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May 8, 2024
Half a century ago, dictionaries told the truthI recently discovered a relic from an ancient civilization, and in my own house! It was titled “Webster’s Third New International Dictionary”, unabridged, copyright 1976. I looked up a few selected definitions in that parchment to s...
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October 8, 2022
Your choice: The Republican...or Chuck SchumerDo you like to think that you vote for the man, not the party? Then I should inform you that in the Senate race, if you vote for the Democrat, you are voting for Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), regardless. There is a nice little Pr...
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March 11, 2021
How safe are the COVID vaccines? (updated)I'll bet you haven't heard this: more congenital anomalies/birth defects and emergency room visits were reported after getting a COVID vaccine in the U.S. than after any of the other 93 vaccine types in the CDC's VAERS database. ...
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January 1, 2018
NASA's Rubber Ruler: An UpdateThe NASA/GISS temperature record is not actually a record of recorded temperatures. It is simply the most recent version of NASA's adjustments to older adjustments. It is not thermometer readings. It is models all the way down. ...
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July 19, 2015
Hispanics in the U.S. are more violent than non-Hispanic whitesIf you believe the U.S. Department of Justice and the Census Bureau, blacks committed about 8.8 times more violent felonies per capita than non-Hispanic whites did over 1990-2002, and Hispanics committed about 6.5 times more. In 2006 the Bureau of...
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July 13, 2015
Illegal Aliens Murder at a <em>Much</em> Higher Rate Than US Citizens DoIt’s time to fact-check the fact-checkers. The Washington Post’s Michelle Yee Hee Lee gave Donald Trump four Pinocchios for saying, “They’re bringing crime” across the border from Mexico. The Post scribe added, “Tr...
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February 24, 2015
Is There Anything Science Reporters Don't Know?One week after the Washington Post called us nuts for believing that airborne transmission of Ebola might be possible, the Washington Post reports that airborne transmission of Ebola is “very likely.” Joel Achenbach is a staff writer f...
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October 13, 2014
'Black People Getting Shot Left and Right'“Who cares about cosmic inflation during the first seconds of the universe’s existence when black people are getting shot left and right by police officers and vigilantes?” That is what Chanda Hsu Prescod-Weinstein, a postdoctoral f...
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July 23, 2014
Is <em>Anything</em> Obama's Fault?President Obama blamed the recent influx of unaccompanied children crossing our southern border on violence in Central America. I expected the usual media suspects to support Obama’s narrative, as well as the ever-popular Blame-Bush excuse. I d...
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July 14, 2014
Obama Had A DREAMThe White House’s explanation of why so many “children” are crossing our southern border recently is that the violence in Central America drove them here. Also, as usual, Bush is to blame: in 2008 President Bush signed a law “...
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March 17, 2014
Good News! ...Sort OfWhen it comes to federal government spending, we are almost back to normal. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the federal government spent 20.8% of GDP in fiscal 2013. That is not a rosy-scenario, computer-generated predic...
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October 26, 2013
Live Chat with an Obamacare NavigatorMy wife managed to get onto healthcare.gov and communicate with an online navigator via "Health Insurance Marketplace Live Chat." My wife entered her name as "Brenda." I think the conversation speaks for itself. Here it is, without edits. [12:...
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October 21, 2013
Blame the Tea Party? Use Your MemoryThe virus that causes people to go mad and vote Democrat has apparently spread to erstwhile conservatives. Take Ann Coulter, please. She writes: For reasons of purity, we dumped an unbeatable Republican candidate and ran a conservative...
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July 26, 2013
Murder Most SwedishHow is the U.S. like Sweden? In its low murder rate. That is, if you include in the statistics only non-blacks in the U.S. legally. In 2011, the latest year for which the FBI has published statistics, there were 14,612 cases of "murder and nonneglig...
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May 15, 2013
All Your Wishes GrantedLet me address all my Democrat friends. Take yourself back to 2007, and imagine you found an old lamp. You rubbed it, and out came a genie, who said, "I am here to grant you three wishes." You might remember those dark days of 2007. ...
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January 14, 2013
Parsing PiersPiers Morgan is one of many people who seem to think the word "murder" must always be preceded by the word "gun," even though "gun" is not defined as an adjective in my dictionary (Webster's Unabridged, 1976). Here is what he said in his interview wi...
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December 27, 2012
Murder by NumbersListening to the latest media chatter, one could get the impression that murder in the US is historically bad and getting worse. As the Reverend Al Sharpton put it, "The time for their talk is over. Now's the time for action, and real change on gun c...
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December 10, 2012
Millionaires, Billionaires, and TeachersOur President likes to use the phrase "millionaires and billionaires." A person whose net worth is $1 million or more is a "millionaire." Most of us working stiffs have trouble thinking in terms of net worth; we are more used to the concept of annual...
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November 28, 2012
Krugman's Howdy Doody TimePaul Krugman recently praised the 1950s, or at least the high tax rates of the 1950s. "And the high-tax, strong-union decades after World War II were in fact marked by spectacular, widely shared economic growth: nothing before or since has matched th...
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November 26, 2012
Learning to Love Simpson-BowlesWhat should Republicans in Congress do right now about the "fiscal cliff"? Everyone has advice, almost none of which squares with reality. Republicans have only two levers of control: the House of Representatives and filibusters in the Senate. Consid...
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November 8, 2012
A Fearless Prognosticator and His Track RecordI made 16 specific predictions for 2012 in early January. I said then, "You can score me next January." It's only November 7 as I write, but I think we have enough information right now to see how well I've done. 1. "Romney will win the R...
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October 30, 2012
Why Doesn't the World Imitate the U.S.?What makes some nations wealthy and others not? One way to address that question is to look for patterns: what do wealthy nations do that non-wealthy nations don't? According to the CIA World Factbook, the U.S. has a GDP per capita of $49,000,...
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October 25, 2012
Obama's Fog of WarThere's been a whole lot written and said about Benghazi, but in my view, few are hitting the nail on the head. What is really going on is that President Obama's worldview is collapsing in the face of reality, and even he can't prevaricate enou...
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October 19, 2012
I Dream of GINIImagine you are young and unattached -- unattached from everything: family, friends, country. A Martian takes you up in his spaceship and offers to set you down in one of two countries where you will have to make your way in life. All he ...
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October 15, 2012
Troubling Auto-Rescue Plunder (TARP)Remember that "trillion-dollar bank bailout" that President Bush pushed four years ago? The Congressional Budget Office now says that (1) it cost just $24 billion, nowhere near a trillion; (2) taxpayers made money from the banks; and (3) the va...
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October 12, 2012
September's Unemployment Number Still SuspiciousJack Welch and many others think the September unemployment rate was strange. Mr. Welch said this. "I doubt many of us know any businessperson who believes the economy is growing at breakneck speed, as it would have to be for unemployment to drop to...
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October 9, 2012
Why September's Unemployment Number is SuspiciousThe Bureau of Labor Statistics said the unemployment rate dropped from 8.1% in August to 7.8% in September, after having been over 8% for the previous 43 months. In fact, this latest figure puts the unemployment rate exactly back to where it was in t...
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October 1, 2012
The Swedish Model: Government AusteritySweden, like Norway, is often held up as a country which is "socialist and successful." For example, Sweden has high taxes yet also has had healthy economic growth recently. In this century so far, Sweden's total tax bite amounted to 52% ...
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September 27, 2012
NASA's Rubber Ruler ScandalIt turns out that there is no way to reliably compare current global temperatures to historical data using NASA's database. It is a scientific scandal. I wrote recently about NASA changing its entire temperature record database, just from July ...
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September 25, 2012
NASA's Rubber RulerA funny thing happened on the way to determining how hot 2012 has been on a global basis: temperatures changed in 1880. We've been hearing that 2012 has been the "hottest on record." I had written earlier that those claims were based on the contiguou...
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September 13, 2012
What's Strangling Job-CreationRecessions were never fun, but we used to bounce back from them fairly quickly. The phrase "bounce back" actually applied. They were more like injuries in our youth: we could "walk them off." Healing was natural, speedy, and expecte...
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September 10, 2012
Un-Spinning Jobs NumbersI detect some confusion in the electorate regarding jobs numbers. Obama claims he created 4.5 million private-sector jobs. His critics claim he lost 4 million. Are we better off than four years ago? Fact-checkers, shockingly, ...
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September 6, 2012
An Iraq War Every YearI've been trying to articulate to people how much President Obama spends. I provide the numbers, show that current spending levels are "unprecedented in peacetime," etc. But it does not seem to sink in, at least not for everyone. So let me try ...
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September 4, 2012
Why Blame Obama?Let me count the ways. Before inauguration. Senator Obama voted for the budgets he would later blame on Bush, and for the TARP bailout. After just two months of TARP, the Bush administration said it was done -- crisis averted. In fa...
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September 3, 2012
Money In PoliticsFor those of you worried about money in politics, I provide the latest facts from Open Secrets regarding the 2012 presidential race (as of 9/2/12). Obama Romney Small individual contributions $137,921,783 $37,310,424 Large indivi...
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August 16, 2012
What Would Jesus Tax?Time Magazine recently ran an article titled "Is Paul Ryan's Budget 'Un-Christian'?" The article's author had it revealed to her that "Jesus believed in a tax rate of at least 50 percent." Using International Monetary Fund data for 2012, I provide yo...
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August 2, 2012
What al Qaeda decline?The Reuters headline is "Al Qaeda decline hard to reverse after Bin Laden killing: U.S." The story leads with this sentence. "Osama bin Laden's death sent al Qaeda into a decline that will be hard to reverse, the United States said on Tuesday in a r...
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July 28, 2012
Slowest Post-War RecoveryThe latest GDP number brings us good news and bad news. The Great Recession ended in June 2009 according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. That was the low point of real GDP. Real GDP has grown every quarter in the three years since. That'...
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July 14, 2012
2012: Tenth Hottest Year So FarDespite recent headlines claiming "Hottest year on record" and "Feeling the heat: First half of 2012 is the warmest on record," this year is only the 10th hottest on record. As I noted a few days ago, those headlines referred only to the contiguous U...
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July 10, 2012
The Norwegian 'Miracle'Liberals love Norway (for example, see this). First, it is a European country. Second, it is a liberal country; it gives out the Nobel Peace Prize. Third, it is considered a welfare state, maybe even a socialist one. In 2011 i...
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July 10, 2012
Hottest Ever?Maybe you've seen the headlines: "Hottest year on record" and "Feeling the heat: First half of 2012 is the warmest on record." "It's been a hot year. In fact, the first six months of 2012 accounted for the warmest January-through-June period on reco...
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July 6, 2012
The Vast Left-Wing Wonk MachineFact-checkers are at it again. They are calling it a myth that ObamaCare is the biggest tax increase in history. But let's see how these great fact-checkers work. Bloomberg Businessweek has an article titled "Why Obamacare's Tax Increase ...
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July 5, 2012
How Statists Are Getting Away with ItConservatives often warn that the sky will fall if the next piece of liberal legislation becomes law. Liberals retort that conservatives are always warning about an Armageddon that never shows up. Two general arguments of liberals go something ...
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June 7, 2012
A Balanced Approach: Tax like Bush, Spend like ClintonOK, Democrats, you've convinced me. The last 8, 10, or 12 years (or whatever amount of time it takes to cover Bush's two terms and their aftermath) were just terrible, and we mustn't repeat or imitate such folly. Perhaps the example to fo...
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May 24, 2012
Fun & Games with Mainstream Media NumbersLeave it our friends in the Mainstream Media to find ways of publishing accurate numbers to create fake stories. It's the other side of Dan Rather's fake-but-accurate coin. A guy could stay busy simply fact-checking the fact-checkers....
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May 11, 2012
In Search of the Dreaded AusterityTo paraphrase Inigo Montoya of Princess Bride: You keep using that word, "austerity." I do not think it means what you think it means. Defining austerity. My 1976 Webster's Unabridged Dictionary includes this definition of austerity: "lack of l...
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May 5, 2012
Graph for the Day for May 5, 2012"Well, I do think that the car is on level ground. I mean, the car is the economy. And I think we are past the crisis point in the economy, but we now have to pivot and focus on jobs and growth." President Obama, December 2010. "So if you...
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May 3, 2012
Global Warming Melts AwayWondering where things stand on global warming? Let's go to the science of it. And by "science" I mean physical observations. Nothing complicated. What do thermometers say? What's happening with polar ice caps? And...
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March 30, 2012
The Obama ShiftIf we use terms such as "the new normal" for the economy, what was the old normal? Was there even a "normal," or were things always turbulent or spiraling out of control? Believe it or not, the federal budget used to have a "normal." It w...
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March 8, 2012
Big Oil and Tax BreaksTo hear the president and Democrats talk, you'd think that Big Oil was sucking the Treasury dry with huge subsidies. Almost a year ago I wrote about the federal government's "subsidies" to Big Oil. I said then, "They are all tax 'breaks'....
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January 31, 2012
Graph for the Day for January 31, 2012"More than half of Americans mistakenly believe that federal workers are overpaid, and a third also wrongly think they are underqualified, according to a recent Washington Post poll. The truth is federal workers earn 22 percent less than their counte...
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January 19, 2012
Predictions for 2012I'm a little late, but it is still January. So here are my predictions for 2012. You can score me next January. Romney will win the Republican nomination. Obama will win the general election. Romney's loss will be blamed on his choice of Vice Presid...
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December 19, 2011
Stone's BlarneyIf you had a fact-checking computer and you put Geoffrey R. Stone's Huffington Post column, Obama on Republican Economic Policy: "It Doesn't Work" in it, your computer would smoke, sputter and blow up. He makes Paul Krugman and Ezra Kl...
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December 6, 2011
Debt and Taxes: Settled ScienceWhen a Democrat says he is serious about our debt problem, what he means is that he's pleased as punch to have another way to sell you on a tax increase. Democrats, being smarter than Republicans, use math and logic to make the case: if you rai...
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December 1, 2011
Dreams From My PresidentWhile others try to divine what really goes on in the mind of Barack Obama, all I know is what he says and what he does. Thanks to The Daily Caller, we now have one of the best summaries of Obama's philosophy ever caught on tape, uttered by the...
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November 25, 2011
Spending WarsThe ideas that federal spending exploded under George W. Bush, that "Bush's wars" account for our spending explosion, that Reaganism died with Reagan, and that we are on a spending binge that started decades ago are all nonsense. Our current spending...
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November 8, 2011
Graph for the Day for November 8, 2011"This week, a new economic report confirmed what most Americans already believe to be true: over the past three decades, the middle class has lost ground while the wealthiest few have become even wealthier. In fact, the average income for the t...
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October 21, 2011
Back to 1969?Charles Dickens could have written about it: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light,...
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October 18, 2011
Obama: 1, Informed Public: 0"The Statistical Abstract of the United States, published since 1878, is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States." That is how the Abstract describes itself. C...
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October 11, 2011
Graph for the Day for October 11, 2011"A lot of the problems that this economy is facing are problems that predate the financial crisis -- middle-class families seeing their wages and their incomes flat, despite rising costs for everything from health care to a college education. And so ...
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October 7, 2011
The Bush Tax Cuts: Threat or Menace?In what year did the federal government of the United States collect the most tax revenue in its history? Would you guess it occurred before, or after, the Bush tax cuts (final round effective in 2003)? The answer is 2007. The most revenue over colle...
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September 26, 2011
Tax Demagogues Are Lying Liars, in One GraphThe rich pay lower tax rates than we do. Bush's tax cuts were only for the rich. Both the Reagan and Bush tax cuts were sops to the rich. Schmucks like you and me pay all the taxes so the rich can ride free. You hear these lies ever...
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September 22, 2011
Science for Stupid IdiotsYou might be a stupid idiot, like me. At least I must be a stupid idiot, since I'm called that quite often. You see, I have doubts about some things. Things like catastrophic, man-caused global warming; neo-darwinistic explanations ...
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September 21, 2011
Eight Problems with a 'Balanced' (Tax-Raising) ApproachEveryone this side of Paul Krugman agrees we have a government debt problem. A reasonable man might ask whether we solve it by cutting spending, raising revenue, or some mix of both. The supposed "balanced" approach is, of course, some mi...
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September 20, 2011
Hey Professors, Pay UpAs you might know, Michele Bachmann claimed that a woman came up to her, crying, saying that her child suffered mental retardation after being vaccinated for HPV. A couple of professors question her claim. The story is reported by Chris M...
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September 19, 2011
Graph for the Day for September 19, 2011"We don't use formulas and there is no required minimum test score, GPA, or class rank. We read each application thoroughly, one by one. We focus first on academic excellence -- courses, grades, and test scores. Beyond academics, we look for qu...
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August 27, 2011
What the National Academy of Sciences said about vaccinesThe National Academy of Sciences issued a press release on its study of studies of vaccines. It is already being used to bash the "anti-vaccine" crowd. For example, Ron Bailey, the non-libertarian libertarian who also believes in anthropogenic ...
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August 27, 2011
Taxing Warren Buffet's Rich PeopleWarren Buffett just told us again that taxes should be raised on people like him. Here are his words, from the New York Times. "Last year my federal tax bill - the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf - was $...
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August 25, 2011
Graph for the Day for August 25, 2011"We have an emergency, a fiscal emergency... Our state was careening toward bankruptcy, fiscal insolvency. Even in the last couple of months, the situation got seriously more dire. So the governor has to act at the moment. And that's what I did...
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August 16, 2011
Praise for a 'moderate' Republican from an unusual sourceA couple of years ago Paul Kengor wrote in the American Thinker of a certain confidential offer former Senator Ted Kennedy made to the Soviet Union in 1983. In secret, Sen. Kennedy offered to help the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the...
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August 12, 2011
Graph for the Day for August 12, 2011"Last week, we reached an agreement that will make historic cuts to defense and domestic spending. But there's not much further we can cut in either of those categories." President Obama, August 8, 2011. The Obama "Hockey Stick" Source:...
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August 9, 2011
'Balanced Compromises' Are NeitherDid you know that if we leave tax rates alone, meaning leave the Bush rates in place, the federal government would collect more revenue than it has historically? You know who says that? The Congressional Budget Office. As we all know, the...
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August 7, 2011
Graph for the Day for August 7, 2011"Representatives of Pray at the Pump... and the pastor of Rising Sun Baptist Church of Baltimore plan to picket the White House today, asking President Barack Obama to change his choice of beverage when he meets today... over a beer... The demonstrat...
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August 6, 2011
Graph for the Day for August 6, 2011"With everything else he has on his plate, his laser focus has been jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs." Vice President Joe Biden, December 2009. "I think we are past the crisis point in the economy, but we now have to pivot and focus on jobs and gro...
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August 6, 2011
Tea Party terror threat is globalThe Tea Party terrorists in charge of both France and Italy are pushing Balanced Budget Amendments there. Agustino Fontevecchia of Forbes: Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi confirmed his nation would be moving toward a balanced-budget amendmen...
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August 5, 2011
Congratulations, Class WarriorsClass warriors got what they wished for in the first year of the Obama presidency. Now the 2009 tax return numbers are out, and I can update you on the class wars I wrote about last year. I wrote then, "Tax figures for 2009 are not yet availabl...
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August 2, 2011
Where to Find $25B in 2012?The debt deal is done. The Congressional Budget Office says that means $25 billion must be "cut" from the baseline FY 2012 budget. (After that, we have to hope that future Congresses will feel bound by this Congress. This has never happened before, b...
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August 1, 2011
Hostage-taking, Butchering, LunacyThe new debt deal "would cut & cap discretionary spending immediately, saving $917B over 10 years." House Speaker John Boehner's PowerPoint slides. "[A] nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists... many...
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July 25, 2011
The Tea Party, Right About EverythingThe false narrative is that the Tea Party is a bunch of stubborn nuts, if not outright racists. In truth, the Tea Party has been right about everything, while almost everyone else has been nuts, especially the "experts." Minimum wage. One...
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July 25, 2011
Easy way or hard way?There is a simple way to look at the debt ceiling negotiations: we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. First, the Congressional Budget Office projects federal spending to be about $46 trillion over the next decade. What the Hous...
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July 21, 2011
Graph for the Day for July 21, 2011"So this bill is not only about the health security of America. It's about jobs. In its life it will create four million jobs - 400,000 almost immediately." Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the Health Care Summit, February 2010. Source:...
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July 19, 2011
Spend It Like BushWhat if, over the next decade, the federal government spends as irresponsibly as President George W. Bush did? Compare two things: the 2012-2021 federal budget as proposed by President Obama in February (and as scored by the Congressional Budget Offi...
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July 14, 2011
The Speech Boehner Should GiveI had a dream in which I saw House Speaker John Boehner give the following speech. I'm sure you are all aware by now of the debt ceiling issue. If we do not pass legislation this week to raise the federal debt ceiling, the federal government will not...
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July 13, 2011
Graph for the Day for July 13, 2011"I cannot guarantee that those [Social Security] checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it." President Obama, July 12, 2011. "[T]here is enough cumulat...
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July 12, 2011
Debt Ceiling: Worst-Case ScenarioAs I understand it, if the debt ceiling is not raised, the federal government cannot borrow any more money. That should mean it can only spend only what it raises in revenue. But what would that mean? Would the federal government have to default (sto...
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July 4, 2011
Christina Romer: Good Democrat, Bad EconomistChristina Romer, President Obama's first chief of his Council of Economic Advisers, is now advocating tax hikes, saying that federal spending cuts would be worse for the economy than tax hikes. Coming from just any Democrat, this would not be news. T...
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June 30, 2011
Ten Lessons From Federal SpendingOne can learn quite a bit just from looking at federal spending over time. The history of our relationship with our government can almost be summarized in a graph. Data source: White House Office of Management and Budget, Table 1.2...
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June 25, 2011
With libertarians like this, who needs statistsReason Magazine describes itself as libertarian. Its slogan is "free minds and free markets." It claims to provide "a refreshing alternative to right-wing and left-wing opinion magazines by making a principled case for liberty and individual choice i...
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June 13, 2011
Graph for the Day for June 13, 2011"I wish I could tell you there was a quick fix to our economic problems. But the truth is, we didn't get into this mess overnight, and we won't get out of it overnight. It's going to take time." President Obama, June 11, 2011. Source:...
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June 12, 2011
Graph for the Day for June 12, 2011"The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change... The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005." UNFCCC. "T...
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June 8, 2011
Graph for the Day for June 8, 2011"... don't make too much of any one month's job report, because they're highly variable. You want to look at a little bit of a trend to get a more accurate barometer, and the overall direction is, yes, somewhat slowed from the stiff headwinds of gas ...
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June 6, 2011
Graph for the Day for June 6, 2011"Of the many accomplishments of Ted Kennedy, few have had a more profound effect on America-America as a state, as an economy, a society, and as a nation-as the first act he ever managed to passage, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965... it's...
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May 19, 2011
From the 'Global War on Terror' to 'Let's Make a Deal'I think something serious changed in the last two years regarding our defense policy, especially regarding the Global War On Terror. Some might call it the Obama Doctrine. Perhaps a better term would be the Petraeus Doctrine.How would you...
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May 18, 2011
Graph for the Day for May 18, 2011"Over time a significant number of households move to higher or lower positions along the income distribution. As a result, public policies such as income taxation and income redistribution affect ‘classes' of people differently over each ...
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May 16, 2011
The Article Liberals Are Too Stupid to Write (and Republicans too reluctant to read)Why, after all this, does President Obama enjoy an approval rating near 50%? How can people even think of voting for him over the Republican nominee in 2012? Well wonder no more.The economy.The Great Recession, which began in 2007, ended ...
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May 3, 2011
Inside the Mind of a BirtherI wish to assist in the currently ubiquitous endeavor of understanding what, exactly, is wrong with the minds of conservatives. Why do they believe crazy things? Why don't facts, logic, and evidence convince them of anything? In thi...
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May 2, 2011
About Those Oil SubsidiesEveryone wants to end subsidies to oil companies, from President Obama to John Boehner and Paul Ryan. My question was "What subsidies?" Remarkably enough, CNN Money provided the answer.It turns out that they are all tax "br...
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May 2, 2011
Obama gets OsamaFor what it's worth, here are a couple of things I wrote well over two years ago.From Predictions of Hope and Change, Feb. 1, 2009:"Osama bin Laden will be killed or captured, with credit going to US troops. President Obama will be hailed ...
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April 30, 2011
Graph for the Day for April 30, 2011"So, New York, that's what this debate that we're having in Washington right now is about. Folks talk about budgets and numbers and deficits and debt. And deficits and debt are serious, and we've got to do something about it. B...
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April 29, 2011
Graph for the Day for April 29, 2011"Based on our random sample of 1,000 criminal aliens, we estimate that our study population of about 249,000 criminal aliens were arrested about 1.7 million times, averaging about 7 arrests per criminal alien... They were arrested for a total of...
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April 28, 2011
Graph for the Day for April 28, 2011"Without a comprehensive energy strategy for the future we will stay stuck in the same old pattern of heated political rhetoric when prices rise and apathy and neglect when they fall again." President Obama, April 26, 2011."Belie...
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April 25, 2011
Graph for the Day for April 25, 2011"But in the meantime, look, I want all of you to be rich. (Applause.) Now, I don't mean just going out and buying lottery tickets. (Laughter.) I want your small business to be successful. I want you to succeed in your careers. I want everybody t...
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April 4, 2011
I Can't Get No...Did you realize that what really matters is whether President Obama is satisfied? At least that can be inferred from his speeches and remarks. Whenever some economic indicator ticks upwards, President Obama cheers the good news, but quickly lets us k...
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April 2, 2011
Graph for the Day for April 2, 2011"As the Recovery Act crossed the one year mark, newspaper editorial boards across the country took a good, hard look at the program and weighed in on its impact. From the St. Petersburg Times' evaluation that ‘One year later, stimulu...
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March 1, 2011
Preparing for War in Australia?Am I the only person with a major Win-The-Future reaction to something Robert Gates said on Friday? He said this to West Point cadets:"... any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into A...
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March 1, 2011
Graph for the Day for March 1, 2011"We are better than these last eight years." Barack Obama, 28 August 2008."Republican rule on Capitol Hill drew to an exhausted end just before dawn on Dec. 9 after lawmakers dispatched a pile of bills that few had read and even ...
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February 5, 2011
Graph for the Day for February 5, 2011"The unemployment rate declined by 0.4 percent to 9.0 percent, down 0.8 percent in the last two months... And we continue to create jobs... I am encouraged by the drop in the unemployment rate and convinced that the actions taken by the administ...
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January 29, 2011
Graph for the Day for January 29, 2011"Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again. But we have never measured progress by these yardsticks alone. We ...
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January 28, 2011
Graph for the Day for January 28, 2011"This conclusion by the majority largely ignores the global nature of the crisis. For example: A credit bubble appeared in both the United States and Europe... How can the ‘runaway mortgage securitization train' detailed in the majority's ...
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January 25, 2011
Racist Treatment of IllegalsNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ...
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January 19, 2011
NASA's Muzzle HustleJust a bit over a month ago, December 14, we ran a blog piece on a NASA web page that said the sun is primarily responsible for climate change, and that whatever warming is caused by man's contributions to greenhouse gases is swamped by the effects o...
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January 16, 2011
A Priest and an Altar Boy, Hah, Ha, HaThis past June, Pope Benedict XVI said the church must promise "to do everything possible" to ensure that the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests "will never occur again." But the president of the Survivor Network o...
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January 16, 2011
Graph for the Day for January 16, 2011"When it comes to the war in Iraq, the time for promises and assurances, for waiting and for patience, is over." Senator Barack Obama, January 2007."I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and - you hav...
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January 9, 2011
Graph for the Day for January 9, 2011"But the trend is clear. We saw 12 straight months of private sector job growth. That's the first time that's been true since 2006. The economy added 1.3 million jobs last year. And each quarter was stronger than the prev...
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December 31, 2010
Graph for the Day for December 31, 2010"Because improving education is central to rebuilding our economy, we set aside over $4 billion in the Recovery Act to promote improvements in schools. This is one of the largest investments in education reform in American history."...
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December 30, 2010
Graph for the Day for December 30, 2010"These two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), 2003."We have, I think, an excessive degree of concern right now about home ownership and its role in the ec...
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December 30, 2010
Swedish Health Care: A Hard CaseMaybe this story will bring the health care debate close to home for some readers. (HT: JammieWearingFool.)"But it took five MONTHS before he was able to schedule an appointment at the hospital. When he finally met with doctors at th...
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December 28, 2010
Graph for the Day for December 28, 2010"And now, we must come together to end this war successfully... these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of ...
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December 16, 2010
No Deal on the Tax DealCharles Krauthammer, Mike Pence, and Mitt Romney are right. Paul Ryan and Chris Christie are wrong. The proposed tax deal is not the best deal achievable. Doing nothing is better.The logic in favor of the tax deal (from conservative...
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December 14, 2010
Tax Cuts Clearly ExplainedIf you go to the White House website, right at the top is a bar you can click on to see "Tax Cuts Clearly Explained." If you click, you see a video of one of President Obama's economic advisors using a whiteboard to explain that Repub...
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December 14, 2010
Climate Change: It's the Sun, StupidGuess who wrote this."The Sun is the primary forcing of Earth's climate system. Sunlight warms our world. Sunlight drives atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. Sunlight powers the process of photosynthesis that plants need to grow. Sunli...
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December 13, 2010
Merry Stimulus, From RandyFor Christmas this year I decided to give you all a $4 trillion stimulus. Actually, since we measure in 10-year increments nowadays, I'm really giving you a $40 trillion stimulus. I hope you like it.For a while I was thinking of taking al...
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December 9, 2010
Class Warriors Got What They Wished ForA funny thing happened on the way to spreading the wealth: wealth dried up.A good class warrior wishes for three things (at least).For tax rates to be highest on the richest. Ideally, only the rich would pay taxes. The Father of Class War...
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December 6, 2010
Graph for the Day for December 6, 2010"Our service members and their families are always on our mind, even as the President and I are working on other issues that all American families are deeply concerned about: accelerating our recovery, growing our economy, strengthening our midd...
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December 6, 2010
Let's Compromise on TaxesThe Bush tax rates are about to expire. Republicans want to extend the Bush rates. Democrats want them to go back up to pre-Bush levels. I say we compromise: let the rates go back up for everyone who makes less than, say, $200,000 per year.First, I w...
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December 5, 2010
Graph for the Day for December 5, 2010"As with the average federal tax rates for all taxes, average federal tax rates for the individual income tax have declined for the lowest three income quintiles since the early 1980s... The extent of the decrease was greatest for the lowest qui...
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December 4, 2010
Graph for the Day for December 4, 2010"Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America. I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesse...
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November 19, 2010
Colin Powell's Algebra LessonColin Powell said this to Larry King.[S]ome of the things that the Tea Party movement is asking for are not achievable. And I'm not sure it's right. It's not doable to say we want to cut spending, we want to reduce the deficit, but we don't want to i...
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November 13, 2010
The myth that DADT contributes to teen suicides of LGBT youthNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ...
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November 12, 2010
Deficit Fix: You Get a Second JobThere are jokes, bad jokes, and deficit commissions.President Obama tackled the job of the federal budget by creating a commission to study it. And now that commission has some answers for us. You will read much about its recommendations to raise the...
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November 8, 2010
Fixing Social SecurityBeing desirous of pleasing Barack Obama and John Kerry, I will endeavor to stick to facts, science, truth, and argument. The challenge I present in this article could kill three birds with one stone. I propose a single experiment to test two pol...
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November 6, 2010
Graph for the Day for November 6, 2010"Based on today's jobs report, we've now seen private-sector job growth for 10 straight months. That means that since January, the private sector has added 1.1 million jobs. Let me repeat, over the course of the last several months, ...
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November 5, 2010
Truth and Science and Facts vs. Unwashed HillbilliesWe are hearing that either President Obama is misunderstood or we are unwashed hillbillies who don't get it. Don't we know that he inherited this mess, the greatest recession since the Great Depression? Don't we know that the recession ended in June ...
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November 5, 2010
Illinois - not as blue as you thinkIllinois, the state that gave the world Barack Obama, is usually lumped in with California and New York as one of the quintessentially blue states. We run neck-and-neck with California for deep economic trouble from deficits and debt to unemployment...
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November 5, 2010
Graph for the Day for November 5, 2010"Hello, everybody. I just want to make a few quick remarks to expand on some things that I said yesterday. Obviously Tuesday was a big election. I congratulated the Republicans and consoled some of our Democratic friends about ...
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October 19, 2010
Tea Party Portrayed Responsibly in the NYTIt sure looks like Ross Douthat, writing in The New York Times, does a not-too-terrible job of painting the Tea Party in a responsible light, destroying the standard liberal narratives in the process."[J]ust 5 percent of the 250 signs [at rallie...
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October 9, 2010
Graph for the Day for October 9, 2010"This morning, we learned that in the month of September, our economy gained 64,000 jobs in the private sector. July and August private sector job numbers were revised upwards. So we've now seen nine straight months of private sector...
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October 7, 2010
Under the TARPRemember the trillion-dollar bank bailout initiated by President Bush? It's going to end up costing only about $50 billion, which didn't go to banks. And it might not have bailed anything out. But keeping with tradition, let's call it a trillion-doll...
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October 5, 2010
Graph for the Day for October 5, 2010"I realize that we're facing an untenable fiscal situation. There was a $1.3 trillion deficit staring at me when I took office, and although the economic crisis and the steps we took to stop the freefall temporarily added to our fiscal cha...
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September 27, 2010
The Government TapewormA successful parasite must keep its host alive, finding the point where it can maximize its intake without killing off its source of sustenance. So, too, with governments taxing their citizenry. With taxation, governments can reach the point where hi...
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September 22, 2010
Graph for the Day for September 22, 2010"And I think we have to go back to what was happening when I was first sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. We went through the worst recession since the Great Depression. Nothing has come close. In fact, if you look at the conse...
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September 21, 2010
The Recession Ends, Sort OfThe recession ended, as recessions have always done before. But while we seem to be recovering, we have not yet recovered. The real issue is the strength of this recovery and whether government "fixes" helped or hurt. I think they hurt and ...
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September 21, 2010
Graph for the Day for September 21, 2010"At its [National Bureau of Economic Research] meeting, the committee determined that a trough in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in June 2009. The trough marks the end of the recession that began in December 2007 and the beginnin...
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September 20, 2010
The Curious Logic of Our Governing ElitesGeorge Orwell said, "There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them." What follows is my beginning of a list of ideas that some very intelligent people seem to believe.The air should be taxed. More p...
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September 19, 2010
Pyrrhic Victory? Right Diagnosis, Wrong PatientI would like to speak for the math-challenged, self-indulgent, and irresponsible wingnuts who wanted Christine O'Donnell to beat Mr. 52-Lifetime-ACU-Rating in the Delaware senatorial primary. I know that geniuses like Mark Murphy and Charles Krautham...
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September 16, 2010
Keen Graphs of the ObviousToday, September 16, 2010, we have had 365 graphs of the day published in American Thinker. Each day for the last year, our Graph of the Day included one or more short quotes, a graph of some kind, and some statistics, usually related in some manner....
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September 16, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 16, 2010Great Idea AT !!!!!Thank you, thank you, thank you! Graphs are a wonderful way to get a handle on economics which all of us must do! I love this idea!Keep the graphs and charts and data coming.Love this feature.I really enjoy this daily feature.Your ...
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September 15, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 15, 2010"Our new approach is compassionate." George W. Bush, 43rd President of the US, in his first budget proposal, titled A Blueprint for New Beginnings."A compassionate government keeps faith with the trust of the people and cherishes...
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September 14, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 14, 2010"Unless Congress takes action and President Obama goes along, rates will go up for everyone -- not just a sliver of the wealthiest Americans. The current six rate brackets of 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33% and 35% will be replaced by five new brackets ...
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September 13, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 13, 2010"Feeding America is the nation's leading domestic hunger-relief charity. Our mission is to feed America's hungry through a nationwide network of member food banks and engage our country in the fight to end hunger. Each year, the Feed...
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September 12, 2010
The Flight to Serfdom(Part III of a series. Part I was "The Good Old Days," and Part II was "Two Years That Changed the World.")Flight USA is on its way to the Land of the Lost. Lost decades. Lost growth. Lost freedom. Why? Because we already lost our...
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September 12, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 12, 2010"Now, the issue of making sure this [health care reform] is deficit-neutral is somewhat separate from the issue of bending the cost curve. I mean, conceivably, you could have a system that pays for itself, but doesn't bend the cost curve; it's g...
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September 11, 2010
Two Years That Changed the World(Part II of a series. Part I was "The Good Old Days.")The 2009 federal deficit was $1.413 trillion dollars, the largest in history. In fact, it was triple the 2008 deficit, which was the largest in history up until then. Even as a fraction ...
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September 11, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 11, 2010"Arab-Americans and Muslims fear backlash" after the 2001 9/11 attacks in the US; 2,975 killed. USA Today. "Muslim Leaders Fear Backlash" after London bombing in 2005; 56 killed. The Guardian. "Three C...
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September 10, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 10, 2010"Just as the German chancellor vetoed a bailout for eastern Europe on March 1, she is now leading European opposition to US President Barack Obama's call for a global pump-priming package... Merkel's rejection of more stimulus touched off the fi...
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September 9, 2010
The Good Old DaysWhen he was running for President in 2008, Barack Obama frequently used the phrase "the last eight years." Now that he's president and it's two years later, he often uses the phrase "the last decade." The standard Democrat story i...
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September 9, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 9, 2010"[President Obama has] created more jobs in this recession than George Bush did in eight years as President... [The stimulus] was too small at the time and everybody knew it was too small, but it was all they could get passed because of Re...
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September 8, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 8, 2010"It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. (Applause.) The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The corn...
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September 7, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 7, 2010"Anyone hearing George W. Bush and Al Gore might think that the big vote we're casting next week is really for superintendent in chief. Listen as Bush invokes his ‘crusade' to improve schools and Gore calls for an education ‘re...
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September 6, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 6, 2010"Through the years the nation gave increasing emphasis to Labor Day. The first governmental recognition came through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886... The first state bill... to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1...
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September 5, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 5, 2010"Now, the month I took office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. This morning, new figures show the economy produced 67,000 private sector jobs in August -- the eighth consecutive month of private job growth. Additionally, the num...
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September 4, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 4, 2010"America, we are better than these last eight years." Barack Obama, August 2008.When the GOP Wrote Federal BudgetsSources: OMB and CBO. (WOT is War-On-Terror.)Hoven's Index for September 4, 2010Federal receipts in 2009:...
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September 3, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 3, 2010"We know big government does not have all the answers. We know there's not a program for every problem. We have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic government in Washington. And we have to give the American people one...
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September 2, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 2, 2010"Our government provides deposit insurance and other safeguards and guarantees to firms that operate banks. We do so because a stable and reliable banking system promotes sustained growth, and because we learned how dangerous the failure o...
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September 1, 2010
Graph of the Day for September 1, 2010"Britain and the rest of the European Union are ignoring a demographic time bomb: a recent rush into the EU by migrants, including millions of Muslims, will change the continent beyond recognition over the next two decades, and almost no policy-...
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August 31, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 31, 2010"One of the ways that I stay in touch is through events like this, as well as reading letters from constituents and voters all across the country every night. And obviously what's on a lot of people's minds right now is the economy."...
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August 30, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 30, 2010"In the past several decades, the country paid for increases in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid spending through cuts in defense spending relative to the size of the economy. That approach is not feasible in the future." ...
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August 29, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 29, 2010"I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with al...
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August 28, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 28, 2010"It [the stock market] bobs up and down from day to day. And if you spend all your time worrying about that, you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong." President Obama, March 2009."September is the month wh...
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August 27, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 27, 2010"Barack Obama was an early champion of the HOPE for Homeowners Act that passed over the summer. In addition, Obama insisted that the financial rescue plan Congress recently passed include authority for the Secretary to work with servicers to mod...
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August 26, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 26, 2010"Realtors appreciate the swift action by Congress to extend the home buyer tax credit and expand it to some current homeowners... As the leading advocate of housing and real estate issues, we urge President Obama to sign this legislation into la...
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August 26, 2010
Dear JohnOur relationship has certainly had its ups and downs, but if you are willing to give it one more try, I guess I am, too.In my political adolescence, I admired you from afar. I would see you standing next to Ronald Reagan, or see your pictures from th...
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August 26, 2010
Does 'Barely True' Mean True?I've been truth-checked. The St. Petersburg Times fact-checked my piece on the cost of the Iraq War. Actually, it fact-checked Mark Tapscott's quote in the Washington Examiner based on my article."Obama's stimulus, passed in his first month in o...
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August 25, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 25, 2010"That is why I have moved quickly to work with my economic team and leaders of both parties on an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that will immediately jump- start job creation and long-term growth. It's a plan that represents not just n...
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August 25, 2010
Tea Party Bombs Democrat's Office! -- Or notRuss Carnahan is a member of the US Congress, representing the 3rd district of Missouri. He is a member of the influential Carnahan family. His father was Mel Carnahan, a two-term governor of Missouri who was running for the U...
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August 24, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 24, 2010"A U.S. District Court judge has declared most of California's Proposition 187 unconstitutional. Approved by voters in 1994, the proposition would have denied health care, education and welfare benefits to illegal immigrants... [Judge Mari...
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August 23, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 23, 2010"This summer is sure to be a Summer of Economic Recovery." The White House, June 17, 2010."We're on the right track. The economy is getting stronger, but it really suffered a big trauma. And we're not going to get all...
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August 22, 2010
Iraq: The War That Broke Us -- NotThe Iraq War ends this month. The last combat brigade left August 19. Operation Iraqi Freedom, which began in 2003, will end August 31. September 1 marks the beginning of Operation New Dawn. Now that it's over, what did the Iraq War cost? Here are ex...
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August 22, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 22, 2010"It was under Mr Bush that the deficit spiralled out of control as we fought an unnecessary and endless $3,000bn war in Iraq..." James Carville, the Financial Times."The Iraq adventure has seriously weakened the U.S. economy, who...
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August 21, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 21, 2010"With the fixation on shrinking the budget deficit, why is over $700 billion in annual defense spending almost always off-limits for discussion? The mainstream media rarely explore possible cuts in the nation's largest discretionary spending ite...
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August 20, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 20, 2010"Afghanistan was dubbed ‘Obama's War' last night after it was revealed that as many American soldiers have died in the conflict during his presidency as during George Bush's entire time in office." Daily Mail, August 18, 2010....
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August 19, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 19, 2010"Conservatives have finally figured out their critique of President Obama's agenda, and it's a familiar one: He wants to make us French... What, exactly, is so awful about European social-style democracy? France, Germany, Holland, Belgium,...
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August 19, 2010
The GOP's Lost BrandThis is not your father's America, nor is it your father's Republican Party. You have been betrayed. But if you call it betrayal, you won't be called ungrateful; you'll be called nuts -- as in wingnuts.Conservatives and liberals alike assume the U.S....
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August 18, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 18, 2010"But what's clear is that we're headed in the right direction. A year and a half ago, this economy was shrinking rapidly. The economy is now growing. A year and a half ago, we were losing jobs every month in the private sector....
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August 17, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 17, 2010"As we have previously reported, our long-term simulations also show that absent policy changes, the federal government faces an unsustainable growth in debt... Recent events have further exacerbated fiscal challenges for all levels of governmen...
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August 16, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 16, 2010"Across America, communities are uniting to protect the places they love, and developing new approaches to saving and enjoying the outdoors. They are bringing together farmers and ranchers, land trusts, recreation and conservation groups, sports...
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August 15, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 15, 2010"And that is why I won't just ask for your vote as a candidate - I will ask for your service and your active citizenship when I am President of the United States. This will not be a call issued in one speech or one program - this will be a...
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August 14, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 14, 2010"The plan that has made all of this possible, from the tax cuts to the jobs, is the Recovery Act. (Applause.) That's right -- the Recovery Act, also known as the stimulus bill. (Applause.) Economists on the left and the r...
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August 13, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 13, 2010"Marriage is slowly dying in Scandinavia. A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents. Not coincidentally, these countries have had something close t...
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August 12, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 12, 2010"But we can't stand by and do nothing while pink slips are given to the men and women who educate our children or keep our communities safe. That doesn't make sense. And that's why a significant part of the economic plan that we pass...
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August 11, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 11, 2010"Tax reduction thus sets off a process that can bring gains for everyone, gains won by marshalling resources that would otherwise stand idle-workers without jobs and farm and factory capacity without markets. Yet many taxpayers seemed prepared t...
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August 10, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 10, 2010"As should be clear, Obama's victory was geographically narrower than Reagan's, LBJ's, Ike's or FDR's. Substantially so. Obama did much more poorly in rural and small town locales. They have a history of progressive/liberal support, but Obama wa...
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August 9, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 9, 2010"The obnoxious anti-environmentalist Rush Limbaugh has been a rare voice arguing that the spill - he calls it ‘the leak' - is anything less than an ecological calamity, scoffing at the avalanche of end-is-nigh eco-hype. Well, Limbaug...
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August 8, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 8, 2010"Jobless Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Climb to Three-Month High." Bloomberg headline, August 5, 2010."Food stamp use hit record 40.8m in May." Bloomberg News headline, August 5, 2010."The Recovery Summer of 2010....
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August 7, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 7, 2010"Our results indicate that tax changes have very large effects on output. Our baseline specification implies that an exogenous tax increase of one percent of GDP lowers real GDP by almost three percent. Our many robustness checks for...
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August 6, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 6, 2010"No law or rule shall compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system. A person or employer may pay directly for lawful health care services and shall not be required b...
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August 5, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 5, 2010"For Americans, as well as Congressional Democrats who didn't bother to read the bill, this first look at the final health care law confirms what many fear, that reform morphed into a monstrosity of new bureaucracies, mandates, taxes and rationi...
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August 5, 2010
Same sex. Different dayThree weeks ago, a federal judge ruled that a state (or in that case, four justices on a state's supreme court) can define marriage however it wants. That is states' rights as enshrined in the 10th Amendment. The Constitution demands it, ...
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August 4, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 4, 2010"On average, conservatives outnumber liberals by about 20 percentage points across all states. Only in the District of Columbia and Rhode Island did liberals outnumber conservatives during the first half of 2010." Gallup, August 2, 20...
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August 3, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 3, 2010"The U.S. economy slid into its downturn somewhat faster and more severely than previously estimated, according to new information from the Commerce Department. The department's Bureau of Economic Analysis Friday released its annual revisi...
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August 2, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 2, 2010"Obama moves to separate politics and science" CNN headline of March 9, 2009."[A]round the end of the 1980s, science (at least science reporting) took on a distinctly authoritarian tone. Whether because of funding availability or...
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August 1, 2010
Graph of the Day for August 1, 2010"Options for responding to a fiscal crisis would be limited and unattractive. The government would need to undertake some combination of three actions. One action could be changing the terms of its existing debt. This would make it difficult and...
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July 31, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 31, 2010"For 86 days, oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's damaged well, dumping some 200 million gallons of crude into sensitive ecosystems. BP and the federal government have amassed an army to clean the oil up, but there's one problem -- they...
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July 30, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 30, 2010"I've been practising ... I bowled a 129. It was like the Special Olympics or something!" President Obama, March 2009."We're also placing a new focus on hiring Americans with disabilities across the federal government....
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July 29, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 29, 2010"New home sales rebound 24% -- New home sales rebounded in June from the record low hit the previous month but remained sluggish. New home sales increased 23.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 330,000 last month, up from an downwar...
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July 28, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 28, 2010"Breaking the bank in Maryland has been a bipartisan, multilateral pursuit for years, backed by both parties at the state and local levels alike. When state lawmakers enacted a big increase in teachers' pensions four years ago -- an increase tha...
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July 28, 2010
The Enemy of Manhattan is My Friend?As you may know, we have a new head of US Central Command, in charge of our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. That also makes him General Petraeus's new boss. His name is General James N. Mattis, USMC. He made a bit of a name for hims...
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July 27, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 27, 2010"General George Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, said on Sunday that he was concerned that speculation about the religious beliefs of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, accused of killing 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian and wounding dozens of others...
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July 26, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 26, 2010"If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem." Presiden...
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July 25, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 25, 2010"America, we are better than these last eight years... And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look just like the last eight. On November 4, we must stand up and say: ‘Eight is enough.'" ...
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July 24, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 24, 2010"In the 18 months since the surge began, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated. June was our highest casualty month of the war... George Bush and John McCain don't have a strategy for success in Iraq - they have a strategy for stay...
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July 23, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 23, 2010"I find that I am fascinated by his intelligence, by his dedication. The only thing that frustrates me about Robert Mugabe is that he is so damned incorruptible." Andrew Young, Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the United Nations, on Robert Muga...
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July 22, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 22, 2010"I'll plan on having oversight hearings as early as September to bring in the regulatory bodies to ask them exactly what their plans are on how they intend to move forward with the regulatory obligations bill that this bill has imposed."...
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July 22, 2010
Pity the Plight of the Poor Patagonian PenguinsAlmost exactly two years ago I noted the journalistic attention being paid the poor penguins of Patagonia."Hundreds of baby penguins swept from the icy shores of Antarctica and Patagonia are washing up dead on Rio de Janeiro's tropical beaches....
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July 21, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 21, 2010"Tuition has been increasing at such an alarming rate that some say we're witnessing yet another bubble in America - this time not in the stock market or in housing, but in college tuition." From 8 Reasons College Tuition Is the Next ...
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July 20, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 20, 2010"Now, I happen to believe that we should pass a comprehensive energy and climate bill. It will make clean energy the profitable kind of energy... Reducing our dependence on foreign oil is still the right thing to do for our security. ...
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July 19, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 19, 2010"The Great Recession may be over, but this era of high joblessness is probably just beginning. Before it ends, it will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults. It will leave an indelible imprint on many blue-c...
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July 18, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 18, 2010"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted." Barack Obama, 2008."CCS [clean ...
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July 17, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 17, 2010"It is against this backdrop of Oil at Any Price that Jimmy Carter and the leaders of Western Europe, Canada and Japan will sit down next week in Tokyo for two days of talks on energy and the imperiled world economy. Exactly 48 hours earlier in ...
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July 16, 2010
Cherry-Picked ConstitutionalityA federal judge ruled that only a state gets to define what "marriage" is in that state, and the federal government can't overrule it. That ruling might sound like a nice application of federalism according to the 10th Amendment.The powers ...
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July 16, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 16, 2010"I think there's no doubt there are enough seats in play that could cause Republicans to gain control. There's no doubt about that." White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, July 11, 2010."To keep the House, we have a three-pron...
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July 15, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 15, 2010"The black woman has been raped. The black woman has been abused ever since the white man brought us from the shores of Africa across the Atlantic Ocean. Any man, and any people, that won't defend their women are but a bunch of punks...
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July 14, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 14, 2010"The level of public debt in many industrial countries is on an unsustainable path. Current budget deficits, partly cyclical but also swollen by policy responses to the crisis, are large in relation to GDP... high levels of public debt may...
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July 13, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 13, 2010"Little more than nine months ago, share prices were staring into the abyss. The prevailing mood among fund managers had rarely been more bearish. We stood, it seemed, on the edge of a second Great Depression. Thankfully, this economic nemesis a...
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July 12, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 12, 2010"But at this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life. It is only government that can break the vicious cycle whe...
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July 12, 2010
You Darn Disruptive Voters, YouNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ...
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July 11, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 11, 2010"I want to recognize Chairman Barney Frank for his management of this bill as well as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Chairman Sandy Levin, and Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez for their efforts on behalf of America's small b...
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July 10, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 10, 2010"Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime: by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don't help America grow.But I will also go through the federal budget line by line, eliminating...
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July 9, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 9, 2010"President Obama signed legislation to jumpstart our economy, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, less than a month after his inauguration. The plan will save or create 3.5 million new jobs, make critical investments in our infrastructur...
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July 8, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 8, 2010"On Tuesday the U.S. Postal Service announced it wants to raise the price of your stamps by another two cents, bringing the price to 46 cents. The hike would also be applied to other postal services; the cost for mailing small packages would inc...
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July 7, 2010
President DogbertMission statements and vision statements were all the rage a few years ago. Maybe they still are. (It's good to be retired.) For those of you lucky enough to avoid such Dilbertesque exercises, it went roughly like this: Your boss or your boss's boss ...
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July 7, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 7, 2010"The Obama administration has been racing to transform the U.S. into a copy of the European social-welfare system, while at the same time those countries are being forced to come to grips with the failure of that welfare state. Greece, Hun...
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July 6, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 6, 2010"The richest 1 per cent of Americans owned about 21 per cent of all wealth in 2000. Some European nations have higher concentrations than that. In Sweden -- despite that nation's egalitarian reputation -- the figure is 21 per cent, exactly the s...
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July 5, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 5, 2010"For the last few years, California stood more or less unchallenged as a symbol of the fiscal collapse of states during the recession. Now Illinois has shouldered to the fore, as its dysfunctional political class refuses to pay the state's bills...
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July 4, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 4, 2010"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace." George Washington, 1790."I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is n...
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July 3, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 3, 2010"The other party's opposition is also rooted in some sincere beliefs about how they think the economy works. They think that our economy will do better if we just let the banks or the oil companies or the insurance industry make their own ...
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July 2, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 2, 2010"But when I was sworn in, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. Every -- each month, we were losing 750,000 jobs. The economy was shrinking at 6 percent. It was contracting by 6 percentage points. That's faster than it had...
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July 1, 2010
Graph of the Day for July 1, 2010"At the height of the demonstration, police estimated 7000 to 8000 people massed in or around the pens on Broadway, where loudspeakers set up by ANSWER blared denunciations of ‘Bush's police state' and ‘fascist Fox and CNN.'"...
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June 30, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 30, 2010"In fact, in the last six months more jobs were created than Bush was able to generate in eight years, Chris. People don't understand that, the economy has recovered." Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), June 26, 2010."There's no possibility ...
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June 29, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 29, 2010"We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression... And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world - most recently at last weekend's deeply discouraging G-20 meeting - governments are obsess...
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June 28, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 28, 2010"You'll be hearing a lot about ‘Obama the liberal' between now and November. It's a standard technique from the Republican playbook: brand Democratic opponents as ‘tax-and-spend liberals.'" PolitiFact.com, June 2008....
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June 27, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 27, 2010"President Obama and Congress have entrusted us-you, me, and educators all across the country-with the largest one-time investment in education reform in history. My department has more money for education reform than all of my predecessor...
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June 26, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 26, 2010"Spain's Dr. Gabriel Calzada - the author of a damning study concluding that Spain's ‘green jobs' energy program has been a catastrophic economic failure - was mailed a dismantled bomb on Tuesday by solar energy company Thermotechnic... Sa...
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June 25, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 25, 2010"Today, President Obama, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, announced funding for innovative measures to help families in the states that have been hit the hardest by the aftermath of the housing bubble... Home prices across the count...
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June 24, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 24, 2010"[T]he long night of rule by the most reactionary groups on the political spectrum has ended... we extended and deepened our mass connections, we contributed to the historic victory in 2008, we enhanced our presence and visibility, and we ...
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June 23, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 23, 2010"Spend money on people's needs not war." Green Left Weekly."Don't spend money on war -- use it for peace!" International Peace Bureau."Money for Healthcare, Jobs, Education, Public Services - NOT WAR." ...
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June 23, 2010
Commie Watch, UpdatedA few words from comrade Sam Webb, Chair of the Communist Party USA, as spoken at the CPUSA's 29th National Convention June 3, 2010."What a difference between now and five years ago when we convened in Chicago! At that time, a Puerto Rican...
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June 22, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 22, 2010"We've got to stabilize the population... We're too many people. That's why we have global warming. We have global warming because too many people are using too much stuff. If there were less people they'd be using less s...
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June 21, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 21, 2010"I assembled a team of our nation's best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge -- a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation's Secretary of Energy. Scientists at our national labs and experts f...
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June 20, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 20, 2010"[R]ich families were the undisputed winners from President Bush's tax cuts." The New York Times, January 2007.Source: CBO.Hoven's Index for June 20, 2011Average tax rate (all federal taxes: income, SS, corporate, excise) in 200...
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June 19, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 19, 2010"Although the big stock market crash occurred in October 1929, unemployment never reached double digits in any of the next 12 months after that crash. Unemployment peaked at 9 percent, two months after the stock market crashed-- and then began d...
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June 18, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 18, 2010"And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home." President Obama, Dec. 1, 2009...
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June 17, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 17, 2010"The plan I'm announcing focuses on rescuing families who have played by the rules and acted responsibly: by refinancing loans for millions of families in traditional mortgages who are underwater or close to it; by modifying loans for families s...
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June 16, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 16, 2010"I'm not going to wait until we've got another $4-a-gallon gasoline before suddenly everybody says, why don't we have an energy policy? We can't wait. (Applause.) I'm not going to wait until suddenly we find out that our childr...
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June 15, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 15, 2010"We've been fighting about the proper size and role of government since the day the Framers gathered in Philadelphia... But let me offer a few brief reflections based on my own experiences and the experiences of our country over the last two cen...
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June 15, 2010
Libs claim Haliburton at fault for BP explosionNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ...
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June 14, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 14, 2010"Little more than a year ago, the economy was in freefall. Today, it's growing again. Little more than a year ago, the economy was losing an average of 750,000 jobs per month. It's now been adding jobs for five months in a row....
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June 13, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 13, 2010"Mexican Americans together with African Americans are the two largest nationally oppressed peoples in the U.S., with Mexican Americans being one of the fastest growing sections of the population. The Mexican American population is concentrated ...
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June 12, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 12, 2010"... the Bush administration's eight long years of failed deregulation policies." Nancy Pelosi."... excessive deregulation is at the root of the current crisis." George Soros."... these Bush hypocrites, who spewed...
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June 11, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 11, 2010"The recovery in economic activity that began in the second half of last year has continued at a moderate pace so far this year... At the same time, significant restraints on the pace of the recovery remain... As you know, the labor market was h...
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June 11, 2010
It's ComplicatedJon Stewart pointed out something interesting: how often President Obama or his underlings tell us how complicated or complex the job is. So I did some searching on the White House web site to see how often such words appear in various speeches...
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June 10, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 10, 2010"Ted Kennedy's impact on education reform has been broad and dramatic, with everyone from MTV to Education Week praising his efforts. In 2001 he teamed up with George W. Bush to gain passage of the No Child Left Behind legislation. Dennis Van Ro...
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June 9, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 9, 2010"Iran's Red Crescent Society will try to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza by sending food and medical supplies to the besieged Palestinian territory, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday... The aid group is also preparing to...
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June 8, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 8, 2010"In 2008, about 3,500 teens in the United States aged 15-19 were killed and more than 350,000 were treated in emergency departments for injuries suffered in motor-vehicle crashes. Young people ages 15-24 represent only 14% of the U.S....
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June 7, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 7, 2010"A lot of businesses were hit hard during this downturn, but they're starting to hire again. Workers who were laid off, they're starting to get their jobs back. Companies that were almost forced to close their doors are making plans ...
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June 7, 2010
The Commission to Study Deficits is BrokeAs reported by The Fiscal Times, President Obama's commission to study the problem of what to do about the government running short of money is running short of money."President Obama's bipartisan fiscal commission is operating on a shoestring b...
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June 6, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 6, 2010"The free men of the world are marching together to victory. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory. Good luck, and let us all beseech the bl...
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June 5, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 5, 2010"A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 87% of Adults favor making English the nation's official language. This is the highest level of support yet but in line with what voters have been saying for several years. Just nine ...
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June 4, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 4, 2010"The rising costs of health care will put tremendous pressure on the federal budget during the next few decades and beyond. In CBO's judgment, the health legislation enacted earlier this year does not substantially diminish that pressure. ...
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June 3, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 3, 2010"... despite temporary setbacks, uncertain world events, and the resulting ups and downs of the market, this economy is getting stronger by the day." President Obama, June 2, 2010.Average and Median Duration of UnemploymentSource:...
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June 2, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 2, 2010"Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere and guess what - they're growing like crazy." Hillary Clinton, May 2008.Data source: Google (based on World Bank data).Hoven's Index for June 2, 2010Growth i...
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June 1, 2010
Graph of the Day for June 1, 2010"The rich are not paying their fair share in any nation that is facing the kind of employment issues [America currently does] - whether it's individual, corporate or whatever [form of] taxation forms." Hillary Clinton, May 2010.D...
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May 31, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 31, 2010"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." John F. Kennedy"The...
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May 30, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 30, 2010"Here's my question: Why are we drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place? Many reasons, but this one goes unmentioned: Environmental chic has driven us out there. As production from the shallower Gulf of Mexico wells declines, we...
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May 29, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 29, 2010"This gets at a theme I've written about in the past, and will surely return to: a lot of the American image of Europe as a moribund economy is, like, so 1990s. They're doing better now - and we're doing worse." Paul Krugman, January ...
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May 28, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 28, 2010"The outlook for activity remains unusually uncertain, and downside risks stemming from fiscal fragilities have come to the fore. A key concern is that room for policy maneuvers in many advanced economies has either been exhausted or becom...
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May 27, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 27, 2010"The growth in [college and university] support staff included some jobs that did not exist 20 years ago, like environmental sustainability officers and a broad array of information technology workers. The support staff category includes many di...
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May 26, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 26, 2010"Everybody talks about government was doing this, government was doing that. Now, what we did was we encouraged the private sector, gave them the funding, the financing, the support, the infrastructure support in order to invest and get th...
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May 25, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 25, 2010"A year ago, we took significant action to jumpstart economic growth and job creation. That action included making investments in sectors with the greatest potential for private sector job growth -- areas like clean energy and infrastructu...
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May 24, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 24, 2010"[Government employees] sit there for years drinking coffee and chatting on the telephone and then retire at 50 with nice fat pensions. As for us, the way things are going we'll have to work until we're 70." 25-year-old Greek....
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May 23, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 23, 2010"Some of the proposed ideas in Congress provide a temporary legal status and call for deportation, but fail to answer how the government would deport 11 million people. I don't know how it would be done. I don't know how we would line up all the...
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May 22, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 22, 2010"Economically, Texas is just too much for California to handle... Texas's economic environment is more competitive in all of these categories... Texas's future prosperity looks bright: stronger income, wealth and employment growth will occur in ...
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May 21, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 21, 2010"For those who want to attack my view, let me save you the trouble of reading the entire book. On pages 325-6, I wrote, ‘It ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely...
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May 20, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 20, 2010"The United States faces a fundamental disconnect between the services that people expect the government to provide, particularly in the form of benefits for older Americans, and the tax revenues that people are willing to send to the government...
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May 19, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 19, 2010"The feds assume a relationship between the economy and tax revenue that is divorced from reality. Six decades of history have established one far-reaching fact that needs to be built into fiscal calculations: Increases in federal tax rates, par...
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May 18, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 18, 2010"Texas is pro-business with reasonable regulations while California is anti-business with anti-business regulations.""California is terrible. Even when we've paid their high taxes in full, they still treat every conversation as adversa...
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May 17, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 17, 2010"Spreading European debt woes may be a wake-up call for the United States, which could eventually face a crisis of its own if U.S. leaders fail to summon the political will to tackle growing budget deficits." Caren Bohan and Glenn Som...
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May 16, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 16, 2010"I'm not interested in another debate about big government versus small government. I care about whether government is meeting its responsibilities to the people it represents. And I want to unleash the great power of our economy, so Americans w...
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May 15, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 15, 2010"If the [college] administration seeks to accurately rank the top tier of students, it must realize that a bloated aggregate GPA from excessively lenient grading can quickly lead to a situation where no amount of calculations and statistics can ...
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May 14, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 14, 2010Secrets of the best golfers:(1) The most important part of becoming a good golfer is to start playing young; the younger the better.(2) The second most important part of becoming a good golfer is to have some natural talent for the game.(3) The third...
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May 13, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 13, 2010"Obama's social manifesto: America should be like Europe." Charles Krauthammer."Health Reform Makes US More Like Europe - Thank Goodness..." Richard Cohen."What, exactly, is so awful about European social-style de...
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May 12, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 12, 2010"The term PIIGS has been coined to refer collectively to Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain... If PIIGS refers to nations that have overspent and are now overleveraging to pay for their deficits, the United States is feeding from the sa...
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May 12, 2010
The Potty Parity ActQuestion: What is the House of Representatives doing as unemployment approaches 10%, the deficit exceeds 10% of GDP, the public debt grows to unprecedented size for peacetime and Iran is about to get The Bomb?Answer: Addressing unequal re...
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May 11, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 11, 2010"And today, I'm happy to report that we received some very encouraging news... I should also note that the unemployment rate ticked up slightly from 9.7 to 9.9 [percent]." President Obama, May 7, 2010.Unemployed More Than 6 MonthsSour...
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May 11, 2010
The Failure of the Unfree MarketWhat we have here is the failure of the unfree market. That means the failure of Greece. And the other PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain). And Europe. And it means the U.S., too. It even includes the Great Recession. The modern welfare state is co...
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May 10, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 10, 2010"US unemployment rate jumps to 5.8 percent... The latest jobless figures go a long way in explaining the Bush administration's insistence on continuing the war in Afghanistan, when by all appearances it should be over..." World Social...
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May 9, 2010
Welcome to the Long RunOur national debt problem has become so obvious that even liberals are noticing it. First it was the San Francisco Chronicle, and more recently, The Washington Post. But these same folks have a funny way of placing the blame. The standard narrative i...
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May 9, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 9, 2010"Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own." Aristotle."Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease." Lisa Alther."The on...
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May 8, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 8, 2010"The alliance is just forming... [the natural gas industry has been] hiding under oil and they think Big Oil is going to take care of them. But they're realizing Big Oil is never going to let them make a profit... their future is with the enviro...
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May 7, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 7, 2010"The CARS program achieved the objectives set out by Congress to increase automotive sales and aid the environment. In just a few short weeks of sales, nearly 680,000 older vehicles were replaced by new, more fuel-efficient vehicles. The nation'...
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May 6, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 6, 2010"China has become the largest provider among developing nations of carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol after approving more than 350 foreign-invested carbon reduction projects. As a developing country, China is not obligated to meet ta...
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May 5, 2010
The Intellectual HegemonSometimes even intellectuals get duped. But too often, they dupe us.There is a journal called Social Text. Its own website describes it as follows.Social Text covers a broad spectrum of social and cultural phenomena from a radical perspecti...
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May 5, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 5, 2010"Spirituality & Ecological Hope is an exploration of the spiritual meaning of the ecological crisis that now faces our precious Earth. We do this from the vantage point of a consumer-oriented post-industrial society where the changes require...
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May 4, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 4, 2010Bill Maher: "... I mean Brazil got off oil in the last thirty years..."George Will: "Can you just explain to me in what sense Brazil got off oil?"Maher: "Uh, I believe they did. I believe they, in the ...
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May 3, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 3, 2010"ISAF, in partnership with the Afghan Government, conducts population-centric COIN operations, enables an expanded and effective ANSF, and supports improved governance and development in order to protect the Afghan people and provide a secure en...
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May 2, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 2, 2010"President Obama said the 3.2% rise in the Gross Domestic Product over the first three months of 2010 was evidence that his administration's efforts to shore up the economy are working..." MSNBC reporting on GDP announcement of April ...
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May 1, 2010
Graph of the Day for May 1, 2010"[We are] looking at the law to decide exactly how we are going to react to it...we are considering all possibilities, including the possibility of a court challenge." Eric Holder, US Attorney General."[The law] could pull a...
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April 30, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 30, 2010"The peace dividend at the end of the Cold War combined with the booming economy of the 1990s (and some tech-bubble tax receipts) to create an unexpected dilemma in 2000: what to do with the budget surpluses that were forecast for years to come?...
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April 29, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 29, 2010"The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that t...
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April 28, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 28, 2010"Since the 1980s, the Fed has done a good job in gradually squeezing inflation out of the economic system, lowering interest rates and improving the prospects for sustained economic growth. However, just as the Fed must move preemptively t...
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April 27, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 27, 2010"Although public schools are usually the biggest item in state and local budgets, spending figures provided by public school officials and reported in the media often leave out major costs of education and thus understate what is actually spent....
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April 26, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 26, 2010"The rich just don't have enough money. You either have to tax more of the income distribution or find other sources of revenue." Roberton Williams, senior fellow at the Urban Institute."There is a growing awareness of the need f...
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April 25, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 25, 2010"Given current law and certain changes to that law that are broadly supported by the Administration and Congress, the budget deficit and debt are on a worrisome path-unsustainable in the long run and posing growing risks even during the next sev...
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April 24, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 24, 2010"And when it comes to domestic policy, I have no more important a job as President than seeing to it that every American who wants to work and is able to work can find a job -- and a job that pays a living wage. (Applause.) That was ...
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April 23, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 23, 2010"The Democratic National Committee launched a television ad Friday accusing Republicans of appealing to Wall Street for campaign money in exchange for stopping proposed financial regulation from being passed." CNN, Feb. 5, 2010.Goldma...
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April 22, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 22, 2010"CBO has estimated the loss in households' purchasing power that would result from the primary cap-and-trade program that would be established by H.R. 2454...The loss would equal about 0.1 percent of GDP in 2012, about 0.5 percent in 2030, and a...
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April 21, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 21, 2010"The number of American military deaths in Iraq reached 1,000 Tuesday as fierce fighting erupted between U.S. forces and insurgents in Baghdad and Fallouja. The grim milestone comes amid a heated presidential campaign in which the decision...
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April 20, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 20, 2010"A critical meltdown of ice sheets and severe sea level rise could be inevitable because of global warming, the world's scientists are preparing to warn their governments. New studies of Greenland and Antarctica have forced a UN expert panel to ...
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April 19, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 19, 2010"But today is an encouraging day. We learned that the economy actually produced a substantial number of jobs instead of losing a substantial number of jobs. We are beginning to turn the corner. (Applause.)" President...
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April 18, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 18, 2010"No one likes raising revenue, and understandably so. But if you're going to buy, you need to pay. If need be, I am hopeful that both parties will agree to look at revenues as part of the solution - not as a gateway to higher spendin...
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April 17, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 17, 2010"We have, I think, an excessive degree of concern right now about home ownership and its role in the economy... those who argue that housing prices are now at the point of a bubble seem to me to be missing a very important point... This is...
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April 16, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 16, 2010"I mean, if you think about -- if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It's the Post Office that's always having problems. (Laughter.)" President Obama, on health insurance reform, August 11, 200...
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April 15, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 15, 2010"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama."It's time to be patriotic, Kate. Time to jump in. Time to be part of the deal. Time to help America get out of the rut." ...
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April 15, 2010
Fixing the Financial Crisis: Fire, Aim, ReadyNo one wants to go through another financial crisis like we had in 2008, so our government is busy writing new regulations to fix things. But how do we know what to fix if we don't know what broke, exactly? To some, it is enough to simply start regul...
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April 14, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 14, 2010"In 2007, the United States enacted legislation that incrementally applies the US minimum wage to American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)... American Samoa's private sector economy is largely based on the...
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April 13, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 13, 2010"We examine the experience of forty four countries spanning up to two centuries of data on central government debt, inflation and growth. Our main finding is that across both advanced countries and emerging markets, high debt/GDP levels (9...
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April 12, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 12, 2010"We want our money back, and we're going to get it. And that's why I'm proposing a Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee to be imposed on major financial firms until the American people are fully compensated for the extraordinary assistance ...
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April 11, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 11, 2010"I've proposed a freeze in government spending for three years. This won't apply to the benefits folks get through Social Security, Medicaid, or Medicare. And it won't apply to our national security -- including benefits for veterans...
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April 10, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 10, 2010"It's a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they presided over a doubling of the national debt." President Obama. Source: House Republican Committee on the Budget, Rep. Paul Rya...
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April 10, 2010
CorrectionThe American Thinker article, Was the Arctic Ice Cap ‘Adjusted'?, published online April 6, 2010, implied that raw sea ice data might have been adjusted for other than scientific reasons. Upon further review, all assumptions and adjustmen...
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April 9, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 9, 2010"[W]hat I've learned as a mom, in trying to feed my girls, is that it is so important for them to get regular fruits and vegetables in their diets, because it does have nutrients, it does make you strong, it is all brain food." First ...
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April 8, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 8, 2010"Republicans need to emphasize how well things ran when Republicans had Congress: 1995-2000 and 2003-2006. When Democrats bring their Blame-Bush knives, bring your Blame-the-Democrat-Congress guns." Randall Hoven, April 2010. Sou...
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April 7, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 7, 2010"[A] yourself, when you next go to a Tea Party rally, or watch one on television or listen to a politician or a commentator praise these things or merely treat them as if it was just a coincidence that they are virtually segregated. Ask yourself...
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April 7, 2010
Laff It Up, Tax-LoversThe national debt problem has become so apparent that it is recognized even in San Francisco now. Would raising taxes help?In January 2009, I wrote, "We have less than 10 years to get our mess straightened out." Here is what the San F...
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April 6, 2010
Was the Arctic Ice Cap 'Adjusted'?[See important correction below - editor]There is an entity called the National Snow and Ice Data Center. If you go to its website, you can find data and plots of sea ice extent. In particular, you can find the size of the Arctic ice cap, or what the...
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April 6, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 6, 2010"[Mexico's Attorney General] estimates that drug consumers north of the Rio Grande put some $10 billion into the pockets of the cartels annually... More interesting is Mexico's estimates that half of all cartel revenue comes from the marijuana b...
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April 5, 2010
Spoiling the SpoilsportI hate to do it, but I must be a spoilsport to the spoilsports. I'm afraid we are now in an economic recovery. What's worse, it will become apparent to the general public as we approach the 2010 elections. The message to Republicans: Don't gloat. Rat...
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April 5, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 5, 2010"Today's employment report shows continued signs of gradual labor market healing. Payroll employment rose significantly in March, and the unemployment rate remained constant... Moreover, revised estimates now show a small job gain in...
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April 5, 2010
New York Times punked againNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ...
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April 4, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 4, 2010"What we've decided for now is not to join a single church. And the reason is because Michelle and I have realized we are very disruptive to services... And in the meantime, what we've done, there was a prayer circle of pastors from across the c...
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April 3, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 3, 2010"The nation's largest employer wants you to: Address the tough challenges that our country is facing today. Contribute to projects that affect the lives of over 300 million people. Help make a difference." USAJOBS, U...
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April 2, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 2, 2010"The AFL-CIO today endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president... In its endorsement statement, the General Board noted that Sen. Barack Obama ‘secured the nomination of his party in a campaign that has energized millions of American...
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April 2, 2010
Economics in 1.5 DaysI recently attended an economics conference. I know you're dying to know how it went. Don't laugh. No one at the conference did.Are we headed for a double-dip recession, or even a Great Depression? How will the U.S. and most of the developed world fa...
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April 1, 2010
Graph of the Day for April 1, 2010"The red light camera program was introduced to the City in November 2003 and was implemented to reduce speeding and promote safety. The cameras have reduced red-light violations significantly. The City plans to increase the number of cameras wi...
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March 31, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 31, 2010"Americans overall are far less likely to be killed with a firearm than they were when it was much more difficult to obtain a concealed-weapons permit, according to statistics collected by the federal Centers for Disease Control... In the ...
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March 31, 2010
Certified by the EPA and DOEEnergy Star is a government program run jointly by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy. This program certifies products as meeting its strict energy efficiency standards."If looking for new household products, ...
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March 30, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 30, 2010"Bush administration slashes funding for global warming research... The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration faces debilitating budget cuts for fiscal year 2005 thanks to the Bush administration's reluctance to combat global warm...
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March 29, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 29, 2010"When I walked into the door of the White House, our government was spending about 25 percent of GDP but taking in only about 16 percent of GDP. Without action, the accumulated weight of that structural deficit, of ever-increasing debt, wi...
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March 28, 2010
Hope and Change, as PredictedIn January 2009, I wrote "Predictions of Hope and Change." President Obama had been in office barely a week, and the big topic was his "stimulus" plan. It had not yet passed, and there was some uncertainty that it would. Nor ...
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March 28, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 28, 2010"You shall not steal... You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." The Bible, Exodus 20:2-17. Income...
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March 27, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 27, 2010"It is with great humility and with great pride that we tonight will make history for our country and progress for the American people. [Applause] Just think-we will be joining those who established Social Security, Medicare, and now...
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March 26, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 26, 2010"The success of the Massachusetts health care reform model demonstrates that national reform can expand affordable quality coverage. Learn more from our national partner Community Catalyst and visit their blog, Health Policy Hub. Click here to l...
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March 25, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 25, 2010"In examining the causes of problem pregnancies, medical researchers increasingly study lifetime stress, not only stress during pregnancy... Many experts now conclude that stress causes release of hormones that weaken the uterus, leading to prem...
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March 24, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 24, 2010"If you think about it, uh, y'know, UPS and FedEx are doin' just fine. Right? The, uh, no, they are. It's the Post Office that's always havin' problems." President Obama., explaining the "public option" in ...
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March 23, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 23, 2010"I want to thank leaders in the House of Representatives for working quickly and in a bipartisan way to pass legislation that will use Recovery Act funds to keep ‘Cash for Clunkers' going. This program has been an overwhelming succes...
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March 22, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 22, 2010"At the heart of this debate is the question of whether we're going to accept a system that works better for the insurance companies than it does for the American people -- (applause) -- because if this vote fails, the insurance industry will co...
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March 21, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 21, 2010"Labor, civil rights, women, youth and all the progressive core forces in our country are now moving to place the fight for jobs and the unemployed front and center on their agenda. We have to pay particular attention to the working-class ...
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March 20, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 20, 2010"Meanwhile, Bush's neglect of the domestic epidemic has borne fruit. New data show that the government is set to fail at its 2001 goal to cut new domestic HIV infections in half by 2005. Far from declining, HIV infections plateaued a...
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March 19, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 19, 2010Stop hyperventilating, all you climate-change deniers. The purloined e-mail correspondence... does not prove that global warming is a fraud. If I'm wrong, somebody ought to tell the polar ice caps that they're free to stop melting.Eugene Robins...
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March 18, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 18, 2010"When it comes to energy and environmental policy, the Bush administration has brought the oil and chemical representatives out of the lobby and into the Oval Office and let them rewrite America's environmental laws during secret meetings that t...
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March 17, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 17, 2010"‘What,' asked my interlocutor, ‘is the worst-case outlook for the world economy?' It wasn't until the next day that I came up with the right answer: America could turn Irish."Paul Krugman. Source: The Heritage Founda...
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March 16, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 16, 2010"As you know, as a result of sweeping changes made to federal welfare policy in 1996... welfare changed from a program entitling eligible families to monthly cash payments... to a capped block grant that emphasized employment and work supports f...
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March 15, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 15, 2010"A strong middle class equals a strong America. We can't have one without the other. This Task Force will be an important vehicle to assess new and existing policies across the board and determine if they are helping or hurting the m...
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March 14, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 14, 2010"We are open to any demonstrably good idea to supplement the steps we've already taken to put America back to work." President Obama."We find that states with greater economic freedom - defined as the protection of private proper...
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March 13, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 13, 2010"President Bush's return to huge deficit spending represents a sharp break from the recent past." Citizens for Tax Justice, 2003.President [Obama]'s State of the Union Address Acknowledges - Partially - the Problems with the Bush Tax ...
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March 12, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 12, 2010"Obama called it [the stimulus] the largest public-works program since the creation of the interstate highway system in the 1950s. The plan includes spending on what Obama called ‘shovel-ready' projects to rebuild roads, make buildin...
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March 11, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 11, 2010"I would cut from overseas spending, I would cut from these trillions and trillions of dollars that we have spent over the years and bring our troops home so that we can finance it [health care]." Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), July 2009....
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March 11, 2010
KC Schools, A Case Study in Liberal StupidityThe AP reports that the Kansas City school system is closing 29 of its 61 schools due to budget problems -- a $50 million shortfall. The AP quotes KC Councilwoman Sharon Sanders Brooks on the background of the story."The urban core has suf...
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March 10, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 10, 2010"I guess I don't buy your premise. It's a pretty unlikely possibility. We've never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So what I think is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow ...
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March 9, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 9, 2010"Using CBO's ‘textbook growth' model, it is not possible to simulate the effects of the alternative* fiscal scenario after 2058 because deficits become so large and unsustainable that the model cannot calculate their effects. The [Pa...
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March 8, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 8, 2010"Mr. President, I'll try to be brief. There's a lot to talk about. I'd like to focus it though on the deficit, impact on the deficit, which we're all talking about. And I must tell you, maybe I've been around too long, but I am...
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March 7, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 7, 2010"Obama administration encouraged by steady unemployment rate." LA Times headline, March 5, 2010."This morning we learned that in February our economy lost an additional 36,000 jobs. Now, this is actually better than expecte...
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March 6, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 6, 2010"[President Obama said] ‘that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.' Wh...
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March 5, 2010
Poor ObamaWhat a mess he inherited. The Great Recession, Iraq, Afghanistan. No other U.S. president has ever faced such a mess. And Obama has to deal with this mess with fewer than 60% of the seats in both houses of Congress being held by his own party.Even kn...
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March 5, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 5, 2010"[The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, under President Barack Obama is] not industry friendly,.. NHTSA's new, more aggressive management includes more attorneys at the agency, even in the leadership of rulemaking and enforcement....
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March 4, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 4, 2010"I travel the country and see these patterns in every community - stories of 12 year old children killed in the cross fire between knuckleheads selling drugs, the 14 year olds with a sealed envelop as their first step into the criminal justice s...
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March 4, 2010
Moderate, or Blind Monkey?Congressmen can be, and often are, judged by their voting records. The American Conservative Union, for example, scores senators every year by their votes in 25 particular roll calls. A senator who voted "conservative" in 20 of ...
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March 3, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 3, 2010"The view of a minimalist federal government during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was likely based on a strict interpretation of the Constitution... The government expanded in the 1930s for two reasons: First, its source of funds...
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March 2, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 2, 2010"For four years, they haven't tried. They stood by while insurance companies have taken in record profits. They don't consider the high cost of health care a serious problem. But I do." John Kerry, 2004.Source: Senate Join...
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March 1, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 1, 2010"[In] compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims: The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it ...
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February 28, 2010
To Be or Not to Be ConservativeShould conservatives support moderate Republicans? I provide here pragmatic arguments for supporting more conservative Republicans right now.To be clear, I am talking about the value of voting for the more conservative candidates in Republican primar...
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February 28, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 28, 2010"This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the ‘peer-reviewed literature'. Obviously, they found a solution to that--take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to ...
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February 27, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 27, 2010"Khabibullo Abdusamatov expects a repeat of the period known as the Little Ice Age.... Abdusamatov and his colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences astronomical observatory said the prediction is based on measurement of solar emissions, Nov...
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February 26, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 26, 2010"Obama occasionally supported higher taxes, joining other Democrats in pushing to raise more than 300 taxes and fees on businesses in 2004 to help solve a budget deficit." CBS News on Barack Obama's record as Illinois State Senator....
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February 25, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 25, 2010"And yet Congress has been corrupted by the military-industrial complex into believing that by voting for more defense spending, they are supplying "jobs" for the economy. In fact, they are only diverting scarce resources from the desp...
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February 24, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 24, 2010"We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there." Barack Obama, August 2007."U.S. Sp...
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February 23, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 23, 2010"Most of you know I opposed this war from the start. I thought it was a tragic mistake... It's time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else's civil war. That's...
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February 23, 2010
Cargo Cult President (updated)On February 22, 2010, after well over a year in office and more than three years after announcing his candidacy for President, Obama released his health care reform plan.Yet he urged Congress to pass health care reform last August.And with all that t...
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February 22, 2010
Teaming Up with the Democrats?Leave it to third-string, has-been quarterbacks of the Republican Party to throw an interception at the precise moment conservatives are about to turn the game around. What is wrong with people like former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former S...
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February 22, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 22, 2010"Golf is just like life, when you make a mistake, you learn from your mistake and move on stronger." Kultida Woods, Tiger's mother."I think we can learn a lot from that situation. Not from Tiger, but from his wife. She said...
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February 21, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 21, 2010"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level." The IPCC 4th Assess...
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February 20, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 20, 2010"Mr. Obama also recently pointed to his work on the Illinois pension issue as a model for what he would do as president..." The New York Times, 2007."Nineteen states were rated as meriting serious concerns. Illinois-the worst-per...
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February 19, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 19, 2010"Ah, say the opponents, if politicians will always find a way of circumventing campaign finance laws, what's the point of passing new laws? Do I believe that any law will prove effective over time? No, I do not. Were we to pass this ...
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February 18, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 18, 2010"The unemployment rate hit 10 percent in October, and there are good reasons to believe that by 2011, 2012, even 2014, it will have declined only a little. Late last year, the average duration of unemployment surpassed six months, the first time...
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February 17, 2010
Reasonably Sane SustainabilitySomething that is "unsustainable" cannot be sustained. That is what "unsustainable" means. Our federal budget is on an unsustainable path. Therefore, it will not be sustained. Our only choice is the manner in which it will not be ...
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February 17, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 17, 2010"[T]his economic downturn is not your garden-variety recession. It is indeed the ‘Great Recession,' and it is far from over." Thomas F. Cooley and Peter Rupert at Forbes.Source: Thomas F. Cooley and Peter Rupert at Forbes....
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February 16, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 16, 2010"How do we contend with the traditional definitions of what success should look like, those beliefs that still hold sway over so many young people -- the idea that success means money, or power, or prestige, and that it comes with a nice house a...
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February 16, 2010
McCain and Hayworth: Tale of the Tape[Editor's note: See also McCain's KFYI Interview]Who is more conservative -- John McCain, or his primary rival, J.D. Hayworth? Hayworth officially announced his candidacy for the Senate on Monday. The Arizona Republic reported thatMcCain has been por...
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February 16, 2010
McCain's KFYI InterviewJohn McCain was interviewed on KFYI radio in Phoenix today (Tuesday Feb 16, 8 am hour). Beyond sounding, oddly, like a lobbyist for the nuclear industry, he made several comments that should be very interesting to American Thinker readers, cons...
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February 15, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 15, 2010"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.""Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth.""The v...
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February 14, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 14, 2010"Only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, the other, to let her have it." Lyndon Johnson. "Most people who meet my wife quickly conclude that she is remarkabl...
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February 13, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 13, 2010"[O]ur own government, through much of the past fifty years, has been the world's leading ‘rogue state.' Merely listing the plainly illegal or unauthorized uses of force... would literally take volumes. And behind that list reside the bodi...
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February 12, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 12, 2010"We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship. The constitutional rights we learned about in high school civics were suspended." Scott Horton, George W. Bu...
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February 12, 2010
Obama was for the filibuster in 2005Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ...
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February 11, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 11, 2010"On the day my administration took office, we faced an additional $7.5 trillion in national debt by the end of this decade as a result of the failure to pay for two large tax cuts, primarily for the wealthiest Americans, and a new entitlement pr...
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February 10, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 10, 2010"It was under Mr Bush that the deficit spiraled out of control as we fought an unnecessary and endless $3,000bn war in Iraq..." James Carville.Estimated Appropriations Provided for U.S. Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan And for Other...
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February 9, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 9, 2010"It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question. I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn't under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn't on my watch. And it was...
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February 8, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 8, 2010"While unemployment remains a severe problem, today's employment report contains encouraging signs of gradual labor market healing. Even as today's numbers contain signs of the beginning of recovery, they are also a reminder of how far we ...
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February 6, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 6, 2010"Data released this week from the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization that conducts research on sexual and reproductive health, shows that the teen pregnancy rate rose 3% in 2006, the first increase since the late '80s. The institute,...
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February 5, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 5, 2010"I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral, and that we should not condone immoral acts... I do not believe that the armed forces are well served by saying through our policies that it's OK to be immoral in any way, no...
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February 4, 2010
How to Blame Bush: LieHas this happened to you? You start reading an article written by a Democrat, wondering if it is just possible that he has a legitimate point. But one or two paragraphs in, you find yourself so deep in outrageously false premises that you wonder if y...
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February 4, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 4, 2010"The Bush administration took office in January 2001 and promptly began its assault on workers and workplace safety. Siding with its corporate allies, the administration has refused to require important workplace protections and has even rolled ...
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February 4, 2010
Waterboarding Lies in the News AgainThe AFP reported that "An elite US interrogation unit will conduct ‘scientific research' to find better ways of questioning top suspected terrorists" according to the US intelligence director Dennis Blair.This is its own story. ...
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February 3, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 3, 2010"These have been tough times, and there will be difficult months ahead. But the storms of the past are receding; the skies are brightening; and the horizon is beckoning once more." Barack Obama, Budget Message of the President, ...
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February 2, 2010
The Lost DecadePresident Obama called the "oughts" (2000-2009) the "lost decade." That was his way, yet again, of blaming Bush. More precisely, it was Obama heeding the advice of Homer Simpson.The three little sentences that will get you through...
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February 2, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 2, 2010"Opponents of the Electoral College point to Bush as a reason to get rid of the current system -- he's president even though he lost the popular vote. Since the distribution of electoral votes tends to over-represent people in rural states, oppo...
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February 1, 2010
Graph of the Day for February 1, 2010"[T]he incidence of Harm Standard physical abuse was significantly lower for children living with two married biological parents compared to children living in all other conditions. An estimated 1.9 per 1,000 children living with two marri...
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January 31, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 31, 2010"Our nation is barrelling down a path of uncontrolled Federal Government spending, unsustainable entitlement growth, and crushing levels of taxes and debt. If we resign ourselves to this, our health and retirement security programs will grow the...
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January 30, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 30, 2010"... you've got kids or you've got grandkids -- they need to make sure that they've got the same security that Medicare provides seniors." President Obama, speech at the Organizing for America National Health Care Forum, August 2009...
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January 29, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 29, 2010"Despite the popular emphasis on the U.S. housing price bubble and domestic monetary and regulatory policies, the recession has been a worldwide phenomenon with varying effects across countries... While job stability is a good thing, econo...
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January 28, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 28, 2010"We can no longer afford to spend as if deficits don't matter and waste is not our problem. We can no longer afford to leave the hard choices for the next budget, the next administration -- or the next generation." President Oba...
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January 27, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 27, 2010"There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy ... That's going to be my No. 1 priority when I get into office." Barack Obama, October 2008Public Priorities Per Pew PollingSourc...
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January 27, 2010
What the meaning of freeze isPresident Obama is freezing the salaries of his staff, just like he did last year. Whatever that means.Here is how Ed O'Keefe explained it in the Washington Post."Obama last year froze the salaries of top White House officials earning more...
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January 26, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 26, 2010"Then you get the argument ‘Well this is not a stimulus bill; this is a spending bill." Whaddya think a stimulus is? That's the whole point! No, seriously. That's the point." Barack Obama, February 2...
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January 25, 2010
Five Easy Questions for ObamaPresident Obama, I know you've given lots of speeches, briefings, and statements. And you've schooled us well on subjects ranging from how to create or save jobs to how to change climate and achieve world peace. But there are just a few things I'm st...
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January 25, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 25, 2010"In the midst of a deep recession and financial crisis, the collapse of the auto industry would have caused enormous damage to our economy. So we intervened for one simple and compelling reason: Your survival and the success of our economy...
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January 24, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 24, 2010"I'm concerned that Prime Minister Harper is not only taking plays from the Bush playbook, but he's also being coached by many of the same people who have put the United States on a fast track to being a hawkish nation of greedy corporate plunde...
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January 23, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 23, 2010"Hidden within the latest edition of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's FluView was this sentence: ‘The proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza was below the epidemic threshold.' That's right: The gre...
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January 22, 2010
The Real State of the Union, 2010It is State of the Union time again. Like every president before him, Barack Obama will declare that the state of our union is fundamentally sound, but it needs some tuning up. (In his case, a tune-up costs about $2 trillion and nine czars.) But in m...
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January 22, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 22, 2010"Hong Kong maintains its position as the world's freest economy, a distinction it has enjoyed for 16 consecutive years. Singapore remains close, ranked as the world's second freest economy. Australia and New Zealand, ranked 3rd and 4...
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January 21, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 21, 2010"The housing sector is now at the root of three distinct but related problems: First, a sharp decline in house prices and the related fall in home building that could lead to an economy-wide recession; Second, a subprime mortgage problem t...
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January 21, 2010
Sorry, this is not a free countryThe United States is no longer "free." That is not just a rant. That is an objective assessment based on an analysis of 10 economic factors in 183 countries.The Heritage Foundation's 2010 Index of Economic Freedom is out, and th...
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January 20, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 20, 2010"Our work is far from done. For even though we have reduced the deluge of job losses to a relative trickle, we are not yet creating jobs at a pace to help all those families who have been swept up in the flood." President Barack Obama...
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January 19, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 19, 2010"In 2008, consumers were only directly responsible for 11.9 percent of total national healthcare expenditures, down from 43 percent in 1965, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This means that someone oth...
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January 18, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 18, 2010"This administration, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. It will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won." President Lyndon B...
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January 17, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 17, 2010"To be counted as unemployed, you must not only be out of work but must also have actively looked for a job in the preceding four weeks. This definition excludes the 6 million Americans who work part time because they can't find full-time jobs. ...
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January 16, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 16, 2010"I hear about Tony Snow and say to myself, well, stand up every day, lie to the American people at the behest of your dictator-esque boss and well, how could a cancer NOT grow in you." Charles Karel Bouley, California radio host, in t...
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January 15, 2010
Voting Democrat Causes CancerVoting Democrat is associated with over 150,000 cancer deaths every year, according to the Hoven Institute for Studies Just as Valid as Studies Cited by Democrats.To help visualize the data used in the study, consider the two maps below. In the first...
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January 15, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 15, 2010"What's the better bet? A globalization that exports cheeseburgers and pop songs or a globalization that exports the fiercest aspects of its culture? When it comes to forecasting the future, the birthrate is the nearest thing to hard numbers. If...
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January 14, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 14, 2010"The President's Council of Economic Advisors recently reported that from 1996 to 2003, nearly 60 percent of net employment growth, and 50 percent of the growth of the working age population was due to recent immigrants." Social Secur...
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January 14, 2010
Scott Ritter, Tough GuyScott Ritter is a former UN chief weapons inspector. Earlier in his career, he criticized President Clinton for not being tough enough toward Saddam Hussein. Later in his career he opposed President Bush for being too tough toward Saddam ...
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January 13, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 13, 2010"Manufacturing and Green Jobs... Obama and Biden will create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to identify and invest in the most compelling advanced manufacturing strategies... The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) works with manufacturers...
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January 12, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 12, 2010"The U.S. tax rate is at the low end of the European scale. The big difference is we have no national VAT, or value-added tax. We rely on income and property tax for revenue, and our corporate tax is higher than that of most European nations. An...
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January 11, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 11, 2010"Look, John's last minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs, J-O-B-S, jobs." Joe Biden.Source: Innocentbystanders.Sour...
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January 10, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 10, 2010"We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data." Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia."This data set contains gridded mean temperature anomalies fr...
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January 9, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 9, 2010"We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data." Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia."This data set contains gridded mean temperature anomalies fr...
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January 8, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 8, 2010"We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data." Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia."This data set contains gridded mean temperature anomalies fr...
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January 7, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 7, 2010"We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data." Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia."This data set contains gridded mean temperature anomalies fr...
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January 6, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 6, 2010"We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data." Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia."This data set contains gridded mean temperature anomalies fr...
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January 5, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 5, 2010"We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data." Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia."This data set contains gridded mean temperature anomalies fr...
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January 4, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 4, 2010"We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data." Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia."This data set contains gridded mean temperature anomalies fr...
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January 3, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 3, 2010"We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data." Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia."This data set contains gridded mean temperature anomalies fr...
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January 2, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 2, 2010"We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period."Email from "a major researcher in the area of climate change" to Dr. David Deming.2000-Year Global Temperature Reconstruction Based On Non-Treering ProxiesSource: Craig Loehle...
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January 1, 2010
Graph of the Day for January 1, 2010"No. 1 goal of my plan ... is to create three million new jobs, more than 80 percent of them in the private sector." President-elect Obama, January 3, 2009.Number of Jobs in the US over the last 10 yearsSource: St. Louis Federal...
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December 31, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 31, 2009A baby seal walks into a bar. "What can I get you?" asks the bartender. "Anything but a Canadian Club," replies the seal.A grasshopper hops into a bar. The bartender says, "You're quite a celebrity around here. We've even got...
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December 31, 2009
AP ignores Arab surname of Finnish shooter while urging more gun controlNormal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-sty...
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December 30, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 30, 2009"I think we can get a lot of work done fast. When I met with the governors, all of them have projects that are shovel-ready." Barack Obama, December 2008."As of November 27, 2009, $69.1 billion, or about one quarter of the approx...
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December 29, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 29, 2009"The total unfunded OPEB [other postemployment benefits - the largest of which is typically retiree health benefits] liability reported in state and the largest local governments' CAFRs exceeds $530 billion." Government Accounting Off...
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December 28, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 28, 2009"Weaknesses in the economy and financial markets - and the government's response to them - have contributed to near-term increases in federal deficits, which reached a record level in fiscal year 2009. While a lot of attention has been giv...
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December 27, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 27, 2009"Obama's legislation, offered on the Senate floor last night, would remove all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008."The Washington Post, Jan. 31, 2007.Source: Congressional Budget Office, October 7, 2009.Hoven's Index for Dece...
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December 26, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 26, 2009"Over the period, wages have gone up and unemployment has gone down, which has had some impact in reducing crime, but a major reason for the reduction is that crime has become more costly to the perpetrators. The likelihood of going to prison fo...
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December 25, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 25, 2009"Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times."The Bible, Mark 4:8.Predominant Religion, by CountrySource: Maps of World.Hoven's Index for December 25, 20...
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December 24, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 24, 2009"Why are we so stingy really? When we are ...and even at Christmas time should remind many Western countries at least, how rich we have become and if actually the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2% of their gross national in...
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December 23, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 23, 2009"Hunger in U.S. at a 14-Year High. The number of Americans who lived in households that lacked consistent access to adequate food soared last year, to 49 million, the highest since the government began tracking what it calls "food ins...
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December 22, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 22, 2009"Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,Once Tim's got a diagram here we'll send that either later today orfirst thing tomorrow.I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real tempsto each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) am...
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December 21, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 21, 2009"So when you're talking to seniors out there, tell them, number one, nobody is talking about cutting their benefits. Talk to them about the fact that, by the way, Medicare is already a government program -- (laughter and applause) -- so wh...
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December 20, 2009
Merry Christmas from HarryAccording to the latest news, Harry Reid has the 60 votes needed to pass Obamacare. While the legislation itself is not available for reading to my knowledge, the Congressional Budget Office did report on it December 19. I parse that CBO report here,...
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December 20, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 20, 2009"As the fight over President Obama's economic recovery package heats up, the two sides are beginning to define themselves with admirable clarity. The president says we have a crisis that is heading toward a catastrophe... The Republi...
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December 19, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 19, 2009"What we don't need are weak regulations like those in Texas, where industry participation in many environmental programs is voluntary. Texas ranks first in the nation in the number of hazardous-waste incinerators and industrial emissions of car...
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December 18, 2009
Who Needs Data?The scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) and the people who funded them did not know how utterly useless the CRU is. All the research done at the CRU made no difference whatsoever to the "science" of glo...
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December 18, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 18, 2009"Black Friday Retail Sales Up 0.5% From '08. In Strong Start to Holiday Shopping Season, Much Was Virtual: Average Amount Spent Online Rose 35%."CBS News headline, Nov. 28, 2009.Source: National Retail Federation.Hoven's Index f...
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December 18, 2009
All you need to know about CopenhagenThe Copenhagen treaty would do nothing to stop global warming, even if you believe in it. Here it is, right from Time magazine."A paper leaked from, and confirmed to be authentic by, the U.N. on Thursday night contains an assessment of the...
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December 17, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 17, 2009"The [New Zealand] government removed major regulations from the economy, including wage and price controls. The public sector was significantly downsized through spending cuts and privatizations, reducing the number of public employees by...
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December 16, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 16, 2009"In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards." Mark Twain"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." AristotleSource: ACT.org:...
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December 15, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 15, 2009"The deal between the nation's biggest automaker and one of the largest unions was designed to bring both sides out of the past century and into this one, where each faces intense global competition. The contract may be a template not only for t...
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December 14, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 14, 2009"This is an urgent matter, and we need to move very quickly... we're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars... we can't determine what the cost is today... But I can assure you the cost won't be anything like what is put out to buy ...
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December 13, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 13, 2009"I think George W. Bush has a warm, engaging personality. But, you know, the presidency is more than just a popularity contest." Al Gore"As the debate over health care continues, the Democrats may have lost the competitive advant...
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December 13, 2009
Warmest Ever, or Getting Cooler?You might hear climate change "deniers" saying recent temperatures show global cooling. But then you hear climate "scientists" say that the last ten years are the warmest on record. Who's right?They both are....That is, if y...
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December 12, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 12, 2009"This is the fruit of decades of ‘leave the market alone, don't regulate it. It will take care of itself." House Banking Committee Chairman Barney Frank. "A stark failure of the economy and this administration's laiss...
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December 11, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 11, 2009"We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data." Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia. Mean Annual Temperatures at Darwin Airport, Australia (Blue...
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December 11, 2009
E-mails, Schme-mails -- Look at the Polar Ice CapsApparently, you don't really need a whole bunch of temperature data to know what's happening with temperatures. Don't bother looking for trends of 0.007 degrees per year averaged over the planet (the rate over the last century, per the IPCC) by wadin...
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December 10, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 10, 2009"Then you get the argument ‘this is not a stimulus bill it is a spending bill.' Whaddya think a stimulus is?" President Obama in 2009. The U.S. must continue to "spend our way out of this recession." ...
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December 10, 2009
Bailout: RIPThe bailout is over: Born October 3, 2008; died December 7, 2009. The banks have been rescued. A Great Depression has been averted. Feeling better?And to adequately reform our system, we must make sure we fully understand the nature of the problem wh...
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December 10, 2009
Up is down, less is more, cold is hotIn previous interglacial periods, namely about 125,000, 240,000 and 340,000 years ago, temperatures were about three degrees warmer than now. Or so we had thought.If you found out that the temperatures in Antarctica were actually about six degr...
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December 9, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 9, 2009"And to adequately reform our system, we must make sure we fully understand the nature of the problem which will not be possible until we are confident it is behind us." Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, in 2008. Source: A...
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December 9, 2009
Heaven Forfend! 'Thomas and Friends' is conservativeRemember when Jerry Falwell took so much heat for suggesting that the Teletubbies were kind of light in the loafers? If you recall, it was actually a media studies lecturer at Sussex University named Andy Medhurst who had said years earlier that, ...
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December 8, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 8, 2009"It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." Louis D...
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December 7, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 7, 2009"Yesterday, December 7, 1941-a date which will live in infamy-the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1941.Source: ...
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December 6, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 6, 2009"In the strongest employment report since the recession began nearly two years ago, the government said Friday that the nation's employers had all but stopped shedding jobs in November, taking some of the pressure off of President Obama to come ...
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December 5, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 5, 2009"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that the federal government may have to spend even more money to shore up the nation's ailing economy, on top of the more than $1.6 trillion so far approved by Congress." The Washington Post,...
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December 5, 2009
Political lexicon 101Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ...
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December 4, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 4, 2009"Often times when you face such an overwhelming challenge as global climate change, it can be somewhat daunting - it's kind of like trying to lose weight , which I know something about." Hillary Clinton"The best way to lose weigh...
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December 3, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 3, 2009"But to truly transform our economy, to protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy. So I ask this Congress to send me legis...
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December 3, 2009
JCS Chairman and Rumsfeld at odds over historyNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ...
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December 2, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 2, 2009"As interest payments eat into the budget, something has to give-and that something is nearly always defense expenditure... This is how empires decline. It begins with a debt explosion. It ends with an inexorable reduction in the resources...
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December 2, 2009
A Disservice to the TruthResponding to President Obama's address on Afghanistan yesterday, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld issued the following statement:"In his speech to the nation last night, President Obama claimed that ‘Commanders in Afghanistan r...
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December 1, 2009
Graph of the Day for December 1, 2009"I don't know how to create [an] affordable, well-designed, plug-in hybrid, but I know that if the Japanese can...then doggone it, the American people should be able to do the same." President Obama, April 2009. Source:...
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November 30, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 30, 2009"We can't keep on just borrowing from China. We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children's future with more and more debt." President Obama, May 2009. Source: The Skeptic...
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November 29, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 29, 2009"Ever since the Great Recession began economic analysts at some (not all) major Wall Street firms have warned that efforts to fight the slump will produce even worse economic evils... A better model, I'd argue, is Japan in the 1990s... The...
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November 28, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 28, 2009"There have been strident claims that New Zealand is warming. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), among other organizations and scientists, allege that, along with the rest of the world, we have been heating up for over ...
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November 27, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 27, 2009"Barack Obama represents that hope of dealing with the substance of the issues of injustice while at the same time articulating the politics of hope, and even the possibility of racial unity. Obama's attraction to many who are white, especially ...
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November 26, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 26, 2009"The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving." H.U. Westermayer"If the only prayer you said in your whole life ...
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November 25, 2009
Kentucky census worker not murdered by crazy right wingersHere is how CBS News reported, in September, on the death of a census worker in Kentucky. “Terror in Kentucky: Census Worker's Murder. Body Found Naked, Hanging From Tree in Cemetery; Had Been Gagged, Duct Taped, 'Fed...
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November 25, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 25, 2009"Figure 3 shows the maximum capital gains tax rate and capital gains realizations as a percentage of GDP. The major spikes in realizations correspond to changes in tax rate. The simple correlation between the two time-series is -0.64...
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November 24, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 24, 2009"Handgun crime ‘up' despite ban. A new study suggests the use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned [in the UK].The BBC in 2001. Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, ...
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November 23, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 23, 2009"My message to women is simple. Mammograms have always been an important lifesaving tool in the fight against breast cancer and they still are today. Keep doing what you have been doing for years - talk to your doctor about your individual histo...
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November 22, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 22, 2009"In the San Francisco Bay Area, four East Bay cities... announced late last year they were forming the East Bay Green Corridor Partnership... ‘to lead the world in environmental innovation, emerging green business and industry, green jobs,...
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November 21, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 21, 2009"If motorists are the big losers in the spectacular run-up in gas prices, the companies that produce the oil and turn it into gasoline are the clear winners." Justin Blum, in the Washington Post. Source: US Dept. of Energy...
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November 20, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 20, 2009"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." Henny Youngman "It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth." George Burns"I dri...
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November 19, 2009
'We are all going to die!' - Well, maybe...In previous interglacial periods, namely about 125,000, 240,000 and 340,000 years ago, temperatures were about three degrees warmer than now. Or so we had thought.If you found out that the temperatures in Antarctica were actually about six degrees w...
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November 19, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 19, 2009"The United States has got some of the dumbest people in the world. I want you to know that we know that." Ted Turner, founder of CNN. "We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of ...
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November 18, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 18, 2009"Important headwinds... likely will prevent the expansion from being as robust as we would hope... Overall a number of factors suggest that employment gains may be modest during the early stages of the expansion." Federal Reserve Chai...
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November 17, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 17, 2009"Greenland Ice Cap Melting Faster Than Ever ... Satellite observations and a state-of-the art regional atmospheric model have independently confirmed that the Greenland ice sheet is losing mass at an accelerating rate, reports a new study in Sci...
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November 16, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 16, 2009"Upscale dining hit hardest in recession... For five years, Jonathan Fyhrie of Six Tables in Boca Raton charged diners a flat $90 per person. Six courses. Choice of six entrees. Port with the cheese course. Those days are over. On Oct. 1, ...
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November 16, 2009
He's Just Not That Into YouEurope is coming to realize that Obama does not really love her. This comes not from right-wing new media, but from that Obama-slavering old-media outlet, the New York Times. Instead of coming over to celebrate the fall of the Berli...
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November 15, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 15, 2009"The panel was asked to address the ten challenge areas and to answer the question, ‘What would be the best ways of advancing global welfare, and particularly of the developing countries, illustrated by supposing that an additional $75 bil...
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November 14, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 14, 2009"I find that I am fascinated by his intelligence, by his dedication. The only thing that frustrates me about Robert Mugabe is that he is so damned incorruptible." Andrew Young, Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the United Nations, in 1978....
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November 13, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 13, 2009"The seals on the back of a dollar bill include 13 steps on the pyramid, 13 stars above the eagle's head, 13 war arrows in the eagle's claw and 13 leaves on the olive branch. So far there's been no evidence tying these long-ago design decisions ...
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November 12, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 12, 2009"Last year, the New Direction Congress enacted the first minimum wage increase in a decade - which is being implemented in three steps... The previous Republican-controlled Congresses blocked minimum wage proposals from being considered. In 2006...
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November 11, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 11, 2009"The General Assembly today adopted... a moratorium on executions to be established in all States that still maintain the death penalty..." United Nations. "From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery...
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November 10, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 10, 2009"As fears of a backlash are going high among US Muslims, President Barack Obama urged Americans Saturday, November 7, not to jump into conclusions over a deadly attack on a military base in Texas, stressing the diversity of the US army." At...
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November 9, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 9, 2009"If we don't act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment."President-elect Obama, January 2009. "... a full accounting of jobs cre...
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November 9, 2009
The Market HighI saw that the Dow rose over 200 points today to hit a 2009 high, in fact a 13 month high. So I checked out Yahoo Finance to see what might have made the market move so dramatically to the good side. Here were the headlines at 3:45 ...
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November 9, 2009
Bush or Obama: The Quiz1. President Bush was famous for lacking "intellectual curiosity," while President Obama has been called "the smartest guy ever to become President." Who reads more books: Bush or Obama?2. Bush was often considered to be in the gr...
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November 8, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 8, 2009"I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating... because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition.""They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin A...
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November 6, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 6, 2009"Compared to Clinton, I feel like a loser. I can't even get the intern to make me coffee!" David Letterman"Wine is for aging, not coffee." Ken Hutchinson: Starsky and Hutch"Coffee leads men to trifle away their time, sc...
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November 5, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 5, 2009"The high price of prescription drugs has put -- and kept -- U.S. pharmaceutical companies in the news recently, but Dr. Marcia Angell argues that problems with the industry run even deeper. In her new book, The Truth About Drug Companies: How T...
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November 4, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 4, 2009"The oil and natural gas that we rely on for 75 percent of our energy are simply running out. In spite of increased effort, domestic production has been dropping steadily at about 6 percent a year. Imports have doubled in the last 5 years. Our N...
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November 3, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 3, 2009"Greenland and West Antarctica are such massive amounts of ice each one of would lead to a six to seven metre increase in sea level if it were to melt... Each one metre of sea level rise is associated with 100 million climate refugees in the wor...
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November 2, 2009
Conversation with my teenager"Dad, Obama's health care reform sounds good to me.""Why so, son?""It'll pay for everybody's health care, like in Canada.""Nope. In fact, President Obama says only his critics claim his plan is like Canada's....
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November 2, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 2, 2009"Over the long term, however, study findings show that global warming is the overarching factor [in ocean temperatures]; initial findings suggest that over the period 1970 to 2004 warmer sea surface temperature is the major factor in the increas...
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November 1, 2009
Graph of the Day for November 1, 2009"This is the fruit of decades of ‘leave the market alone, don't regulate it. It will take care of itself.' Clearly we've got to get some regulation here." Barney Frank "The Bush Administration's eight long years of fa...
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October 31, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 31, 2009"The ‘Status Quo' is not an option. We face large and growing structural deficits largely due to known demographic trends and rising health care costs. GAO's simulations show that balancing the budget in 2040 could require acti...
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October 30, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 30, 2009"Most middle class adults agree with the old saw that the Republican Party favors the rich while the Democratic Party favors the middle class and the poor. Nearly six-in-ten (58%) middle class survey respondents say the Republican Party fa...
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October 30, 2009
The Recoveryless RecoveryThe recession is over, supposedly. The preliminary estimate of the 3rd quarter's Gross Domestic Product was announced Thursday, and it showed the economy growing at an annual rate of 3.5% from July through September, after four consecutive quarters o...
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October 29, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 29, 2009"This is an urgent matter, and we need to move very quickly... we're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars -- remember, this is not an expenditure, this is money that is being used to purchase these assets, as you said, these illiquid mo...
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October 28, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 28, 2009"The American people want us to work together -- they don't want to see us dividing along partisan lines on the most serious crisis confronting our country." Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), on voting for the $787 B stimulus. So...
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October 27, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 27, 2009"I'm very pleased that (Democratic leaders) will be talking, too, about the immoral profits being made by the insurance industry and how those profits have increased in the Bush years." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif."Keepin...
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October 26, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 26, 2009"The [Medicare] HI trust fund is not adequately financed over the next 10 years. At the beginning of 2009 the assets of the HI trust fund were $321 billion and are projected to be exhausted during 2017, under the intermediate assumptions....
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October 25, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 25, 2009"The sharp falloff in mathematics achievement in the U.S. begins as students reach late middle school, where, for more and more students, algebra course work begins. Students who complete Algebra II are more than twice as likely to graduat...
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October 25, 2009
All the News That's FitTrying to follow the news can be like drinking from a fire hose. It's a climate summit one day, Iran testing yet more rockets on another, and balloon boy on a third day. What is wheat and what it chaff?I'm going to play New York Times tod...
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October 24, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 24, 2009"There are, however, no examples of successful health care based on the principles of the free market, for one simple reason: in health care, the free market just doesn't work." - Paul Krugman. Source: Centers for Disease C...
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October 23, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 23, 2009"By any measure, my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster."President Barack Obama. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. US Senate. Hoven's Index for October 23, 2009Selected statistics at the end ...
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October 22, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 22, 2009"American society must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reporting... through varying combinations of philanthropy, subsidy and government policy... What is paramount is preserving independent, original, credible report...
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October 21, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 21, 2009"Of course when the oceans get warmer, that causes stronger storms. We have seen in the last couple of years, a lot of big hurricanes. Hurricanes Jean, Francis and Ivan were among them. In the same year we had that string of big hurricanes... An...
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October 20, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 20, 2009"The Recession Is Over According to Financial Experts" ABC News headline, May 12, 2009. "By Some Reliable Measures, Recession Is Over" New York Times headline, October 16, 2009. Number of Jobs in the US (last 5 years, ...
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October 19, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 19, 2009"The United States currently spends more than any other nation on health care - 16.5 percent of GDP - yet we still experience poorer health than most other developed nations and even some developing countries."Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), cha...
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October 18, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 18, 2009"Every day we need more and more energy to run our factories, airplanes, cars, ships, computers and other modern marvels. Some of the energy we now consume comes from burning petroleum that is derived from crude oil. Other major energy sou...
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October 17, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 17, 2009"... our fight with the Jews is very extensive and very grave, and it requires all the sincere efforts." Hamas charter, 1988. "There is no doubt that the new wave [of attacks] in Palestine will wipe off this stigma [Israel]...
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October 16, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 16, 2009"I said that population, when unchecked, increased in a geometrical ratio; and subsistence for man in an arithmetical ratio." Thomas Malthus, 1798 "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo f...
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October 15, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 15, 2009"I'd prefer the government run a larger deficit... the federal government has to spend more - and the deficit has to be larger - in order to get people back to work."Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary, August 2009. Total Government ...
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October 15, 2009
Terrorism and BathtubsWe have nothing to fear except maybe bathtubs, apparently. Or perhaps, those who ignore mathematics are condemned to repeat false assertions."One's chance of being killed in a terrorist attack is many times less than one's chance of drowni...
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October 14, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 14, 2009"Our housing crisis was born of eroding home values, but it was also an erosion of our common values, and in some case, common sense. It was brought about by big banks... by lenders... by homebuyers... by speculators... and by leaders in o...
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October 13, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 13, 2009"Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan joined today with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...
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October 12, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 12, 2009"John McCain's campaign is looking for a scapegoat. It is looking for someone to blame if McCain loses on Tuesday. And it has decided on Sarah Palin. In recent days, a McCain ‘adviser' told Dana Bash of CNN: ‘She is a div...
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October 11, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 11, 2009"At a time when some people badly could use help, Mr. Bush's tax cut mostly will help those who need it least. And while the president is warning Congress to restrain its spending on basics such as education and aid to the poor, the tax cuts wil...
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October 10, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 10, 2009"Last month, President Bush signed into law what he glowingly described as the toughest corporate reform bill since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. But missing from this landmark legislation were any guidelines on excessive CEO pay....
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October 9, 2009
The Baucus MasterpieceBarack Obama owes Max Baucus one giant kiss, or maybe some bridges to nowhere in Montana. Everything changed on October 7, 2009. We now have a health reform plan that the Congressional Budget Office says would reduce the deficit and signi...
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October 9, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 9, 2009"President Obama on Monday [May 4, 2009] spelled out his proposals to close corporate tax loopholes on U.S. multinational corporations and crack down on overseas tax havens... Another pivotal player will be House Ways and Means Committee Chairma...
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October 8, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 8, 2009"Allowing more people to carry concealed handguns in densely populated cities, on crowded subways, on buses and in sports stadiums, is a recipe for disaster." - The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence Source: US Dept. of Justi...
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October 7, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 7, 2009"SNL missed the mark on some of its claims, for instance, Afghanistan. ‘I think SNL tended to kind of gloss over what is a fair amount of progress by this administration.'" - CNN quoting Bill Adair (Editor, Politifact.com) ...
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October 6, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 6, 2009"The extraordinary reaction to the 'Cash for Clunkers' program demonstrates that consumers do want to purchase more fuel efficient, less polluting vehicles." - Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Susan Collins (R-ME). Source: Jo...
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October 5, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 5, 2009"But Gore also acknowledged that one reason the Senate balked at ratifying the Kyoto Treaty was because other major emitters in the world had no obligations to cut back. ‘The very fact that developing countries like Brazil, Indonesia...
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October 4, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 4, 2009"...[our predecessors] understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, the vulnerable can be exploite...
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October 3, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 3, 2009"[The $787B stimulus is] doing more, faster, more efficiently, and more effectively than most expected."Vice President Joe Biden. Obama's Predictions (in Jan. 2009) vs. Reality (thru Sep. 2009)Source: Innocent ...
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October 2, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 2, 2009"The fundamental problem, in which this is most clearly the case, is that of family structure. The evidence -- not final, but powerfully persuasive -- is that the Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling.... A national effort is required t...
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October 1, 2009
Graph of the Day for October 1, 2009"Because of its repeated efforts to stimulate the economy through fiscal policy, Japan now faces a serious debt problem (Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio has nearly doubled in the last decade, rising from 0.58 in 1991 to 1.1 in 2000)."Robert H. Ra...
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October 1, 2009
Nothing for EveryoneJust about all of us want some kind of health care reform. But different people want different things from that reform. One trouble with crafting legislation that would make some people happy is that it would make other people unhappy....
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September 30, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 30, 2009"I know a lot of Americans who are satisfied with their health care right now are wondering what reform would mean for them, so let me be clear: If you like your doctor or health care provider, you can keep them. If you like your health care pla...
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September 29, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 29, 2009"BARACK OBAMA WOULD CREATE GOOD JOBS AND PROTECT WAGESBarack Obama believes in an ‘aggressive strategy to create good, middle-class jobs' and would invest in education, training and workforce development to create high-wage jobs and...
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September 28, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 28, 2009"Uh, y'know, I believe in the principle that you pay as you go. And, y'know, you don't propose tax cuts unless you are closing, uh, other, uh, tax breaks for individuals and you don't increase spending unless you're eliminating some spendi...
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September 27, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 27, 2009"When I made the decision to leave my job to found Public Allies Chicago [in 1993], an AmeriCorps program that prepares youth for public service, I realized right away that I had made the right decision. There are few things more rewarding...
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September 26, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 26, 2009"These folks can afford it. They were rich back in the 90s."President Barack Obama, in support of his proposed "tax increases on families earning $250,000 or more a year" as reported by the Washington Times. Federal In...
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September 25, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 25, 2009"Those who do not live in Fantasyland understand that the only options are:To greatly increase taxes on middle- and lower-income groups (a political nonstarter).To ‘fund' all of the new spending by selling bonds to the private market at mu...
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September 24, 2009
The Public Option for Dummy Talk-Show HostsI would like to address this to those who are not socialists, but who think Obama's health care plan sounds good. (I realize that would have to be a very small fraction of the public, perhaps no bigger than David Letterman himself. Letter...
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September 24, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 24, 2009"An ongoing subtext in the war with Iraq is whether the situation will turn into ‘another Vietnam' for the United States -- that is, a war with high U.S. casualties and little obvious progress toward its stated goals. While it is too...
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September 23, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 23, 2009"We're seeing the natural consequences of unbridled corporate power to reduce wages and benefits. That's why people are working two jobs and still cannot afford food." - Karen Nussbaum, a director with the AFL-CIO, as quoted by C...
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September 22, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 22, 2009"The United States will be paying the price of Iraq for decades to come. The price tag will be all the greater because we tried to ignore the laws of economics -- and the cost will grow the longer we remain."Linda J. Bilmes (former CFO at t...
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September 21, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 21, 2009"In the early '70s, breaking out of the domestic cocoon, leaving their mothers' circumscribed lives behind, young women felt exhilarated and bold. But the more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved." Maureen Dowd in ...
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September 20, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 20, 2009"For two years on the campaign trail, this was what I heard from women, that they were being crushed, crushed by the current structure of our health care. Crushed." - Michelle Obama, First Lady Source: US Dept. of Health an...
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September 19, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 19, 2009"Every major education law passed since the 1960s has borne Kennedy's imprint, from Head Start to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. He has proven himself, time and again, to be a fighter for children and educators." -Reg Weav...
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September 18, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 18, 2009"Obama shows an ability to transcend race." The Boston Globe in 2007. "She is a typical white person who, you know, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know, there is a reaction." Barack Obama in ...
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September 17, 2009
What Would a Communist Do?The best person to answer that question would be a communist. Since I don't have a communist under my bed (I looked), I turned to the Communist Party USA as a source. Here then, is my report on what the CPUSA has been up to recently (or a...
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September 17, 2009
Graph of the Day for September 17, 2009"The federal budget is on an unsustainable path, primarily because of the rising cost of health care... Medicare's Part A trust fund... will have insufficient funds to pay for covered services starting in 2017" Congressional Budget Of...
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September 16, 2009
Graph of the Day"From a technical perspective, the recession is very likely over at this point." Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Sept 15, 2009. Data Source: St. Louis Fed. (NOTE: The charts plot four main economic indicators t...
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September 14, 2009
Just WordsFact-checking is almost the new national pastime, especially involving President Obama's health care proposals. But what is there to check? What words do we check? Obama's "plan" is not yet published, and may not even exis...
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September 10, 2009
Whose Mess?President Obama inherited a mess of an economy. He inherited it from his fellow Democrats in Congress. As it turns out, which party controls Congress, especially the Senate, probably has a lot more impact on the economy than who resides i...
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September 9, 2009
Obama's 'Long Form' Shows UpA purported copy of Barack Obama's original, "long form", birth certificate showed up. This one's not from Hawaii, though; it's from Kenya. Jerome Corsi covers the story at World Net Daily. I have no idea if this is a forg...
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September 4, 2009
Your Stimulus at WorkCourtesy of Innocent Bystanders, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is the picture.Here are some words."[The stimulus is] doing more, faster, more efficiently, and more effectively than most expected." Joe Biden, as repor...
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September 3, 2009
Teddy One-NoteRepublicans have been offering major health care reform for the last 40 years. Democrats have defeated such reforms every time, holding out for nothing less than a single-payer, government-run system. Ted Kennedy was leading the just-say-...
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September 2, 2009
Media propaganda enablersMy local paper calls a vigil at a local church a "grassroots" effort. You be the judge.The Alton, Illinois, Telegraph opens its Sunday, front-page, above-the-fold story with this paragraph. "A candlelight vigil Wednesday ev...
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August 31, 2009
Kennedy, the KGB and American MediaRegardless of whether Ted Kennedy broke the law or even committed treason in cozying up to the KGB, he proposed to orchestrate a complete media show not only manipulating news, but doing so in an intentionally dishonest way.Some excerpts from his mes...
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August 27, 2009
Worse and WorserThe Congressional Budget Office came out with an update to its predictions of the federal budget this week. For some reason, the CBO did not title its report "Hell In A Hand Basket."It is difficult to put all these predictions into ea...
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August 26, 2009
My Global Warming EpiphanyGlobal warming is a complicated subject. It therefore takes a lot of hubris or ignorance to think you can explain either the "for" or "against" case in a few hundred words. But I stumbled onto some data that meets my ...
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August 25, 2009
Insulter-In-Chief"He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing." If Goethe was right, I guess we can give up on President Obama exerting a useful influence. By now he's insulted just about everything and everyone....
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August 23, 2009
Cognitive Dissonance: A Case StudyYou know you are in for a treat when you read a letter to the editor and its first sentence includes the words "when I was a student at Harvard." Such was the case with Scott Richard Evans' letter to the Financial Times of August 13....
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August 21, 2009
Fear No IceThe party that loves to campaign against the "politics of fear" peddles fear of everything. That's because fear works, and they know it. However, when they do it, they don't call it "fear." They call it, when cau...
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August 18, 2009
ObamaCare and Hidden AgendasPresident Obama gives us a false choice on health care: his way or the status quo. Nobody wants the status quo, and Republicans have real alternatives. The real choice is whether we have a single-payer, government run health care system....
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August 16, 2009
A Modest Proposal for Health CareI have found it: the grand compromise. We know Barack Obama is a proponent of single-payer, government run health care He and others, such as the Communist Party, have backed off to the "public option" for now, as a way to get to that...
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August 12, 2009
How to Fix a RecessionWe are in a recession and our President has done something about it. What has he done? Spent well over a trillion dollars of other people's money, all borrowed. How well is that working now and how well have such "fixes" w...
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August 3, 2009
His Name is Joe and He's a PlumberI first heard it from a regular Daily Kos reader: "He's known as Joe the Plumber, except his name's not Joe and he's not a plumber." Now, almost a year after Joe first met Barack, Reuters is still playing that tune. I've had eno...
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July 28, 2009
How Cops Should Do It?Police in this country have a history of racial profiling and abusing minorities and gays. That's a fact. But not all police officers are guilty of such crimes. There is a very real case that has several similarities to the Gates-Cr...
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July 27, 2009
Hoven's Index: Obama's First Six MonthsProvided below, in a "Harper's Index" type of format, is the progress made under President Obama so far. In some cases, data from other time periods are given to provide context.The 2008 deficit under Bush, the largest in history at t...
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July 23, 2009
A Platform for ChangeGuess who proposed a platform for change that contained all the points below? (All emphases added by me.)We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens.All citizens mus...
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July 22, 2009
Universal Coverage, OK - Obamacare, Not OKFor the record, I am against Obamacare. I just want to make that clear.I am the guy who wrote A Conservative Case for Universal Health Coverage, in which I said, "I could live with universal health coverage in the US."More recently, i...
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July 20, 2009
Obama and the CPUSAI encourage you to read the latest words from Sam Webb, National Chair of the Communist Party USA. As is the wont of communists, Mr. Webb is rather long-winded; I provide only a few interesting excerpts. All emphases added by me."Six...
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July 19, 2009
For the ChildrenHey kids. I know you're not all that interested in politics, and you don't like to read too much. But, God bless you, you vote. That's understandable. It's hip to vote. P. Diddy urges you to do it. Most of the door...
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July 16, 2009
Iced Tea TaxLet's say your situation is this: you are $38 B to $106 B in debt, depending on who does the acounting . Your current budget says you will spend about $12 B more this year than you will take in. What do you do?If you are an Illinois ...
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July 13, 2009
The wages of guessingOne of the first things the Democrats did in 2007 when they took control of Congress was raise the minimum wage. And it was not a one-time deal; their legislation would mandate a minimum wage increase each year for the next three years: 2007, 2...
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June 29, 2009
To Meddle, Or Not To MeddlePresident Obama wants to make sure he is not seen as meddling in Iran. But apparently, it is quite OK to meddle in Honduras. The Wall Street Journal reports The Obama administration worked in recent days to prevent Presid...
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June 23, 2009
Lomborg vs. GoreBjorn Lomborg somehow finagled an audience with the Pope of Global Warming, Al Gore. Lomborg asked him if he'd be willing to have a debate, not on the scientific merit of Anthropogenic Global Warming, but on whether government money is best spe...
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June 23, 2009
Hello Europe, Good-bye EuropeThere has been much talk recently that the US is becoming more like Europe. To be more technically accurate, we should say that the US is becoming more like what Europe used to be. In the meantime, Europe is un-Europeanizing. We are...
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June 21, 2009
Political AnagramsEnjoy Father's Day with some anagram silliness.George Bush: He bugs Gore.Al Gore: Lo, rage.John Stacy McCain: Manic John ends icy.John Kerry: Horny jerk.William Clinton: Can limit no will.Ronald Reagan: No darn gal...
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June 20, 2009
Kyoto Schmyoto IIThe US is doing better at controlling its carbon emissions than most other countries, without Kyoto mandates. Thus reports Drew Thornley at The American (the Journal of the American Enterprise Institute). "According to the U.S. Energ...
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June 15, 2009
Conservatism as Political PragmatismAccording to Gallup, "conservatives" are the single largest ideological group. The poll was based on how people described themselves, given the choices of very conservative, conservative, moderate, liberal, very liberal and no opinion...
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June 7, 2009
Too Audacious to Hope?Suddenly, the good guys seem to be winning elections. (Or at least the bad guys are losing them.)First, Europe got more conservative, from Germany, France, Italy, and Belgium, to Britain and Spain. Second, Lebanon's voters rej...
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June 6, 2009
The Obama Recession (updated)I think it is time to call it "The Obama Recession." Using Obama's own numbers, we are now worse off than we would have been had Obama's stimulus not gone into effect.Early in the Obama administration, his economic experts put out a r...
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June 2, 2009
Taliban on VOAIt looks like the Voice of America is putting the Taliban on the air in Pakistan. This, despite the Taliban already "producing dozens of unsanctioned broadcasts from the backs of trucks and personal homes."And we are not talking just ...
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June 1, 2009
McGovern Promotes CPUSA's Defense PolicyGeorge McGovern, the Democrat who lost to Richard Nixon in 1972 by a 520-17 electoral landslide, champions the Communist Party USA's defense policy. In today's Wall Street Journal, he recommends cutting the defense budget by half and withdrawin...
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May 31, 2009
Compelling White Guy StoriesSome stories are more compelling than others. Some Latina females have compelling stories. So do some white males.Is this story compelling? A woman went to private grade school, high school, college and law school, all in the normal seque...
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May 29, 2009
The Shot That Changed A RepublicIn 1967, a West Berlin police officer shot and killed an unarmed demonstrator. It was a turning point in German politics, ushering in left-leaning governments for the next generation or two. Now it turns out that the police officer was a ...
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May 27, 2009
Our Values and Terrorist IncentivesIt has become fashionable to condemn President Bush not only for violating "our values", but also for spawning anti-US terrorists. These thoughts only make sense if you ignore all US history through 2007.In his speech to the 2009 grad...
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May 25, 2009
Donald Rumsfeld: Threat or Menace?Who is to blame for (1) our difficulties in Iraq, (2) the delayed Katrina response, (3) lousy relations between the US and Russia, and (4) Republicans losing the Senate? Donald Rumsfeld, of course. At least if you believe Robert Draper, a...
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May 24, 2009
What's Wrong With These Pictures?President Obama met the Saudi King, the President of Venezuela and the Prime Minister of Israel, with pictures provided below. The three countries represented in the pictures agreed with the US in UN votes 86.4% of the time, 9.0% and 6.3%....
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May 22, 2009
You Might Not Be A RepublicanWith all the heavy thinking and breathing going on over "what it means to be Republican," let me provide some light thinking and breathing on the subject. With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy. (But not to Colin Powell.)If you ...
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May 18, 2009
How Did Bush Do This?Europe is in its deepest recession since World War II, so reports the UK's Telegraph ."German economic policy is ‘bankrupt,' economists have said. The declaration was made as it emerged that Europe's biggest economy has now suffered ...
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May 16, 2009
'Thugs' Prey on 'Endangered' BirdsThe great cormorant is in danger. The population of this glossy, black bird has dwindled from more than 250 pairs to 80 since 1992. Thugs are taking cormorant chicks from their nests and driving away the adults. According to Brad Al...
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May 15, 2009
Liberal FantasylandIf you listen to liberals, they are the "reality-based" people. They contrast themselves to conservatives, who they claim are ideology-based or faith-based."The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact....
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May 14, 2009
Obama, Fast LearnerNo one can say President Obama is not a fast learner. With less than four months in office, he has learned that our national debt is "unsustainable." "We can't keep on just borrowing from China. We have to pay i...
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May 6, 2009
Subtraction By Addition, Obama StyleWith Obama's magic beans, government is about to become leaner -- by hiring 20,000 new government employees.Reuters reports that "President Barack Obama's Defense Department plans to create 20,000 new jobs."Will those 20,000 new people buil...
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May 6, 2009
Global SomethingHow do we know the globe is warming? Because glaciers are melting, silly.Well recently, we found that glaciers have been shrinking for the last 700 to 6500 years , depending on where you look. I don't know about you, but I wasn't driving ...
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May 3, 2009
'Environmentalism' Dying?Environmentalism is suffering a crisis of both image and reality. Two news stories highlight this trend.The first story is on the reality of electric cars ."The German branch of the environmental group World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) has c...
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May 1, 2009
Wishful ThinkingThere's the old joke about an economist's plan to get out of a pit he was thrown into: "First, we assume a ladder." There has been a whole lot of assuming going on, from alternate energy to non-harsh interrogations.Regarding interroga...
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April 21, 2009
AmeriCorps The BeautifulPresident Obama is poised to sign the "national service" bill. This will more than triple the size of Bill Clinton's creation, AmeriCorps, from 75,000 to 250,000 enrollees, after already being expanded by President Bush.The AP reports...
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April 13, 2009
Dr. ObamaImagine you go to the doctor because you are having acute abdominal pain. He says you must go to the hospital immediately for emergency surgery or you will die within 24 hours. When you wake up, your tummy is now only slightly upset, but ...
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April 6, 2009
Here Come the Defense CutsAfter a $700B bailout, a $150B "sweetener" to the bailout, a $787B stimulus and another $410B added to the FY 2009 budget (because President Bush was just too stingy), all on top of a $3 trillion original budget, the gang that can only add ...
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April 5, 2009
Stop Making SenseI've been suffering under the wrong paradigm for decades. All this time I thought what mattered was "reality." How wrong I've been. Somewhere in the transition from trying to wade through the CBO's analysis of President Ob...
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April 4, 2009
Democrats: Good for CEOsWith executive pay being in the news today, let's look more deeply at the trend in such pay. My unimpeachable source is the AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO shows this graph.Look closely now. CEO pay (as a multiple of worker pay) went up most s...
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March 26, 2009
The Mess He InheritedIf you haven't already seen this graph put together by the Washington Post, please look at it now and show it to all your friends.Just in case someone tries to tell you that 2009 is really George Bush's budget, recall that the $787B stimulus package ...
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March 14, 2009
Madoff & Stanford Give Big to DemocratsIn case you were wondering, take a trip to Opensecrets.org and search on Bernard Madoff as a contributor. My search says he gave $183,250 over all election cycles, with a cool $100,000 going to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign since 200...
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March 12, 2009
Here's What's Happening to the EconomyI think I have it figured out, roughly. And I'm ready to assign blame. If my narrative is not exactly true, it is a hypothesis that appears to fit the facts. This particular hypothesis is conspiracy-free, although I still think some...
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March 5, 2009
McCain Asks 'What Happened?'According to CNSNews , "Sens. John McCain and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) are asking the Senate to appoint a special committee to investigate the causes of the nation's financial crisis."It turns out that "Last month, Senator Bernie Sanders (I...
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March 3, 2009
Bingo! Call It CommunismI once wrote that we could play "Communist Manifesto Bingo": once President Obama enacts or strengthens five planks from the Communist Manifesto, yell "bingo" and you win. One month into President Obama's first term, B...
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March 1, 2009
How Did This Happen?We are in financial and economic trouble. And by "we", I mean just about everybody, from the US to Iceland and Latvia. Isn't it worth, say, ten minutes to try to figure out how this happened? That is, while we throw ...
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February 28, 2009
Clear Thinking on Global WarmingMany people write sensible things about anthropogenic global warming, but I find Professor William Happer's statement to the US Senate on February 25, 2009, especially clear and convincing .Happer is the Cyrus Fogg Bracket Professor of Physics at Pri...
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February 27, 2009
Obama's Busted BudgetI wrote recently of the real state of the federal budget. In that article, I projected a "rosy scenario" budget. Now President Obama has proposed a budget of his own, which he titles, without irony, "A New Era of Responsibi...
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February 26, 2009
The Obama Way: Hit the Ground PromisingOne of President Obama's first actions on his first full day in office was to announce a pay freeze for White House staff . He did that by a Presidential Memorandum, his first ever, on January 21 . However, that memorandum did not establi...
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February 23, 2009
Primates Fear BacklashA 55-year-old woman was allegedly assaulted by her friend's roommate Wednesday. Doctors listed Charla Nash's condition as critical.The alleged assault occurred shortly after Nash entered the residence of her friend, Sandra Herold. Herold'...
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February 19, 2009
Who Are the Big Spenders?How can any Republican complain of Obama's spending habits or complain about his stimulus, given the way Republicans spent "the last eight years"? Well, I'm going to tell you exactly how.According to the newspapers and TV news, Republ...
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February 18, 2009
Republicans Say, 'Imitate Sweden'Apparently, we have only two choices of what to do with bad banks: keep giving them government money forever, or let the government nationalize them. This is all explained in the Financial Times.The choice of writing government checks to failed...
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February 15, 2009
The Real State of the UnionIt is almost State of the Union time. So what is the real state of our union's finances, specifically our federal budget? Are we going to hell in a hand basket? Or do we have nothing to fear but fear itself? I crunch the number...
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February 13, 2009
Q & A With Uncle SamIf you ever try to reconstruct the sequence of recent financial events, and our government's reactions to them, you might very well find yourself suffering from Who's-On-First syndrome. An imaginary conversation might help illustrate the situat...
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February 12, 2009
Obama Ignores Intelligence FindingsPresident Obama has accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapon capability, contrary to the assessment of US intelligence agencies. This is not a joke. The LA Times reports,"In his news conference this week, President Obama went so far...
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February 10, 2009
Change: The First Three WeeksFar be it from me to criticize Barack Obama before he's even had a chance to rule. Well, he's had almost three weeks in office as I write, and some patterns are beginning to emerge. Here is a list of accomplishments 20 days into President...
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February 9, 2009
Torture, or Tortured Language?One of President Obama's first actions in office was to issue an Executive Order "Ensuring Lawful Interrogations" of enemy combatants. That order stated that "torture" means "humiliating and degrading treatment." ...
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February 6, 2009
Economics, Evidence and EnlightenmentWith today's economy, wouldn't it be nice if we knew how to make an economy grow? To know what works and what doesn't? Well, we do. We just prefer to ignore the truth.What works is economic freedom. What doesn't work is more g...
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February 4, 2009
Daschle/Geithner/Killefer Lessons LearnedNow that Tim Geithner has been confirmed as Treasury Secretary, Tom Daschle has withdrawn as HHS Secretary and Nancy Killefer has withdrawn from some government post I had never even heard of (chief performance officer?), we can infer some...
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February 1, 2009
Predictions of Hope and ChangeApparently, former presidential candidate, Senator, maverick and jokester, John McCain, is fond of saying, "It is always darkest just before it goes totally black." In that same jocular spirit, I give my predictions for...
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January 31, 2009
The $850 Billion 'dribble'We ain't seen nothing yet, apparently. According to the Financial Times,"The Obama administration is gearing up for a ‘big bang' announcement next week that will combine a bank clean-up with measures to reduce home foreclosures and p...
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January 31, 2009
It's a Recession, ReallyFor those of us waiting for two consecutive quarters of shrinking real GDP before we declare a "real" recession, we can stop waiting. The preliminary estimate for the 4th quarter of 2008 showed a decline of 3.8% at an annual pace, aft...
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January 29, 2009
Soros Says We Forgot OneGeorge Soros got to the bottom of the cause of our financial crisis."On Monday September 15, Lehman Brothers, the US investment bank, was allowed to go into bankruptcy without proper preparation. It was a game-changing event with catastrophic co...
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January 29, 2009
AP Lies on unemployment (updated)The Associated Press reported on passage of the Democrats' "stimulus" bill . But in that story the AP reported that unemployment is the highest in a "quarter-century".No its not. It's the highest since 1993, just 15 ye...
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January 29, 2009
Bailouts, Relativity and Dead ParrotsI'm still trying to grasp the concept of a trillion dollar bailout. Einstein thought about riding a beam of light. I think he had the easier time.Think about this bailout thing for a moment. We are told that the problem is a credit ...
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January 25, 2009
Hell Freezes: AP Cools to Carbon CreditsIn a shocking development, the Associated Press reports on some specific examples of the carbon credit trade and finds that (a) they are costing people a lot of money, (b) they may do nothing to lower greenhouse gas emissions and (c) they incentivize...
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January 22, 2009
Obama Got 75% of Jewish VoteThe results are in. According to Commentary Magazine ,"Obama ended up receiving 53 percent of the vote nationwide, but around 75 to 78 percent of the Jewish vote. Only 20 to 23 percent of Jewish voters pulled the lever for McCain, who rece...
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January 21, 2009
Geithner's apology makes it worseTreasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner apologized for his $34,000 tax mistake . He said, "These were careless mistakes. They were avoidable mistakes. But they were unintentional. I should have been more careful....
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December 31, 2008
Good Economic News Despite Bush Being PresidentThe latest jobs data show something good. So watch the MSM do back-flips to make sure Bush gets none of the credit and all of the blame.Reuters announced, "Jobless claims drop by much more than expected." But for every bit of goo...
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December 29, 2008
Iraq and Its Lessons, Part 2See also: Iraq and Its Lessons, Part 1What went wrong in Iraq? Why? Who was to blame? Still comfortably ensconced in my armchair on Monday morning, after telling you what happened and...
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December 28, 2008
Iraq and Its LessonsWhat went wrong in Iraq? Why? Who was to blame? Comfortably ensconced in my armchair on Monday morning, let me tell you what happened.First, how do we know anything went wrong? We should not start out with the common mistake o...
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December 24, 2008
How to fix this recessionThe headline at The Globe and Mail reads, "US Falls Deeper Into Recession." The sole data backing up its headline is that jobless claims went up again. Newsflash: unemployment is a lagging indicator; it will co...
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December 22, 2008
What the Heck Happened?It was springtime in the US. The most recent unemployment number was 5.0%, a slight tic down from the previous month and in line with the previous 12-month, fairly low, average of 4.8%. We were in a quarter of positive real economic growt...
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December 19, 2008
Parties of Corruption III recently said that Democrats are four times more corrupt than Republicans. I must issue a correction. They are only three times more corrupt.I recently reported on a list prepared by the National Taxpayer's Union of "Members of Con...
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December 15, 2008
Notes from the Underbelly of IllinoisI live in Illinois. Land of L-somebody. Also the land of President-elect Barack Obama, Senator Dick Durbin, Governor Rod Blagojevich (indicted) and former Governor George Ryan (in prison). In fact, according to the Chicago Tribune, ...
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December 12, 2008
Parties of CorruptionWhich party is more corrupt? Maybe you've seen lists. The National Taxpayer's Union has a pretty good list http://www.ntu.org/main/press.php?PressID=343. The NTU's gripe, though, is not which party is more corrupt, but that Congress...
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December 12, 2008
Natural Born PickleI am at peace about Barack Obama and his natural born US citizenship. Still not cheerful about being called deranged and told to shut up, but on the issue itself -- peace. If you care to follow this journey of enlightenment, read on.My jo...
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December 11, 2008
Calling All Czars!Minnie Pearl talked of a cousin who bought bushels of hay for $5 each, trucked them to customers out of town, and sold them for $4 each. Minnie said, "You ain't makin' money that way." Her cousin said, "You're right, I need...
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December 9, 2008
Obama and the Natural Born Citizen ClauseOn Monday, the Supreme Court decided not to hear the Donofrio case concerning whether Barack Obama is a natural born citizen and therefore qualified to be President. Also, David Horowitz diagnosed those who claim Obama is not natural born as be...
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December 3, 2008
NBER's Anomalous Recession CallsThe National Bureau of Economic Research, the official caller of recessions, recently said we are now in a recession that started one year ago, in December 2007."The committee determined that a peak in economic activity occurred in the U.S. econ...
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November 28, 2008
Anchorwoman Murdered --Lefties Blame Right-Wingers?Local Arkansas TV anchorwoman, Anne Pressly, was brutally murdered in October . The motive became an issue since she was a public figure, with hints of political intrigue. Specifically, since she had played an Ann Coulter character in the...
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November 28, 2008
Making the World Safe for MarxismIn the novel Catch-22 there is a character named Howard Snowden who is injured when his aircraft is shot. The novel's protagonist, Yossarian, treats the wound on Snowden's leg and thinks he's done a satisfactory job of tending to his inju...
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November 26, 2008
Workers Unite! (Behind Obama)The CPUSA emphasizes unity behind Obama, warning its fellow travelers to "resist efforts by reaction and some on the left" and to "not get bogged down in disputes over Cabinet appointments."I reported before on the Communist Party...
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November 24, 2008
Communist Party Celebrates Democrat WinsThe Communist Party USA is just ecstatic about the election of Barack Obama and the strengthening of Democrat majorities in Congress. According to the People's Weekly World, Communist Party USA leaders meeting here Nov. 15-16 celebrated the ele...
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November 23, 2008
A Libertarian Defense of Social ConservatismSocial conservatism is taking a beating lately. Not only did it lose in the recent elections, it is being blamed for the Republican losses. If only the religious right would get off the Republican Party's back, the GOP could win like it i...
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November 22, 2008
Bold New Plan to Imitate George W. BushThe AP reports that Barack Obama's economic plan "aims for 2.5 million new jobs by 2011." In other words, he hopes to do almost as well as President George W. Bush did.According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.g...
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November 19, 2008
The Unvetted Vetting the VettedHillary Clinton is a sitting US Senator. She was First Lady and her husband was President for eight years. She just ran for President, won several states in the primaries and came close to winning the whole thing. She has testi...
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November 19, 2008
The $700 Billion OopsieThere was one single time in the last two years when the Republicans should have listened to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. That was when he said of the credit crisis thingy, "no one knows what to do."Republicans enjoyed that litt...
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November 18, 2008
3 Scenarios for the Obama Years: The Good, The Bad and The UglyThe real Barack Obama is still unknown, supposedly. One take is that he is a smart guy who will move toward the center and govern moderately and competently. Another take is that he is the most radical person to ever hold the position of ...
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November 13, 2008
Time Of Death: Oct. 3, 2008The death of the Republican Party has an exact date: October 3, 2008. The day John McCain lost his bid for President also has an exact date: October 1, 2008. These dates are when the coroner officially declared death; the coma started muc...
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November 7, 2008
How To Get Your Hand BittenOK, the GOP convention ended and I was pumped to vote Republican. Sort of. Many themes of the convention were actually pretty irritating.One theme was actually a non-theme, and its name was George W. Bush, the great unmentionable at the c...
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October 30, 2008
Do-It-Yourself Fact-CheckingTaxes are back in the news. Barack Obama promises to raise them, but only on people making more than $250,000, or maybe $200,000, or maybe $150,000. But really, he's going to cut them for 95% of us. Trust him. He's not going t...
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October 29, 2008
The Greatest ComplimentThere is a person very close to me who I thought would vote for Barack Obama. She votes in Missouri, a state that is important in this election. She once asked, "What's so bad about communism?" She used the word "corp...
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October 29, 2008
Exactly Wrong, AgainThe message blasted at us day after day by the Obama campaign and its public relations machine, otherwise known as mainstream media, is that we are in a recession, we have been for essentially the last eight years, and the US is unique in this becaus...
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October 25, 2008
Fried BrainsAdd another "Republican" to the list of Obama voters. This one was Charles Fried, Reagan's Solicitor General, Harvard Law professor and supporter of John McCain until at least last January. Per The New Republic ,He said that chi...
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October 24, 2008
GOP Drops Bachmann (important update - RNC caves)The Republican Party has decided to not help re-elect a 100% American Conservative Union Congresswoman. She committed the mortal sin of saying, when Chris Matthews put the words in her mouth, that Obama "may have anti-American views."T...
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October 23, 2008
Holding NosesJohn McCain must have realized he was creeping up in the polls again, because he's quickly putting a stop to that. The last time he was flying high in the polls (because he selected Sarah), he voted for the $850 billion bailout. Apparentl...
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October 22, 2008
AP: Sarah's Kids Traveled With Her!Who says journalists don't investigate any more? The AP is getting to the bottom of Sarah Palin's children traveling with her on state business. No news yet on Barack Obama's dealings with Rezko or Ayers, or how his wife nearly tripled he...
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October 21, 2008
Strange Economic NewsEvery breaking story about the economy is just chock full of bad news. Or should I say bad speculations? When it comes to real data, the bad news would rather play hide and seek.The last quarter we have real data for was the second quarte...
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October 20, 2008
Judging Who is SmartApparently, the skill most highly prized in a President is articulateness in extemporaneous public speaking. In fact, it is so highly prized, it is considered a necessary condition to assume the Presidency, and probably even a sufficient one....
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October 19, 2008
The Last Two YearsThe Obama/Biden ticket's entire campaign theme is based on "the last eight years." Maybe we should really look at "the last two years," or the time period when both the House and the Senate were run by Democrats.In December ...
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October 18, 2008
Campaign Finance Reform: The VerdictThe current Presidential election is the first one in which two non-incumbents face each other under the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform law, technically known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.How well it is working is largely summed up ...
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October 12, 2008
Shut Up And BailAs stocks traded around the world on October 1, the bailout was in trouble. The last thing that had happened was the US House of Representatives had voted against it. The market held its breath, hoping against hope that wiser heads would ...
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October 10, 2008
All That Darned ConservatismDid you realize that we conservatives got all we wanted and that's what screwed up just about everything, from hurricanes and Iraq to the global financial meltdown? That's a rapidly-developing propaganda theme being disseminated in the Big Medi...
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October 6, 2008
Democrats attack their benefactorHenry Waxman waxed righteously indignant, as the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee grilled Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers, deploring his $480 million in pay the last 8 years. One Democrat even said, "I wonder how he sleeps at...
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October 6, 2008
How's the Bailout Working For Us?Thankfully, our politicians passed the bailout. They ignored the ignorant voters and those "free market" Republican ideologues in the House. Look at the results in just the first few days afterward.Within the first hours of the b...
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October 2, 2008
Obama and McCain Both For BailoutThe Senate voted for the bailout by 74-25 . Both Barack Obama and John McCain voted FOR the bailout. The bailout was also strongly supported by President Bush.Why do we have a Republican Party?There is only so much Sarah Palin can make up...
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October 1, 2008
No, It Wasn't Phil Gramm's FaultAgainst an avalanche of evidence that our current financial problems resulted from mismanagement and corruption on the part of Democrats and their cronies, especially at Fannie Mae, the Democrats have responded that it's all due to Phil Gra...
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September 30, 2008
Congress: Please Stay HomeI'm going to go out on a limb and make an economic prediction: if there is no bailout, the economy will keep muddling along without even entering a formal recession. The Dow will stay comfortably above 10,000 and real GDP growth will stay...
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September 28, 2008
The Bailout Plan as of Sunday MorningNancy Pelosi has a draft financial rescue plan this Sunday morning, according to Fox News . It's scarier than anything else you'll see this Halloween season.Here is one statement from that plan:If the government loses money, the financial indus...
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September 28, 2008
Apparently 99% of Books Have Been 'Banned'!Among the many accusations against Sarah Palin was that she banned books. Though debunked, that charge highlights a deeper issue, which is Rule By the Discreet Elite. In this case the Elite is librarians, yet another group credentialed by left-...
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September 22, 2008
The Party of Wall Street and Big MouthsEvery so often, check out who is donating to whom in politics. While Democrats like to brand the Republican party as the party of Wall Street, it is actually the Democrats who get most of Wall Street's political donations. They also get a...
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September 18, 2008
Presidents and the EconomyWe are in the season of evaluating a President’s impact on the economy. I crunched some numbers so you don’t have to. I looked at real GDP growth for every 4-year Presidential term since World War II. The data lead to in...
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September 17, 2008
Beyond the Palin (updated)A group calling itself “anonymous” (sound familiar?) hacked into Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo email account and posted excerpts online.And people wonder why we don’t see high-quality, or even “normal” people, run fo...
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September 15, 2008
Dumb, Dumber, Whoopi (updated)Watching The View discuss politics is like watching the Mad Hatter's tea party. Watching John McCain talk about the Constitution is like watching a toddler play with an electric knife. Now you can watch it all together. Video is ava...
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September 15, 2008
Ten Tips for ObamaSenator Obama, the latest news is that this presidential election is close, that there is, ahem, some possibility that you might, er, lose. I offer you some tips to keep your campaign on track. Back in July I recommended to Senator McCain...
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September 13, 2008
Gibson's Version of Bush Doctrine = US ConstitutionCharlie Gibson made much of the "Bush Doctrine" in his interrogation of Sarah Palin. As it turns out, the Bush Doctrine has several aliases: the US Constitution, Public Law 107-40, and the Kerry Doctrine.For those of us not in-the-kno...
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September 10, 2008
Consensus on Global CoolingThe latest Old Farmer's Almanac predicts cooler temperatures not only next year, but for possibly the next half century. Via USA Today:Based on the same time-honored, complex calculations it uses to predict weather, the Almanac hits the newsstands on...
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September 8, 2008
Another Fine MessAmong the messes President Clinton made for President Bush to clean up, we can now add Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the housing loan crisis.The government announced Sunday that it would take over the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) and th...
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September 5, 2008
McCain Haters For McCainI think I'm fairly representative of those conservatives who just could not stand to vote for John McCain. But I now plan to vote for him this November. Let me tell you why.My published criticisms of McCain can be read here, here, here an...
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September 4, 2008
Changing the Meaning of 'Change'Do you remember when "change" meant "get out of Iraq"? The 2006 election was in fact presented as a referendum on Iraq. Senator Barack Obama started his run for the White House shortly after that 2006 election, presenti...
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September 2, 2008
While the media focused elsewhere...While you might have been pre-occupied with Labor Day celebrations or political conventions, there have been a few other things going on in the world. If I didn't know better, I'd say we are closing in on victory in Iraq, the US economy is grow...
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September 1, 2008
A 2008 Voter's GuideHow do the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates compare? Here is a brief synopsis of each, in a few different categories.Age on Jan. 20, 2009Obama. 47.Biden. 66. McCain. 72.Palin. 44.EducationObama. Columb...
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August 28, 2008
'Rebound' Replaces 'Recession' In MSM HeadlinesWell surprise, surprise. Get a load of this "The Commerce Department reported Thursday that gross domestic product, or GDP, increased at a 3.3 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter. The revised reading was much better than the gove...
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August 27, 2008
A Brief History of Bush's TimeThe current narrative of the Bush Presidency is that it is a failure (believed by 107 of 109 historians surveyed) and that George W. Bush is the worst President in history (believed by 61% of those surveyed historians). Senate Majority Leader H...
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August 24, 2008
Guess Who Said ItHere is a game you can play between (or during) the speeches at the conventions. Read the following quotes and guess who said them. Answers are at the bottom of the article. (Please don't peek; it would ruin the fun.)1. "Americ...
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August 24, 2008
Who Lied About Iraq?Do not believe that post-invasion intelligence invalidates our justification for using military force against Saddam's Iraq. The truth is the exact opposite. The US was fully justified to use military force against Iraq, even knowing what ...
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August 6, 2008
Rwanda to France: This Ain't OverThe BBC reports that "Rwanda has accused France of playing an active role in the genocide of 1994, in which about 800,000 people were killed." [Emphasis added.]"An independent Rwandan commission said France was aware of pre...
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August 3, 2008
Good, Evil and 22-Year-OldsNot too long ago, July 22 as a matter of fact, a 22-year-old fire-fighter was killed in the line of duty. He was not killed by fire or smoke. He was shot. His name was Ryan Hummert.Who did it? Some guy estranged from his famil...
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August 2, 2008
Unemployment And The Minimum WageIf a person didn't know better, he might think raising the minimum wage increased the unemployment rate.The latest unemployment rate was 5.7% , or at or below where it was from December 2001 to January 2004. But for teens, it was 20.3% , or the...
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July 23, 2008
The Complex Success of the SurgeThe "surge" in Iraq sure appears to have worked. There are some who say President Bush should have listened to voices such as Senator John McCain and then Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki in the first place, rather than takin...
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July 22, 2008
Uday's Rolls RoycesThe BBC reports today that "Police in Baghdad have recovered five luxury cars which once belonged to Uday Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein, buried under piles of earth in an orchard." [My emphasis.]Recall that previously "Ame...
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July 22, 2008
The McCain AdministrationWhat can John McCain do to get conservatives to vote for him, enthusiastically and in numbers, while maybe even gaining votes from independents and sane liberals? I think I have a way. Senator, tell us who will be in your administration....
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July 20, 2008
Save The Baby PenguinsYou might have read recently about baby penguins dying in Rio de Janeiro. For example, CBS News reported that"Hundreds of baby penguins swept from the icy shores of Antarctica and Patagonia are washing up dead on Rio de Janeiro's tro...
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July 16, 2008
Global Warming: The Courage To Do Nothing (updated)Is the scientific debate over on global warming? Not according to the American Physical Society* in this year's July's issue of Physics and Society ."With this issue of Physics & Society, we kick off a debate concerning one of the...
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July 10, 2008
Make That 104After recently adding Fox News to the Media Dishonesty Matters list , an alert reader and the morning news indicate two more entries should be added. New entry 103 is Al Gore, Jr. and new entry 104 is Sepah News, the media arm of Iran's R...
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July 9, 2008
Make That 102Liberals can now relax. Fox News can now be added to my Media Dishonesty Matters list of 101 incidents, making the new list 102. A common gripe about my list was, "Where is Fox?" Well, up until July 2, 2008, Fox hadn't don...
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July 8, 2008
The 550 Tons of YellowcakeFor years, the media and Democrats have sold the public an understanding that Gerorge W. Bush fabricated a story that Saddam Hussein had a WMD program in order to justify invading Iraq, which invasion then becomes "based on a lie."About 550...
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July 6, 2008
Disconfirmations Disconfirmed: Saddam Had Nuke Program (Updated)The media have been telling us for years that Saddam had no WMD, so "Bush's War": was based on a "lie." And those who believed Saddam did have WMD or WMD programs were delusional or worse.But today, on July 6, 2008, the Associated...
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June 21, 2008
No Future For ObamaBarack Obama is against lifting the ban on drilling for oil offshore because it would not reduce gas prices "this year, next year, five years from now," according to CNN ."John McCain's proposal, George Bush's proposal to drill offshor...
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April 21, 2008
The Taxpayer Frog In the IRS PotYou know the story. Put a frog in hot water and he'll jump out, but put him in cooler water and slowly raise the heat and he'll stay in even as he boils to death. Are we frogs starting to boil in government stew? In the midst of a P...
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April 9, 2008
Harmonic convergenceThe following quotations reflect the thoughts and strategies of the Democratic Party. But can you guess who said them?"defeat John McCain""Democratic primaries signal a huge upsurge with record-breaking turnout and enthusiasm... ...
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April 3, 2008
Reaction to 'Typical White Fact-Based Reasoning'The web site Sadly, No commented on my article "Typical White Fact-Based Reasoning" in a piece called Fun with Figures as follows. The sadly-mistitled [sic] website The American Thinker is where the wingnuts who fancy themselves ...
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March 24, 2008
Typical White Fact-Based Reasoning (updated)Senator Barack Obama said in his memoir, The Audacity of Hope, "The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact." Yet he also claimed that to fear a black person on the street more than a white person is a racial ...
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March 17, 2008
Lawyers and the DemocratsBruce Walker's article "The Lawyer's Party" makes good points. But he neglects a crucial factor giving lawyers influence on the Democratic Party: money. Lawyers and law firms are the top donors in the 2008 election cycle, and they are also ...
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February 7, 2008
Conservative GriefConservatives are grieving. If they had to identify what they are grieving over, many would probably say either the death of the Republican Party or the end of conservative influence. I am grieving the end of the "specialness" t...
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February 6, 2008
Cuckoo's Nest Endorsement (updated with video)Randle P. McMurphy endorses Nurse Ratched. That is, the actor who played McMurphy in the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Jack Nicholson, has endorsed Hillary Clinton, who often has been compared to Nurse Ratched, McMurphy's nemesis in th...
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January 29, 2008
McCain's ACU RatingsSenator John McCain's lifetime rating of 82.3% from the American Conservative Union is often cited as proof that he is conservative. Here is a closer look at that 82.3 rating.First, a rating of 82.3 is not really that high. It puts S...
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January 21, 2008
Is There Waterboarding In Hell?John McCain promised to do "whatever is necessary" to get Osama bin Laden, including following him "to the gates of hell." Ever the one to provide specifics, he would find hell, apparently, by "improving our ...
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January 15, 2008
Lesson Relearned: Freedom = ProsperityThe Heritage Foundation just released its latest Index of Economic Freedom. It provides ever more evidence that economic freedom yields "greater prosperity for the larger society." It also helps bolster the point I made just las...
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January 12, 2008
NYT's Paul Krugman Sees Europe Through the Looking GlassThe New York Times once again gets it exactly backwards. Star op-ed columnist (and Princeton University professor) Paul Krugman tries to paint Europe as doing better than the U.S. economically, and he credits that to its big government ways....
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January 9, 2008
A Tale of Two POWsRemember James B. Stockdale? Maybe you remember him as Admiral Stockdale. He was Ross Perot's running mate in 1992. He was that old, white-haired guy whose first words of his first debate were, "Who am I. Why am I here?"...
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January 7, 2008
Hey GOP: Cheer Up, Chin Up!Why are Republicans so depressed? President Bush's two-term presidency enters its last year in pretty good shape and with a lot better record than pundits would have us believe. The Democrats took Congress in 2006, but they appear to have...
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January 7, 2008
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start Loving ObamaIf Republicans, candidates and base alike, cannot pull themselves out of the funk in which they find themselves, it soon will be time to start making the best of a bad situation. Some truly believe the GOP blew its big chance, their first and be...
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January 3, 2008
Top Russian scientist: global cooling comingThese pages recently said goodbye to global warming. Ironically, the current spell of global warming, such as it is, can be expected to end just as the Kyoto treaty ends in 2012, but having nothing to do with reduced emissions from fossil ...
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January 2, 2008
Go Directly To Jihad, Do Not Pass GitmoEveryone, it seems, from Human Rights Watch to Amnesty International to Hollywood and even to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, is upset with our treatment of Guantanamo detainees and thinks GTMO should be closed. Here a...
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December 12, 2007
A Conservative Case for Universal Health CoverageI am a small-government conservative/libertarian and have hated the concept of socialized medicine almost all my life. But now, I could live with universal health coverage in the U.S.. Here's why. We now have the worst of both world...
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December 11, 2007
Kyoto SchmyotoOne would think that countries that committed to the Kyoto treaty are doing a better job of curtailing carbon emissions. One would also think that the United States, the only country that does not even intend to ratify, keeps on emitting c...
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November 30, 2007
Why Ask Presidential Candidates About Gays In The Military?For some reason, the "gays in the military" issue seems to come up only in presidential elections. However, the law that keeps gays out of the military comes from Congress, not the President or the military itself. The law is st...
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November 20, 2007
AP Plays Loose With FBI Hate Crime StatisticsThe Associated Press misleads the public about hate crimes, creating a false impression that anti-black hate crimes have risen significantly. It trumpets that "Hate crime incidents in the United States rose last year by nearly 8 perce...
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November 7, 2007
Inordinate Fear?An examination of our historical "inordinate fear" of communism might shed some light on what some consider our new inordinate fear of terrorism. We are now in the middle of the Global War on Terror (or whatever you care to call it), ...
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October 8, 2007
Media Dishonesty MattersWe are being fed false and misleading information, in matters big and small. It has come from trusted sources such as established newspapers, experienced journalists, Pulitzer Prize winners and Nobel Peace Prize winners. It has been going...
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August 27, 2007
The New York Times and TaxesDo the rich really escape paying their "fair share of taxes? According to a prominent New York Times writer, they do. I recently reported on a New York Times article about incomes in the United States and accused the NYT of misleading...
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August 21, 2007
New York Times spins straw from goldThe New York Times wants you to believe that Americans are getting poorer, that our average incomes are below what they were in 2000. In order to convey this misleading conclusion, the paper plays a game well-illustrated by my own family's situation....
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August 20, 2007
It's Not Just Scott Beauchamp (II)[See also: It's Not Just Scott Beauchamp (I)]Without too much extra effort, it was fairly easy to add 21 more names to the "Media Hall of Shame" list, bringing the total to 83. With more effort, I'm sure the total list could easil...
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August 16, 2007
It's Not Just Scott Beauchamp"Matt Drudge's role in the Monica Lewinski scandal] strikes me as a new and graphic power of the Internet to influence mainstream journalism. And I suspect that over the next couple of years that impact will grow to the point where it will damag...
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August 1, 2007
Public Policy Meets ComplexityGood intentions and the urge to get something done can lead to disastrous policy. This is true for everyone. But add the power of government to compel obedience and the need for politicians to harvest votes and champion causes, the "obvious solu...
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February 20, 2007
The World's Champion VillainMuch of the world now believes that the United States is a force for evil.Hugo Chavez: George Bush is "the devil". Harry Belafonte: Bush is "the greatest terrorist in the world". Nelson Mandela: U.S. is "a threat to wor...
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February 17, 2007
The Barack Obama Test"The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact." - Senator Barak Obama in his memoir The Audacity of Hope.As conservatives head into the 2008 presidential election cycle, they might consider brushing up on their...
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October 14, 2005
Another reason to hate FranceRunning low on reasons to hate France? Here's another one: Rwanda. I'm not talking about the blame poured on the U.N. and the West in general for negligence; I'm talking about France actually helping commit genocide. France not only train...
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March 7, 2005
No WMDs? Really?'Everyone knows' there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq when Bush decided to invade in 2003. If there were any doubts about that, surely they were laid to rest by the Duelfer Report, the official findings of the Iraq Surve...