A Whole New Kind of Crazy

Most people know by now about the Hustle for the House tonight. The story is that the President sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner (and the media) requesting a joint session of Congress be called Wednesday, September 7. Boehner’s office countered that there would be little time to make security arrangements as it would be the date of the opening of a House session. The White House agreed to September 8 instead.

Here’s the situation. 9/7 is the date of a Republican debate, including two sitting members of Congress. Also, the opening of the session is like the first day of school, so not everything will be ready for a presidential address. Ultimately, Boehner is the Speaker of the House, he gets to decide what happens in his House.

This was a petty disagreement. Jackass thought he could kill a GOP debate with one speech. Boehner figured people wouldn’t give a crap if the speech was Wednesday or Thursday. Most people probably won’t, except that the NFL season begins Thursday. What escalated this was the full-on crazy explanations by Obots as to why this was a great insult to the office of the president.

One Democrat on Hannity tortured logic to Gitmo proportions thusly. Boehner must grant the president any time slot he wants because he is the precious president. What if Congress isn’t in session? Well, he should be able to call a session any time. Then why didn’t he call it for the last two years weeks when he said he had a jobs plan? Because he was waiting for Congress to be in session. There you go. Repeat as necessary.

MSNBC is worked up pretty heavily over this situation. They are offering Jackass any number of schemes to regain the upper hand. Do the speech anyway in another place with an adoring crowd. Call Boehner out for daring to defy his president. Tell America once and for all that Republicans don’t really care about jobs, or they would have had the speech on 9/7. Okay, they have a point. Republicans are not allowed to rhetorically ask where Obama’s job plan is on September 7. Any other day is fine, just like the scheduling.

That’s not how you do a field sobriety test!

(NSFW)

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Did you really think I would let this one slide by?

Police: Surveillance taped NM cop having sex

The cameras were originally set up to nab graffiti vandals

A surveillance camera set up to nab graffiti vandals recorded a New Mexico State Police officer apparently having sex with a woman on county property.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff confirmed that he has pictures of the uniformed officer engaging in sex acts, and two photographs have been released under a public records request by the Albuquerque Journal, according to USA Today.

In the photos, the officer is standing and leaning over a woman, who is lying on the hood of a car with her bare legs wrapped around the man’s body, the newspaper reported. His utility belt hangs behind him.

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There is nothing to indicate that the activities were not consensual.

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Now he thinks he’s Reagan AND Roosevelt

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Team Obama Finds Hope for 2012 in a History Lesson

Weeks before the debt-limit showdown came to a head, White House chief of staff Bill Daley held an unannounced retreat for his senior staff at Fort McNair, an Army base near the southern tip of the District of Columbia. The agenda for the June confab was wide-ranging, including a lecture of sorts from the presidential historian Michael Beschloss. The question Daley asked him to address was the one on everyone’s mind these days in the West Wing: How does a U.S. President win re-election with an unemployment rate far higher than voters can bear?

The answer Beschloss provided gave some lift to Obama’s team. No law in politics is ever 100% accurate, he said. Two Presidents in the last century, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936 and Ronald Reagan in 1984, won re-election amid substantial economic suffering. Both used the same basic strategy. They argued that the country, though in pain, was improving, and that the ideas of their opponents, anchored in past failures, would make things worse.

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In 1984 the economy was growing at a rapid rate. In 1936 FDR was still trying to get the New Deal past SCOTUS. The Democrats GAINED seats in Congress in 1934.

What has Obama done? What’s he still plan to do? His policies are even less popular than he is. He single-handedly brought the GOP back from the dead.

Now he thinks he can run against them?

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Ronald Obama

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Sorry, we’re booked on that day

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Boehner Asks Obama to Reschedule Jobs Address to Congress

House Speaker John Boehner requested that President Obama hold his jobs address, which Obama wants to deliver next Wednesday, next Thursday instead.

The Speaker’s letter didn’t mention the brewing controversy over the speech clashing with a previously scheduled Republican presidential debate scheduled on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. EST.

That debate is the first of the post-Labor Day political season, and the first one in which Texas Gov. Rick Perry is set to participate, The Hill reported.

“As your spokesperson today said, there are considerations about the Congressional calendar that must be made prior to scheduling such an extraordinary event,” the Speaker wrote.

“With the significant amount of time – typically more than three hours – that is required to allow for a security sweep of the House Chamber before receiving a president, it is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks.

Boehner also noted that the House isn’t scheduled to reconvene until 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

“As such, on behalf of the bipartisan leadership and membership of both the House and Senate, I respectfully invite you to address a Joint Session of Congress on Thursday, September 8, 2011 in the House Chamber, at a time that works best for your schedule,” Boehner said.

Congress is a co-equal branch of government. They don’t have to jump just because Obama says “frog.”

Well played, Agent Orange!

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UPDATE:

Via Hot Air:

Usually, the WH will work out a date in private with the Speaker & Majority Leader before going public with a request.

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They shouldn’t have judged him by the color of his skin

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Black leaders turn up the heat on President Obama

If there’s anything close to a political certainty in 2012, it’s that Barack Obama will get more than 90 percent of the African-American vote.

But that doesn’t mean every black Obama supporter will vote for him happily — nor does it guarantee that turnout will approach the stratospheric levels of 2008, even though Obama needs a huge showing from his base to offset the expected loss of swing voters in states like North Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

With that in mind, prominent black leaders — fearing Obama is not only taking them for granted but avoiding them in public — have turned up the heat on the nation’s first African-American president, transforming all-in-the-family concerns into open criticism of the president at a time when they had hoped the completion of a monument to Martin Luther King Jr. near the National Mall would bring a moment of unity.

The leaders are tired, they say, of Obama dog-whistling his support for a broad black agenda rather than explicitly embracing the kind of war on racism, poverty and economic segregation embodied by King.

“You can spend a lot of time trying to win over white independents, but if you don’t pay attention to your base, African-Americans, if you have not locked up your base yet, you’ve got a serious problem,” said CNN contributor Roland Martin.

“African-Americans will vote for him again, 88, 92, 95 percent. The question is what’s the turnout? I’ll vote for you. But will I bring ten other people along, like I did in 2008? That’s the danger here for him. He doesn’t have the historical factor to lean on as much in 2012 as he did in 2008. … And the first step is that he has to be willing to speak to this audience, black people.”

In a striking turnabout for a president who has rewritten American racial history, Obama finds himself the target of criticism from the black cultural and political elite that has, for the most part, been leery of airing its disappointment.

The president is reportedly angry that African-American leaders aren’t crediting him for his hard-bought achievements that will especially help communities of color, including health care reform, aid to cities, student aid and protecting Medicaid.

“The whole thing is bull——. … We have met with [black leaders] more than any other group, and we are increasing our outreach,” said a person close to Obama.

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I fully understand why the black community supported Barack Obama. They saw him as the realization of Martin Luther King’s dream. But they should have listened to Dr. King’s words a little more closely. They should have judged him by the content of his character.

If Barack Obama was a white man named Barry Dunham with the exact same record, would the black community still have supported him? Would they have still abandoned Hillary Clinton for him?

Would they still be supporting him now?

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Obama Seal of Approval/Kiss of Death claims another victim

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Via Hot Air:

Solyndra to Declare Bankruptcy

President Obama touted the facility only a year ago.

Solyndra, a major manufacturer of solar technology in Fremont, has shut its doors, according to employees at the campus.

“I was told by a security guard to get my [stuff] and leave,” one employee said. The company employs a little more than 1,000 employees worldwide, according to its website.

Solyndra was touted by the Obama administration as a prime example of how green technology could deliver jobs. The President visited the facility in May of last year and said “it is just a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world. And you guys all represent that. “

The federal government offered $535 million in low cost loan guarantees from the Department of Energy.

Update: Solyndra announces it plans to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is suspending operations and seeks a reorganization.

$535 million ÷ 1000 employees = $535,000 each.

I’m pretty sure the employees didn’t get the money, so who did?

One thing’s for sure – we ain’t getting it back. A half billion here, a half billion there, pretty soon you’re talking about some real money.

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This is getting insane

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Andre Carson: Tea party wants blacks ‘hanging on a tree’

A top lawmaker in the Congressional Black Caucus says tea partiers on Capitol Hill would like to see African-Americans hanging from trees and accuses the movement of wishing for a return to the Jim Crow era.

Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana who serves as the CBC’s chief vote counter, said at a CBC event in Miami that some in Congress would “love to see us as second-class citizens” and “some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me … hanging on a tree.”

Carson also said the tea party is stopping change in Congress, likening it to “the effort that we’re seeing of Jim Crow.”

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I take it back – it’s not getting insane, it’s already past that point.

Do these race-baiters have any idea how much damage they are doing?

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Oh no he didn’t!

Narcissus

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Oh yes he did:

Obama to deliver jobs address to joint session of Congress

President Obama has requested a joint session of Congress next week to deliver his jobs speech directly to lawmakers.

In a letter to congressional leaders requesting the Sept. 7 slot, the president said he will urge Congress to put aside politics and focus on creating jobs during the 8 p.m. speech.

“As I have traveled across our country this summer and spoken with our fellow Americans, I have heard a consistent message: Washington needs to put aside politics and start making decisions based on what is best for our country and not what is best for each of our parties in order to grow the economy and create jobs,” Obama wrote. “We must answer this call.”

The speech will fall on the same night Texas Gov. Rick Perry makes his debut on the GOP 2012 debate stage. The Republican presidential field is set to take part in a debate, also scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

Asked whether the speech was purposefully scheduled the same night as the Republican debate, White House press secretary Jay Carney said “of course not.”

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What a dick!

Legal Insurrection:

I assume that protocol is that a President gets to give a speech to a Joint Session of Congress whenever he wants, but this is abusive and purely political.

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I hope they both go on at the same time and the debate gets higher ratings.

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UPDATE:

Hot Air:

Besides, this actually plays well for Republicans. Usually, the opposition party gets a few minutes for a rebuttal speech, shot in an anteroom with none of the drama and flair of a joint session speech. Instead, the GOP will have eight or nine responses to Obama on live television in a dramatic setting. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Republicans at the debate decide individually to focus their criticisms on Obama all night long and his plan, especially if — as I suspect — the plan will amount to a junior-grade Porkulus.

At the same time, it’s going to be obvious to everyone that the White House manipulated this for his re-election efforts, which will further reduce Obama’s credibility and the credibility of his proposal. And the first rule of political campaigning is not to get in the way of your opponent when he’s busy shooting himself in the foot.

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Undefeated on PPV and VOD tomorrow

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Victory Film Group:

Sarah Palin Biopic ‘The Undefeated’ Goes Pay-Per-View & Video-On-Demand Sept. 1

ARC Entertainment announced today that it will make the Sarah Palin biopic film The Undefeated available on video-on-demand and pay-per-view to approximately 75 million homes through major cable and satellite companies such as DIRECTV, DISH Network, and Time Warner Cable starting September 1st. The launch is to be backed by a multi-million-dollar marketing campaign. The DVD releases October 4th in stores nationwide with an initial shipment estimated at 250,000 units. Walmart is to receive a “special edition” version of the film.

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They announced this last week but the media has been keeping it on the downlow. Check your local listings for more information.

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Scary Perry

"There goes a librul now!"

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Politico:

Perry panic fires up the left

In his two weeks as a presidential candidate, Rick Perry has done something that neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney could do: wake up the left.

Perry panic has spread from the conference rooms of Washington, D.C., to the coffee shops of Brooklyn, with the realization that the conservative Texan could conceivably become the 45th president of the United States, a wave of alarm centering around Perry’s drawling, small-town affect and stands on core cultural issues such as women’s rights, gun control, the death penalty, and the separation of church and state.

The epidemic of lefty angst isn’t just a matter of specific Perry policies though; it goes to the heart of the liberal worldview. His smashing debut on the presidential stage suggests that the victory of an urban liberal Democrat, Barack Obama, wasn’t a step toward a more progressive nation, but just a leftward swing of an increasingly wild pendulum, now poised to rocket to the right.

“His entry in the race is a signal and a wake-up call,” the Rev. Al Sharpton told POLITICO.

Perry, Sharpton said, “is looking to go to the O.K. Corral and start shooting. … Rather than the left get caught sleeping, we better load up, because he is bringing it.”

For Democrats, the pre-Perry GOP primary process was hardly for the faint of heart, as the other candidates have jockeyed to show who dislikes Obama the most. But even as the primary is fought on conservative turf, liberal leaders say they and their constituents see Perry as far worse than your average, hated Republican, and indeed as bad — if not worse — than his hated predecessor in Austin, George W. Bush. And progressives who might have had a hard time getting worked up about Mitt Romney find themselves struggling for superlatives with which to express their fear of a President Perry.

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Unless something unforeseen happens the Republicans are going to hold on to the House and win back the Senate in November 2012. If (when) that happens and if Obama is reelected, don’t expect him to be vetoing legislation. The Democrats couldn’t put together a filibuster when Bushwa II was in office, so don’t expect that to change either.

OTOH – If Perry wins and the GOP start tries to steamroller all kinds of bad legislation through then 2014 will look like 2010 in reverse.

Sometimes you have to take a step backwards now so you can take two steps forward in the future.

Step 1: Get rid of Obama

Step 2: Retake Congress in 2014

Step 3: Retake the White House in 2016

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Barack Obama’s acceptance speech on August 28, 2008:

“And that’s to be expected, because if you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

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Just words

TOTUS

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I don’t know about you but I can hardly wait for Obama to read us his next Greatest Speech Ever™

President-elect Barack Obama to deliver major speech on the economy on Thursday (change.gov, January 8, 2009)

President Barack Obama to Give Major Speech on the Economy at Georgetown University (Whitehouse.gov, April 13, 2009)

Obama to give major speech about economy on Monday (AFP, November 9, 2009)

Obama To Promote New Job Ideas During Tuesday Speech (AP, December 5, 2009)

Obama preparing new push to add jobs, tackle deficit (WaPo, December 8, 2009)

In key speech Obama pledges to create jobs (AP, January 27, 2010)

Obama to tout job-creating efforts in Ohio speech (AP, January 5, 2010)

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(h/t Dario)

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We saw it coming

"thereisnospoon"

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Whenever I get writer’s block I just head over to Hullabaloo to read thereisnospoonupmyass‘ latest post:

One of the biggest lessons one can learn in life is that no matter how far up one rises or doesn’t rise, the world is still populated by the same sort of morons we met in high school. It never gets better. The people at the top of the economic are just as greedy, impulsive, reckless, shortsighted and petty as everyone who annoys us in our everyday lives.

This is part of what being a progressive means: understanding that reality, and understanding that most of our circumstances in life have little to do with our work ethic or skill, but rather a lot more to do with the circumstances of our birth and education, our parents, our social environment, whom we happen to meet and impress, which companies are hiring when we come on the job market, the bosses and clients we get and even just a lot of dumb luck. The financial Masters of the Universe aren’t much smarter than the rest of us, and they didn’t see the subprime mortgage CDO collapse coming any more than the average schlub who bought bought a subprime mortgage did. The only difference is that the former used the threat of total global economic collapse as leverage to get bailed out, while the latter had no such power.

It’s idiots, all the way up the chain. Idiots like Thomas Friedman and Alan Greenspan, neither of whom can prognosticate two feet in front of their noses, but whose words are taken as gospel by all the rest of collective fools who think they’re the smartest guys in the room. Which makes it all the more important that the idiots at the highest levels of government, whether they sport a fancy meaningless Ivy League degree or not, start listening to the actual smart people who did see it coming. Accurate prognostication is how policy makers can actually tell the smart people from the idiots.

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Waaaaay back in the spring of 2008 we said Obama was a conservative wolf in progressive sheep’s clothing. That makes us the smart people and thereisnospoonupmyass one of the idiots.

Okay, he’s talking about the financial crisis and not Barack Obama but he’s wrong about that too. Matt Taibbi in The Great American Bubble Machine:

Not that Goldman was personally at any risk. The bank might be taking all these hideous, completely irresponsible mortgages from beneath-gangster-status firms like Countrywide and selling them off to municipalities and pensioners — old people, for God’s sake — pretending the whole time that it wasn’t grade D horseshit. But even as it was doing so, it was taking short positions in the same market, in essence betting against the same crap it was selling. Even worse, Goldman bragged about it in public. “The mortgage sector continues to be challenged,” David Viniar, the bank’s chief financial officer, boasted in 2007. “As a result, we took significant markdowns on our long inventory positions … However, our risk bias in that market was to be short, and that net short position was profitable.” In other words, the mortgages it was selling were for chumps. The real money was in betting against those same mortgages.

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Why would Golden Sacks bet against those mortgages if they didn’t see it coming?

Hmmm?

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Goldman Sachs

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That would be a roll-out to remember

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The Iowa Republican:

Palin to Fly to New Hampshire Following Iowa Appearance

High level Iowa Republicans tell TheIowaRepublican.com that Sarah Palin will fly to New Hampshire following her September 3rd appearance in central Iowa.

Speculation has been swirling about whether or not Palin will use her Iowa appearance in Iowa over Labor Day weekend to join the field of Republican candidates. The news that Palin is New Hampshire bound after her Iowa speech will only add to the speculation that she may be entering the Republican presidential field.

SarahPAC is now confirming that Palin will speak at the Tea Party Express event in NH on Labor Day.

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Will she or won’t she? Only her hairdresser Sarah knows for sure. But if she is gonna run, Hot Air lays out two options:

Possible reason:

Palin to joint Tea Party Express national tour. To speak Monday in Manchester, NH.

That’s from Chad Pergram, Fox News’s reporter on the Hill. When he says she’s “joining the tour,” I don’t know if he means joining it for that one event in New Hampshire or traveling with it across the country until it ends on September 12. They’re hitting a bunch of early primary states in addition to NH, arriving in South Carolina on September 9 and then Florida on the 10th, so if she announces on Saturday she could spend the next week making a mark in all four early primary states. Palin herself has steered people away from thinking that she’ll declare before Labor Day, though, so maybe she’s planning to do the tour, build up buzz, and then make the announcement after it ends. Note that the very last event on the TPE tour is the debate they’re co-sponsoring with CNN in Jacksonville on the 12th. She could announce that morning and then make her debut as a candidate that night. CNN will surely accommodate her by adding her at the last second. It’d be a ratings blow-out.

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If I was advising Sarah this is what I would tell her:

Saturday is the first day of a holiday weekend that promises to be a fairly slow news cycle. Unless something unexpected happens, the main topics of discussion will be Libya, Obama’s next Greatest Speech Ever® and Sarah Palin’s appearance in Iowa. I’m guessing the White House will do something to try to steal the spotlight from Sarah. Fuck ‘em.

The media will be there for Sarah’s speech, even if they don’t cover it live. Imagine what would happen if, with no advance notice, Sarah drops these words at the end of her speech:

“That’s why I’m running for president.“

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Pandemonium ensues. Heads explode. Television networks scramble to change the guests for their Sunday morning news programs. Progressive bloggers crap in their Underoos. Pollsters start polling like mad.

Sarah would suck up all the oxygen on every news network for days. Obama could announce we’re invading Canada and the media wouldn’t pay attention.

So then Sarah flies to New Hampshire. The event there will be jam-packed. So will every Tea Party event on the tour as Palinistas come pouring out of the woodwork to see her. The paparazzi will follow her every move.

It would be six solid days of Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. By the time she hits Florida for the first debate she’ll be the frontrunner. Except for maybe Rick Perry every other GOPer will be polling in the single digits.

That’s what I would do if I was her.

Just sayin’

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UPDATE:

From C4P:

She’ll be speaking at Veterans Park at around noon on Monday. According to the organizers, she isn’t planning on giving as long a speech as the one she’s planning for Iowa on September 3rd.

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Flashback – Yes We Can (plagiarize)

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Jeff Zeleny:

As Mrs. Clinton campaigned in Wisconsin in advance of the primary there on Tuesday, one of her top advisers, Howard Wolfson, convened a conference call with reporters to accuse Mr. Obama of plagiarizing Mr. Patrick’s remarks from a 2006 campaign appearance.

Mr. Wolfson said it was important for voters to know that Mr. Obama’s rhetoric, at least in this instance, was not original.

During a news conference here, Mr. Obama said he and Mr. Patrick “trade ideas all the time.” Asked if he should have given credit to Mr. Patrick, he said, “I’m sure I should have,” but he said he doubted that voters were concerned by the dust-up.

“I’m happy to give Deval credit, as I give to a lot of people for spurring all kinds of ideas,” he said. “But I think it’s fair to say that everything we’ve been doing and generating excitement and the interest that people have had in the elections is based on the core belief in me that we need change in America.”

The controversy arose after Mr. Obama, of Illinois, delivered a speech at a Democratic Party dinner in Wisconsin. He responded to criticism from Mrs. Clinton, of New York, who argued that Mr. Obama might deliver smooth speeches, but that she was better prepared to solve problems.

“Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” he said in his remarks. “ ‘I have a dream.’ Just words? ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.’ Just words? ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words? Just speeches?”

The passage was similar to one used by Mr. Patrick in response to similar criticism.

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What do you expect? This kind of thing is bound to happen when a candidate never had an original idea in his whole life. But back in 1987 plagiarism allegations torpedoed Joe Biden’s first presidential campaign.

So why did Obama get a free pass?

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Even his friends don’t like him

Does he look "weird" to you?

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Romney’s “Core Constituency”

Ross Douthat seems in danger of jumping on the Romney meat-wagon. He writes that despite Rick Perry’s position, Romney should not panic because “Romney doesn’t have to worry about any of the rival candidates making a play for his core supporters.”

We’re going to hear this argument a lot in the coming months from Romney partisans as they try to argue that something they would like to happen is, in fact, likely to happen. It’s worth taking this pundit fallacy apart now because it gets to the nub of why I’ve been insisting for four years that Romney is a non-starter as a political commodity—it’s precisely because he has no core supporters. Which is why he is not very good at winning elections.

Let’s revisit Romney’s campaigns:

1994: MA Senate Republican primary: Romney 82%, John Lakian 18%

1994: MA Senate general election: Ted Kennedy 58%, Romney 41%

2002: MA Gubernatorial Republican primary: Romney runs unopposed

2002: MA Gubernatorial general election: Romney 50%, Shannon O’Brien 45%

2006: MA Gubernatorial primary: trailing in polls for the general election to Deval Patrick—a guy who’d never run for anything before—Romney declines to seek reelection. I’ll count this as a loss; you might be more charitable.

2007: Presidential primaries: I won’t go state-by-state, but here’s the breakdown: Romney won only three states where the vote was a straight-up primary. Each of these wins was in a place where he had enormous legacy advantages: Michigan, where his father had been governor; Massachusetts, where he had been governor; and Utah, which is overwhelmingly Mormon. (He also won 8 caucus states, though the organizing rules there are much less indicative of electoral strength.)

On other side of the ledger, Romney lost primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, California, Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, and Maryland. (He also lost a bunch of caucus states, but we won’t count those against him since we’re discounting his caucus wins.)

Which means that in the 2008 cycle he went 3-16.

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Being a media favorite doesn’t necessarily translate into votes. Four years ago the media was touting Romney as a major player, and some of them thought his devout religiosity would appeal to the fundiegelicals. I was thinking, “Hello? He’s a MORMON. Don’t you idiots know how fundies feel about Mormons? He might as well be a Wiccan or a Satanist.” Romney even gave a speech about his religion. It went over like a pregnant pole vaulter.

Not only do the fundies not like him, but conservatives despise him. (These are the same people who thought John McCain was too liberal.) If Romney somehow won the nomination the conservative base would stay home on election day just like they did in 2008.

But wait! There’s more:

Oh my: Perry 41, Romney 12, Paul 11, Bachmann 9

Romney has been running for the GOP nomination for the last 7-8 years and has yet to gain much traction with actual voters. Rick Perry has been running for three weeks.

It’s the Curse of Seamus.

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There goes a bunch of good jokes

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Volokh Conspiracy:

New York City Bars Dogs from Bars

In New York, dogs can take the witness stand at a criminal trial. But at least in New York City, they’re not allowed to go into bars.

NYC regulators recently banned dogs from bars, even those with outdoor seating areas and those that serve only beverages:

[I]t has always been a violation of the city’s health code to allow a dog anywhere near a beer tap. But for years, this has been one of the most widely — and gleefully — violated rules in the city.

Not any more.

Since the health department adopted a letter grade system for bars and restaurants last year, bar owners say, health inspectors are allowing no wiggle room for four-legged patrons….

During inspections, many owners said they were surprised to learn that dogs were not allowed even in outdoor seating areas. Neither does a bar’s dearth of actual food products provide any cover. “Beer, wine and spirits have always been classified as food,” a department spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail. Only service dogs are permitted in spaces that serve food or drink of any kind.

As Thom Lambert points out, this is a ridiculous regulation. Dogs near food service areas do pose some risks. But as anyone who has a dog and a kitchen at home knows, they are fairly easy to minimize. More fundamentally, most people can readily understand the (very small) risks involved and decide for themselves whether they want to patronize a dog-friendly bar or not. Market incentives can and do supply plenty of dog-free watering holes for those who don’t want to take the risk of guzzling beer near canines, or simply don’t like dogs.

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As long as the dog is at least three years old (21 in dog years) what’s the problem? If you train them right they make good designated drivers.

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Is our children learning?

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Maybe they aren’t brain-damaged after all:

Buyers’ remorse: Youth ditch Obama

President Obama coasted into the White House thanks in part to the youth vote, individuals aged 18-29 who bought into his vague promise to bring change. During Mr. Obama’s term in office, however, many of this group – known as Millennials – have been forced to learn how to subsist on pocket change. This isn’t quite what they were expecting when they turned out in historic droves in 2008.

According to a recent poll commissioned by Generation Opportunity, 57 percent of Millennials participating said they will learn more about the policy positions of presidential candidates in the 2012 election than they did in 2008. This is bad news for Mr. Obama, who is encumbered with a record that hurts young adults. His $825 billion so-called stimulus robbed the private sector of cash needed for job growth, while Obamacare will squeeze money from these healthiest of Americans through fines and forced participation to subsidize treatment for old sick people.

“Young people are disillusioned after 2008, when the message was change,” points out Surbhi Godsay of the youth-research organization CIRCLE. Now, she says, they’re “concerned about employment.” And for good reason. Statistics show that Millennials have been hit hard by the high jobless rates around the country. The unemployment rate for 16-24 year-olds is a staggering 18.1 percent, down from the record-breaking high of 19.1 percent a year ago, while 25-34 year-olds face a rate of 9.7 percent, higher than the national average. Among Millennials, “Everybody knows somebody who’s really been struggling to find a job,” explains Paul Conway, president of Generation Opportunity.

Not helping Mr. Obama’s re-election chances is a report that this group retains no particular political loyalty, according to Mr. Conway. “Millennials are solutions-oriented,” he told Anneke E. Green of The Washington Times. “They have their own recommendations, they want to be heard, and they want results.” The problem is things just keep getting worse. According to a 2010 poll commissioned by Rock the Vote, 59 percent of this demographic says they feel more cynical about the political process than they did in 2008. This cynicism could be a sign of progress. Perhaps next year, young voters won’t be so easily duped by empty slogans.

I guess that hopenchange stuff didn’t work out so well after all. As angienc likes to say, “Hope in one hand and shit in the other. See which one fills up first.“

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Something missing here

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Health care fraud prosecutions on pace to rise 85%

New government statistics show federal health care fraud prosecutions in the first eight months of 2011 are on pace to rise 85% over last year due in large part to ramped-up enforcement efforts under the Obama administration.

The statistics, released by the non-partisan Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, show 903 prosecutions so far this year. That’s a 24% increase over the total for all of fiscal year 2010, when 731 people were prosecuted for health fraud through federal agencies across the country. Prosecutions have gone up 71% from five years ago, according to TRAC.

[...]

Task force convictions have also risen, according to Justice’s criminal division Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer. In 2010, the task force saw 23 trial convictions for Medicare fraud. In the first eight months of this year, they’ve had 24.

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Let’s see:

2010 – 731 people prosecuted, 23 convicted

2011 – 903 people prosecuted, 24 convicted

Since most criminal prosecutions result in plea bargains I am going to assume that there were more than a few defendants who plead out. But how many were there and what were the terms of those pleas?

How many people went to prison and what was the average sentence?

Those are kinda important bits of data. You would think a reporter would have would have wanted to include them, wouldn’t you?

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Moving the goalposts

Yee-HAW!

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Jennifer Rubin:

Perry at the VFW

But perhaps in the change of schedule and the rush of the new campaign not much attention was given to the speech. Let’s take a look at what he said:

“I do not believe that America should fall subject to a foreign policy of military adventurism. We should only risk shedding American blood and spending American treasure when our vital interests are threatened and we should always look to build coalitions among the nations to protect the mutual interests of freedom loving people,” Perry told thousands of veterans today.

“It’s not our interest to go it alone. We respect our allies, and we must always seek to engage them in military missions. At the same time, we must be willing to act when it is time to act. We cannot concede the moral authority of our nation to multi-lateral debating societies, and when our interests are threatened American soldiers should be led by American commanders.”

Huh? Let’s take “military adventurism” for starters. Is someone in favor of that, and is he accusing President Obama or former President George W. Bush of such a thing? He doesn’t say. They he says we should shed blood only for “our vital interests.” Is that different from our plain old interests? Really, the issue is how one defines national interests or vital national interests. Does that include Libya? What about Afghanistan? Again, there is no hint at what he means. Then comes a tangle of statements. “Always look to build coalitions” and don’t “go it alone.” But then again, we must be willing to act “when it is time to act.” Got that? Me neither.

I asked Perry spokesman Mark Miner what Perry meant by “military adventurism.” He e-mailed me: “The military adventurism comment in the VFW speech was a statement of the Governor’s philosophy and not intended to be a specific reference to previous or ongoing military operations.” But, you know, what does that mean in Perry’s mind? He responded, “Military adventurism amounts to an aimless foreign policy that involves America in parts of the world where we don’t have vital interests. The Governor is mindful of the sacrifice our soldiers make and that one day, he may be the one to send them into battle. He takes very seriously the decision to do so.” Um, then a “vital national interest” would be something that is not “military adventurism”? If someone has thought seriously about these issues it is not apparent.

Tossing around some catchy phrases without meaning or specificity isn’t very enlightening or comforting. To the contrary, it suggests a “whatever” attitude toward serious policy issues. We certainly have gone through a campaign when the candidate got by on pablum, but that turned out to be a disappointment to conservatives and liberals alike.

Perry and his advisers are drinking from the proverbial fire hose right now. They have to find advance men, fund-raisers, organizers and attend to a million details. But if he is going to dispel the idea that he is light in the policy department he’ll have to, well, show he’s not light in the policy department. That means setting out at least some general foreign policy views, for example, on Iran, the Russian reset, Hugo Chavez, China, Cuba and human rights.

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While I generally agree that candidates for president need to lay out their ideas on foreign and domestic policy, we’re still several months away from the Iowa caucuses. Rick Perry is the governor of Texas, a job that doesn’t involve much foreign policy.

He’s been in the campaign less than a month and there will be lots of chances for him to tell voters where he stands on various issues. I can’t help but think of another governor who was bashed for not being a foreign policy expert just weeks after she was elevated to the national stage.

Then again there was another small-state governor who was bashed for his lack of foreign policy expertise. He was running against a guy who had lots of it. His response:

“It’s the economy, stupid!”

Let me be clear – I am not endorsing nor supporting Rick Perry. He’s no Big Dawg either (who is?) It just annoys me the way the media moves the goalposts depending whether they like a candidate or not.

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You can’t make this shit up

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Seriously:

‘Jewish’ Bachmann is costing Romney

Funny, she doesn’t look Jewish.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is facing a new challenge: He’s having trouble raising money from some Jewish donors who mistakenly believe one of his opponents, Michele Bachmann, is Jewish.

Some Jewish donors are telling fund-raisers for Romney, a Mormon, that while they like him, they’d rather open their wallets for the “Jewish candidate,” who they don’t realize is actually a Lutheran, The Post has learned.

“It’s a real problem,” one Romney fund-raiser said. “We’re working very hard in the Jewish community because of Obama’s Israel problem. This was surprising.”

[...]

Now, with this latest hiccup among Jewish donors, some in Romney’s camp have been wondering whether Bachmann and her allies are pushing the “Jewish” rumor to help their own fund-raising, sources said.

She has enjoyed strong popularity among Jewish voters and often talks about her stay on a kibbutz during the summer of 1974, when she was a teenager.

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Maybe Mitt should show them his circumcision scar.

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