NYC Letter: The Smartest Guy In The Room -- Newfangled Technology

Day 1,325 of CHOPE
D-minus 131 Days

Travails Of The Forward Thinker Edition

One of my predecessors, President Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone: "It's a great invention but who would ever want to use one?" That's why he's not on Mt. Rushmore. He's looking backwards, he's not looking forward.

Mr. Obama,
the smartest guy in the room, using Mr. Hayes
as a foil for his own edgy forward-thinkiness
LARGO, Maryland March 15, 2012 (Politico)

Mr. Obama got that wrong and fun was had at his expense. Mr. Obama, of course, is a high-tech savvy president who has charged his administration to cherry-pick tomorrow's technology winners with billions in "investments" (scil., taxpayer dollars) to elevate them above the bother of market competition; companies like Solyndra, Abound Solar, and Ener1, all of which, regrettably, have gone bust (along with these).

This is a president that is not afraid to spend (your) money and try his hand at new technology.

TECH CHALLENGE: OBAMA HAS TROUBLE WITH iPHONE

PORT ST. LUCIE, Florida September 9, 2012 (TWT) - On the campaign trail, President Obama is constantly talking about the importance of technology, but he met his match in an iPhone Sunday.

The president had stopped at a campaign office in Port St. Lucie, Fla., to thank volunteers. Then, for the cameras, Mr. Obama was supposed to call two campaign workers who were out working on his behalf.

But when White House trip director Marvin Nicholson handed the president his personal iPhone, Mr. Obama couldn't get it to work. A reporter who witnessed the scene said the president looked "befuddled."

"It's not clear he knows how to dial on an iPhone," the reporter wrote in a pool report.

Finally, Mr. Obama said, "Oh, I got to dial it in. Hold on, hold on. I can do this. See, I still have a BlackBerry."

The president then "had a little more trouble dialing," the pool report said.

THE "B" IS FOR BIRCHARD, NOT BLACKBERRY
This President Could Dial A Phone
[Picture source: quickmeme.com]

The president then has more trouble dialing. When the call didn't go through, he blamed Mr. Nicholson for having an insufficient cell phone plan.

Good to know, like everything else, NOT Mr. Obama's fault. Mr. Nicholson is probably the same guy that's screwed up the economy the past three+ years also.

Then there are presidents who embrace -- and master -- new technology (via Ed Driscoll).

Finally, this forward-thinker scold from the smartest guy in the room:

With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.

Mr. Obama,
advancing an information theory
based on his ignorance
HAMPTON, Virginia May 9, 2010 (The Atlantic)

CHOPE.

Give him a minute. Technology is hard. Can you come back later?

NYC Letter: The Common Man Presidency XIII -- Smooth Ride

Day 1,289 of CHOPE
D-minus 167 Days

They don't get us, they don't get who we are. They don't understand, it seems to me. They're not bad, they just don't get it.

Joe "Marie Antoinette" Biden,
VP and blue collar empath, bemoaning the
working class "ungettability" of Republicans
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio May 16, 2012 (Examiner/YouTube)

One thing "they" don't get is public beach closings for a private swim. Another is on-demand public road maintenance for a smooth ride to fundraisers.

PATRICK DEFENDS REQUEST TO HAVE POTHOLES
FILLED AHEAD OF MICHELLE OBAMA VISIT

BOSTON July 19, 2012 (CBSB) - Gov. Patrick confirmed to WBZ-TV his staff asked town officials to fill all the potholes on the road that leads to his home in Richmond, which is a town in Western Mass. First Lady Michelle Obama will be there for a $20,000-a-seat fundraiser for the president’s campaign on Aug. 3.

... "I took the opportunity as a citizen to say you could actually repair the potholes we’ve been bumping over," Governor Patrick told WBZ NewsRadio 1030’s Lana Jones. The governor denied receiving any special treatment.

"I think any citizen gets to ask to have repairs made on his street," he said.

The repairs, according to the Boston Herald, will only cost a couple hundred dollars.

Any citizen can ask -- and we imagine the locals asked -- but obviously the governor pulls some weight.

WITH POTHOLES FIXED, MRS. O’S TRIP IS...
NO SHOCKS, ALL STRUTS

RICHMOND August 4, 2012 (BH) - The five-car motorcade chauffeuring the first lady to a $20,000-a-seat fundraising dinner at Patrick’s Sweet P Farm encountered hardly a bump on the 11.2 mile trip from Pittsfield on the once-rough and tumble back roads, the [Boston Herald] review found.

... The Herald reported last month that Patrick’s office personally asked town officials to dispatch road crews to patch up at least five potholes on Furnace Road near his Berkshires manse.

Richmond Town Administrator Matthew Kerwood said yesterday he was proud to work with Patrick "to make sure the first lady’s trip to Richmond — which in our opinion is a one-time event for the first lady of the United States to come to the town of Richmond — to make sure her trip was pleasurable and smooth."

... But despite all the controversy and hard work on the nearby streets, the end of Michelle Obama’s trip was likely jarring — the driveway to the sprawling estate is a bumpy dirt road.

It is ironic that Governor Patrick, as a private citizen, didn't spend a dime of his money to make repairs to his own road for the last mile of Mrs. Obama's ride.

Mrs. Obama visited Richmond in her capacity as a campaign mooch not FLOTUS. We are happy that the governor's office and the local government's civic pride combined to finally provide the taxpayers of Richmond the level of service they pay for and deserve. We are dismayed those services must wait on celebrity visits, big shots, and star-struck administrators.

PAVEMENT FIT FOR A QUEEN
Providing The Little People The Services They Deserve
[Picture credit: Michael Ramirez/IBD; Original hat tip: Duncan]

We're just not that far removed from what most Americans are going through.

Mr. Obama,
millionaire, employed with perks,
and living large, stooping to empathize
GOOD MORNING AMERICA INTERVIEW
WASHINGTON July 23, 2010 (ABC News)

Just like you if you're them.

CHOPE.

It's good to be the queen.

NYC Letter: Trust Team Barry, Part XXI -- "A Step In The Right Direction"

Day 1,261 of CHOPE
D-minus 195 Days

Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics ("BLS") released its employment summary for June. The bad news, unemployment remains at 8.2%. The good news, that's a step in the right direction.

We learned this morning that our businesses created 84,000 [sic] new jobs last month, and that overall means that businesses have created 4.4 million new jobs over the past 28 months, including 500,000 new manufacturing jobs. That's a step in the right direction. (Applause.) That’s a step in the right direction.

Mr. Obama,
doing the Pollyanna two-step
REMARKS AT A CAMPAIGN EVENT
POLAND, Ohio June 6, 2012 (White House)

In case of a lapse in attention, Mr. Obama repeats his winning line, the jobs report numbers is "a step in the right direction". To push things along, Mr. Obama adds an additional 4K to the BLS June "jobs created" tally (80K). Although if Mr. Obama is going to pull jobs out of thin air, why limit himself to a paltry 4K? At the least why not pull the 45K differential to keep June job creation pari passu with population growth (125K jobs/month)?

Here are some BLS June highlights of Mr. Obama's "step in the right direction":

• The unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent.
  
• The number of unemployed persons (12.7 million) was essentially unchanged.
  
• The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was essentially unchanged at 5.4 million.
  
• Both the civilian labor force participation rate and the employment-population ratio were unchanged in June at 63.8 and 58.6 percent, respectively.
  
• The number of involuntary part-time workers was essentially unchanged at 8.2 million.
  
• In the second quarter, employment growth averaged 75,000 per month, compared with an average monthly gain of 226,000 for the first quarter of the year.
  
• Slower job growth in the second quarter occurred in most major industries.
  
• The unemployment rate for blacks (14.4 percent) edged up over the month.
  
• The unemployment rate for adult men (7.8 percent), adult women (7.4 percent), teenagers (23.7 percent), whites (7.4 percent), and Hispanics (11.0 percent) showed little or no change.

Except for higher black unemployment and the 69% decline in quarterly job growth, nothing much has changed. All those "unchanged" metrics add up -- somehow -- to Mr. Obama's "step in the right direction". [Pause.]

WHITE HOUSE ON WEAK JOBS REPORT:
'DON'T READ TOO MUCH' INTO IT

July 6, 2012 (ABC News) - The White House urged Americans unsettled by the latest weak jobs figures — just 80,000 added to the payrolls in June -- not to "read too much" into any single monthly report. President Barack Obama, chasing votes on a bus tour in Ohio, was expected to address the latest sign of an anemic recovery that threatens his shot at reelection.

Alan Krueger, chairman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers:

While the economy is continuing to heal from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, much more remains to be done to repair the damage from the financial crisis and deep recession that followed. ... It is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.

... It was the third straight month that the Labor Department reported poor hiring.

Where have we heard that "don't read too much into the monthly jobs report" before? And before and before and before and before and before...

OBAMA ADMIN HAS WARNED
"NOT TO READ TOO MUCH"
INTO MONTHLY JOBS REPORT 30 TIMES
DATING BACK TO NOVEMBER 2009
July 6, 2012 (Weasel ZIppers/OIW)

For that matter, where have we heard "right direction" reassurances before? Oh! Way back here and here in 2009! A year later still "heading in the right direction" (and here). And last year, too! Mr. Obama has the economy moving in the right direction. It just never arrives.

More "right direction" headlines.

DISABILITY RANKS OUTPACE
NEW JOBS IN OBAMA RECOVERY

July 6, 2012 (IBD) - More workers joined the federal government's disability program in June than got new jobs, according to two new government reports, a clear indicator of how bleak the nation's jobs picture is after three full years of economic recovery.

... The disability ranks have outpaced job growth throughout President Obama's recovery. While the economy has created 2.6 million jobs since June 2009, fully 3.1 million workers signed up for disability benefits.

In other words, the number of new disability enrollees has climbed 19% faster than the number of jobs created during the sluggish recovery.

780,000 MORE WOMEN UNEMPLOYED
TODAY THAN WHEN OBAMA TOOK OFFICE
July 6, 2012 (CNS News)

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S
WORST JOBS REPORT
IN TWO-YEARS
July 6, 2012 (RedState)

Is there no good news to be spun?

WH: AT LEAST THE ECONOMY
IS STILL GROWING
July 6, 2012 (Politico)

Now, economic growth is no substitute for job growth.

Mr. Obama,
anticipating years in advance and confounding
his administration's lame spin
WEEKLY ADDRESS
WASHINGTON October 31, 2009 (White House

Finally, if 80K new jobs is a "step in the right direction" for monthly job creation, what is the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs in a single month? [Hint: It's a trick answer.]

A: Not good enough.

OBAMA 2004: DISMISSES JOB CREATION
OF 310,000 NEW JOBS UNDER BUSH

July 6, 2012 (RCP) - After the economy added 310,000 jobs in May 2004 and the unemployment rate was 5.6%, then-candidate Barack Obama used the Democrat weekly radio address to attack the Bush administration for citing good economic numbers. Mr. Obama from Democrats’ radio address, June 26, 2004:

For the past few weeks, President Bush and members of his administration have traveled the nation to celebrate recent improved economic statistics. Well, I’ve been traveling too, all over this large and diverse state. In cities and suburbs, downstate and upstate, I’ve heard from people who say it’s way too early to claim victory when it comes to our economy.

Today Mr. Obama can only dream of 5.6% unemployment while bragging under 9% is pretty good.

CHOPE.

Moonwalking in the right direction.

NYC Letter: Hot/Cold, Part I Redux

Day 1,248 of CHOPE
D-minus 208 Days

The reality is that we are running out of time. Earlier this month, a 25-mile-wide ice bridge connecting the Wilkins Shelf to the Antarctic land mass shattered, disconnecting a shelf the size of Connecticut from the Antarctic continent.

John "Henny Penny" Kerry (D-MA),
alerting us to the end of ice
WASHINGTON April 22, 2009 (Boston Globe)

It's the title bout Henny Penny and Goosey Loosey dread! Government-grant-adjustable Chicken Little climate models vs. ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC MEASUREMENTS!

Background here.

ANTARCTIC ICE SHELVES
NOT MELTING AT ALL,
NEW FIELD DATA SHOW

June 25, 2012 (Register) - Twenty-year-old models which have suggested serious ice loss in the eastern Antarctic have been compared with reality for the first time - and found to be wrong, so much so that it now appears that no ice is being lost at all.

"Previous ocean models ... have predicted temperatures and melt rates that are too high, suggesting a significant mass loss in this region that is actually not taking place," says Tore Hattermann of the Norwegian Polar Institute, member of a team which has obtained two years' worth of direct measurements below the massive Fimbul Ice Shelf in eastern Antarctica - the first ever to be taken.

According to a statement from the American Geophysical Union, announcing the new research:

It turns out that past studies, which were based on computer models without any direct data for comparison or guidance, overestimate the water temperatures and extent of melting beneath the Fimbul Ice Shelf. This has led to the misconception, Hattermann said, that the ice shelf is losing mass at a faster rate than it is gaining mass, leading to an overall loss of mass.

The team’s results show that water temperatures are far lower than computer models predicted.

... The boffins also supplemented their data craftily by harvesting info from a biology project, the Marine Mammal Exploration of the Oceans Pole to Pole (MEOP) effort, which had seen sensor packages attached to elephant seals.

... This is good news indeed, as some had thought that huge amounts of ice were melting from the region, which might mean accelerated rates of sea level rise in future.

B-b-but Mr. Kerry is an informed Senator with access to top-drawer scientific research! He sits on both the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard and the Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure. As a responsible member of these subcommittees it is inconceivable that he would raise an alarm -- advance legislation -- based on faulty science, on non-existent facts, on nothing more than liberal hysteria. [We check the headlines.] Oh. Scratch that.

KERRY SLAMS ‘DISGRACEFUL’ CLIMATE DENIAL

June 19, 2012 (The Hill) - Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Tuesday said there’s a "calculated campaign of disinformation" on climate change that has stalled action on the issue and endangered the country. Mr. Kerry:

In the United States, a calculated campaign of disinformation has steadily beaten back the consensus momentum for action on climate change and replaced it with timidity by proponents in the face of millions of dollars of phony, contrived 'talking points', illogical and wholly unscientific propositions and a general scorn for the truth wrapped in false threats about job loss and tax increases. ... We are living through a story of disgraceful denial, back-pedaling and delay that has brought us perilously close to a climate change catastrophe.

Kerry’s push for a sweeping climate and energy bill collapsed in 2010. His speech comes as climate legislation remains moribund on Capitol Hill and Republicans are seeking to nix the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate emissions from power plants and factories.

Here's one of those disgraceful, back-pedaling delayers.

'GAIA' SCIENTIST JAMES LOVELOCK:
I WAS 'ALARMIST'
ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

April 23, 2012 (MSNBC) - James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his "Gaia: theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being "alarmist" about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too. Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared. Mr. Lovelock:

The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened. The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now. The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising -- carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that.

He pointed to Gore’s "An Inconvenient Truth" and Tim Flannery’s "The Weather Makers" as other examples of "alarmist" forecasts of the future.

... As "an independent and a loner", he said he did not mind saying "All right, I made a mistake." He claimed a university or government scientist might fear an admission of a mistake would lead to the loss of funding.

CHOPE.

"The reality is that we are running out of time." The reality is Mr. Kerry has run out of reality.

NYC Letter: To The Barricades! -- Jesse Jackson

Day 1,242 of CHOPE
D-minus 214 Days

Jesse "Nut Cutter" Jackson doesn't want you to legally own a gun. He doesn't want you to learn how to correctly maintain and safely handle a gun. Most important, he doesn't want you to know how to shoot a gun accurately and with confidence. He has put out the call and his minions are somewhere assembling to swarm gun shops and shooting ranges across America in protest!

[Pause.] Everywhere apparently but Detroit.

JESSE JACKSON'S IMPOTENT PROTEST
AGAINST GUN RANGES IS A BUST
Three Protesters; Jesse Jackson A No-show

DETROIT June 18, 2012 (ammoland.com) - This past Saturday, the anachronistic and increasingly irrelevant Reverend Jesse Jackson called for an anti-violence rally against 25 gun ranges in the United States.

... According to the puzzling logic of Jackson, the local communities where the targeted gun shops operate are stifling the creation of jobs, which if you believe Jackson, is the root cause of urban violence. Somehow, Jackson manages to ignore the fact that these gun ranges employ people, including African Americans like myself, who pay taxes. Also, those very same businesses pay income taxes and collect sales taxes on relatively expensive products.

... Moreover, Jackson’s so-called rally at the Action Impact gun range did have an unintended effect. He actually brought the so-called divided people - whites and blacks - together to mount a counter-protest. Jackson’s designated minion, the Operation Push Detroit Chairman, and two other people doubling as props were given a most proper reception from about 50 freedom and gun loving folks of all hues.

... Of all the media that covered the story, only one outlet (CBS Detroit), had the integrity to even mention that there was a counter-demonstration that also significantly outnumbered Jackson’s three stooges. Furthermore, other mainstream media stations grossly inflated Jackson’s camp at a tally of twelve – a far cry from the actual number of three.

Why does Mr. Jackson not want you to have a gun? Because it's bad for crime. And that's bad for business.

GUN OWNERSHIP UP, CRIME DOWN
FBI Violent Crime Rates Show Safer Nation
With More Gun Owners

OP-ED June 19, 2012 (TWT) - Gun-control advocates are noticeably silent when crime rates decline. Their multimillion-dollar lobbying efforts are designed to manufacture mass anxiety that every gun owner is a potential killer. The statistics show otherwise.

Last week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that violent crime decreased 4 percent in 2011. The number of murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults all went down, continuing a pattern.

"This is not a one-year anomaly, but a steady decline in the FBI’s violent-crime rates," said Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the National Rifle Association. "It would be disingenuous for anyone to not credit increased self-defense laws to account for this decline."

... The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence did not respond to requests for comment.

... If the gun grabbers were right, we’d be in the middle of a crime wave, considering how many guns are on the streets. "Firearms sales have increased substantially since right after the 2008 election," said Bill Brassard, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which represents the $4 billion firearms and ammunition industry. "There was a leveling off in 2010, but now we’re seeing a surge again."

... Gun manufacturing is the one private-sector industry "doing fine" on Mr. Obama’s watch. ... Mr. Obama could honestly take credit for this jobs program, economic boost and the reduction in violent crime that has followed the spike in gun ownership on his watch. Instead, he’s silent about his greatest positive accomplishment.

When violent crime goes down, Mr. Jackson is denied the liberal argument that guns, not bad people, are responsible for violent crime. Guns leap into people's hands and then fire themselves. Historic levels of legal gun ownership in tandem with violent crime trending down spoils Mr. Jackson's fairy tale.

CHOPE.

Guns kill people. Bad people are the victims of availability.

NYC Letter: Shop And Compare -- Job Creation

Day 1,239 of CHOPE
D-minus 217 Days

After selling a $862B stimulus to cap unemployment at 8% and glide to 5% by 2014 (with today's unemployment forecasted at a wistful 5.8%), unemployment has been 8% or above for every full month of Mr. Obama's presidency (41 months).

FIGURE 1
[Graphic Source: Job Impact Of The American Recovery
And Reinvestment Plan, January 9, 2009]

What to do? Spend even more money or curtail government involvement?

Shoppers, see our specials in the left and right aisles.

Left Aisle Same Old Same Old Special.

In the President's Weekly Address this Saturday, Mr. Obama made this fantastic claim.

Last September, I sent Congress a jobs bill full of the kinds of bipartisan ideas* that could have put over a million Americans back to work and helped bolster our economy against outside shocks.

... Since then, Congress has passed a few parts of that jobs bill, like a tax cut that's allowing working Americans to keep more of your paycheck every week. But on most of the ideas that would create jobs and grow our economy, Republicans in Congress haven’t lifted a finger. They’d rather wait until after the election in November.

Regular readers may recall that Mr. Obama waited almost a year after the mid-term elections to gin up his junk jobs bill and it was his Democrat Senate that dilly-dallied and blocked a vote on the bill. Mr. Obama's jobs bill was a cheaper version of the shovel-ready panacea from his pricey failed stimulus bill. We remarked at the time:

What has gone largely unremarked is that Mr. Obama wouldn't have had to deliver a big jobs plan last night if his first big jobs plan had created real jobs over the past two years. We are baffled, perhaps you are too, how this rehashed jobs plan at half the cost is going to best the original $862B flop.

Apparently Mr. Obama thinks not-good-enough will make a compelling argument for a second term.

The economy is growing again, but it’s not growing fast enough. Our businesses have created 4.3 million new jobs over the last 27 months, but we’re not creating them fast enough. And we’re facing some pretty serious headwinds – from the effects of the recent spike in gas prices, to the financial crisis in Europe.

Oh. Yeah. Those perennial headwinds. If Mr. Obama's best argument is that he can't do better if he faces challenges, he needs to find another job.

OBAMA'S RATINGS SINK
ON ECONOMIC DOUBTS

WASHINGTON June12, 2012 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's approval ratings have dipped to their lowest level since January on deep economic worries, wiping out most of his lead in the White House race over Republican rival Mitt Romney, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Tuesday.

The percentage of Americans who approve of Obama's job performance dropped from 50 a month ago to 47, matching his mark in early January. The number who think the country is on the wrong track rose 6 percentage points in a month to 63 percent.

INDEPENDENTS SAY OBAMA
HURTS JOB CREATION

WASHINGTON June 15, 2012 (Reuters) - Fifty-two percent of independents said they agreed with the idea that the president has not helped create more jobs in America, an argument central to Romney's campaign.

Obama appears to have trouble convincing some members of his own party that his administration has been good for jobs: 29 percent of Democrats said they agreed with the claim that he has not been a job creator.

With the unemployment rate at 8.1 percent, the Obama campaign maintains that 4.2 million private-sector jobs have been created since he entered office in January 2009, although roughly as many have been lost.

Right Aisle Pinky Lift Special.

The Republican-controlled House has passed 27 bipartisan* jobs bills that date back to last year. Not one of these bills has been voted on in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

------------------------------------

All items priced equally at one vote. Sorry, only one purchase per shopper. Purchase must be made November 6.

CHOPE.

Clean up in aisle 44.

------------------------------------
* Mr. Obama generalizes historical Republican votes to make his "bipartisan ideas" claim. For example, because Republicans voted for the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, any federal infrastructure spending is a "bipartisan idea". Neither Mr. Obama's stimulus nor his jobs bill enjoyed bipartisan support.

On the other hand, the Republican claim is based on actual Democrat votes for the specific bills.

NYC Letter: Joe On The Job XXVI -- "New Sheriff In Town"

Day 1,232 of CHOPE
D-minus 224 Days

They don't get us, they don't get who we are. They don't understand, it seems to me. They're not bad, they just don't get it.

Joe "Marie Antoinette" Biden,
VP and empath, bemoaning the Republican
"ungettability" of the working class
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio May 16, 2012 (Examiner/YouTube)

Mr. Biden gets it. [Pause.] As much of it as he can.

First, a reminder.

You can't get corporate jets...on the taxpayers' dime. (Applause.) There's got to be some accountability and some responsibility, and that's something that I intend to impose as President of the United States. (Applause.)

Mr. Obama,
establishing his administration's principles
of oversight for the taxpayers' dime
ELKHART, Indiana February 9, 2009 (White House)

BIDEN SPENDS $1 MILLION ANNUALLY
FOR WEEKEND TRIPS

WASHINGTON June 4, 2012 (Newsmax) - Last June, President Obama appointed Vice President Joe Biden to root out wasteful government spending. But behind the scenes, it’s a different matter.

Every Friday, Biden takes a helicopter designated as Marine Two from the vice president’s residence to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and then hops on Air Force Two to fly back to his home in Delaware. At the end of the weekend, he returns on Air Force Two, usually a Boeing C-32.

During warm weather, Biden regularly returns to Andrews on the airplane on Saturdays to play golf at the Air Force base with President Obama. After the golf game, he flies back to Delaware and returns to Washington on the plane on Sunday evening — all at taxpayer expense.

The cost of flying Air Force Two is $22,000 an hour, so each half-hour trip to or from Delaware costs about $10,000. Each golf game costs taxpayers $20,000. At that rate, the annual cost to taxpayers of Biden’s weekend trips is well over $1 million.

... Biden’s press office had no immediate comment.

... As a U.S. senator, Biden was proud of the fact that he commuted daily by train from his home in Delaware to Washington during the week. Amtrak named the newly renovated Wilmington station the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Railroad Station. But after taking office as vice president, a Secret Service agent says Biden began the pattern of commuting on Air Force Two on weekends, costing taxpayers close to $4 million so far.

... Last June 13, Obama placed Biden in charge of a Campaign to Cut Waste, which will "hunt down and eliminate misspent tax dollars in every agency and department across the federal government," according to the White House website.

... Asked if President Obama thinks these costs are appropriate, why he has not questioned Biden flying to play golf with him at a cost of $20,000 per game, and in view of these costs of $1 million a year for weekend trips, whether the vice president should no longer be in charge of cutting government waste, the president’s press office had no immediate comment.

In an email, Biden told supporters that he was the "new sheriff in town". He said that "particularly at a time when we’re facing tough decisions about reducing our deficit, it’s a no-brainer to stop spending taxpayer dollars on things that benefit nobody."

There certainly are perks attending the job of VP, though not everything characterized in the above story is a perk. Secret Service details are necessities and the golf games are at Mr. Obama's beck, nolens volens. However, Mr. Biden presents himself as one of the middle-class ("They don't get us, they don't get who we are."), an empathic politician fighting for the working stiff.

Messrs. Obama and Biden hide behind "tax the rich" rhetoric, yet conspicuously spend the taxpayers' money to live the high life while in office. [Pause.] They can't have it both ways. That they try is evidence that "they don't get us, they don't get who we are".

We often wonder why Democrats, the purported party of the working class, can't manage a little moderation in keeping with the mood and condition of the country for the short tenure of high office. Mr. Obama constantly harps on today's hard times but always seems to be on his way to the links or celebrity one-percenter galas, not the usual preserves of the working class.

Mr. Bush by comparison led a subdued presidency. He raised more money with half the effort of today's money-trotting Mr. Obama and without turning the Lincoln Bedroom into a Motel 6 ATM.

CHOPE.

Working class poseurs.

NYC Letter: On The Fail Trail -- "The Private Sector Is Doing Fine"

Day 1,232 of CHOPE
D-minus 224 Days

Who knew?

(A) Q: What about the Republicans saying that you're blaming the Europeans for the failures of your own policies?

The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone.

The private sector is doing fine.

-----------[Postprandial fast forward.]-----------

(B) Q: Mr. President, Mitt Romney says you're out of touch for saying the private sector is doing fine. What's your response?

Listen, it is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine. That's the reason I had the press conference. That's why I spent yesterday, the day before yesterday, this past week, this past month, and this past year talking about how we can make the economy stronger.

The economy is not doing fine. There are too many people out of work. The housing market is still weak and too many homes underwater.

Mr. Obama,
(A) extolling his record
WASHINGTON June 8, 2012 10:40A EDT
(White House)
(B) enumerating his record
WASHINGTON June 8, 2012 2:48P EDT
(White House)

The Obama "It's A Floor Wax AND A Dessert Topping!" economy.

[ROTFLMAO Republicans pick themselves up off the floor.]

Let the shredding begin!

"DOING FINE"
But Not So Fine

SEN. MCCONNELL ON OBAMA:
"HE MUST BE ON ANOTHER PLANET"

June 8, 2012 (RCP) - Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) responds to President Obama's address made Friday morning in which he urged Congress to take action on jobs and said the private sector was "doing fine". Mr. McConnell:

Well, the President must be on another planet. I mean we just--you just saw the jobs figures last Friday. To argue that the private sector is in good shape. It seems to me as to be completely disconnect from reality. We've got a very, very sluggish economy; a very slow growth rate. We're just barely bumping along and I commend his creativity in trying to find some bright spots, but I don't think very many Americans see any.

BOEHNER: MR. PRESIDENT,
"THE PRIVATE SECTOR IS NOT DOING WELL"

June 8, 2012 (RCP) - Speaker John Boehner delivered the following remarks today at a press conference responding to President Obama's claim that -- after 40 months of unemployment above 8 percent and with millions of Americans out of work -- the "private sector is doing fine."

Mr. President, I used to run a small business. And Mr. President, take it from me, the private sector is not doing well. Listen, the American people are still asking the question, "where are the jobs?"

... We also know that the president’s health care law is making it harder for small businesses to hire, and we know that it must be repealed in its entirety.

Mr. Romney is proving to be an agile campaigner. He quickly had a well prepared response out hammering a single take-away -- before Mr. Obama had a chance to walk back the claim.

ROMNEY: "IS HE REALLY THAT OUT OF TOUCH?"

BLOG June 8, 2012 (Hot Air) - It didn’t take long for Mitt Romney to hit the hanging curve Barack Obama threw earlier today in his press conference. Speaking in [Council Bluffs] Iowa, a key swing state in the election, Romney asked whether any American President has been more out of touch with economic reality:

Now this morning, the President had a press conference. I don’t know if you heard it, but he called a press conference and pulled people in and said a number of things, and one of the most interesting things he said was this: he said the private sector is doing fine. He said the private sector is doing fine. Is he really that out of touch? I think he’s defining what it means to be detached and out of touch with the American people.

Has there ever been an American president who is so far from reality as to believe in an America where 23 million Americans are out of work, or stopped looking for work, or can only find part-time jobs and need full-time jobs, where the economy grew in the first quarter of the year at only 1.9 percent, where the median income in America has dropped by 10% over the last four years, where there have been record number of home foreclosures.

For the President of the United States to stand up and say the private sector is doing fine is going to go down in history. It’s an extraordinary miscalculation and misunderstanding by a President who is out of touch, and we’re going to take back this country and get America working again.

The RNC was also quick on the draw and put out this same-day "Doing Fine" spot. Romney 2012 is shaping up as a much more formidable opponent than McCain 2008, while Campaign Barry looks more and more like the reeling Mr. McCain they beat. Campaign Barry can't play defense.

Mr. Obama has stumbled into Joe "Never Made Any Big, Big Gaffes" Biden territory. He has been forced to do a major walk-back that all but kills Campaign Barry's own "out of touch" attacks on Mr. Romney and has -- by his own self-congratulatory pat-on-the-back Pollyannaism -- turned the focus from his "vision thing" to the economy and his record. That, of course, is a losing argument for Mr. Obama.

Sign-off brag:

We own the economy.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL, 20th),
DNC chair and proud owner of the Obama economy
WASHINGTON June 15, 2011 (Politico)

CHOPE.

The President From Another Planet.

NYC Letter: The "Bad Luck" Economy Redux

Day 1,225 of CHOPE

D-minus 231 Days
Check Out The Obamaclock!

The Friday jobs report belied the "robust recovery inching along" fairy tale. Now we are back to the "bad luck economy" story line.

MISERABLE MAY JOBS REPORT SUGGESTS
U.S. IN RECESSION RED ZONE
By James Pethokoukis

June 1, 2012 (AEI) - The econ team at Barclays Capital sums things up nicely (bold for emphasis):

The May employment report suggests that the labor market recovery has lost significant steam in recent months. In our view, this raises the likelihood that the Fed will embark on a renewed round of policy easing, although market developments and the tone of other economic data in the coming weeks remain important. … In the establishment survey, payrolls rose just 69k, well below the 150k we and the consensus had expected and the weakest since May 2011. The details were equally soft, not least the 38k downward revision to April (to 77k from 115k), which followed an eight-month sequence of upward revisions to the previous month. By sector, goods-producing firms cut 15k jobs, with a 12k rise in manufacturing more than offset by a 26k drop in construction. This can no longer be put down to weather effects to any significant degree so it would appear that construction employment prospects remain very weak … The picture of lost momentum was also evident in hours worked data. The workweek fell one tenth to 34.4 hours and aggregate hours worked rose just 1.0% 3m/3m, down from 3.0% in April. … Bottom line: A clearly soft report that suggests a loss of momentum in the labor market recovery across jobs, hours worked and the unemployment rate.

So what is the true state of the labor market?

• [T]he participation rate usually falls during recessions. Yet even if you discount for that and the aging issue, the real unemployment rate would be 9.5%.
  
• We continue to be stuck in the longest period of 8% unemployment or higher since the Great Depression, 40 consecutive months.
  
• And, as the above chart shows [See here, Figure 1A.] — originally from Obama economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein in January 2009 — the current 8.2% unemployment rate is 2.5 percentage points above where Team Obama predicted it would be right now if Congress passed his trillion-dollar stimulus plan. [Current unemployment is 1.7% above where Team Obama predicted it would be right now if Congress didn't pass the stimulus plan.]
  
• The median duration of unemployment rebounded to 20.1 weeks in May, and 42.8% were unemployed for longer than a half year.

The big question now: Does this report suggest the U.S economy is heading into recession, especially given the sharp slowdown in global economic activity from Europe to India to, perhaps most worrisome, China?

Consider this: Last year, the U.S. grew at just a 1.7% pace. Research from the Federal Reserve finds that that since 1947 when year-over-year real GDP growth falls below 2 percent, recession follows within a year 70 percent of the time. We are firmly within the Recession Red Zone.

The political implications are clear: If the White House wasn’t already in a panic about the spring swoon, it sure is now. Another Recovery Bummer. If you punch in a mild recession into the highly regarded Fair-Yale forecasting model, Mitt Romney wins 53-47 over Obama in the two-party vote share. But given the example of Jimmy Carter, who suffered a mild recession in his 1980 reelection year, the Fair model might be underestimating the damage to Obama from a double dip.

And the jobs bad news came on top of growth bad news.

Q1 GDP REVISED DOWNWARD TO 1.9%
BLOG May 31, 2012 (Hot Air)

Team Barry came out spinning:

Obama blamed the dismal numbers on challenges posed by Europe and the spike in gasoline prices earlier this year, yet stressed that the true roadblock are House Republicans who have refused to pass measures to improve infrastructure, boost local government employment, back tax breaks to help hiring and clean energy, and refinance mortgages at cheaper rates for homeowners.

Mr. Obama trots out "challenges posed by Europe" only for bad economic news. News with any sunshine potential -- or at least not obviously damning -- is attributable to the policy genius of Team Barry. Europa gets no mention as an impediment. Europa's crises are not new, but Mr. Obama only thinks to mention them when he has to explain his own poor performance.

Alan B. Krueger, chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, said in a statement that the nation’s economic woes "were long in the making and will not be solved overnight."

"We are still fighting back from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression," Krueger said, putting the best spin on the numbers by adding, "Today we learned that the economy has added private sector jobs for 27 straight months, for a total of 4.3 million payroll jobs over that period. The economy is growing but it is not growing fast enough."

"There is much more work that remains to be done to repair the damage caused by the financial crisis and deep recession that began at the end of 2007," he said. "It is critical that we continue the President’s economic policies that are helping us dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the severe recession."

... Austan Goolsbee, the former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, stressed that the economy simply hasn’t improved at a fast enough pace to spur hiring.

... White House spokesman Josh Earnest stressed to reporters at a Friday briefing that "the longer term trends still indicate that we have an economy that is adding jobs. It’s readily apparent we’re not adding jobs" at a fast enough pace.

As we have argued elsewhere (and here and here), that the economy isn't growing fast enough, hasn't improved fast enough, that jobs aren't being added at a fast enough pace are not excuses, they are admissions that Team Barry cannot get the job done.

Team Barry has constantly oversold a strong recovery. They oversold it before it arrived. They oversold it when it was supposed to arrive (and this). They continue to oversell it when it has yet to arrive.

When bad news persists, Team Barry reminds us things "won't be solved overnight". To which Allahpundit at Hot Air remarks:

Anyone want to try defining "overnight" for me, just so that we have a rule of thumb going forward? On Inauguration Day, I would have accepted "2009" or even "his first two years in office" as plausible answers. Instead, five months out from election day, somehow dawn still has yet to break. His braintrust is now actually on the cusp of arguing, in all seriousness, that it’s unfair to judge him on what’s happened in the jobs market over the course of his entire first term.

"Won't be solved overnight." Mr. Obama took that winning message on the road Friday, attending a record six-in-one-day fundraisers to beg for money to be re-elected to a second term of excuses.

CHOPE.

The 4-year overnight.

NYC Letter: Smallness Of Spirit -- Mr. Obama Hosts The Bushes

Day 1,224 of CHOPE

D-minus 232 Days
Check Out The Obamaclock!

Thursday Mr. Obama hosted the unveiling of the official WH portrait of George W. Bush. We wish we could say that Mr. Bush had found a master portraitist in John Howard Sanden, but the paintings of Mr. & Mrs. Bush* look like magazine art circa 1960s.

But the paintings were not the tackiest element of the unveiling.

BLAMER IN CHIEF?

May 31, 2012 (TWS) - At the unveiling of former President George W. Bush's official portrait at the White House this afternoon, President Barack Obama joined his predecessor and their wives in delivering brief (and at times nice, cordial, and funny) remarks. But there was a seemingly out of place moment during the ceremony when Obama seemed to veer into reiterating his frequent trope that he inherited a bad economy from Bush.

"The months before I took the oath of office were a chaotic time," Obama said, after explaining that the president's job is isolating, and that he and Bush have a connection since so few have held the job. "We knew our economy was in trouble, our fellow Americans were in pain, but we wouldn't know until later just how breathtaking the financial crisis had been."

This is Campaign Barry boilerplate. Mr. Obama has on a number of occasions claimed that he didn't know how bad the economy was, that he did know how bad it was, that it wasn't as bad as was thought, and that it was worse than anyone thought. Of course it can't be true that he both knew and didn't know, that things were both better and were worse. But Mr. Obama's truths are not constant. They are accommodating.

That Mr. Obama injected his jarring "gosh, I was dealt a bad hand after I checked the hole card" canard into a strictly ceremonial event is just crass. Mr. Obama can't stop making everything about himself. And he can't turn off the Bush blame for a few hours out of one day set aside to honor the man he simply cannot resist denigrating.

Disappointing even for Mr. Obama.

CHOPE.

Tacky.

------------------------------------
* Mrs. Bush's portrait captures nothing of the former First Lady. It is a poor likeness (the painter appears to have broken her nose), badly posed, and badly painted. It conveys none of Mrs. Bush's presence, none of her personal appeal.

NYC Letter: Smart Power -- Let's Talk

Day 1,223 of CHOPE

D-minus 233 Days
Check Out The Obamaclock!

It's ridiculous not to talk with hostile nations.

Q: Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous. ... And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them.

Mr. Obama,
then-candidate, repudiating the silent treatment
for chat-up diplomacy
FIFTH DEMOCRATIC DEBATE
CHARLESTON, South Carolina July 23, 2007 (CFR/CNN/YouTube)

So. Let's talk.

PUTIN REJECTED OBAMA'S WHITE HOUSE
TALKS OFFER: KREMLIN

MOSCOW May 29, 2012 (Strait Times/AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month rejected an offer from United States (US) President Barack Obama for landmark bilateral talks at the White House, the Kremlin revealed on Tuesday.

Less than a week before Mr Putin's May 7 inauguration, he received a missive from Mr Obama touching upon bilateral and international issues and inviting him to discuss them in a bilateral summit on the sidelines of the May 18 to 19 G8 summit, Mr Putin's foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said.

'Obama sent his letter on May 2,' Mr Ushakov told a briefing. 'He even proposed holding a separate meeting at the White House in Washington outside of the framework of the G8.'

How ridiculous! But that won't stop Mr. Obama from seeking out Mr. Putin -- because Mr. Obama is the bigger man. Oh. Wait.

OBAMA NOT EXPECTED TO ATTEND
TRADE MEETING IN RUSSIA

May 14, 2012 (The Hill) - White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that, at this point, the president doesn't have any foreign travel scheduled for September, when the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting is scheduled to take place in Vladivostok.

"The fact of the matter is we have a comprehensive relationship with Russia that's built on working together in areas where we agree and that has borne significant successes," Carney told reporters during a flight up to New York on Monday.

He said the two nations have been careful not to let disagreements undermine their overall relationship.

No biggie. Talks are for "areas where we agree", so that narrows talks to near zero. And what do Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin need to talk about? Mr. Obama has already rewarded Mr. Putin's pouting. Gratis.

CHOPE.

Tit-for-tat diplomacy.

NYC Letter: The Obama Economy, Part XVI -- The Post-it Agenda

Day 1,222 of CHOPE

NEW FEATURE! D-minus 234 Days
Check Out The Obamaclock!

Special Post-it Note Leadership Edition

Mr. Obama has tried his hand at bandwagon-leadership, leadership-from-the-wings, leadership-from-behind, leadership-from-behind-Bill-Clinton, leadership-from-behind-Joe-Biden, leadership-by-extortion, leadership-on-vacation, leadership-on-the-links, the novel leadership-from-the-window, and the more usual no-leadership-leadership. Lately he is giving leadership-by-post-it-note a go.

A post-it is a small repositionable paper rectangle with a low-tack gum strip on the back. It is used for attaching document annotations, desk calendar notes, refrigerator reminders, and presidential legislative agenda.

OBAMA: MY TO-DO LIST FOR CONGRESS
IS 'THE SIZE OF A POST-IT NOTE'

ALBANY May 8, 2012 (The Hill) - An at-times sarcastic President Obama on Tuesday prodded Congress to take “bold action” to help the economy, arguing an election year is "no excuse for inaction."

Speaking at the University of Albany, Obama mapped out a what he called a "handy little 'to-do' list" for Congress, while swiping Republicans on Capitol Hill for standing in the way of his agenda during a down economy.

"Today, I'm announcing a handy little to-do list that we put together for Congress," said Obama. "You can see it for yourselves at WhiteHouse.gov. It’s about the size of a Post-it note, so every member of Congress should have time to read it and they can glance at it every so often."

And again, Mr. Obama in Joplin, MO, May 21, 2012:

"Together, you decided that this city wasn’t about to spend the next year arguing over every detail of the recovery effort," he said "At the very first town meeting, every citizen was handed a Post-It note, and asked to write down their goals and their hopes for Joplin’s future."

He then added that he was "thinking about trying this with Congress — give them some Post-It notes."

The post-its have gone out. Things should be happening now.

OBAMA'S 'TO-DO' LIST FINDS FEW TAKERS

WASHINGTON May 29, 2012 (Roll Call) - It fits on a Post-it note, but some lawmakers are still confused by what’s on President Barack Obama’s "to-do" list — and so far, neither chamber has scheduled a vote on any of the five items the president has urged them to tackle "right now".

... [S]everal Senators confessed to Roll Call that they don’t know what is on the to-do list anyway, despite several speeches in which Obama has urged his followers to tweet, call, write and email lawmakers urging them to take it up.

"Didn’t we do some things he wanted us to do?" asked Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA). "[Export-Import] Bank, that doesn’t count? That wasn’t on the to-do list?"

No. The president wanted that, too, but it’s not on the list.

"Do you have a copy of the to-do list?" Landrieu asked.

After a reporter told her what was on the list, she quipped, "We’re adding to that list by doing some great things."

"I don’t have a copy of it; I’m sure my staff does," said Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), when asked when the Senate might get to it.

"We’ve got June, July. We’ve got some time. What time frame did he put on that to-do list?"

When told the president said the to-do list could be done "now", Casey joked, "Now is a very expansive term. It’s not even the summer yet."

"Didn’t we just try to move on student loans. Wasn’t that on his list?" asked Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI).

No, that’s a separate priority.

"You’d have to ask Harry Reid" why the list hasn’t moved, Levin said.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air comments:

All three of these examples, it should be noted, are members of Obama’s own political party. They control the Senate, which means that the President’s legislative agenda should have no problem getting to the floor, unless it’s so out of step with reality that no one wants to move it. In this case, it appears at least so far out of step with his own Democratic allies that they haven’t bothered to learn it. Not only that, but clearly Obama’s stump-speech exhortations to support his agenda are failing miserably at getting a response.

Obama has no one but himself to blame for this irrelevancy. He set the stage himself with two successive budgets that were so ridiculously burdened with debt that neither got a single vote in three separate attempts — not even from anyone in his own party. ... [I]t sends a pretty clear signal that the White House has no real clue about the political temperature in either party, and as such have made themselves largely irrelevant in the budgeting process. Budget agreements now get made between John Boehner and Harry Reid thanks to Obama’s ridiculous offerings on spending, and Obama would have to sign whatever comes out of those negotiations or take the blame on himself for a shutdown.

Meanwhile, stick Mr. Obama's post-it on the manaña-manaña calendar.

Senate Democratic Conference Vice Chairman Charles Schumer (D-NY)...said he hopes they can take it up soon, provided they can find the time to do it.

... Senate Democratic aides tried to minimize any talk of a rift with the White House, suggesting that they will eventually get to the to-do list. And the White House says it’s working to get votes.

CHOPE.

Post-it-sized leadership.

NYC Letter: Trust Team Barry, Part XIX -- Stumping Memorial Day

Day 1,222 of CHOPE

UPDATE 05.30.12: Welcome, Hot Air folk. (The Obamateurism actually beat our post.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

It being an election year Mr. Obama forwent the links and gave a stump qua Veterans Day qua Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery.

This bright pledge caught our eye.

"As long as I'm president, we will make sure you and your loved ones will receive the benefits you've earned and the respect you deserve," Obama said. "America will be there for you."

And later at the Vietnam War Memorial, this:

When your government didn’t live up to its responsibilities, you spoke out -- fighting for the care and benefits you had earned... Let’s resolve to take care of our veterans as well as they’ve taken care of us -- not just talk, but actions.

Team Barry twice has tried to cut the defense budget on the backs of active military and veterans. Right out of the gate, veterans were thought to be easy marks.

SENATORS SLAM PLAN FOR WOUNDED VETS
TO USE PRIVATE INSURANCE

WASHINGTON March 10, 2009 (CNN) - Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance.

But the proposal would be "dead on arrival" if it's sent to Congress, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, said. ... "I believe that veterans with service-connected injuries have already paid by putting their lives on the line," Murray said in her remarks. "I don't think we should nickel and dime them for their care."

Eleven of the most prominent veterans organizations have been lobbying Congress to oppose the idea. In the letter sent last week to the president, the groups warned that the idea "is wholly unacceptable and a total abrogation of our government's moral and legal responsibility to the men and women who have sacrificed so much."

Trouble eliminating veteran benefits? Team Barry went to the source of the problem and encouraged eliminating veterans.

This year Team Barry had another go at reducing benefits, broadening the hit to both active military and veterans.

TRASHING TRICARE
Obama To Cut Healthcare Benefits For
Active Duty And Retired Us Military

February 27, 2012 (WFB) - The Obama administration’s proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers’ benefits untouched. The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials. Several congressional aides suggested the move is designed to increase the enrollment in Obamacare’s state-run insurance exchanges.

In both cases the imagined savings were minuscule compared to Mr. Obama's junk spending (and this).

The strength of Mr. Obama's pledges goes a ways toward explaining this:

ROMNEY TOPS OBAMA BY 28 POINTS
AMONG MALE VETERANS

POLL May 28, 2012 (The Hill) - A new Gallup poll released on Memorial Day shows male veterans breaking strongly for Mitt Romney over President Obama.

The presumptive GOP nominee receives support from 58 percent of all veteran registered voters surveyed to Obama's 34 percent. Among non-veterans though, Obama holds a four point edge, with 48 percent to Romney's 44. Gallup says veterans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population.

CHOPE.

Empty pledges.

NYC Letter: Investing With Team Barry, Part II -- "The Future Is Here."

Day 1,218 of CHOPE

Half a billion dollars doesn't buy much future nowadays.

(The long overdue Solyndra post, condensed into a handful of headlines and links.)

TWO YEARS AGO TODAY:
OBAMA CELEBRATES SOLYNDRA

May 26, 2012 (WaEx) - Two years ago today, May 26, 2010, President Obama traveled to Fremont, California to showcase a "brighter and more prosperous future" promised by the green-energy company Solyndra. Mr. Obama:

The true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra... Less than a year ago, we were standing on what was an empty lot. But through the Recovery Act, this company received a loan to expand its operations. This new factory is the result of those loans. ... When it’s completed in a few months, Solyndra expects to hire a thousand workers to manufacture solar panels and sell them across America and around the world. (Applause.)

... Every day that you build this expanded facility, as you fill orders for solar panels to ship around the world, you’re demonstrating that the promise of clean energy isn’t just an article of faith -- not anymore. It’s not some abstract possibility for science fiction movies or a distant future -- 10 years down the road or 20 years down the road. It’s happening right now. The future is here. We’re poised to transform the ways we power our homes and our cars and our businesses. And we’re poised to lead our competitors in the development of new technologies and products and businesses. And we are poised to generate countless new jobs, good-paying middle-class jobs, right here in the United States of America.

The solar panel maker went bankrupt last year, taking with it $535 million in taxpayer-funded loan guarantees. More than 1,000 people lost their jobs. The Obama administration had cut corners to rush money to Solyndra, with some of the beneficiaries being top Obama fundraisers. Even as Solyndra failed, the administration considered giving it another $469 million.

Mr. Obama considered throwing good money after bad. What would you have had him do, let the future go out of business? Before an election?

From the moment I take office, my top priority will be to do everything I can to make sure your tax dollars are protected.

Mr. Obama,
then-candidate pledging tough,
accountable fiscal stewardship
LA CROSSE, Wisconsin October 1, 2008 (CNN)

Doing "everything I can" wasn't doing much.

TREASURY OFFICIAL HASN'T SEEN
LOAN LIKE SOLYNDRA

October 14, 2012 (WaEx) - A top U.S. Treasury official [Gary Bruner, chief financial officer at the Federal Financing Bank] has testified that never before in his 28 years at the department had a loan guarantee been restructured so that private investors could leapfrog over taxpayers to be repaid in a bankruptcy situation. At least, not before bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra.

SOLYNDRA TO AUCTION ASSETS,
BUT TAXPAYERS WON’T SEE A DIME
October 21, 2011 (Heritage)

BANKRUPT SOLYNDRA CAUGHT DESTROYING
BRAND NEW PARTS

FREMONT January 19, 2012 (CBS 5) - After filing for bankruptcy last year, Fremont solar company Solyndra still owes American taxpayers half a billion dollars. But CBS 5 caught them destroying millions of dollars worth of parts.

At Solyndra’s sprawling complex in Fremont, workers in white jumpsuits were unwrapping brand new glass tubes used in solar panels last week. They are the latest, most cutting-edge solar technology, and they are being thrown into dumpsters. ... And it’s not a few loads. Hundreds of thousands of tubes on shrink-wrapped pallets will meet a similar demise.

... Solyndra paid at least $2 million for the specialized glass. ... Solyndra still owes the German company that made the tubes close to another $8 million.

... Solyndra is not commenting. But court documents reveal the company received permission from the bankruptcy trustee to abandon the high grade glass, the court agreeing that it was of "inconsequential value" because the cost of storing them exceeds their value. An employee for Heritage Global Partners, the company in charge of selling Solyndra’s assets, told CBS 5 they conducted an exhaustive search for buyers but no one wanted them.

But how exhaustive was that search? The tubes were never included on the list of Solyndra assets put up for sale at two auctions last year.

On the plus side of wasting half a billion dollars is that consigning $8M of unpaid-for assets to the dumpster barely gets a shrug -- or a headline.

SOLYNDRA ABANDONS EFFORTS
TO GO CLEAN AND GREEN
Environmental Mess Left At Plant

February 23, 2012 (TWT) - [Solyndra] plans on paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean up its own property in Fremont, Calif., but a separate leased property in nearby Milpitas sits vacant with barrels of unknown chemicals and lead-contaminated equipment, attorneys for the landlord, iStarCTL I L.P., said in recent bankruptcy court filings.

... While Solyndra is paying to clean up its own property in Fremont in hopes of selling it, the company isn’t setting aside enough money to clean up the leased property, [iStar attorney Karen Bifferato] said. She argued that Solyndra should set aside funds in the bankruptcy to create an environmental remediation fund to cover the cleanup costs.

After bankrupting the company and destroying vendible assets, there probably wasn't any money left to be responsibly "green".

BONUSES GIVEN AFTER
RAISES AT SOLYNDRA

WILMINGTON February 22, 2012 (TWT) - Several of the nearly two dozen employees at bankrupt solar panel maker Solyndra LLC who were approved for bonuses Wednesday had months earlier received pay raises as high as 70 percent, a fact the company never disclosed in its request for bonus cash.

The company’s bankruptcy attorneys sought permission for the bonuses in a court hearing, arguing that the extra cash is needed to keep key employees from fleeing only to be replaced by more expensive outside consultants. ... But an attorney for fired Solyndra workers railed against the plan, saying several of the proposed bonus recipients had received significant salary increases even after the company went bankrupt.

The disclosure drew sharp criticism from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath, who called it "shocking" that the company had not disclosed the pay raises in its bonus request.

Solyndra attorney Bruce Grohsgal defended not including that information in the bonus request, saying the raises were given as part of the company’s ordinary course of business since the employees had taken on more responsibilities.

There was no thought we were hiding something.

Which is why Solyndra was caught out. Solyndra thought omission sufficient to hide the select few looting the till. Criminal management usually takes precautions not to be found out. When Solyndra went bust, the first priority was to bleed it further, paying out cash assets to management, spent cash being beyond the bankruptcy court. Precautions be damned!

What a colossal fail. Mr. Obama must be pretty contrite about the insider deals, the clueless central planning, the "orgasmic" excitement, the willful recklessness (and this), the half billion waste of taxpayer dollars, the push-back from Congress, the defalcations, the lost jobs, the environmental mess. Solyndra had it all!

OBAMA DOES NOT REGRET
BETTING ON SOLYNDRA
October 3, 2011 (CNET)

OK. So maybe not. The guy just never makes mistakes (and this).

For compulsive gamblers, every bet is a good bet. If the last one was bad, the next one will be good. The next bet is always the one sweet roll that gets you even, that makes you whole, that puts you ahead.

CHOPE.

The future is no longer here. The future is someplace else...Finland.

NYC Letter: Because He's All That -- Mr. Obama

Day 1,210 of CHOPE

The great make history. The not-so-great just tag along.

WHITE HOUSE APPENDS OBAMA POLICIES
TO ONLINE PRESIDENTIAL BIOGRAPHIES

May 15, 2012 (NYT) - Rory Cooper was searching for a detail about Calvin Coolidge [on the White House Web site], when he stumbled upon something unusual — a footnote likening Coolidge’s first public radio address to Mr. Obama’s use of technology in social media to engage the public.

"I thought it was funny," said Mr. Cooper, a spokesman for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, of his initial reaction in an interview on Tuesday. But his amusement faded when he found similar references tacked on to the biographies of Ronald Reagan and Lyndon B. Johnson.

He posted his observation in a message on Twitter, and it was quickly picked up by conservatives, who used the hashtag #ObamaInHistory to mock the White House for plugging its policies on the biography pages of every president since Coolidge, except Gerald R. Ford.

The White House added the footnotes on Monday in a section titled, "Did You Know?" under the official biographies, which were written by the historian Michael Beschloss and the journalist Hugh Sidey. A White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal operations told The New York Times and other news outlets on Tuesday that no biographies had been altered, and emphasized that the White House was simply adopting a promotion technique widely used on the Web.

"A promotion technique widely used on the Web". The mysterious WH official seems oblivious to the offense being "promotion" not "technique".

Mr. Cooper said the footnotes would not have passed muster during the administration of George W. Bush, for whom he worked for seven years because policy promotion was kept "completely separate from the historical narrative of the Office of the President."

We begin by noting there is no evidence Mr. Obama personally directed his staff to vandalize the presidential biographies. Bravo, Mr. President! That said, where did this brilliant idea originate? It was not a small project, involving as it did writing Obama brags to shoehorn into twelve presidential biographies. The brags must've been reviewed, by whom? Someone must've given approval to publish, how high up was the gatekeeper? Nothing set off alarm bells among the minions that grabbing unearned greatness-by-association might be unseemly?

What this does suggest is the prevalence of clueless arrogance at the White House.

White House website still hosting deceptive and dishonest presidential bios. Reagan's accurate bio must be restored.

— Rory Cooper (@rorycooper) May 17, 2012

Why stop with Coolidge? Why no brag kited to George Washington?

From the official WH George Washington biography:

He realized early that the best strategy was to harass the British.

Obama WH "Did You Know?" strap-on brag:

After lavished with unique gifts (an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet) from visiting PM Gordon Brown, Mr. Obama reciprocated on the cheap with a set of 25 DVDs. To spike the slight, the DVDs were not formatted for Euro-region players. Earlier Mr. Obama pled being pooped and passed on the customary diplomatic niceties when receiving Mr. Brown. Later in his presidency, Mr. Obama relocated the Falkland Islands to the Indian Ocean to further annoy the Brits.

From the official WH Rutherford B. Hayes* biography:

To the delight of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Lucy Webb Hayes carried out her husband's orders to banish wines and liquors from the White House.

Obama WH "Did You Know?" strap-on brag:

On December 13, 2010 Mrs. Obama celebrated her husband's signing of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (Pub.L. 111-296). She applauded the federal government's rightful oversight of what children can eat, declaring: "We can’t just leave it up to the parents." Least you think Mrs. Obama's anti-obesity and healthier eating campaigns are all about "complete, utter deprivation", she sets an example of balance by scarfing down 1,700 calories of fast food now and again and again.

And why skip Jerry Ford? From the official WH Gerald R. Ford biography:

As President, Ford tried to calm earlier controversies by granting former President Nixon a full pardon.

Obama WH "Did You Know?" strap-on brag:

On January 20, 2001, hours before leaving office, President Clinton granted a presidential pardon to Marc Rich, an international commodities trader and entrepreneur indicted for tax evasion and illegal oil deals with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. Mr. Clinton granted the pardon on the recommendation of Eric Holder, who advised Mr. Rich to circumvent standard procedures by submitting his petition directly to the White House. Mr. Holder is the current USAG serving in Mr. Obama's administration.

#Obamainhistory Washington could not tell a lie, Nixon could not tell the truth, Obama can't tell the difference

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 15, 2012

CHOPE.

Making history. And making up history.

------------------------------------
* More Rutherford B. Hayes fun (and this) from Quikmeme:

NON-INSERTIONIST

NYC Letter: Unforgettable -- Mrs. Obama

Day 1,204 of CHOPE

Michelle’s been by my side — and I’ve been at hers — for nearly 20 years now. She’s comforted me on tough days and given me inspiration. ... I know you appreciate her, too — so will you join me in wishing her a happy Mother’s Day?

Mr. Obama,
soliciting a donation under the pretense of signing
a Mother's Day e-card for Mrs. Obama
May11, 2012 (Weasel Zipper)

The woman in his life. She means so much. She is unforgettable. Most days.

OOPS, PRESIDENT OBAMA FORGETS THE FIRST LADY

COLUMBUS May 5, 2012 (ABC News) - President Obama appears eager to hit the trail on his first “official” day of campaigning. Shortly after landing in Columbus, Ohio, for his first rally, Obama walked off Air Force One under gray skies, ready to descend the stairs and greet some grassroots supporters. But after a few short steps, the president quickly doubled back, apparently realizing he had forgotten someone: the first lady.

A few moments later, the president and Michelle Obama emerged together at the top of the stairs.

Don't forget to send the money. Something else, something, else. [Pause to think real hard.] Oh! Right! Remember to sign Mrs. Obama's e-card.

CHOPE.

Unforgettable, unless separated. Inseparable, unless forgotten.

NYC Letter: Don't Know Much, Part IV -- Brent Spence Bridge III

Day 1,194 of CHOPE

Mr. Obama is cocooned from blowback from his errors, longueurs, misstatements, flubs, brain fades, snits, contradictions, fairy tales, phony claims and lies.* What has spun Mr. Obama's hermetic cocoon? His stifling outsized ego? The move-along-no-story-here press? A staff not up to correcting the boss? Whatever has spun his cocoon, it does not serve him well as he goes on to repeat the same errors, etc. To wit.

Last September to drum up support for his DOA jobs bill, Mr. Obama stood below the Brent Spence Bridge and bemoaned its "functional obsolescence" and suggested it was just the sort of project that would directly benefit from passage of his "shovel-ready" jobs bill. So c'mon let's pass that bill! [Suddenly the oxygen is sucked from the room.] Except the Brent Spence Bridge was in good repair, "functionally obsolete" referred to its load capacity, a second bridge was being built to relieve that load, that second bridge wasn't "shovel ready", and it didn't qualify for funding under Mr. Obama's jobs bill.

Background here.

Mr. Obama's little Brent Spence Bridge fairy tale earned him three Pinocchios from WaPo fact-checker Glenn Kessler. Mr. Kessler pulled his four-Pinocchio punch because Mr. Obama was employing "symbolism". And that should have been the end of the story. But Mr. Obama has come back for a four-Pinocchio encore.

I sent them a jobs bill that would have put hundreds of thousands of construction workers back to work repairing our roads, our bridges, schools, transit systems, along with saving the jobs of cops and teachers and firefighters, creating a new tax cut for businesses. They said no. I went to the Speaker’s hometown, stood under a bridge that was crumbling. Everybody acknowledges it needs to be rebuilt. Maybe he doesn’t drive anymore. Maybe he doesn’t notice how messed up it was. They still said no. There are bridges between Kentucky and Ohio where some of the key Republican leadership come from, where folks are having to do detours an extra hour, hour-and-a-half drive every day on their commute because these bridges don’t work. They still said no.

Mr. Obama,
blaming Republicans for his go-nowhere jobs bill
REMARKS AT THE BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION
TRADES DEPARTMENT CONFERENCE
WASHINGTON April 30, 2012 (White House)

The Fact Checker
OBAMA'S WHOPPER ABOUT
AN OHIO RIVER BRIDGE
By Glenn Kessler

April 30, 2012 (WaPo) - An administration official said the president was referring to the Sherman Milton Bridge, which actually connects Indiana and Kentucky, near Louisville. Back in September, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) had to shut down the bridge because a 2½ inch crack had been discovered.

... Shortly after the shutdown, a Transportation Department blog declared that this bridge was "another example of why this [the president’s jobs bill] is so crucial."

But here’s the rub: While Obama claimed "these bridges don’t work", the Sherman Milton Bridge has already been repaired, ahead of schedule, and motorists are driving over it again. It turned out that, rather than being an example of an aging bridge, the crack that had been discovered actually had been there ever since the bridge was constructed in 1962, because of the type of steel used at the time. Other repairs were ordered, and the bridge reopened nearly three months ago — without needing any of Obama’s jobs-bill funds.

Another nearby bridge, the Kennedy Bridge, will soon undergo redecking, but officials said the work will not lead to a shutdown. Again, the work is being done without Obama’s jobs-bill money.

... Calling out the Republicans at the Brent Spence bridge was bad enough, given the bipartisan support for its reconstruction. But pointing to the Sherman Milton Bridge, which already has been repaired without funding from the president’s jobs bill, is ridiculous.

Perhaps the president was using outdated talking points, but that’s little excuse. Given that the president earned Three Pinocchios before, we have little choice but to up the ante this time.

FINALLY! THE AWARD BEFITTING THE FAIRY TALE
There Is No Higher Rating

------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air summarizes:

Obama meant the Sherman Milton Bridge, which links Kentucky and Indiana, not Ohio. ... Obama got the geography wrong, got the bridge status wrong, got the problem wrong, and neither of the two projects need the funding he touted.

Leave it to Mr. Obama to do a thorough job of it.

CHOPE.

Cocooned.

------------------------------------
* Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has a whole collection of this stuff called Obamateurisms.

NYC Letter: Lost In The Great Big World -- The Falkland Islands

Day 1,178 of CHOPE

Don't know much about geography...

WONDERFUL WORLD
Recorded: Sam Cooke, 1959
Lyrics: Sam Cooke, Lou Adler, & Herb Alpert

The shortest distance between the Falkland Islands and the Maldives is an expanse of 7,166 nautical miles.* [Pause.] Who wouldn't confuse them? They're practically superimpositions.

BARACK OBAMA MAKES FALKLANDS GAFFE
BY CALLING MALVINAS THE MALDIVES

April 16, 2012 (Telegraph) - President Obama erred during a speech at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, when attempting to call the disputed archipelago by its Spanish name.

Spanish is hard.

Instead of saying Malvinas, however, Mr Obama referred to the islands as the Maldives, a group of 26 atolls off that lie off the South coast of India. The Maldives were a British protectorate from 1887 to 1965 and the site of a UK airbase for nearly 20 years.

Geography is harder.

Cristina Kirchner, the Argentine president, has renewed her country's sovereignty claim to the Falklands in the build-up to the 30th anniversary of the Argentine invasion of the islands, which triggered the Falklands War, on April 2. [Ed: A claim rejected then and now by the islanders.]

The error is embarrassing in prepared remarks [Ed.: See update below.], but it is Mr. Obama's intent that is alarming. Referring to the Falklands as the Malvinas was meant as a sop to Ms. Kirchner, who had already left the summit in a snit, but a sop at the expense of long-time ally Great Britain.

But Mrs Kirchner left the summit – attended by North, South and Central American nations – earlier than expected last night as Colombian press reported she was unhappy that a declaration of support for the Argentine claim to the British-controlled territory was not included in the summit's final document, which went unsigned after the USA and Canada used their vetoes.

Prof. Stephen Clark writes over at Instapundit:

If we had a press corps that wasn’t a collection of puerile sycophants this would be called a story. It would lead at the very least to an immediate follow up with the President, his spokesman, or the Secretary of State or her spokesman: Does the US government now recognize the Argentine claim to the Falklands (Malvinas) as superior to the UK’s claim?

Or, has it reached the point that they now apply the Biden Standard to Obama?

Mr. Obama is a great one for making nice at the expense of our closest allies (and here).

CHOPE.

Close enough, good enough -- horse shoes, hand grenades, "smart" power.

------------------------------------
* 13,271 kilometers or 8,247 miles.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE 04.18.12: Apparently Mr. Obama did not make his gaffe in a speech as reported but in a response during a press conference. You can almost see the realization he's made a mistake but can't quite put his finger on it. Not to worry, the rigor of extemporaneity excuses all. However, extemporaneity does not excuse, does not explain, Mr. Obama's veering into "neutrality":

And in terms of the Maldives [sic] or the Falklands, whatever your preferred term, our position on this is that we are going to remain neutral. We have good relations with both Argentina and Great Britain, and we are looking forward to them being able to continue to dialogue on this issue. But this is not something that we typically intervene in.

Ah, um, the American preference had been the Falklands, because up to the very threshold of Mr. Obama's presidency America had backed Britain's claim.

At the above update link Ed Morrissey at Hot Air bastes the turkey:

Furthermore, the US doesn’t recognize them as the Malvinas; throughout the State Department website, the terms Falklands or Falkland Islands are used, occasionally with Malvinas in parentheses.

There’s a reason for that. The US ended up backing the British in the Falkland Islands war in the early 1980s, albeit reluctantly, because (a) the people who live on the islands support British sovereignty, and (b) the Falklands are over 250 nautical miles from Argentina anyway. The only legitimate claim Argentina has on the islands is traditional Argentinian politics, which these days is being driven by the large oil deposits in the Falklands region. Under the auspices of both history and self-determination, Argentina has no business in the Falklands.

NYC Letter: "I Will Not Rest" -- Jobs! Jobs! No Jobs. Redux

Day 1,175 of CHOPE

Special Friday The Thirteenth No Luck Edition

And I will not rest until every American who wants a job can find one.

Mr. Obama,
announcing his insomniac administration
WASHINGTON July 31, 2009 (White House)

Whoa! "Every American"! That's a tall order. How about just one?

Darin Wedel wants a job.

ONLINE CHAT WITH OBAMA
HAS BIG IMPACT ON
TEXAS FAMILY

FORT WORTH February 4, 2012 (McClatchy) - [Jennifer] Wedel, a mother of two who works at an insurance agency, participated in a live video chat with Obama using the "hangout" feature on Google Plus.

She asked the president why the government issues and extends H-1B visas to highly skilled foreign workers when her husband has similar skills and can’t find full-time work.
Obama said industry leaders have told him that the U.S. doesn’t have enough of certain kinds of high-tech engineers to meet its needs. Wedel interrupted him to say that his answer didn’t match what her husband is seeing in the real world.

"If you send me your husband’s resume, I’d be interested in finding out exactly what’s happening right there," Obama told her. "The word we’re getting is somebody in that high-tech field, that kind of engineer, should be able to find something right away. And the H-1B should be reserved only for those companies who say they cannot find somebody in that particular field."

The Wedels got his resume to the White House, and companies from around the country have called. Darin had to create a spreadsheet to keep all the calls straight. The problem, Wedel said, is that the family can’t move.

White House spokesman Jay Carney fielded questions about Wedel and her husband’s resume during a recent briefing:

The exchange reflected the president’s sincere interest and concern in the experiences of folks out in the country and how they’re dealing with what remains a very tough economy, even as we continue the recovery that we’ve been engaged in now for 10 months,* that there are a lot of folks out there who are looking for work.

There you go, as good as done. The President of the United States has taken a sincere personal interest. If for no other reason than looking effective, showing he's a can-do guy, Mr. Obama will be sure to get this guy a job.

PRESIDENT OBAMA TRIES
TO GET ONE GUY A JOB,
AND FAILS
By John Hayward

April 9, 2012 (Human Events) - No sooner had the absolutely horrifying unemployment report for March been released than we received an update on the status of engineer Darin Wedel, who became one of America’s most famous job seekers two months ago.

... According to the March unemployment report, the American workforce continues to collapse under Obama’s policies, shedding enough workers to nudge the “official” U-3 unemployment rate down by .10 percent… even though job creation was literally half what was posted in February, and far below the level needed to keep pace with population growth. Even the more supportive pro-Obama media organizations had to wince, while they scrambled to keep the real news out of the headlines.

And as for Darin Wedel, well, he still doesn’t have a job. The brief flurry of interest artificially created when the White House stepped in and decreed that job offers should rain down upon one house in Texas has subsided, as reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

More than two months after President Barack Obama asked for Darin Wedel's résumé, the phone is quiet, e-mails are no longer flooding in and the long-sought-after job interviews -- which had begun to be scheduled -- have petered out.

Jeez.

So much for Mr. Obama's commanding noblesse oblige, the idea of which Mr. Hayward correctly identifies as the real disaster in the story.

The "optics" of this story are absolutely horrible for the White House, but it was actually horrible from the moment it began. The idea that Americans should have to beg the royal court for indulgences – which the court then demonstrates it cannot provide! – is nauseating, and it’s not a new aspect of the Obama presidency. In the very first weeks of his Administration, he was at a town hall meeting in Florida when a homeless woman asked him for a house, and lo! A house was soon offered, after the President hugged her.

The President loves to govern by anecdote, peppering his speeches with references to all the letters of supplication he receives from the New Poor (formerly known as "the middle class") All of these people’s lives will supposedly be shattered if the Obama agenda is opposed. The childish absurdity of basing the decisions of a titanic mega-government on a handful of personal appeals never occurs to him, or to the media, which congratulates him on his political skill in "personalizing" huge social "crises". That’s how the last shreds of cold, hard reason are steamed out of our discussion of the most bankrupt government in history.

It’s Obamanomics in a nutshell: if you’re lucky enough to find your way into his carefully controlled town hall meetings, or you’ve got the right political connections, you can do okay… until things get so bad that His Majesty can no longer wave his hand and cause bounty to be showered upon selected peasants. Fortunately, Obama can count on the media to downplay this story, instead of treating it as a powerful symbolic moment in a failed presidency, as they would if he were a Republican.

Mr. Obama cannot relieve the unemployment rolls by a single hire. Hey! Let's vote him back.

CHOPE.

"Personalizing" a failed presidency.

------------------------------------
* Mr. Carney needs to check his inbox. The National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of recovery start and end points, has a big surprise for him!:

Messrs. Obama and Biden announced "Recovery Summer" almost two years ago and Timmy Geithner penned a NYT "Welcome To The Recovery" op-ed back in August 2010 to make sure we didn't miss it.

NYC Letter: Joe Biden Is An Idiot XVI -- The State Of Legal Scholarship

Day 1,174 of CHOPE

Mr. Biden brags on himself as a Constitutional scholar, as such he fancies himself a judge of legal talent. To wit.

LEGAL SCHOLAR
"I'm Good Enough"

BIDEN: AL FRANKEN IS A
'LEADING LEGAL SCHOLAR'

WASHINGTON April 11, 2012 (WaEx) - Vice President Joe Biden described former Saturday Night Live comedian, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., as a "leading legal scholar," presumably in the Senate, today.

"He has been one of the leading legal scholars," Biden said of Franken today, according to the pool report. He also said that Franken "is deadly serious" as a senator. He made the comments while recalling concerns that then-candidate Franken could not be taken seriously as a Senate candidate given his SNL work.

Mr. Franken graduated from Harvard College with a B.A. in political science but made his mark as a comedian and later a lesser mark as a failed political talk show host on failed Air America talk radio. He is not a lawyer, a non-qualification he uses in introductions when he speaks about law. Mr. Franken's lack of qualifications does not disqualify him from the rolls of legal scholarship, but it leaves us asking what exactly qualifies him? Serving 1,008 days in the Senate certainly has acquainted him with how clubhouse law is made and remade and unmade. He has made speeches in legal forums extenuating liberal legal talking points. But where in all this is Mr. Franken's legal scholarship?

Legal scholarship suggests a heft and depth we dare say even Mr. Franken would hesitate to claim for himself. As admirable as familiarity with established law and a working knowledge of the law are in a lawmaker -- astonishing really -- these do not elevate one to the ranks of legal scholar.

We are sentimentalists about the citizen legislator. We fondly believe that a government for the people should not be beyond the people's ability to understand it and run it. But that doesn't require a nation of legal scholars. Quite the opposite.

Mr. Biden's puffery tells us more about Mr. Biden's grasp of legal scholarship than Mr. Franken's attainment of it, which in neither case is anything to brag about.

Thanks to everyone and their brother who wrote us about this. Hat tip to correspondents Duncan and Hervé, who led the pack.

CHOPE.

Big brag. Little evidence.

NYC Letter: Team Barry Tackles Government Waste, Part II -- GSA

Day 1,169 of CHOPE

From the moment I take office, my top priority will be to do everything I can to make sure your tax dollars are protected.

Mr. Obama,
then-candidate announcing his top priority du jour
LA CROSSE, Wisconsin October 1, 2008 (CNN)

One of the government agencies that is charged with getting the best value for the taxpayer in the operations of government is the United States General Services Administration. In its "Mission, Vision and Goals" statement the GSA claims to be obsessed with "no waste" and to use "data, evidence, and analysis to support decisions that wring out inefficiencies in operations". Sounds like no misspent dollars there.

Oh. Wait.

We’re also committed to practicing what we preach and serving as a model for the policies that we’re encouraging. ... It’s about attracting and retaining top talent in the federal workforce and empowering them to do their jobs, and judging their success by the results that they get -- not by how many meetings they attend, or how much face-time they log, or how many hours are spent on airplanes. It’s about creating a culture where, as Martha Johnson puts it, "Work is what you do, not where you are."

And in these efforts, we’ll be looking to all of you for advice and ideas. And we plan to continue this conversation in the coming months, holding forums and roundtables in communities across the country, so we can seek out more good ideas and best practices that we can adopt and promote.

Mr. Obama,
thrilled with the work of the GSA
WORKPLACE FLEXIBILITY FORUM
WASHINGTON March 31, 2010 (White House)

Why do the best ideas always seem to be in Las Vegas?

GSA ADMINISTRATOR JOHNSON RESIGNS

April 2, 2012 (CNN) - The head of the General Services Administration resigned Monday after a scathing report which called government spending on a training seminar in Las Vegas "excessive, wasteful, and in some cases impermissible." In some election-year damage control, the White House quickly put out a statement that President Obama was “outraged” when he found out about the spending. Jack Lew, White House Chief of Staff:

[Mr. Obama] was outraged by the excessive spending, questionable dealings with contractors, and disregard for taxpayer dollars.

GSA Administrator Martha Johnson admitted in a letter of resignation that her agency had made a "significant misstep" and that "taxpayer dollars were squandered."

Whoa, whoa. This is the same Martha Johnson Mr. Obama praises above for her commitment "to practicing what we preach and serving as a model for the policies that we’re encouraging" the same year she's throwing a big tax-payer bought party in Las Vegas?

A GSA Inspector General's report on the 2010 GSA "Western Regions" training conference in Las Vegas shows that the government spent more than $822,000 for the 300 attendees including $75,000 on team building exercises, $6,000 on commemorative coins and $6,000 on canteens, keychains, t-shirts.

And a special GSA Commissioner-For-A-Day cap awarded to the employee "serving as a model for the policies that we’re encouraging"!

The report shows that GSA employees "scouted" the location several times before the conference and that travel alone for conference "planning" totaled more than $100,000 and catering costs over $30,000. Add to that costs for the actual conference of more than $686,000 and the total comes to $822,751.

Here's a good idea, how about doing some of that promised taxpayer-dollar protecting? Here's another, how about NOT spending $822K for "training seminar" holidays at the M Resort Spa and Casino in Las Vegas? Just two ideas.

Now, guess what timely story that impacts the administration of the GSA isn't posted to the Newsroom page on the GSA site? Take a guess! [Several wrong guesses later.] The only news worthy of the GSA Newsroom are self-congratulating fluff pieces on what a super great job the GSA does. Oh, wait! There it is, a one-liner buried in the latest GSA press release:

GSA Administrator Martha Johnson removed two senior leaders within the Agency and submitted her own resignation effective at close of business tonight.

In the big picture $822,751 is couch change amidst trillion+ dollar year-on-year deficits, half trillion dollar miscalculations, fantasy trillion dollar budgets, and a national debt so ginormous that it has quietly ceased being a real number to become a theoretical mystery. But scolding a misspent $822,751 plays well in Mr. Obama's Tiny Theater Of Fiscal Puny-ism.

Mr. Obama is outraged --OUTRAGED! -- that a government agency devoted to efficiencies and value-for-dollar-spent should fritter away $822,751. [We brace against the shock wave of outrage.] But flushing $6.5B down the crapper for "green investments", well, hey, them's the breaks.

CHOPE.

"A model for the policies that we’re encouraging."

NYC Letter: Joe On The Job XXIII -- The 2020 Manufacturing Recovery

Day 1,163 of CHOPE

No Foolin' Edition

People can be fooled about what the future holds because there are no established facts about the future. People can be fooled about a counterfactual world (and here) because no facts can be established for such a world. Team Barry, however, keeps trying to fool people about a sunny prosperous present that can be tested against the facts. To wit, Mr. Biden last Wednesday:

Ladies and gentlemen, I come here today with a very, very simple message: Manufacturing is back. Manufacturing is back.

FACT CHECK: BIDEN'S
MANUFACTURED JOBS CLAIMS

DAVENPORT, Iowa March 29, 2012 (USA Today) - Declaring "manufacturing is back," Vice President Biden gave a rosy — but not entirely accurate or complete — picture of U.S. manufacturing at a March 28 campaign stop in Iowa.

• Biden overstated — by 1.1 million — the number of manufacturing jobs lost before President Obama took office. He said the U.S. lost 5.8 million manufacturing jobs "during the 2000s, before we came in." But that figure includes 2009 — Obama's first year in office. The U.S. lost 4.7 million such jobs "before we came in."
  
• Biden also cherry-picked his job figures when he declared the U.S. has added "430,000 new manufacturing jobs just since 2010." That's true. But since the start of the Obama administration in January 2009, the U.S. has 661,000 fewer manufacturing jobs — despite the recent job gains.
  
• In fact, manufacturing jobs represent a disproportionate share of job losses since Obama took office. In all, the U.S. has lost a net 864,000 non-farm jobs since January 2009 — a decline of one half of 1%. But manufacturing jobs are down 5% since then. One recent study found that at the current pace, it will take until 2020 for the U.S. to recover the manufacturing jobs lost since 2007.

The only thing separating you from the fabulous Obama-Biden recovery are the FACTS.

FACTS just muck up the story-line. Let's stick to the approved story-lines where things are good, people are happy, and Mr. Obama rolls along to re-election.

"MANUFACTURING IS BACK. MANUFACTURING IS BACK."
Obama-Biden 2012 Recovery & Prosperity Tour

CHOPE.

Say anything pollyannaism.

NYC Letter: Joe On The Job XXII -- The Neverending All-excuse Recession

Day 1,161 of CHOPE

It must be Joe "I'm An Idiot" Biden Week.

OBAMANOMICS TWO-FER
It's A Recession And A Recovery!

(A) We need desperately to get this economy moving. We've got to create more jobs now.

(B) Even some in the White House said, 'Hey, don't get ahead of yourself.' Well, I'm here to tell you, some time in the next couple of months, we're going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month.

We caught a lot of bad breaks on the way down. We're going to catch a few good breaks because of good planning on the way up.

Joe "I'm No Economist" Biden,
(A) then-VP-elect emphasizing the
Obama presidency's top priority
December 23, 2008 (votesmart.org)
(B) fully fledged VP predicting
"Recovery Summer"
PITTSBURGH April 23, 2010 (WaPo)

Team Barry has never added 500,000 jobs in any month. Never even close.

BIDEN BLAMES HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT ON
'THIS GOD-AWFUL RECESSION WE’VE INHERITED'

March 29, 2012 (CNS News) - At a campaign event in Iowa on Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden blamed the continuing high level of unemployment in the United States on what he called “this God-awful recession we’ve inherited.”

... To explain what he believes is happening in the U.S. economy, Biden told the crowd at a campaign event in Davenport, Iowa, a story about his father.

"He said, Joey, you got to understand one thing, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck," said Biden. "It’s about your dignity. It’s about your respect. It’s about your sense of yourself. It’s about your place in the community.

"And too many people have been stripped of their dignity as a consequence of this God-awful recession we’ve inherited," said Biden. "And we’re determined--we’re determined--I think all of us, Republican and Democrat--are determined to turn that around."

The short story here -- a story Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden fail to grasp, or grasp all too well but will not admit -- is Team Barry didn't get the job done. There's nothing to suggest they know how to get the job done, and if they knew, there's nothing to suggest they could do what needs doing. But, what the hey, folks! Vote us back!

According to the non-partisan National Bureau of Economic Research, the last recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009—just five months into President Barack Obama’s term in office.

In the 33 months since the recession ended, according to the NBER, the U.S. economy has been in a period of expansion. One of the current members of the NBER committee that determines when recessions begin and end is Christina Romer, who formerly served as chairperson of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.

... The expansion that began in June 2009, when the last recession ended, has not seen the growth in real GDP and the decrease in unemployment that has occurred in other recent economic expansions.

In no quarter of Obama’s presidency, according to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, has real GDP grown at an annual rate of as much as 4 percent. The most robust growth during the Obama presidency occurred in the first quarter of 2010 when real GDP grew at a rate of 3.9 percent.

Yet last year Team Barry's "back from the brink" economy was predicated on a wishful 4% growth. Instead Team Barry delivered 1.5%, off by a mere 62.5%.

The United States currently ranks 172 out of 214 nations in growth. [Pause.] That's the bottom of the next-to-bottom quintile. Over the whole of his presidency, Mr. Obama's economy has averaged a phthisic 0.33% growth (2009, -3.5%; 2010, 3%; 2011, 1.5%). If you throw out his first year and only average the remaining two Mr. Obama's economy averages an unimpressive 2.25%. The unemployment problem isn't the inherited recession. The problem is Mr. Obama's moribund economy.

[Pause.] Don't we wish we had some of that Bush economy now.

President George W. Bush also experienced a recession in the early months of his presidency. That recession, according to NBER, began in March 2001 and ended in November 2001. But by the third quarter of 2003, according to BEA, real GDP was growing at a rate of 6.7 percent. Over the course of 2004, the year that Bush sought reelection, real GDP grew at 3.5 percent.

During George W. Bush’s first term, unemployment peaked at 6.3 percent in June 2003, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During the election year of 2004, unemployment stayed below 6 percent, peaking that year at 5.8 percent in March.

Remind us again, who owns the current mess?

We own the economy.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL, 20th),
DNC chair and proud owner of the Obama economy
WASHINGTON June 15, 2011 (Politico)

CHOPE.

Inherited excuse.

NYC Letter: Being Joe Biden -- Get A Job

Day 1,161 of CHOPE

It's easy being vice president — you don't have to do anything.

Joe "Bottom Quintile" Biden,
shooting the breeze at the Health Care Summit
before the afternoon session
WASHINGTON February 25, 2010 (Politico)

Apparently jokey Joe was in earnest.

BIDEN: I DON'T WANT
'REAL JOB…YOU HAVE TO PRODUCE'

CHICAGO March 30, 2012 (WaEx) - Vice President Joe Biden offered a frank assessment of his career in remarks at a Democratic fundraiser in Chicago Thursday night. According to a White House pool report, Biden, surrounded by the city's movers and shakers, praised former Mayor Richard M. Daley and then said: "I never had an interest in being a mayor 'cause that's a real job. You have to produce. That's why I was able to be a senator for 36 years."

SLACKER
Good For Nothing

Without a big occasion in which to publicly embarrass himself, Mr. Biden stays in practice with foot-in-mouth jokes about his fainéant vice presidency while campaigning to be voted back. [Pause.] To do more of his trademark nothing.

From an opposite perspective, Biden's remarks recalled the criticism Sarah Palin, a former mayor herself, once made in 2008 about then-candidate Barack Obama's qualifications to be president. "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities," Palin told a cheering [crowd] at the Republican National Committee that year. Now, Biden says being a mayor was something to be avoided "'cause that's a real job."

The more ancient readers may recall we made a similar point at the time:

But to argue Mrs. Palin's qualifications to be president are thin forces the [larger] question of Mr. Obama's qualifications, which -- by the same standard -- are practically nonexistent. And Mrs. Palin is the [Republican] undercard. It is Mr. Obama who is the [Democrat] headliner.

[WaPo columnist Richard] Cohen is not alone, many Democrats and liberal stringers think the presidential election is a contest between Mrs. Palin and Mr. Obama.

Of course Mr. Biden is not without important responsibilities attached to his office. He has been assigned to cut out big daily valentines for the boss (and this).

CHOPE.

Unqualified to do anything.

NYC Letter: Do As I Say Not What I Say -- Kathleen Sebelius

Day 1,150 of CHOPE

Special Best Practices Edition

The Democrats never make bad policy. They just do bad messaging.

AFTER FILM WARNING KIDS
NOT TO CALL OTHERS 'JERKS',
SEBELIUS TELLS KIDS TO SAY:
'YOU'RE BEING A JERK'

WASHINGTON March 15, 2012 (CNS News) - Immediately after showing middle-school students a new video from the Cartoon Network that admonishes children not to call people names like "stupid," "fat," and "jerk," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the students they could do a lot of good by telling some students they were "jerks."

... "What do you think is the best advice for people who are going into watching this film and anyone who is watching?" asked [after-film panel moderator Don Lemon of CNN].

As part of her answer, Sebelius said: "I think, very important, is for kids to understand how powerful you really are. You might feel like you’re not big enough, not strong enough, not--don’t have enough tools. But just saying, 'Stop it! You know, you’re being a jerk!'--walk away, get away from this person can make a huge amount of difference."

As a kid you need to understand how powerful you are. More powerful than hulking minacious bullies. If you are threatened by bullies, Team Barry's advice -- bold brinkmanship. Don't be intimidated by big fat stupid jerks. Call out their ignominy and they will wilt away. Because, you know, bullies are so easily shamed by their victims.

Having cowed your bullies, Ms. Sebelius recommends pressing your advantage with these follow-ons: "Gimme your lunch money!" and "Lick them boots!" You are that powerful.

MICHELLE: 'LET’S MOVE';
SEBELIUS: NO, LET’S NOT
HHS Secretary's Claim Clashes
With First Lady's Goal

WASHINGTON March 13, 2012 (CNS News) - Defending the concept of “food deserts” last week, HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius said a mile may be too far for families to walk to get healthier foods. But, First Lady Michelle Obama says kids should walk 4-5 times that far every day, and adults should walk more than three times that far.

Challenged by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA, 1st) regarding the administration’s definition of a "food desert" (being a mile away from a grocery store), HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a House hearing last week:

SEBELIUS: Well, I think it’s very difficult for a family buying groceries – if they have to walk a mile with bags of groceries, it may be too far to get healthier food.

KINGSTON: You really think that?

SEBELIUS: I do.

But, according to First Lady Michelle Obama’s "Let’s Move" campaign, both kids and adults are supposed to walk several times that far – every day.

The original laugh here was the apparent contradiction between Ms. Sebelius's handwringing and Mrs. Obama's "Let's Move" directive. However, the snorting big laugh is Team Barry's bizarre "food deserts" crisis.

USDA: 6,501 'FOOD DESERTS' ARE
SPREAD ACROSS MOST OF U.S. MAINLAND
WASHINGTON July 22, 2011 (CNS News)

The USDA defines a "food desert" as an area where low-income access to "fresh fruits and vegetables and other healthy food offerings" is more than 1 mile away in urban communities and 10 miles in rural communities. [Pause.] In urban areas, which are serviced by buses, trains, subways, taxis, and car services, one mile is a hardship, whereas in rural areas, which have few or none of these services, the hardship begins at the 10-mile mark. Consider that urban areas tend to vote Democrat and rural areas tend to vote Republican and Team Barry's formulation begins to make some sense.

A complicated methodology was used to identify the food deserts, with data gathered from the 2000 U.S. Census, a directory of large supermarkets, demographics that include rural or urban areas, income levels, and the distance to the nearest grocery store, according to the U.S.D.A.’s Food Desert Locator portion of its Web site.

... Mrs. Obama’s announcement is part of her "Let’s Move" campaign to fight childhood obesity, which includes the Healthy Food Financing Initiative – described by the Obama administration as "a multi-million dollar public and private investment to improve access to healthy food." President Barack Obama requested $330 million in his 2012 budget for the initiative.

The Food Desert Locator is also a part of Mrs. Obama’s campaign and is based on a June 2009 report by the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service about access to food in the United States.

So Mr. Obama wanted $330M for a program based on a two-year-old report based on 11-year-old census data. Why wait on that 2010 census data when there's $330M to spend. So far, so good. The slow wheels of government turn to solve a problem that in all probability has an entirely different shape -- if it exists at all. Or as it turns out, is the wrong problem.

The report further said that "93 percent of those who live in low-income areas with limited access traveled to the grocery store in a vehicle they or another household member drove."

Another finding in the report indicates that access rather than a lack of access may play a larger role in obesity rates. "Easy access to all food, rather than lack of access to specific healthy foods, may be a more important factor in explaining increases in obesity," the report states.

To recap, Mr. Obama wants to spend $330M on a program with a demographic political bias based on stale data to alleviate a hardship that is not much of a hardship for 93% of the beneficiaries and aggravates the problem of obesity, which it seeks to solve. Well, that's $330M well spent.

CHOPE.

Solving problems that didn't exist before the solution.

NYC Letter: Joe On The Job XXI -- BOOOOO!

Day 1,149 of CHOPE

What's humbled me, as you walk out, I mean, everywhere I go, crowds spontaneously assemble. They start to cheer, whether I go to a play on Broadway or I'm going home to Wilmington, Delaware. I walk on the train. People stand up and clap. I mean, it's humbled me. It's not about me. It's about, I think, the hope and expectation they have for our administration. But it's spontaneous everywhere I've gone around the country. And it really is humbling. And it makes you realize that people are really banking on us, you know, changing the day. And it really it is humbling.

Joe "Hi-Q" Biden,
VP and crowd magnet,
spontaneously bursting into self-adulation
GOOD MORNING AMERICA
WASHINGTON April 30, 2009 (ABC News)

It looks like that hope and expectation people had for Mr. Biden & co. is played out in Pittsburgh.

JOE BIDEN HEARS BOOS AT
PITTSBURGH ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE

PITTSBURGH March 18, 2012 (Blaze) - Seen waiving and jogging gingerly on the parade route, Vice President Biden’s entourage was loudly booed at points by some of the hundreds of thousands who turned out for the parade in Pittsburgh Saturday.

A lot has changed in Pittsburgh since 2008 when Mr. Obama carried Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is the county seat, by 15½ points (57.1%/41.6%).

Although unemployment at 6.2% is below the national average, per capita income is only 39% of the national average ($18,816/$48,100) with 20% of the population below the poverty line. So Pittsburgh is poor. Peddling Team Barry's economic sunshine won't play here.

Pittsburgh is also Catholic (40+%). Scrappy Bishop Zubik has punched back hard against Obamacare's abortifacient mandate. That can't endear Mr. Obama to the locals.

No, Pittsburgh did not rise up as one and boo Mr. Biden. Just the bitter clingers. [Pause.] Still brave boos in a Democrat bastion are heartening to hear.

CHOPE.

Heartening boos.

NYC Letter: Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh

Day 1,148 of CHOPE

CLICHÉ: GREEN FOUNTAIN
If It's Green It's Irish
South Lawn Of The White House
[Picture source: Joshua Roberts/Getty Images]

The caption reads:

Green water flows in the fountain on the South Lawn of the White House in celebration of St. Patrick's day on March 17, 2012 in Washington, DC. Next week [sic], U.S. President Barack Obama visited a bar today. Obama and Vice President Biden will meet the Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny and attend a St. Patrick's Day lunch at the Capitol.

Mr. Obama, master of time and space, doing next week today.

CLICHÉ: GEE-EYED PADDY
If It's Toasted It's Irish
Mr. Obama At The Dubliner Restaurant And Pub
[Picture source: Reuters]

CHOPE.

When money's tight and hard to get
And your horse has also ran,
When all you have is a heap of debt,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

Brian O'Nolan (1911-1966),
novelist, columnist, gattered civil servant
The Third Policeman (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1967)

NYC Letter: Got That Wrong -- Forward Thinker

Day 1,146 of CHOPE

Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the 19th president of the United States.

As the Republican presidential nominee, he lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel Jones Tilden, Governor of New York, in the voter fraud-fest of 1876 (Democrats notoriously suppressed the black Republican vote in the South).* However the electoral votes for Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina were in dispute, denying both candidates the win. A commission was established by the Electoral Commission Act to sort out the disputed votes. The bipartisan Commission predictably voted along partisan lines and, with a one-vote Republican edge, awarded Mr. Hayes all 20 disputed electoral votes, clinching the presidency for him, 185-184. The Commission was meant to settle the matter, but the Democrats having lost attempted to obstruct the electoral vote count by challenging undisputed electoral votes. Eventually the Democrats punked out, but their pique perdured. They dubbed the president "Rutherfraud", "His Fraudulency", and "His Accidency".

It appears Mr. Obama still holds the grudge.

OBAMA KNOCKS
RUTHERFORD B. HAYES

LARGO, Maryland March 15, 2012 (Politico) - President Obama took aim Thursday at one of his Republican predecessors: Rutherford B. Hayes.

Speaking about the need to develop new sources of American energy in Largo, Md., Obama used our 19th president to illustrate a failure of forward-thinking leadership. Mr. Obama:

One of my predecessors, President Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone: "It’s a great invention but who would ever want to use one?" That's why he's not on Mt. Rushmore. He's looking backwards, he's not looking forward. He's explaining why we can't do something instead of why we can do something. The point is there will always be cynics and naysayers.

Mr. Rutherford's purported quote doesn't explain "why we can't do something instead of why we can do something", as the remark is about the already invented telephone. And, as you'll see, that's not all Mr. Obama got wrong.

RUTHERFORDGATE: HISTORIAN RESPONDS
TO PRESIDENT OBAMA’S HAYES SLUR

March 15, 2012 (NYM) - We thought it was a bit unsporting of Obama to attack President Hayes, who is quite unable to respond. So we called up the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont, Ohio, where Nan Card, the curator of manuscripts, was plenty willing to correct Obama's ignorance of White House history. Just as soon as she finished chuckling. "I've heard that before, and no one ever knows where it came from," Card said of Hayes's alleged phone remark, "but people just keep repeating it and repeating it, so it's out there."

Wait, so Hayes didn't even say the quote that Obama is mocking him for?

"No, no," Card confirmed.

She then read aloud a newspaper article from June 29, 1877, which describes Hayes's delight upon first experiencing the magic of the telephone. The Providence Journal story reported that as Hayes listened on the phone, "a gradually increasing smile wreathe[d] his lips and wonder shone in his eyes more and more.” Hayes took the phone from his ear, "looked at it a moment in surprise and remarked, 'That is wonderful.'"

In fact, Card noted, Hayes was not only the first president to have a telephone in the White House, but he was also the first to use the typewriter, and he had Thomas Edison come to the White House to demonstrate the phonograph. Ms. Card:

So I think he was pretty much cutting edge, maybe just the opposite of what President Obama had to say there.

Of course Mr. Obama counts himself as a forward thinker, a visionary. But Mr. Obama's big vision of a forward-thought energy future is built on simplism, bogusity (and this), fairy tales, political pay-offs, cronyism, subsidies, bad investments, irresponsible lending, bankruptcies, crap products (and this and this), and top-down incompetence and cluelessness.

GAO SHOWS GRADE INFLATION
AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

BLOG march 15, 2012 (Hot Air) - Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) challenged Energy Secretary Steven Chu to assign himself a grade specifically on his stewardship of Department of Energy resources in relation to the 2009 stimulus funds granted for the Loan Guarantee Program. After Broun recites a litany of failures in the LGP, Chu insists that he’s done very well — and gives himself an A-minus.

... As it turns out, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has another grade entirely for the LGP, the DoE, and ultimately Energy Secretary Steven Chu. In the report released this week, the GAO’s spot check of applications and loans granted and committed under the LGP — $30 billion in all — shows systemic mismanagement, uncompleted reviews, missing documentation, and a process failure rate of 85% or more.

... On 11 of 13 loan applications investigated by the GAO, they found that the DoE hadn’t done the required work for reviewing and approving applications. That’s an 85% failure rate. And more than three years into this program, even with the deficiencies identified, the DoE still hasn’t fixed their problems. That kind of failure is more associated with an F-minus, not an A-minus.

Worth the full read.

Comparing forward thinkers, we're backing Rutherford B. Hayes.

CHOPE.

Forward thinking: fact check your speech before delivery.

------------------------------------
* For an excellent read on the controversial election of 1876, see here.