The July Jobs Report is a Total Disaster for U.S. Workers

Let's put this July jobs report in perspective.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. economy supposedly grew 163,000 jobs last month.  Except that's not exactly true.

Rush Limbaugh was on a roll about these numbers yesterday.  He called Obama "a closed-minded economic bigot."  Here's his take:

Sadly, folks, there were 195,000 fewer people employed in this country in July than there were in June. It might have been 172,000 new jobs.  That's even debatable.  But it was a net wash because -- these are numbers from the BLS report.  I'm not making it up.  Obama's Department of Labor's own numbers, 195,000 fewer people employed in the United States in July than there were in June.  We lost jobs.  We also lost more people from the labor force.  The national unemployment rate went up, 8.2 to 8.3%. One-hundred and fifty thousand people simply dropped out of the labor force.  Actually that number is 155,000, which means that this 172,000 new jobs that he's trumpeting are actually a wash, folks.  No net new jobs, 195,000 fewer people employed, 150,000 simply dropped out of the labor force.  That's the pattern. 

If you figure in all the people that have just quit looking for work and have dropped out or gone on disability then our unemployment is closer to 15%.

Ed Morrissey:

July saw a slight move up in U-6, which had been coming down earlier in the year to the mid-14 range.  That measure of un/underemployment has now risen to 15.2%, increasing in both adjusted and unadjusted measures.  It’s the highest rating in this measure since February, and it’s now up more than a full point since April. 

Historically, no sitting president has won re-election with numbers like this.

Chris Cillizza:

Because the July jobs report affirmed the now-certain reality that the unemployment rate won’t drop below eight percent between today and November. And no sitting president since World War II has been re-elected with the unemployment rate above 7.2 percent. 

The numbers are daunting for Obama. The unemployment rate has been above 8 percent for 42 straight months— its longest period ever.

Remember, Obama said he would get unemployment down under 6% if Congress passed the stimulus.  He's quite a long way from that.

James Pethokoukis on the jobs report:

Not only is the 8.3% unemployment rate way above the 5.6% unemployment rate that Team Obama predicted for July 2012 if Congress passed the $800 billion stimulus plan. It’s way above the 6.0% unemployment rate they predicted if no stimulus was passed.

In his remarks yesterday, "the smartest president ever" redefined economic policy as we know it to work with his theory of trickle-up economics:

And keep in mind, we're talking about folks like me going back to the tax rates that existed under Bill Clinton.  If you remember, that was when we created 23 million new jobs, we went from deficits to surplus, and folks at the top did well, too -- because when middle-class families have money in their pockets, they go out and buy that new car, or that new appliance, or that new computer for their kids, or they go out to a restaurant, or, heaven forbid, they take a vacation once in a while.  And that money goes back into the economy, and businesses do well because they've got more customers.

So the rich get richer because the middle class spends money?  And the middle class gets this money where?  Food stamps?  After all, that's Nancy Pelosi's theory.  She explained her food-stamps-as-stimulus theory back in 2010.  That these people are running the country just scares the hell out of me.

Rush Limbaugh again:

Did you catch that?  The money starts with the middle class, and as long as the middle class has money, then they go out and spend it, and that's how the rich get rich.  Wow!  Wow!  Folks at the top did well, too, because when middle-class families have money in their pockets, they go out and buy that new car, that new appliance, or that new computer for their kids when they've got money in their pocket. So we gotta get money into the hands of the middle class.  How we gonna do that?  We're gonna do food stamps.  Trickle up.  So we got a brand-new economic definition here from Mr. Wizard of Smart.  

It's just incredible.  How can the polls even be close?  As Mark Steyn said, "This should not be a close race."

Every number, every statistic, every graph, every calculation you look at shows Obama's ruinous effect on our economy from the explosion of the entitlement state to unemployment and more.

And stop to think for a moment about all the job killing regulations that are to come via the EPA and ObamaCare (for starters).  Think about Taxmageddon coming in January. ObamaCare is already killing jobs.  Think about another four years under Obama's energy policy (gas prices are now more than double what they were when he took office).

In light of all that, if Obama wins in November, we may look back at this jobs report and think these were the good old days.


(Graphic from James Pethokoukis)

Regulation Nation

Via Rush Limbaugh, this is fabulous:

Agitators

Sometimes truth hurts as when Rush Limbaugh declared yesterday:

“I think it can now be said, without equivocation — without equivocation — that this man hates this country,” the conservative radio host said. “He is trying, Barack Obama is trying, to dismantle, brick-by-brick, the American dream. There’s no other way to put this. There’s no other way to explain this.”

Rush made these comments coming off an Obama speech Friday in Roanoke in which he said:

“Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something: There are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.” 

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help,” Obama continued. “There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

The remarks quite naturally created a stir all over the internet and Rush just fanned the flames.  Via Professor Jacobson:



The good professor writes that both Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama "are hypocrites cut from the same cloth."

Be sure to check out video of Charles Krauthammer's smackdown of Obama's remarks at Legal Insurrection.

On the Reading Table

I was out running errands today when heard Rush Limbaugh promoting his brother David's new book, The Great Destroyer.

Since I was two blocks from a Barnes and Noble, and since I don't have nearly enough to read this summer, I popped in to pick it up.

I'm already 60 pages or so into it and can't put it down.  This book isn't one that would do well for me on a Kindle because I'm constantly flipping back and forth and looking back to the copious footnotes at the end.  It's a really well documented book.

I would consider it a must-read for the days ahead.

Add "Babe" to Your List of Derogatory Extremist Slurs

I mentioned the other day that political correctness has run amok and I stand by that statement.  When (and why) in the world did we all become so sensitive?  Even our speech is now controlled by the nanny-state.

Case in point:  Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection links to this story by Adam Clark Estes in The Atlantic.  Remember him?  Estes is the fellow who mocked the death of a Cornell student who died from H1N1 in 2009.

As Professor Jacobson points out today, in that 2009 article Estes made an error in judgment with his mockery.  "It happens."  Indeed it does.

In the eyes of Mr. Estes, however, it seems to be a case of "do as I say and not as I do."  Estes is all over Rush Limbaugh for referring to writer Tracie McMillan a "babe" and an "authorette."

Limbaugh's thesis (one Estes seems to have missed), was that there is no "war on women" as the left claims there is.  To illustrate that point he highlights Ms. McMillan's book, The American Way of Eating.  Limbaugh doesn't really say anything derogatory about McMillan personally; he called her forthright, pointed out her credentials and that "she knows her way around a kitchen."  Is that an insult these days?  I wouldn't think so.  Maybe it is to Mr. Estes.

Estes loses sight of the fact that Limbaugh's main point was that there isn't a war on women, but "a war on freedom," which is being waged by the left.  That "war" extends right down to the food you eat.  I haven't read Ms. McMillan's book but she seems to be making the case that good food is the domain of the affluent.

Estes also finds fault with the fact that Rush points out Ms. McMillan is "a white woman."  I'm not sure when that became derogatory, either.

It is this excerpt from Rush's commentary that seems to irk Mr. Estes:

What is it with all of these young single white women, overeducated -- doesn't mean intelligent.  For example, Tracie McMillan, the author of this book, seems to be just out of college and already she has been showered with awards, including the 2006 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism.  Social justice journalism.  This woman who wrote the book on food inequality, food justice, got an award for social justice journalism.  She won a national prize rewarding journalism that measures business, governmental and social affairs against clear ideals of the common good.  Her degree is not in food or nutrition.  She has a B.A. from New York University in political science.  She's a political scientist.  She's a journalist.  She has received awards for social justice journalism, and she has a book out on food justice.

Is that derogatory?  Mr. Estes has trouble deciphering it:

It's hard to comprehend exactly what Limbaugh is try to say. He suggests that McMillan is overeducated but not intelligent, naive and out of her league. McMillan isn't offended, necessarily. She seemed more concerned with the rhetoric Limbaugh's promoting. "Calling me out for being a single woman and suggesting that having put me through university on my own dime makes me an over educated person," she said, "that's pulling out some really bad tendencies in American thinking."

It all seems like a manufactured crisis to me.  It doesn't even sound as if Ms. McMillan is as upset about the language as Mr. Estes is.

As for the Democrats, well, they're using Rush's language as a fund raising opportunity.  Sen. Claire McCaskill, candidate Tarryl Clark, and  Rep. Janice Hahn have all used the Fluke kerfuffle as a money making opportunity:

Sen. Claire McCaskill was so disturbed by Rush Limbaugh’s description of a law school student as a “slut” and “prostitute” that she decided to repeat his rhetoric, featuring it in a fund raising appeal sent to thousands of supporters around the country. The tactic has paid off nicely for the Democrat’s re-election campaign.

I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

Back to political correctness...apparently these days you can't call a girl a "babe," point out that she's white, black, Asian or Martian;  "authorette" is apparently derogatory as well.  I suppose "anchor babe" is, too.

If you want to get into derogatory slurs, it seems to come more from the left as from the right.  A leftist called me "pathetic" on my own blog just this week.  Derogatory?  Well, I wish she'd called me a "babe" instead.

Mr. Estes needs to put his copy of Rule of Radicals back on the shelf and stop making a crisis where there is none.

A Fine Analogy

From Rush Limbaugh on his lost sponsors:

Twenty-eight sponsors out of 18,000! That's like losing a couple of french fries in the container when it's delivered to you at the drive-thru. You don't even notice it. 

Imagery.

The Headlines Are Crazier Than A Run Over Dog Today

Two hours ago I was in my classroom attempting to explain the finer points of how to write a research paper to three classes of sophomores who have seemingly never heard of "parenthetical citations" or "a bibliography" or even "sources" for your "research."  I was convinced the world had melted out from beneath me and all was lost.

Then I came home and read the headlines on Memeorandum.  Now I'm certain that the world has just gone run-over-dog crazy.

Consider:

"Netflix Becomes 30th Advertiser to Drop Rush Limbaugh"   Seriously?!  This just blows my mind.  All this because he called Sandra Fluke a slut?  Am I missing something?  The woman goes before Congress and opens up her sex life to public scrutiny, complains that she can't afford birth control for all the sex she is having, and Rush Limbaugh is the bad guy because he called her out on it?  And who on this planet does not realize that most of Rush Limbaugh's remarks are satirical?  Political correctness is ruining this country.  Plain and simple.  Insane.  If Sandra Fluke didn't want the heat she shouldn't have lit the match.  And shame on all those advertisers who are caving to this insanity. 

Moving on.

The next thing that caught my eye was a story about Bin Laden not really being buried at sea.  Apparently it was all fabricated and Bin Laden was spirited into the US on a CIA plane.  WTF?!  I'll just quote Althouse on this one:

So we had this respectful burial at sea, which was intended to impress/mollify/appease whomever, and now it turns out it never happened. I think messages of respect can be meaningful, even if they are lies, but they must be believed. The messenger needs a reputation for honesty. And the exposure of one lie — especially one this big — makes all your other messages suspect.

And then, there's the Huffington Post seemingly defending wife beating under the Qur'an.    You can't put too much stock in an article by a guy who doesn't even know proper grammar:

Critics incorrectly allege that Islam command's husband's to beat their wives, often citing the Quran verse 4:34. [sic]

And finally, apparently the pill is actually an economic "stimulus"!  Ha!  Who knew?

Don't tell that to Sandra Fluke. 

No Apology Needed

Instead of discussing the growing tensions between Iran and Israel, escalating gas prices, violence in Syria, or even the killing of Americans in Afghanistan, much of the media has spent the week talking about Sandra Fluke's sex life.

Rush Limbaugh threw even more red meat on the situation by insinuating that Ms. Fluke is, well, promiscuous:

What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We're the pimps. (interruption) The johns? We would be the johns? No! We're not the johns. (interruption) Yeah, that's right. Pimp's not the right word. Okay, so she's not a slut. She's "round heeled." I take it back.

Well the media went wild with this one.  Demands for an apology flamed across the internet and Obama even picked up the phone to check on the beleaguered 30-something activist "co-ed". 

And now Rush has apologized to the young lady:

For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week.  In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.

I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit? In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone's bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level.

My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.

For my part, I don't think an apology was necessary.

Don Surber does:

Conservatives need to take a little mental trip back to June 2009 when David Letterman joked about Sarah Palin’s “slutty flight attendant look” and joked about her 14-year-old daughter, Willow, having sex at Yankee Stadium with Derek Jeter in the middle of a game.

I think there's a difference there. Sarah Palin did indeed suffer the brunt of many a vile attack and she was probably fair game by being a public figure.  But her daughter wasn't.  I'm not seeing the analogy there that Surber sees.

The bigger issue here, rather than Ms. Fluke's sex life, is the over-reach of the government to demand that health insurers provide coverage for contraceptives and abortifacients.  

Who cares how much sex Sandra Fluke has?  I certainly don't and I don't care how much sex her fellow "co-eds" have, either.  I think Rush's main point was to call attention to the lack of personal responsibility and  nanny-state government.  Ms. Fluke threw herself into the forum of public discussion by making her sex life public.

No apology needed.

Did Rush Limbaugh Endorse Rick Perry?

Did Rush Limbaugh come close to endorsing Rick Perry yesterday? 

You be the judge:

Let me tell you something, folks: I wouldn't have one ounce of doubt about Rick Perry. I've been hoping Rick Perry would catch fire, but I have people in my sphere who don't want to vote for Perry (and largely they're women) because he sounds too much like Bush.

Not an endorsement but darned close. 

Limbaugh cites Perry's record in Texas and his tax policy as pluses, and insists debating skills and "electability" should have nothing to do with picking the most conservative candidate we can.

By the way, it's debate night again.  I'll be covering the debate here.

Who is IT?

I'm in a funk about the Republican field.  I don't love any of 'em.

Chris Christie says he isn't running, to no one's great surprise.  I don't think I'd have loved him, either.  I don't care about his weight;  I think we disagree on some issues.  What I really want is to take parts of each of the candidates and make the perfect candidate.

Christie had not stepped out of the television lights today before the pundits were back to speculating on a Palin run.  Rick Perry seems to have peaked and burned so fast we hardly knew he was there.  And all the while Mittens is sitting comfortably in the lead:  a flip-flopper who says what he has to say and seems to have little conviction of anything.

A Palin entry won't change things for me.

Is this the best we can do?

One day last week, or maybe it was the week before, Rush Limbaugh suggested that Obama is going to lose so big in 2012 that Republicans ought to be putting up the most conservative candidate possible rather than some to-the-center "big tent" sort of person. 

A co-worker asked me last week, "Well, who's it going to be?!"

I have no idea.  My feelings about this election are about the same as the last one.  Anyone but Obama.  I would love to be able to enthusiastically get behind a candidate right now, but I can't.  I had a foot on the Perry train, but I've stepped back a little.

What's bothering me about Perry?  I'm not sure.  Maybe his poor debate performances.  He seems unprepared for the questions which I find troubling.  I was troubled by his in-state tuition position for illegals, and am still even after the reports that it amounts to so few students.  It's the principle for me.  Why should the illegal alien get preferential treatment over the impoverished student from another state who wants to come to Texas?  Oh, I've heard Perry's defense; it just doesn't convince me.

The tuition issue and the poor debate performances are enough to give me pause.  But there are other nagging things about Perry, too.  Nothing major; maybe he'll improve through the campaign, but with states now moving their primary dates up and up and up, we'll be voting before we know exactly who we're voting for.

Should Paul Ryan have run?  Maybe.  Would he have won?  Doubtful.

Should Rubio have run?  Too early?  Should he take a VP position if asked?  Should he waste his talents attending state funerals for four years?  Or eight?

Why doesn't Rick Santorum have more charisma?  But then again, Rick Santorum is almost too conservative for me, and that's going some.

Why do we expect charisma in our president, anyway?  Is that a prerequisite?

How can Herman Cain get the nomination with so little foreign policy experience or know how?  Oh, snap!  Experience is now a non-issue after Obama!  So can Cain get the nomination?  Do we want him to?  Is he IT?

I don't know.

I don't have answers to any of these questions yet, even after watching all the debates so far.

I hope things clear up.

Added (10/5/11):  Rubio says he will NOT be a VP candidate.

Rush and the Double Entendre

Rush Limbaugh says Weiner-Gate is "hard to swallow."  Oh my.

You know he had to say something.  He says he's befuddled by the whole thing because he simply doesn't tweet. 

"What if as the girl claims Weiner has 'a small problem'"?

"Is he giving his constituents the shaft?"

Oh my.

Update:

Rush says he wasn't up to date on Weiner-Gate until today.  "It does not warrant top of the program interest to me."

"When you have the mindset that they're all depraved, it's not news to me...I don't have time to be distracted like this."

True enough.

Is This Offensive To You?

The perpetually unhinged Andrew Sullivan is entering a few new "code words" into the lexicon of racism today.  Apparently it is now RAAAAACIST to call anyone a "juvenile delinquent" or to use the word "graffiti" or "gang."  The gang at the coffee pot this morning will be interested in learning they are now part of a racist conspiracy.  

Sullivan's defense will likely be that it's the "context," so please, what's "racist" about saying "Obama and his gang"?   Are we so politically correct now that we must say "Obama and his appointed Cabinet members, czars and advisers" when we refer to those people in Washington who are dismantling America as we know it?  This pushes the "racism" canard a little too far methinks.

Is this picture "racist" to you?  Sullivan thinks so. 

(H/T:  Memeorandum)

Down to the Wire in Delaware

The Delaware Senate race is getting all kinds of buzz today because of the latest PPP poll putting Christine O'Donnell ahead of Mike Castle.  This race has garnered the attention of nearly every pundit from one end of the country to the other, including Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh. 

In this particular race the lines are sharply drawn and people feel strongly about their position.  Mark Levin is convinced that O'Donnell is the right candidate while Charles Krauthammer just told Brett Baier that a vote of O'Donnell is simply self-indulgent as she cannot win.  Krauthammer believes that Republican control of the Senate could rest on this one race.  He's not alone in that position, either; Ed Morrissey at Hot Air writes:

If control of the Senate comes down to this race, and it very well might, would it be better to have a Republican squish holding the seat and give the GOP control of the Senate floor and all the committees, or to hand it to either Harry Reid or Chuck Schumer for the next two-year period in which we’ll see at least one Supreme Court retirement and Obama still attempting to push through his radical agenda? 

Rush Limbaugh takes the opposite stance.  On his program today he drew parallels between O'Donnell, Sarah Palin, and Sharron Angle, suggesting that they threaten the ruling class because these women are "not like them."  Limbaugh points out that O'Donnell, for example, isn't being attacked because of her stance on any issues.  She's been attacked for numerous personal grievances, as Palin was, but not on the issues.   Nobody is digging into Mike Castle's personal life; just O'Donnell's. 

By the way, Rush also quoted from Professor Jacobson's blog today, too.  Big Time!  He referenced this post (which wins the Great Title Award of the Day) by the good Professor in which he said,

The "nuts and sluts" defense is a common employment law tactic whenever a female employee brings a claim.  It doesn't matter what the claim is, the defense -- after the usual legal mumbo jumbo -- will be something like this:

"She's nuts.  And by the way, pssst, she may be a slut."

That is the mode of attack Democrats use against conservative women.  Sarah Palin is the prime example, as she routinely is called crazy and is sexualized by the left (to the silence of liberal feminist groups).

The nuts part of the attack is being used against Christine O'Donnell in Delaware by the local Republican establishment, and also by two leading conservative magazines, The Weekly Standard and National Review. 

Rush said, "A Senate full of Mike Castles isn't going to get us anywhere...if that's our majority with a bunch of Mike Castles in there, we're in trouble."

So where do you go with that?  If you're a Delaware Republican, do you vote for the RINO just because he's supposedly electable?  Charles Krauthammer insisted Castle will win the general election:  "They'll call off the fight in the first round," he said.  O'Donnell, he said, doesn't stand a chance.

Does it really come down to how badly one wants the majority?  Can O'Donnell win the general election should she win the primary?  She's collected a number of big endorsements, including the NRA, Sarah Palin, Tea Party Express, and Senator James DeMint, yet FreedomWorks won't sign on.
Daniel Foster at The Corner suggests that O'Donnelll could actually win if she ran a smart campaign in the general election.

Michelle Malkin lays out the case for O'Donnell here.

It's a huge gamble, isn't it!  So much at stake.

Either way, the debate will be moot this time tomorrow.  We'll know how Delaware feels about it all soon enough.

Thank You, Mr. President

Via The Lonely Conservative:

Rush Keeping Hope Alive

Driving to Minden today, we were listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. He had several callers who were all frustrated and trying to find ways to stop what is happening with the health care debacle.

Mark Levin called in and tried to clarify some of the issues as well. He's ready to go with his lawsuit should this thing pass on Sunday.

Rush mentioned this site - BarackHatesThis, which has the phone numbers of those we need to keep calling. It's a good, concise list.

As of now, I guess we're all anxiously awaiting the Stupak press conference and hoping against hope that he'll stand firm. It sounds like if he makes a deal with Pelosi, gets the language he wants, and votes for the bill, Queen Nancy is risking the ire and Nay votes of the Pro-life Democrats.

The plot thickens.

Rush Helps Crash Capitol Phone Lines

For the second time in history Rush Limbaugh has crashed the phone lines at the Capitol switchboard.

Since Rush doesn't normally use his show as a call to activism, Michael Calderone asked him why now; Rush's response?

"This is ball game. This is ball game, and Michael, the only reason we're at this point is because the American people have stood up. The Republicans don't have the votes to stop this. And the Martians don't have the votes to stop this. Republicans may as well be Martians on this given their influence. All we can do is continue to have the American people let it be known they want no part of this -- the substance of the bill or the process. They don't like it. And that's why I am urging -- because this is a transformation of our country into something that no one has ever seen it be like. And we don't want that transformation to take place. We like America as it was founded. We don't want to turn it into a third world country."

And the lines have indeed crashed.

Neil Cavuto, on his program this afternoon, has repeatedly tried to call through and all he gets is a busy signal.

The Hill reports that the system began crashing early this afternoon:

The office of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) sent out a system-wide advisory to member offices at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, warning them of the dramatic increase in traffic.

“Our phone system is nearing capacity,” said Jeff Ventura, spokesman for the CAO. “It got critical enough whereby we notified all systems administrators throughout the House that the phone systems are overloading.”

Here is Rush's Code Red list. Representatives prefer to hear from their own constituents and many of their email contact forms require a zip code or address within their district. Don't let that deter you.

TPM, for example, reports that Rep. John Boccieri (D-NY) is still undecided and has been deluged with calls:

On Monday Boccieri's office received 1,500 calls, nearly all of them about health care and substantially higher in volume than a normal day, according to Jessica Kershaw. A new staffer starting in the Washington office Monday logged 400 of those calls on her own, doing nothing but answering the phone. In addition, aides had 1,200 e-mails in their system sent over the weekend - more than twice the normal volume.

Of the 1,500 calls, 985 were from people calling from outside of the district about health care. The office said many of them were run through an autodial system by various groups. When a real person of the eight answering phones isn't available, the calls kick into a general voicemail box. When that's full, staffers individual voicemails fill up.

The calls are about evenly split on the pro-health care and anti-health care, though Boccieri would prefer to hear thoughts on health care coming from within his district, Kershaw said.

Whether or not you're in some one's district doesn't really matter. You're still an American and a vote FOR Obamacare will change America and put us on the road to catastrophe.

Keep calling!

(More at Memeorandum)

Rush's Advice to Obama

Venting - Part II

Today is Friday for me - we are off school tomorrow for Fall Break. I might stay up past 9:30 tonight. Woot!

My blogging has been light over the past couple of days because I've been busy at work (research paper season) and at home (best friend's dad died) and just generally distracted. It's rained ten inches here in one week and I'm starting to grow webs between my toes. The weather guy promises it's going to dry out and be cooler over the next few days. We will see.

Meanwhile, I'm perusing my blogroll and Memeorandum and all hell is broken loose. I'm thinking, "Gee, I really need to get a blog post up or folks will quit dropping in!" and the next moment I'm thinking, "Holy crap, where to begin!?!"

I mean, Meghan McCain is flaunting her huge boobs and throwing a Twitter fit; Stacy McCain has already laid claim to the Meghan McCain boobs bomb, and that's not the half of it. I'm trying to get my head around Libya releasing 88 known terrorists with Al Qaeda ties. Obamacare continues to fester - Nancy Pelosi swears she has votes for a public option. She lies.

Speaking of terrorists, the House defeated Republican efforts to stop Gitmo detainees from coming to America; they were cleared today to come here for trial.

Meanwhile, Glenn Beck is getting all teary and emotional on tv again as he talks about the crap weasels in the current administration, specifically today, Anita Dunn, who Beck has on video claiming Chairman Mao as one of her go-to influential people in times of trouble. WTF? Of course, now, she says she was just kidding. Right.

More and more I am starting to feel like I need to take Bride's advice and stock up on canned goods, pay off all my bills, fill the tanks with gasoline, and go underground. Armageddon is coming. It's all gloom and doom on this front.

Bah. All this and Rush Limbaugh can't even join a group trying to buy an NFL team? Michael Vick is good enough for the NFL but Rush isn't? Give me a f**king break!!!!! Enough! Color me done with the NFL. Call it a business decision if you must, because that's all letting Michael Vick back in was about. $$$$$$$$. Rush's $$$$$$$ isn't good enough.

I'm so sick of everyone calling everyone else racist. I'm so glad Obama has united us and this is all behind us, because I haven't heard so much racial division in this country in my whole life.

Meanwhile, I'm building a bunker. I've got to call Mark Levin and get his advice.

Later.

The Rhetoric Over ObamaCare

The rhetoric with regard to the town hall protests and the opposition to ObamaCare has intensified to incredible levels over the past couple of weeks on both sides of the issue.

Protesters have been called everything from an angry mob to Nazis; yesterday Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer called them "Un-American." Incredible.

Sarah Palin was bashed when she referred to "death panels" in the bill. Maybe her terminology was lacking - the House bill doesn't actually SAY death panels, but what Mrs. Palin was referring to was likely the government bureaucracy that is going to deliever cost-effective health care protocols to your doctor regarding your care as a byproduct of your records that are entered into that centralized system set up by the Stimulus bill. That much IS in the House bill.

Palin wrote: "And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."

I'd agree that her concerns are a bit hyperbolic, but they aren't all that far off base. Again, nobody calls it a "death panel," but the rationing of health care is certainly a reality that will have to be faced should the bill be passed in anything close to its current form. There is no other way to pay for it all. Taxing the rich certainly won't do it.

Politco has a piece today that takes a look at the inflamatory rhetoric we've seen lately. Roger Simon calls it an "age of rabid response." He condemns Palin, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh for their responses to ObamaCare and quotes Limbaugh's comparison of Obama's health care logo to a Nazi swastika. (It IS similar - not just the logo but the entire graphic has unfortunate similarities).

Nancy Pelosi is in the thick of this as she was one of the first ones to say that town hall protesters were carrying swastikas and hanging likenesses of Democratic Congressmen in effigy. I didn't hear any condemnation from her when Sarah Palin was hung in effigy, but I guess that was different. I haven't seen any swastikas at these town hall protests either, but I'm sure there have been one or two. You'd have to watch a lot of YouTube videos of them to find very many.

I honestly don't think these Nazi comparisons are productive at all. I get where they are coming from: ObamaCare is clearly a socialist policy. Nationalized health care IS socialism. Period. Oh, he SAYS that's not what he's trying to do, but of course it is. The evidence is everywhere and has been since before the campaign. Of course, now we have lapdog MSNBC putting race into the argument by claiming that "socialism" could be the next "N-word." The inflamatory rhetoric on both sides is unproductive.

Obama himself contributed to this dialogue with his "get out of the way" and "don't do a lot of talkin'" comments. Everyone is entitled to express their concerns. He would do well to remember that.

Now that Obama is set this week to hold some of his own "town halls" (his are more staged than most), he's decided that it's okay to have dissent. He's gone from sit-down-and-shut-up to this:

"I think there's actually a pretty long tradition of people shouting at politicians in America," White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One when asked about the comments.

"The President thinks that if people want to come and have a spirited debate about health care, a real vigorous conversation about it, that's a part of the American tradition and he encourages that, because people do have questions and concerns ...And so if people want to come and have their concerns and their questions answered, the President thinks that's important. Now, if you just want to come to a town hall so that you can disrupt and so that you can scream over another person, he doesn’t think that that's productive. And as a country, we've been able to make progress when people actually talk out what our problems are, not try to shout each other down."

Meanwhile, the SEIU is still recruiting members to stuff local town hall meetings and drown out opposing voices.

In the end, the rhetoric escalates, and some Congressmen are either cancelling town halls, or not scheduling them at all, or phoning them in. None of this is productive to the process. I'd also say that it's a fight too important to back down from altogether. If ObamaCare passes, it changes EVERYthing about our country; it enables to government to have way too much control over every single aspect of our lives. This is why passions are so high. I'd suggest losing all the Nazi references; I just don't think they inform the issue.

But don't back down. Don't stop talking. And don't get out of the way.

David Brooks Fisking Day? Already?

Is it David Brooks Fisking Day? Rush thinks so. Rush quotes last Thursday's Charlie Rose show:

David BROOKS: The biggest shock to me, I thought, the guy's 47, the guy's barely been in Washington. Can he run an effective administration? Yes. Charlie ROSE: And an effective campaign, too. BROOKS: He has run a tremendously effective, efficient managerial administration. That is the biggest surprise and I think the biggest story of the first hundred days. Because if he didn't do that, if he didn't have the essential level of competence, nothing else would matter, people would not trust him. But he is a competent manager.

RUSH: I don't want to spend a lot of time refuting any of this because it's pointless. Competent manager? He's running a marketing campaign rather than being president. He's running a PR campaign rather than being president. He's being president, don't misunderstand, but it's all perception. It's not reality. Everything that they're trying to fix is falling apart. Everything they're trying to fix is getting worse, and yet, the perception is this guy's brilliant, is great, great managerial skills, competent, very, very intelligent, like me, these people all think. I hate to do this to you, folks, but you gotta hear it. This is Charlie Rose and David Brooks just slobbering, literally slobbering over Barack Obama.