	210		10

It appears as though the Republicans were solidly against the Dems non-binding budget proposal.
And of course, the vote in the Senate:
Where you'll find that only 2 Republicans voted for it.

So instead of freezing spending, Democrats passed parts of the budget piecemeal in order to keep the government going.  But that's not all.  Democrats waited until Obama got into office, and then passed the final portion of FY 2009 under him... in March 2009!  Again, via Bloomberg:

The U.S. Congress gave final approval to a $410 billion spending bill that includes an overall 8 percent budget increase for some federal agencies and thousands of congressional pet projects.

The Senate approved the so-called omnibus measure on a voice vote, sending it to President Barack Obama for his signature. Moments earlier, the bill cleared a procedural vote 62 to 35. The House approved the plan Feb. 25.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said before passage that he was “very” surprised at how long it took lawmakers to reach agreement on the legislation. He said the bill will provide needed funding increases for federal agencies that saw too many lean budgets during former President George W. Bush’s administration.

Please note that Harry Reid wrote that there were "too many lean" budgets under GWB.  Now, with Obama in charge, he was much happier, and fatter.

HR 1105 caused a little bit of a ruckus over the pork laden in it.
But you might wonder who actually voted for it?
Well, here's the roll call of the House:

	Yeas	Nays	PRES	NV
Democratic	229	20		4
Republican	16	158		4
Independent
TOTALS	245	178		8

Huh.  Seems kinda lopsided.  Like.... like there were a ton of Republicans voting against it.
But maybe that was just the house?

Here's the final cloture bill in the Senate:

Of the 62 "Yeas", only 8 were Republicans.
Which means this bill swept through, despite Republican opposition.

If you say that either Bush or Republicans were responsible for the FY2009 budget, you are beyond wrong.  You're in that special category of dishonesty or ignorance.

Pick one.

Another dumb "War On Women" meme

Some of the "War On Women" screeds are so. Dumb.
When I saw this one:



All I could think of was... Seriously? Who in the world believes that this is a credible reflection of statistics?

Okay, so the meme is that women are killed like... all the time. Really.
But you might wonder, as I do, is it more then men? Because that also seems implied by the whole "War On Women" thing?

No. Women are not killed anywhere near the rate that men are.
Go to the FBI breakdown on homicides, by gender.

Victimization rates for both males and females have declined in recent years

• Males were almost 4 times more likely than females to be murdered in 2005.
  
• In 2005 rates for females reached their lowest point recorded; rates for males increased slightly from the low point recorded in 2000.

Uh, what? The meme at the top of the page was that there is a war against women.

If anything, there is a war against men, since we're being killed off at more than 3 times the rate of women. To top it all off, when men kill, its almost 3 times as likely that they will kill another man. -And even when women do kill, they kill men more often then women... almost 3 times as many men.

	Male offender/Male victim	65.3%
	Male offender/Female victim	22.7%
	Female offender/Male victim	9.6%
	Female offender/Female victim	2.4%

So no matter how you look at homicide rates... men are getting screwed.

I bought this up on Facebook, and someone told me that I'm missing the point; that women are more likely to be killed by family members and intimates, rather then strangers. Somehow, its supposed to be a good thing for men that we're most likely to be killed by a stranger at 3 times the rate of women?
But I digress. Let's do the math again.

But let's break it down further. Let's suppose that there were 100 people killed in any given year. Based on the percentages, that would mean:

Male offender/Male victim -- 65 Men

Male offender/Female victim -- 22 Women

Female offender/Male victim -- 10 Men

Female offender/Female victim -- 2 Women

Right? (I rounded off)

Or 24 women killed for every 75 men killed.

Now let's apply the percentages of how they knew their intimate or family member to those numbers:

		Victims			# per 100
		Male	Female		Male	Female
Victim/offender relationship

	Intimate	35.2%	64.8%		27	15
	Family	51.5%	48.5%		39	12

Using the percentages, above, I plugged in the numbers based on 75 men killed for every 24 women.

Let's word that a different way: of the 75 men that were killed, 27 (26.5) were killed by "intimates". (35.2% x 75 = 27)

Of the 24 women killed, 15 (15.3) were killed by "intimates". (64.8% x 24=15)

So in any group of 100 homicides, 27 men who were "intimates" were killed to the 15 women who were killed by their "intimate."

We get that, right? We agree on that math?

27 men are killed by someone that they are intimate with to every 15 women.

I did the same thing with family members.

We're starting with 75 men and 24 women getting killed, then applied the percentages.

Men 39 (38.6); Women 12 (11.64)

Of the men and women who are killed every year who are family members: 39 men are killed for every 12 women. More then 3 times as many men are killed by family members then women.

Again, how is that a war on women?
The only way you can come to the conclusion that its a "war on women" is if you failed math.

Photo Evidence! Bill Maher finds Drudge Racist!

I'm a photographer.
Which is why I found this particular piece of "detective" work offensive, idiotic, and beyond the pale:


Yes, that's right. Bill is making the argument that since a news aggregater has 6 images of black men in one month (April)- and the images are not flattering - that Drudge is racist.

I love to research things, and this seemed kinda custom built for an investigation. So I set my criteria ahead of time, and went to work grabbing DrudgeReport images from the month of April.

My criteria:

• I would start at the archive calendar, and go to each date in April.
• On each date, there are several dozen links. I would pick two or three at random, and grab the photos.
• I would only grab the "headline" photo, but I'd grab it no matter what it was.
• I would then shrink the images so that you could see them close together and get an idea of what they looked like as a group.
  

The goal was not to grab every single photo... but to get a really, really good representation of what a month load of Drudge photos look like. Keep in mind, this was completely at random.

Here's what I found:

Now you might notice a few things about this first composite: there are a few photos of Obama smiling. An image of Santorum looking defeated. (He just kinda was.) And of course, a depressed Fed Reserve Chairman.

Next composite...



Tim Tebow looks great, but he's kinda the only one. Chavez looks like an overweight evangelist, Obama looks depressed, Romney looks like a Point Break reject, the Pope looks like an extra from an Indiana Jones film, Holder looks guilty, and the last image of Obama looks, well... just about right.
The point being, everyone seems to be made fun of. Would you agree?
Let's keep going...



An obvious image of Obama losing his cool, Santorum looking thrilled (when the image was connected with him bowing out of the campaign), two depressing images of Zimmerman, an image from India's quake, a family photo of the Romney's to accompany the story about how Ann "doesn't work", and that idiot from North Korea.
Next...



A few stories on the media, and how the candidates feel they are perceived by them. A flattering image of Obama, an unflattering one, and one where Warren Buffet looks like a tool. A sour image of Cheney.

Next:



Two unflattering images of Zimmerman, plus one of his bloody head. A secret service hooker. Nicolas Sarkozy, and two images of Obama which are neither pretty nor ugly.

Next:


Obama's lawyer. Two images of Romney looking good, one of him looking constipated. Another hooker. Biden looking confused. Unhappy Zimmerman... and some guy that none of us know in a big leather chair.

Next:

We're already into late April, btw. Six images of Obama... one that makes him look flattering. An image that reflects unkindly on Anarchists. A triptych of images of Murdoch that make him look like he's losing an argument.

Are we getting the pattern yet?
With few exceptions... Drudge uses images that are either making fun of the person in the story, or reflect the tone of the story.
Last ones...


Okay, an image of Romney that makes him look like a failed superhero, and Obama greeting Kagan.

And that's what I found.

So you might wonder... since I scoured the images from April in a random fashion - and I didn't come up with the same images that Bill Maher did - was I leaving something out purposely?
No, I was not. In fact, I made a point of it to just put up the images that I found, whether or not they reflected either what I thought of Drudge, or what I think of Bill Maher.
You can do your own experiment, and see if you find similar images.

The point is that Drudge uses images to make fun of everyone. And I mean everyone.
The fact that Bill Maher went through and found images of black men that were not flattering, and that he missed all of the images of other people who were not flattering? Well, that's Bill Maher. We can't even begin to think of what's going on in his head, but clearly, he went in with an agenda, and not with any intent of being honest.

President Obama on enforcing immigration, March 2011

I'm sure he has a good reason for this.
Like... well, there were 3 branches of government.... but I didn't like 2 of them.

Background: watch this video


Okay... got all of that? Seems pretty straightforward, yes? The president said that we can't just ignore the laws that he doesn't like. That he has to enforce them.

Cut to this Wapo article:

President Obama said Friday his administration would stop deporting some illegal immigrants who were brought to the country as children and have gone on to be productive and otherwise law-abiding residents, forcing the emotional immigration policy debate into the forefront of the presidential campaign.

But wait... there's more...

The change was not imposed by executive order. Instead, it effectively extends an existing policy of “prosecutorial discretion,” in which immigration officials last year were instructed to prioritize the removal of felons, repeat border crossers and others considered to be security risks. Officials said the government would continue its aggressive enforcement policies but with greater care not to remove young people who came as children.

So... its the same thing. But different.
Come the fuck on.
Can we be adults for a moment here? Mr President, you completely reversed the position you held earlier... that you can't change enforcement of laws that you don't like.

Rewinding to previous State Of The Union Speeches

‎Before the State Of The Union Address, I thought it was relevant to look backwards at Barack's previous State Of The Union Addresses, at the statements made...

2009:

"Now is the time to jump-start job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. That is what my economic agenda is designed to do, and that is what I'd like to talk to you about tonight."

2010:

"Now, if we had taken office in ordinary times, I would have liked nothing more than to start bringing down the deficit. But we took office amid a crisis. And our efforts to prevent a second depression have added another $1 trillion to our national debt. That, too, is a fact.
I'm absolutely convinced that was the right thing to do."

2011:

"We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. (Applause.) We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future. (Applause.) And tonight, I’d like to talk about how we get there."

Obama predicting the stimulus would prevent double digit unemployment

Someone recently challenged me to prove that Obama predicted a dire outcome if we reached a 10% unemployment rate.... and that the way out of it was a stimulus.

From AP:

Throughout his remarks, Obama painted a stark picture, including double-digit unemployment and $1 trillion in lost economic activity—that recalled the days of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Huh.

But wait. Maybe AP misunderstood what Barack said at George Mason on Jan 8th, 2009?

Now, I don't believe it's too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible. If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years.

The unemployment rate could reach double digits. Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four.

We could lose a generation of potential and promise as more young Americans are forced to forgo dreams of college or the chance to train for the jobs of the future. And our nation could lose the competitive edge that has served as a foundation for our strength and our standing in the world.

In short, a bad situation could become dramatically worse.

Hmm. I guess not.

But that was just one speech... right?

These are America’s problems, and we must come together as Americans to meet them with the urgency this moment demands. Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don’t act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double digit unemployment and the American Dream slipping further and further out of reach.

Of course, you can't trust that source. Its Change.gov.

MYTH: President Bush was never questioned by reporters on the Iraq war

There is a myth that has been spread that the press never challenged Bush on the Iraq war.
This, of course, is completely goofy.
Here is just one press conference... just one... where the president was challenged. Here are some of the questions reporters asked:

" Since you made it clear just now that you don't think that Saddam has disarmed and we have a quarter million troops in the Persian Gulf and now that you've called on the world to be ready to use force as a last resort, are we just days away from the point at which you decide whether or not we go to war? And what harm would it do to give Saddam a final ultimatum, a two- or three-day deadline to disarm or face force?"

"Mr. President, you and your top advisers, notably Secretary of State Powell, have repeatedly said that we have shared with our allies all of the current, up-to-date intelligence information that proves the imminence of the threat we face from Saddam Hussein and that they have been sharing their intelligence as well. If all of these nations, all of them our normal allies, have access to the same intelligence information, why is it that they are reluctant to think that the threat is so real, so imminent that we need to move to the brink of war now?
And in relation to that, today, the British foreign minister,
Jack Straw, suggested at the U.N. that it might be time to look at amending the resolution perhaps with an eye toward a timetable, like that proposed by the Canadians some two weeks ago, that would set a firm deadline to give Saddam Hussein a little bit of time to come clean. And also, obviously, that would give you a little bit of a chance to build more support with any members of the Security Council.
Is that something that the governments should be pursuing at the U.N. right now?"

"Thank you, Mr. President. Sir, if you haven't already made the choice to go to war, can you tell us what you are waiting to hear or see before you do make that decision?
And if I may, during a recent demonstration many of the protesters suggested that the U.S. was a threat to peace, which prompted you to wonder out loud why they didn't see Saddam Hussein as a threat to peace.
I wonder why you think so many people around the world take a different view of the threat that Saddam Hussein poses than you and your allies."

"Thank you, Mr. President. Sir, how would you answer your critics who say that they think is somehow personal? As Senator Kennedy put it tonight, he said your fixation with Saddam Hussein is making the world a more dangerous place.
And as you prepare the American people for the possibility of military conflict, could you share with us any of the scenarios your advisers have shared with you about worst-case scenarios, in terms of the potential cost of American lives, the potential cost to the American economy and the potential risks of retaliatory terrorist strikes here at home?"

"Thank you, sir. May I follow up on Jim Angle's question? In the past several weeks your policy on Iraq has generated opposition from the governments of France, Russia, China, Germany, Turkey, the Arab League and many other countries, opened a rift at NATO and at the U.N. and drawn millions of ordinary citizens around the world into the streets into anti-war protests.
May I ask what went wrong that so many governments and peoples around the world now not only disagree with you very strongly, but see the U.S. under your leadership as an arrogant power?"

"Mr. President, to a lot of people it seems that war is probably inevitable, because many people doubt — most people I would guess — that Saddam Hussein will ever do what we are demanding that he do, which is disarm.
And if war is inevitable, there are a lot of people in this country — as much as half by polling standards — who agree that he should be disarmed, who listen to you say that you have the evidence, but who feel they haven't seen it, and who still wonder why blood has to be shed if he hasn't attacked us."

"Mr. President, are you worried that the United States might be viewed as defiant of the United Nations if you went ahead with military action without specific and explicit authorization from the U.N.?"

"Even though our military can certainly prevail without a northern front, isn't Turkey making it at least slightly more challenging for us, and therefore at least slightly more likely that American lives will be lost? And if they don't reverse course, would you stop backing their entry into the European Union?"

"As you know, not everyone shares your optimistic vision of how this might play out. Do you ever worry, maybe in the wee, small hours, that you might be wrong and they might be right in thinking that this could lead to more terrorism, more anti-American sentiment, more instability in the Middle East?"

"Mr. President, if you decide to go ahead with military action, there are inspectors on the ground in Baghdad. Will you give them time to leave the country, or the humanitarian workers on the ground, or the journalists? Will you be able to do that and still mount an effective attack on Iraq?"

"Mr. President, good evening. Sir, you've talked a lot about trusting the American people when it comes to making decisions about their own lives, about how to spend their own money.
When it comes to the financial costs of the war, sir, it would seem that the administration surely has costed out various scenarios. If that's the case, why not present some of them to the American people so they know what to expect, sir?"

"Mr. President, millions of Americans can recall a time when leaders from both parties set this country on a mission of regime change in Vietnam. Fifty-thousand Americans died. The regime is still there in Hanoi and it hasn't harmed or threatened a single American in 30 years since the war ended. What can you say tonight, sir, to the sons and the daughters of the Americans who served in Vietnam to assure them that you will not lead this country down a similar path in Iraq?"

Now would you feel okay saying that President Bush was never questioned on the Iraq War by the press?

Pre-publicity for Occupy Wall Street

Someone recently told me that Occupy Wall Street didn't get the 'benefit' of the pre-publicity that Fox News gave to the Tea Party movement.
Which, of course, is bunk.


September 6th, CBS news:

An online group dubbed “Occupy Wall Street” is calling for 20,000 people to “flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months,” according to the website

Huffington Post, September 2nd:

A group of activists plans to bring 20,000 people to occupy Wall Street for months.

CNN, September 16th:

Egyptians did it for democracy. So did people in Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria. Now, activist groups are hoping Americans will launch their own uprising -- in the form of thousands of protesters descending on Wall Street this weekend.

New York Magazine, September 16th:

Saturday at noon, a group that calls itself "Occupy Wall Street" is going to try to live up to their name for as long as they can. But first, they'll be meeting at Bowling Green Park for a program that includes yoga, a pillow fight, face-painting, small break-out groups to discuss topics like derivatives, and a lecture from an author. There's an arts and culture committee. Plus, there's yoga and a planned "Thriller" dance. It sounds a little bit like camp, or maybe one of those pre-college orientation bonding sessions. But as the group says on its website, it's actually a "leaderless resistance movement" meant to protest the concentration of wealth at the top of society — the "99 percent" standing up against the "1 percent."

Whew. All of this cutting and pasting is getting tiring.

HuffPo, again, on the 15th:

The large-scale event, originally published back in July by Adbusters, a not-for-profit magazine aimed to "topple existing power structures," was inspired by the revolutionary events that swept through the Middle East earlier this year. The group's site reveals their hopes to transform Lower Manhattan into an "American Tahrir Square."

It goes on. And I'm sure you get the idea by now.

John Stewart, on Solyndra

He gives the administration a lot of leeway for "good intentions". Having said that, he also nails them to the wall on Solyndra.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Its genuinely hilarious, and refreshing to see the left make fun of the left in government. Even if he did have to throw Fox News into the mix.

"Pass This Bill"; Obama... and jobs

I ran across two videos today that are worth their weight in gold; mainly for the work that went into them.

My first nod goes to the Huffington Post.
Yes, you read that right... the Huffington Post.
Some editor must have spent a week in the editing suite putting together this representation of the president telling us that he was focused on jobs... since 2009:

The second one is the president telling us to "pass this bill", 90 times in 5 speeches over 1 week.
Politico deserves a Pulitzer for this one.

Nobel winner quits Physics group over Global Warming

The headline kinda says it all.

Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Resigns Over Global Warming

What I like about Ivar Giaever's letter is that he addresses the real problem of how this issue is debated. Global Warming data is taken as incontrovertible evidence, when it is anything but.

From his letter:

Dear Ms. Kirby

Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I can not live with the statement below:

Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.
The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.
If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period.

Best regards,

Ivar Giaever

Nobel Laureate 1973

PS. I included a copy to a few people in case they feel like using the information.

A Brief History of Social Security being called a Ponzi Scheme

The latest talking point between the left seems to be that calling Social Security a Ponzi Scheme is a new thing.

This proves to me that the left has the shortest memory of any creature on earth.


In 2007, Krugman, quoting others:
(Chris Matthews, & Russert)

Mr. Russert: “Everyone knows Social Security, as it’s constructed, is not going to be in the same place it’s going to be for the next generation, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives.”

Mr. Matthews: “It’s a bad Ponzi scheme, at this point.”

Mr. Russert: “Yes.”

From the American Thinker Magazine, 2005:

In the past several months as the debate over Social Security reform has taken center stage in the theater of the absurd that is modern American politics, the idea has been floated that the entire pay—as—you—go structure of this system closely resembles a Ponzi scheme, albeit one that is about to collapse.

Not far enough back for you?
In 2004, the Daily Howler blamed the phrase on earlier generations:
(quoting Ed Crane)

And so it goes in the offices of the Social Security Administration, home of the world's largest Ponzi scheme. Sold originally to the American public as a program to care for the indigent elderly, then as a "national pension plan" into which we pay "insurance premiums," Social Security has always been a fraud, a pay-as-you-go slush fund for politicians to dip into...

Geez. That's back in 1994!

The Cato Institute, in 1999:

Why is Social Security often called a Ponzi scheme?

If anyone tells you that this is something new, please copy and paste. Freely.

FY 2008, the budget passed by Dems

One of my favorite things to do is to examine what was said, in a prediction, in history.

For instance, let's say that you were wondering about the FY 2008 budget. Who passed it, and what was said about it?

The U.S. Congress on Thursday approved a $2.9 trillion fiscal 2008 budget that funds President George W. Bush's huge defense buildup while also adding money for Democrats' domestic priorities.

The budget, written by Democrats who control both chambers of Congress, received no backing from House Republicans, while only two moderate Republicans in the Senate supported it.

Okay... so from this, we know that the Democrats wrote the 2008 budget.
Furthermore, we can state that exactly 2 Republicans in congress, total, supported it.
Its worth reading the article if you have the time.

Let's keep going... shall we?
This was a non-binding budget. Meaning that Democrats knew that there was a possibility that their spending priorities would get cut off at the legs. Or as one other article stated it:

The move appears to set up a clash this September with Bush, who has yet to veto a single appropriations bill, but who seems eager to get started.

The budget was a result of a lot of back and forth, with Republicans saying that Democrats were being overly optimistic on what they thought their tax plans would bring in.
Furthermore, the Democrats were counting on 'reserve funds':

The House and Senate versions of the budget depend on "reserve funds" to pay for additional spending for such programs as children's healthcare and farm aid. With the reserve funds, Congress can avoid the hard choices that drawing up any budget, whether it's for a household or the federal government, usually entails.

There's only one catch: The reserve funds are empty.
If Congress wants to fill them, it will have to do what it has tried to avoid: cut from defense or domestic programs, raise taxes or borrow the money and drive up the deficit.

I'm going to continue researching this. But I wanted to share.

Oh Good. The president is going to do something about jobs. Again.

If a mechanic kept promising to repair your car, and kept messing it up, would you keep paying?

In 2009, Barack promised to create jobs and reduce the deficit, in an address to congress:

Now is the time to act boldly and wisely -- to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now is the time to jumpstart job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. That is what my economic agenda is designed to do, and that is what I'd like to talk to you about tonight.

Then he promised to attack jobs in 2010.

Now, as we stabilized the financial system, we also took steps to get our economy growing again, save as many jobs as possible, and help Americans who had become unemployed.

Wait... maybe we can get him saying that he won't rest until he gets us a job?

Oh.

Look, its 2011. We don't need more promises/ plans/ from the guy who spent $787 Billion and couldn't keep unemployment under the 8%.

At some point in time, do you stop listening to the mechanic who keeps promising to fix your car?

Or are you different?

Do you give your keys to the mechanic, again, pay again, and presume that this time... he's going to get it right?

Going back in time: What Obamanomics was supposed to do

I've mentioned before that sometimes I just use my blog to keep tract of links.

In this case, its because someone I know is trying to argue that Obamanomics is a term that Fox News uses.
Let me make this clear; they aren't arguing that Fox News is one of many places that uses Obamanomics. They are arguing that its mostly Fox that created the term, and uses it to bash the economic policies of Obama.

So let's go over who used the term in 2008. -And while we're at it, let's see what people predicted would happen under Obamanomics.

Of course, there was the uber-conservative Firedoglake:

Obama’s tax plan will put more of the burden on the rich, he will raise the minimum wage, make unionization easier and generally help workers. The effect won’t be large, but for the poorest workers and for unions, it will be noticeable.

In this disjointed article, the author suggests that the biggest problem with Obamanomics is that Obama wants to give money back to the people... which is... bad. The author argues that the people don't know how to spend their money right. Ooookay.

August 2008, Counterpunch uses the term. They talk about how Obama has spent time speaking about deficit (cough cough!) reduction:

Obama also embraces some elements of deficit reduction in his thinking. That’s not wrong in principle. Lower deficits can strengthen the value of the dollar, making imports less expensive. Lower federal budget deficits can make it harder to justify fiscal austerity that shrinks needed social welfare, training or public investments of various kinds. Government borrowing can crowd out private sector borrowing, making investments more costly.

Thank goodness that Barack isn't raising the deficit?

Then there was The Economist, who had to say this about the president's economics:

As the battle for the Democratic nomination reaches a climax in Texas and Ohio, the front-runner's speeches have begun to paint a world in which laid-off parents compete with their children for minimum-wage jobs while corporate fat-cats mis-sell dodgy mortgages and ship jobs off to Mexico.

To be fair, he hasn't changed that economic narrative.

Mark Green, from Air America, on the Huffington Post, referring to Krugman on Obamanomics:

Also, studies have shown that the GDP under Democratic presidents has been more than 300% higher than under Republican presidents. So whenever McCain falsely aserts that Obama will raise everyone's taxes or that he'll balance the budget by 2013 despite cutting revenues by several hundred billion annually, the affirmative answer is -- Democrats grow the economy far more than Republicans. 300% more. For the most recent example, contrast Clinton and Bush.

Whew. Then the economy is getting far better. Right. errr... right?
That's the problem with Democratic predictions. Its never their fault that things didn't turn out that way.

In These Times, on Obamanomics:

Obama would certainly shift government priorities to improving job prospects and raising living standards for American workers. He proposes raising the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour, offering refundable $4,000 tax credits for college, expanding the childcare tax credit, reforming bankruptcy laws, rebuilding infrastructure, establishing a new employee savings plan and investing in alternative energy to create “millions of new green jobs.”

Reminder; his economic policies were supposed to keep the unemployment rate under 8% too. But that's just window dressing.

Here is a completely laughable article by the economic writer for the New York Times, on what Obama is planning:

All of this raises the question of what will happen to the deficit. Obama’s aides optimistically insist he will reduce it, thanks to his tax increases on the affluent and his plan to wind down the Iraq war. Relative to McCain, whose promised spending cuts are extremely vague, Obama does indeed look like a fiscal conservative.

A fiscal conservative. Who raised the debt by $3.4 Trillion in 2 years. Here was the hint... in the same article:

“I still would have probably made a slightly different choice than Clinton did,” Obama said. “I probably wouldn’t have been as obsessed with deficit reduction.”

Uh, yeah.
Well, aren't we all glad that worked out so well?

Barack: Don't raise taxes during a recession

In August of 2009, Barack was interviewed by Chuck Todd on the economy. When it came to the issue of raising taxes on the wealthy, Barack was asked by Scott Ferguson to:
Explain how raising taxes on anyone during a deep recession is going to help with the economy.
Barack answered that it would be a mistake to raise taxes at that time. He said that it would cost jobs:

Well, first of all, he is right. Normally, you don't raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven't and why we have instead cut taxes. So I guess what I would say to Scott is his economics are right, you don't raise taxes in a recession. We haven't raised taxes in a recession. ...
...So he is absolutely right, the last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up — take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.

Huh.
That was August of 2009.
What changed?