Pants on Fire

In his State of the Union address last week The Barry said, "In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs."  Let us now see if this is factual.  From the Bureau of Labor Statistics own A-1 seasonally adjusted tables (see: CPS Tables and click on the HTML version of the A-1 table under Monthly Household Data) there were 139.9 million people employed in the civilian labor force when Obama took office in January of 2009.  In January of 2010, this same number stood at 139.1 million (down 800 thousand).  And, at the end of December last year, there were 140.8 million employed according to the same table.  This is only an increase of 900 thousand since he took office (while the relevant working-age population grew by 4.8 million) and, up 1.7 million in the last 23 months.  This clearly is "not more than 3 million."

That is ... unless Obama is counting what U.S. companies have hired abroad (a possibility) ... or, even more disturbingly, the fact that U.S. companies may be employing slews of foreign nationals instead of U.S. citizens (see: Numbers USA).  In any case, I have already heard many Obama surrogates quoting this "fact" and I'm sure that the American public already has this hook and worm well down its gullet.

Moral of the story: "Don't mess with the bully pulpit."

Queuing Up

Here is a partial list of well-known Republicans (Rush Limbaugh would call them "Establishment Republicans") who are lining up to take their shots at Newt Gingrich:

Ann Coulter

Joe Scarborough (see: The Newt I Knew)

Eliot Abrams

Bob Tyrrell

Bob Dole

Tom DeLay

Matt Drudge

Mark Steyn

Chris Christie

Marco Rubio

Jonah Goldberg

If Gingrich loses in the Florida primary next Tuesday, it may be because of the rotten tomatoes that this group brought to the festivities.

High Dudgeon

Low Dungeon

I had a encouraging thought I would like to share with you kind (or not-so-kind) readers.  This insight is based upon a psychological concept called "cognitive dissonance" ... in other words, that which creates an unsettling of one's psyche becomes a motivating force once things are resolved ... for good or bad.  The fact that many Republicans are now in high dudgeon about who will ... and how to beat Barack Obama suggests to me that, once a candidate is settled upon, there will be a spectacular rallying around said candidate.  This is a stirring variant of ABO, "anyone but Obama."

I surely hope so.

"His hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale. Told by [a politician], full of sound and fury.  Signifying nothing."  Macbeth by Shakespeare  Full Text of SOTU Speech

Also see: Krauthammer Comments

Irish Eyes Are Smiling

John Kerry

Or was it Botox gone bad?

Sheherazade

In the legend, A Thousand and One Nights, Sheherazade had to tell the Persian king, Shahryar, a compelling story every night for a thousand and one days in order not to be beheaded (see the details here).  We now have a modern-day version of this story in that Harry Reid (D) tomorrow will have kept the U.S. Senate from passing a federal budget (as required by the Constitution and follow-on laws) for a thousand and one days.  This is in order that the American public doesn't see Democrat fingerprints on our profligate government spending ... and storm the Capitol demanding the Senate's majority leader's head on a platter (see the details here).  And we have heard not a peep of protest from The Barry over this dereliction of duty.

We, in the know, have become so jaded by these nose-thumbings at the Constitution by the current Administration that we too often "go along to get along."  I don't believe we should be very proud of this complacency.  I'm not ... and that is why I have composed this blog complaint.  I wish I could do more.

Puzzled?

Newt Gingrich has claimed that he has been exonerated on all the charges relating to the 1,300 page Congressional ethics investigation document (see: Think Progress).  If this were the case, then I must ask ... why did he resign his Speakership, pay a $300,000 fine, and depart Congress?

It would seem to me that, as feisty as Newt is, he would have and should have stood his ground.  But he didn't ... and this, to me, is compelling.

Hill and Dale

Let's look beyond this far-eastern fire drill of the Republican primary ... to this fall when the election is in full swing.  Many believe that, if the GOP has gotten its act together by then, The Barry might well have to switch horses and put Hillary Clinton on his ticket as his Veep ... retiring Biden to that stud farm called the State Department.  This move would be to bolster his re-election chances with "the devil you know" popularity of Hillary ... attracting those voters who believe she was denied her crown last time around.

Now, apart from the fact that she has bluntly stated multiple times that she is done with politics, Hillary might well be tempted with such an offer ... as it could present a greased slide into the White House in 2016.  And, besides, to my continued amazement, most media pundits believe that she has done a bang-up job at Foggy Bottom.  So, I think a quick review of her record there is now in order:

- The State Department recently put the kibosh on the Keystone pipeline from Canada (see: Falling Keystone)
- We reopened our embassy in Syria last spring just in time to watch Assad slaughter his people.  We may now be embarrassed into reclosing it (see: The Cable Story)
- We totally botched the Egyptian uprisings last spring (see: The Gong Show)
- We sat on our hands when the Iranian street rose up against their oppressive regime in 2009
- Our troop pullout from Iraq has been a clumsy mess, leaving this country to slip back into secular warfare
- Our relations with Pakistan are at the breaking point
- Iran is about ready to produce its first atomic weapon and the United States has stated no coherent strategy to deal with this contingency
- In general, we appeared to be bystanders in the Arab spring
- We seem to be quite timid when dealing with China and its many military and economic threats
- The Euro-zone bogey man is afoot and the United States is hiding under the covers

Need I go on any further?  (There's lots more.)  Yes, one could say that most of these failings are Obama-inspired, but where was Hillary when these decisions were made?  Yes, she has been good at the optics ... willing to travel to these hot spots, pose for pictures, and utter some platitudes, but she has not put forward any overarching policies of her own to deal with the world's turmoil.  ("Reset" is hardly an overarching strategy ... I don't even know what it means.) To me, she appears to shrink from these challenges.  And, God forbid, Biden tries to fill her shoes.  He clearly would screw things up even more ... even if the "San Francisco Giants" win the Super Bowl.

Hell Hath No Fury ...

Like a woman scorned.  Newt Gingrich's second wife, Marianne, has unloaded on Newt in an ABC interview to be aired tonight after the debates (see: Washington Post Story) and two days before the South Carolina primary.  Apparently, this scorned woman drops at least one bomb on Newt saying that he requested, after many years of their marriage, that they should have an "open relationship" (each partner would be free to have other love partners).

I don't want to beat a dead horse ... nor do I want to seem to be endorsing Newt Gingrich's candidacy, but would this be a prime-time, network "news" story if it involved either of the Clintons ... particularly prior to their running for office?  (This is obviously a rhetorical question.)

DEN left a comment that freezes things on this blog (perhaps Google is trying to tell me something).  Anyway here it is:

I think the timing of this "news" is very suspect, and also Marianne is a skank, who knew he was a cheater because she was giving him lewinskis when he was married to #1. Most Gingrich fans will ignore this info (just as I did when you railed about Clinton's dalliences.)