Fishnet Friday

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1.4 Billion in Perks for the First Family

Diogenes

While the country is struggling in a recession made worse by Obama's economic policies, the first family is living high on the hog like no other occupants of the White House before. In a new book Presidential Perks Gone Royal by Robert Keith Gray, he details the exorbitant amount of money the taxpayers are shelling out for travel and comfort for Bo and Mo and the brood each year. 

"Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks."

"In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million on the royal family...."

Gray also says taxpayer dollars are subsidizing Obama’s re-election effort when he uses Air Force One to jet across the country campaigning.

"When the trip is deemed political, it’s customary for the president to pay the equivalent of a first class commercial ticket for certain passengers. But Gray says that hardly covers the taxpayer cost of flying the president and his staffers around on Air Force One.

“When the United States’ billion-dollar air armada is being used politically, is it fair to taxpayers that we only be reimbursed by the president's campaign committee for the value of one first-class commercial ticket for each passenger who is deemed aboard ‘for political purposes?’” Gray asks in the book......

Read More Here

"Doing this to us too, eh Mr. President?"

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Electoral College Model Predicts Romney Win

Human Events

"Professors Ken Bickers and Michael Berry, of the University of Colorado, have a system for predicting the Electoral College outcomes of presidential races. Their model has accurately forecast the winner of every presidential race since 1980. According to an article published by UC-Boulder, they even got the Perot-flavored election of 1992, and the Bush-Gore photo finish in 2000, right.

This year, the Bickers-Berry model shows Mitt Romney winning with 320 electoral votes to Obama’s 218, with a 20-vote margin of error. A popular vote margin of 53-47 percent in Romney’s favor is predicted.

The Bickers-Berry model draws upon a wide range of state and national economic data, rather than collating public opinion polls. It anticipates little lasting effect from factors such as the location of the party conventions, the vice-president’s home state, the party affiliation of state governors, or – according to Bickers – “gaffes, political commercials, or day-to-day campaign tactics.” He finds the focus of voters upon big issues “heartening for our democracy.”

The Associated Press notes that “the model does not account for sudden changes in the economy or unexpected developments in states split 50-50.” There appear to be quite a few states fitting that definition at the moment. The Bickers-Berry model has Obama losing almost every swing state, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida.

Interestingly, the model predicts different partisan effects for two key economic factors: “Voters hold Democrats more responsible for unemployment rates while Republicans are held more responsible for per capita income.” That’s obviously not good news for President Obama, who has made double-digit unemployment a permanent feature of the American landscape.

The forecast that has Romney winning with 320 electoral votes is based on five-month-old economic data, with an update planned for late September. Maybe Romney will do even better, when even more dismal Obama economic data is plugged into the Bickers-Berry model.

On the other hand, the professors note that it’s hard to predict if the public will judge the economy in “absolute” or “relative” terms – in other words, will they consider the totality of the Obama record, or will they accept a possible uptick in a few key indicators during October as encouraging signs that the President is turning around?"

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Where's Little Debbie?

Not much has been seen of lil' Debbie Wasserman Shitts lately - not since the DNC Obama Lovefest and Circle Jerk at least. Maybe it finally dawned on someone what a terrible liar and monumental embarrassment she has been. 

Or maybe it's just because of the permanent marker?

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He has become Obamandias

By Rosemary L.

Obama may have, quite bizarrely, won the Nobel Peace Prize – but the truth is that American nobility now lies in pieces on the ground.

Some are suggesting the attacks on American Embassy in Libya and the hate filled streets demonstrations in Egypt are the fault of Barack Obama – but nobody can avoid saying that last week’s tragedies are symptomatic of the abject failure of Obama’s foreign policies not just in northern Africa but around the globe.

Because of Barack Obama, the United States most important and traditional alliances are frayed, our iffy relationships have not improved and our adversaries are no less adversarial. Worse, all three groups seem to respect us less, and those evil regimes that once feared us now seem to hold us nearly in contempt.

Never has the United States been less associated in foreign minds with human rights – not after Obama watched impassively as Iran murdered its citizens in the streets, as Syria does the same and as Moammar Ghadafi did for weeks in Libya itself until Obama finally decided whose side he was on.

Obama also repeatedly has failed to stand up for religious liberty around the world, especially for Christian Copts. (The one exception is that Obama always goes out of his way to kowtow to Islam, even going so far as to make Islamic suck-up a prime mission for NASA. Not that it has done him or us any good, as last week’s events demonstrate.)

Liberal human rights advocates presume an opposition between human rights and American military strength (although Ronald Reagan merged the two very well), but Obama has pulled off the neat feat of downgrading human rights and American might at the same time.  Our mission in Afghanistan is ill-defined and increasingly confused. We left Iraq ignominiously before reaching agreement with the Iraqi government on policing issues – and now Iraq is hurdling towards either civil unrest or horrid repression.

Russia and China repeatedly snub their noses at us, as if our objections to their behavior are utterly inconsequential. Latin American radicals like Ecuador’s Correa and Venezuela’s Chavez still spew anti-American hate, despite all of Obama’s hapless “outreach” to the supposedly dispossessed of the world. And, of course, the “Arab Spring” sure as hell isn’t flowing the way the Muslim-friendly Obama wanted, as is evident in the embassy attacks last week. Even as he bows and kisses their rings, they still show contempt for everything American.

Meanwhile, our allies are left deprived . Obama has treated Poland incredibly shabbily; he effectively insulted Great Britain by returning Churchill’s bust and insulted the queen by “gifting” her with a mere iPod of his own (!!!) speeches. Eastern Europe as a whole begs for our friendship, but gets the back of Obama’s hand. Even Mexico feels slighted, as indicated by a scathing statement from the Mexican ambassador with regard to the Obama-Holder Fast and Furious gun-running scandal.

All of which begs the question: Where are American interests better off than they were four years ago?

It would be a challenge for any serious observer to name a single significant country or area of the globe where the United States is now stronger than before Obama began Occupying the Oval Office. Yet, many places exist where American interests are now much weaker. His self-referential monuments of words lie weakened and worn out. His apology tour has achieved nothing for the United States but disdain. He refuses to meet with world leaders at the U.N. 

He has become Obamandias, his sneer of cold command looking over ruins

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The Democrats Worst Records

The Morlock Revolution

"I was in a record store yesterday and I found these classic vinyls from the past. I can't believe they put this out! But they do deserve a listen. Even to remind ourselves never to record their voices again." - Morlock

See the rest @ the Morlock Revolution

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Complaints Mount Against Michelle Obama’s New Lunch Menu

Townhall.com

"In Wisconsin, high school athletes are complaining about not getting enough to eat each day, due to the skimpy new school lunch menu mandated by the United States Department of Agriculture and First Lady Michelle Obama. 

The story we published earlier this week on that subject is unfortunately not unique. Students across the country are complaining about the new school lunch regulations.

Perhaps the real motive is to starve students into slimming down. Just ask students in Pierre, South Dakota who, too, are in an all-out revolt.

"I know a lot of my friends who are just drinking a jug of milk for their lunch. And they are not getting a proper meal," middle school student Samantha Gortmaker told Keloland.com.

Despite the fact that the new regulations have increased the cost of a lunch 20 to 25 cents per plate, it’s not pleasing students.

 Some are throwing away their vegetables while others are adapting to the rules by becoming industrious. In New Bedford, Massachusetts, students have created a black market - for chocolate syrup."

Read the Rest of the Story 

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Obama Declines Girl Scout Cookie Offer - Blames Bush Tax Cuts

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Islam and Counterparts on the Political Left

Dr. Sanity

"Americans apparently are not permitted, even in our supposedly free society, to say anything nasty about Islam, Mohammed or Allah. On the other hand, it goes without saying that Christianity, Jesus and God are fair game for attack.

Americans are not permitted to question how peaceful Islam is--even when hordes of its adherents appear to believe that it is not only "OK" to kill innocents in the name of their vicious god, it is a moral imperative to do so.

And, Americans, at least, no longer have to wait for CAIR or other "peaceful" Muslim advocacy groups (it's in quotes because the juxtaposition of "peaceful" and "Muslim" is oxymoronic) to file the appropriate complaint with the appropriate politically correct organization in the oh so politically correct Obama administration--We have a President and a Justice Department who will do it for them!

Can a UN Resolution denouncing blasphemy against Islam be far behind? And, why wouldn't Obama and his UN mouthpiece Susan Rice (who beclowned herself on all the networks recently) support such a resolution in solidarity with the "peaceful" nations of Islam who are demanding that this happen, even as they persecute Christians and Jews and any other religious beliefs in their own countries, cites and homes.

As the late Christopher Hitchens noted "The useless and meaningless term Islamophobia, now widely used as a bludgeon of moral blackmail, is testimony to the effectiveness of all of the horrific violence and intimidation, including public beheadings" done in the name of Islam's god.

 The truth is that "Islamophobia" is not a phobia at all......"

Keep Reading

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A Good Monday Morning

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Louvre Opens Islamic Art Wing to the Public

The Muslim Mona by 
Abdul Da Vinci

France 24.com - Paris's famed Louvre museum on Saturday opened to the public a new wing of Islamic art in a bid to improve knowledge of a religion often viewed with suspicion in the West.

Costing nearly 100 million euros ($131 million), it is funded by the French government and supported by handsome endowments from Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Kuwait, Oman and Azerbaijan. About 3,000 precious works from the seventh to the 19th centuries are spread across 3,000 square metres (33,000 square feet) over two levels of the former palace.

Inaugurated by President Francois Hollande on Tuesday, the new wing holds 18,000 treasures from an area stretching from Europe to India and includes the oldest love letter in the Islamic world. Denise Spacensky, one of the first visitors Saturday, said the opening came at an opportune time "with everything that is happening in the world", stressing that the exhibits show "Islam as a refined, peaceful civilisation".

Read More Here

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Romney Must Win to Save Supreme Court

Matthew N.

Matthew's Week End Commentary

The Lunatic Asylum 

One aspect of the upcoming Presidential election that has received little attention is the subject of the Supreme Court.

And why shouldn't this topic be getting short shrift? After all, we'd apparently rather argue over who has released more tax returns, or at least that's what your Obamaniac American Press would have you believe really counts, notwithstanding the debate over whether this or that act of Muslim fundaMENTAList murder is terrorism or not, our government deciding to harass and censor a citizen to appease the Arab Street, or celebrating yet another successful Obamatard appearance on Letterman. We're kinda busy, you know, debating the important stuff, and the Supreme Court is about 10,546th on our list.

Or at least it's that low on the media's list.

There is the possibility that the next President of the United States may get to fill as many as three vacancies on the Supreme Court during his term, as old age and illness, one assumes, begin to wear down the court's membership.

These three justices are:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 79, and in poor health (she has battled colon cancer since 1999). This Clinton-era appointee is both the oldest and most liberal member of the court. She is also one of the greater proponents for using foreign legal process and precedent to 'inform' the opinion of the Supreme Court, including Sharia law.

Antonin Scalia is 76, and is currently the longest-serving justice, appointed by Reagan in 1986.Scalia is a stalwart defender of federalism who believes the Constitution means what it says, and where it doesn't say anything, it's not the Court's job to fill in the blanks, especially in a half-assed, seat-of-your-pants fashion, which is how we got the 'right' to an abortion and Affirmative Action, among other things. Scalia (along with Clarence Thomas) has been the most reliable conservative vote on the court.

Anthony Kennedy is also 76, and has been, since his elevation to the court, the one Joker in the deck, the wild card, that has probably done more to keep certain, more egregious, aspects of the Libtard agenda alive. particularly with his expansive and elastic view of the 14th Amendment. Conversely, (or perhaps 'perversely') Kennedy is a great proponent of the ' if the Police want to do it, then it's okay, no matter what it is' school of justice, which means he can be considered a serious threat to civil liberties.

Barack Obama has already installed two Associate Justices, the 'Wise Latina' Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, both of whom have been, for the most part, invisible. In part, because both have had to recuse themselves from quite a few cases, having advocated on behalf of the either the cause or the principles in their past as Libtard judicial crusaders. Obama, basically, has nominated two compromised Justices who cannot do their jobs when it comes to subjects like Gay Marriage, Affirmative Action, First Amendment law, and most recently, ObamaCare (Kagan had been Solicitor general under Obama, and had argued the preliminary ObamaCare folderol before the Court, but still cast a vote in the decision, anyway), however, in true Obama-administration fashion, that apparently doesn't matter since both can be relied upon to at least vote the 'right' way.

The next President has the opportunity to replace two of the more liberal votes on the Supreme Court, while shoring up the republican/conservative/federalist position in a third, and do so for at least the next three decades.

Yes, the current, fragile state of the economy is important. Certainly the debate about Barack Obama's incredibly naive approach towards relations with the Muslim World needs to be talked about, too, but hanging over this like a Sword of Damocles is the possibility that an Obama victory gets to stack the Supreme Court in favor of continued stupidity for decades.

If Romney loses, we lose the America we once knew, and there will be little to no possibility of getting it back. That was an America where the Constitution once ruled, and while the Court might stretch a few penumbras and call into being various emanations in order to justify that which was politically expedient, there at least seemed to be a point beyond which no Justice would go.

If there is anything that my experience with raving lunatic liberals has taught me, it is this: they have no boundaries, no sensibilities, no sense of proportion, no idea of how the real world operates. Even more clueless that the typical libtard is the Ivy-League-Educated Legal Eagle who has made his or her (it's usually a 'her') living within the Ivory Tower, or in the pursuit of ensconcing this or that liberal cause du jour into the living stone of American Jurisprudence, no matter how dangerous, how unhealthy, how ultimately oppressive it might become. Because it's never about fairness and equality with these people; it's always about using power to dictate to others for the benefit of the libtard, and about establishing new frontiers in depravity.

An Obama victory in November puts the institution of the Supreme Court into the hands of people who have no moral compass when it comes to the exercise of power, apparently go through life thinking that consequences are unimportant, and that no matter what stupidity they rain down upon us, they can be excused from it's more onerous circumstances for they hold the 'right'; position, even when that position needs to change one day to the next in order to remain part of the ruling clique.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Which is why Romney ought to take the goddamned kid gloves off, and start tearing Mr. I'm-not-really-a-President-but-I-did-stay-at-a-Holiday-Inn-Last-Night a new one just about every day. There's more at stake here than what meets the eye.

Crossposted @The Lunatic's Asylum

Matthew is a friend and weekly contributor to DMF
Please stop by and give him a shout at the above link

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Traumatized for Life in 3.....2......1...

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It's Time to Step It up, Mitt

 Diogenes

Once you take into account the usual post-convention bounces in poll numbers, it is fair to say that the gap between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney remains within the margin of error. Last weeks weak job numbers, however, guarantee that the economy will remain the priority issue for most voters, and the race is expected to stay a close one until the first debate between the two candidates.

 
This being said, this election will be about more than economic indicators at the end of the day. Character and vision will take on an importance of their own when we enter debate season. Mitt Romney still hasn’t succeeded in conveying a clear idea of the kind of president he will be.

After the last three years Obama cannot regain the luster of 2008, where his historic quest attracted a herd of new sheep, and he hasn't succeed in showing that he has a record and accomplishments to defend. The Republican account of a Carter-like leader with a far left radical agenda seems to be a narrative that (conveniently filtered through the media) plays only to hard core conservatives. Against the record of the Golfer and Chief, a more compelling Romney should have given the Romney a decided advantage coming out of the convention season. But that did not happen.

Focus is now shifting to the first presidential debate, which will be held on Oct. 3. Until then, both parties will concentrate on the key swing states, with Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina, Wisconsin and New Hampshire quite possibly shaping the outcome of the election.

Unlike Sarah Palin in 2008, it appears that vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan seems to not have generated enthusiasm beyond the Republican base, but could play a part in bringing support in swing states. Palin had her shortcomings, but it is on the record that her performance at the RNC in 2008 gave a needed post-convention bounce to the Republican ticket. The failure of Lehman Brothers in mid September 2008 did much to curb that enthusiasm, but Ryan, a far superior candidate than Palin, seems listless at this stage of the campaign. Hopefully the debates will show the enthusiastic Rep. Ryan of the congress.

Joe Biden may sometimes appear over-exuberant, and he does convey the aura of a crazy uncle who had one to many after dinner, but is we saw in 2008, if he can find the podium , he's a decent debater.

So the first debate will become a make or break moment for Romney-Ryan. Romney has steadfastly held to his position on his tax returns until Saturday, but has failed to give the country a clear Romney at this late stage of the campaign.

No matter how well Romney does in the debates, the media will not admit he did well, but the first debate will give him another opportunity to engage with the American public without a filter. 

It might be his last chance.

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Democrats and their "new normal" economy

City Square

A variety of news articles are talking about high unemployment and slow growth being the "new normal" for the US economy. They are echoing Pres. Obama from his 2010 interview on CBS's 60 Minutes. As reported by the Washington Post:

 "What is a danger is that we stay stuck in a new normal where unemployment rates stay high," Obama said in an interview on CBS's "60 Minutes."People who have jobs see their incomes go up. Businesses make big profits. But they've learned to do more with less. And so they don't hire. And as a consequence, we keep on seeing growth that is just too slow to bring back the 8 million jobs that were lost."

Notice Obama's exceptionally superficial economic analysis. The economy is stagnating, he claims, because businesses have "learned to do more with less" as if competitive businesses had ever behaved otherwise.

 The liberal concept of a "new normal" and its substitution for rational economic thought is not new. Michael Barone, for example, reviews  the 1930s and how liberals at that time also thought that stagnation was the new normal:

"Why did Roosevelt's second term turn out so poorly? Basically, because his policies were so unpopular. His 1935 labor act led to violent sit-down strikes in auto, steel and rubber factories, in which union victories were resented by the wider public.

His high tax rates on high earners -- the great white whale of the Ahab-like Obama -- plus something called the excess profits tax and the threat of onerous new regulation discouraged business investment, leading to what some called a capital strike.

In that setting, many liberals, as historian Alan Brinkley writes, "reached the pessimistic conclusion that stagnation had become the normal condition of modern industrial economies."

Sounds like Bill Clinton's argument: No one could do better. Democrats do the same thing (pursue anti-business policies) over and over again and each time are surprised to find the same result (economic stagnation). Apparently, talking about "new normals" is a psychological defense mechanism that allows their minds to avoid reaching the obvious conclusions.

Image via Moonbattery

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