CNN Poll Shows Perry Still Leading

Click to enlarge.

Maybe those of us who read and write blogs are too close to the Republican campaign. We see things the larger public doesn't see but that better vision doesn't always manifest itself into better perception. If you've been reading conservative blogs lately you are probably of the mind that it's time to send Rick Perry's saddle home. Give his belt buckle to Romney and remember him fondly. Fortunately for Perry, not everyone sees things our way. Since the last debate, Ron Paul won a poll in California, Romney won one in Michigan, and Cain did the same in Florida. Without devoting a paragraph to the subject, let me just state that self selecting samples have no predictive value. People who vote in straw polls don't reflect the attitudes of the greater public. They are usually more partisan, more doctrinaire, and sometimes more provincial than the voting public.
The latest CNN poll shows Rick Perry to be alive and well and living in the Republican Party. True, three bad debates in a row have not helped him as he slipped two percentage points since the earlier poll but no one was there to pick up the pieces. Romney gained two points, as did Cain, Bachmann flat lined but Gingrich doubled his percentage of the take. Palin's numbers probably mean her following has given up on her entering the race and they are shopping elsewhere. When matched with Obama, Romney loses 49 to 48 percent, Perry loses 51 to 46 percent and Bachmann loses 54 to 42 percent. Ron Paul does better than Bachmann and Perry, losing 51 to 47 percent. While we wait for the first real elections we should remember two things. It's too early to predict the final outcome and don't believe everything you read on the internet.

Solyndra Owes Calfornia Democratic Party

Why does Solyndra owe the California Democratic Party money? It's funny how questions such of this just keep popping up. The California Democratic Party has no idea. The party's communication officer Tenoch Flores says his party is not owed “any funds in any form” by the California-based company. But if we take Flores at his word then why would W.G.Stover Jr. the CEO of Solyndra swear under penalty of perjury that his company is indebted to the Democratic Party? The Washington Times has obtained a copy of the bankruptcy filing and first revealed this strange indebtedness. It may be the public won't have to wait for grand jury summons to start going out to see who is who in this high tech shell game where only the taxpayers are supposed to lose as the bankruptcy hearing might give the public its first insight into the Solyndra scandal and its participants. Was Solyndra the link between the taxpayers and the Democratic party in some sort of money laundering scheme? With Fast and Furious and Light Squared, Solyndra completes the hat trick. It's like have Watergate, Iran-Contra, and Enron all rolled into one.

Bobby Jindal: No Contest?

Is Bobby Jindal unbeatable? No but he does have a big cash advantage. Jindal has $7.7 million in his campaign war chest and the best financed Democratic candidate, Tara Hollis has $4,612. Under Louisiana's unusual election rules all candidates run in the same primary and the top two run in the general election unless one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote. It that case there is no general election so Bobby Jindal could be elected this October 22.

Sign The Petition To Repeal Obamacare

As this blog reported yesterday the White House has launched a new site, "We the people".
Visitors are encouraged to create petitions. If a petition garners 5,000 signatures within 30 days, the White House promises lawmakers will automatically review it and the Obama administration will issue an official response on the subject. I wish I were as clever as
Verum Serum. He has come up with a great idea. Why not petition to repeal Obamacare? There is already a petition to do that. To sign it go here. There is a catch. You have to register with the White House in order to vote – just a name and a email address. You can always hit the "mark as junk" option in your mail reader when you get tired of the spam.

Herman Cain's Ad; Failure to Lead

Hard hitting! This Herman Cain video pulls no punches. John McCain refused to question Obama's all to questionable past and unsavory associations. Herman Cain does not. The big danger Cain poses to Obama and the Democrats is that some blacks might start asking themselves what Obama and the Democrats have done for them lately. As he becomes better know he can probably expect Clarence Thomas-Sarah Palin treatment.

 

Ohio most improved place for doing business

  Due to measures put into place to make Ohio a better place to do business and retire it from its "rustbelt" status, from CNBC vis Yahoo Finance we learn that:

Ohio is this year's most improved state, jumping eleven places to 23rd overall thanks to a huge improvement in Cost of Doing Business. Ohio improved to 5th place in our most important category, from 29th place last year. A multi-year effort to reform the tax code in the Buckeye State is paying off with a tax structure that welcomes new investment. At the same time, wages have fallen in Ohio relative to other states. That helps businesses on the cost side, but workers suffer.

  Virginia is number one and Texas has dropped to number two for a variety of reasons. Being a border state doesn't help.
  The whole report is here. 
  Let's hope we don't take steps backward in November.

Herman Cain delivers!

  Watching the SNL opener last night was cold all right. As usual, the "comedians" found great delight in ridiculing the Republican debate, which gets old after a while and sure doesn't seem funny. If there were some mutual mockery of both left and right it might be funnier.
  Here's the video:


  What was Herman Cain's response to SNL's demeaning of himself as just a "pizza" guy?Someone who sees the nation as a place that NEEDS pizza?
  Someone who is too stupid to know anything about running a country just because he's run a few national businesses? 
  The rationale for Herman Cain's supposed "incompetence" is, like, um, a  "leading from behind" community organizer knows more than a business leader?
  His good natured smackdown response was this:
  "You're right! Herman Cain delivers!"

Obama bans over the counter inhalers

  Well, here we go. The takeover of this country's health industry, work force, military, economic and financial institutions and auto industry....has swung into high gear.
  That this administration would tamper with the health of its citizens for political purposes  is appalling. Here's a testimony from an asthma sufferer from Daily Caller:

Er, industry also knew how to make low-flow toilets, which is why every toilet in my recently renovated rental house clogs at least once a week.  They knew how to make more energy efficient dryers, which is why even on high, I have to run every load through the dryer in said house twice.  And they knew how to make inexpensive compact flourescent bulbs, which is why my head hurts from the glare emitting from my bedroom lamp.    They also knew how to make asthma inhalers without CFCs, which is why I am hoarding old albuterol inhalers that, unlike the new ones, a) significantly improve my breathing and b) do not make me gag.  Etc.

  The FDA has cheerfully announced that asthmas sufferers will have to pay more for prescription inhalers. No more over the counter. 
  Meh. 
  Who cares.
  Nobody.
  Obviously.

Left wing activists held in prisons of their own making

  The Washington Post has another column by a left wing progressive activist who encourages  taking to the streets to get what they want:

As a progressive activist who has marched against many wars, I try to avoid militant rhetoric. But only “class warfare” accurately describes a situation in which 400 people control more wealth than the poorest 150 million Americans combined. If “class warfare” isn’t the richest of the rich fighting tooth and nail against unions and any tax increases while record numbers of people lose their homes, what is?

  While decrying the use of "militant rhetoric," the entire column encourages anarchic behavior among her ilk, complaining of "complacency" among American citizens while ignoring the activism of Tea Partiers. 
  She says that it's time for progressives (as if they haven't been) to "disrupt the status quo and mobilize public will for change. If we’re at war, it’s time to escalate."
  Warlike rehetoric? Of course! Encouragement of violence? Of course!
  Here are some actions complacent soon-to-be progressive activists can take to advance the cause of taking control of the financial complex in the United States:

 Imagine millions of Americans withholding mortgage payments to banks that refuse to adjust underwater loans. Imagine divestment campaigns to pressure public pension funds and universities to pull their money from the private sector and put it into government bonds. Imagine students staging sit-ins to protest teacher layoffs. Imagine families who have lost their homes squatting in vacant, bank-owned properties. Imagine a nationwide call to arms, as passionately nonviolent but as violently passionate as the pro-democracy movements sweeping the Arab world. After all, according to the CIA, income inequality in the United States is greater than in Yemen.

  The last crack about income equality is reminiscent of the dodo bird leftwing hiker who was just released from an Iranian prison in which he had been held for two years after being caught hiking in the mountains.
  Here's the first thing he said when the cameras caught up with him upon his release:

"Two years in prison is too long and we sincerely hope for the freedom of other political prisoners and other unjustly imprisoned people in America and Iran."

  The WaPo writer does not seem to understand that those 400 people don't just "control" their wealth: they earned it. 
  She doesn't want to understand the biblical principle that there will always be class differences and there will always be poor people. Some people will always have more money than others, but that doesn't make it right to TAKE what belongs to the earners.
  In this way, she is trapped in illogical thought patterns and spends her life pursuing illogical unrealistic goals with little love in her heart for her own country and its citizens. She condescends to speak from the mountaintop.
  Likewise, the errant hiker doesn't want to understand that there are significant differences between the United States and Iran politically. One is a brutal regime that pounds protesters into the ground. The other is trying to remain committed to the principles of freedom and independence.
  It's a sad day when you can be held in a prison of your own making for years and not see the difference.

Legal Marijuana Top Attraction at White House Web Site

It figures. The White House's new "We the People" web site encourages visitors to create there own online petitions. If a petition garners 5,000 signatures within 30 days, the White House promises lawmakers will automatically review it and the Obama administration will issue an official response on the subject. And what you ask is dearest to the heart of Obama groupies? Legalization of marijuana of course. It was first to garner the 5000 minimum and is now number 1 with 31,275 signatures. Why didn't these people stop after AttackWatch? Will Potus "pivot" from jobs to blow and think about marijuana first when he wakes up in the morning and last when he goes to sleep at night as he does jobs?

Janet Napolitano won't like the second petition which reads; "Abolish the TSA, and use its monstrous budget to fund more sophisticated, less intrusive counter-terrorism intelligence." I'm surprised they didn't make them substitute "counter-terrorism" with "counter-man made disaster" but anyway it has 19,121 signatures. The third petition to reach the 5000 threshold is pretty deep in the woods and must be part of some organized movement. It reads; "Call an investigation into Allegation of Prosecutorial & Judicial Misconduct in the Case of Sholom Rubashkin".

Obama Is Dragging His Party Down

Democratic pollster Hank Greenberg has briefed Democrats on the findings in his latest poll and, well, things could be better. The poll was conducted in 60 battleground congressional districts.
"This is obviously not the best moment to judge the Democrats' eventual fortunes--with fewer voters identifying as Democrats, with Democrats themselves less enthusiastic about the president, and with his overall approval rating down 7 points and losing independents in these districts," Greenberg wrote in his memo. That's breaking it to them gently. Instead of an overall anti-incumbent sentiment impacting members of both parties, voters are taking more of their anger out on Democrats. When voters were asked whether they're supporting the Republican incumbent or a Democratic candidate, 50 percent preferred the Republican and just 41 percent backed the Democrat. Worse still the trouble is coming from the top of ticket. They are being dragged down by Obama who would lose to either Perry or Romney. Obama's rating in the battleground districts is 41 percent and only rises to 43 in the next tier of 30 more Democratic friendly districts. He did say respondents were receptive to Obama's job plan. He did not say but we might guess the respondents won't be so receptive a year from now if the jobs plan is still a presidential aspiration.

Another POTUS psychophant gets giddy

  

  Plus he's getting his own show. Maddow and Hayes feel what they do is "very, very difficult."
  Hayes's show is "competing" with Fox and Friends.

Herman Cain...hmmmmmm.....

  Well, now that Herman Cain has won the Florida straw poll, let's take a second look at him over at ontheissues.org. Here's the conconclusion:

  I like Herman Cain. He's a good dude.
  Can he win? Hmmm.
  He's better'n what we got now.
  UPDATE: I might point out that Chris Christie is a MODERATE who believes in taking measures to combat global warming. 

Majority Rates Obama Same or Worse Than Bush

Remember when George Bush was the worst president ever? That didn't last long. A new Gallup poll finds Obama to be the same or worse. When asked the question, " Overall do you think Barack Obama has been a better, about the same, or worse president than George Bush?" Forty-three percent said better, 22 percent said about the same, and 34 percent said worse. When asked the same question and substituting Bill Clinton for George Bush 12 percent said better, 35 percent said about the same and 50 percent said worse. Americans are currently highly dissatisfied with the state of the nation, with 11% satisfied and 88% dissatisfied.

The Next Special Election-Getting Along Without Wu

It's the usual story. A special election to replace a Democratic Congressman who disgraced himself in some sort of sexual misconduct scandal will be held on January 31 of 2012 following a November 8 primary. The primary field currently lists eight Democrats but the Republicans will probably select Rob Cornilles who ran a good campaign, holding Congressman David Wu to 55 percent of the vote. Normally a safe Democratic, Oregon 1 offers the rest of the country an insight into voter loyalty in blue districts. With any luck it should be the last special election held before the November Presidential election.

NYT: what's a few hundred million when it's taxpayer dollars?

  As usual, the New York Times is nakedly partisan in defending this administration. Today, or yesterday really, a columnist claims that the purpose of government is to take risks no one else would take in the private sector. 
  That taxpayer dollars should fund risky operations. 
  That the guys who ran Solynda were simply poor businessmen who never saw the Chinese prices on solar panels coming which caused a collapse in the solar panel market. 
  That their attempt to borrow more money was no big deal. Oh, and then there were those "embarrassing" emails:

Undoubtedly, the Solyndra “scandal” will draw a little blood: there are some embarrassing e-mails showing the White House pushing to get the deal done quickly so it could tout Solyndra’s green jobs as part of the stimulus package.
But if we could just stop playing gotcha for a second, we might realize that federal loan programs — especially loans for innovative energy technologies — virtually require the government to take risks the private sector won’t take. 

Indeed, risk-taking is what these programs are all about. Sometimes, the risks pay off. Other times, they don’t. It’s not a taxpayer ripoff if you don’t bat 1.000; on the contrary, a zero failure rate likely means that the program is too risk-averse. Thus, the real question the Solyndra case poses is this: Are the potential successes significant enough to negate the inevitable failures?

  So $535 million lost in a year is nothing to investigate aggressively, regardless that previous hearings run by Democrats aggressively beat the testifiers verbally to gain "answers" in front of cameras. That was then. This is now.
  No, this scandal is "phony' the man claims. Phony.
  And even though the White House itself was worried in January that the optics would be bad and that even the left wing media acknowledges that the White House ignored that the company was in trouble, there's nothing to investigate. Nothing to question. It's all matter of fact.
  And it's not strange that there was a special arrangement that the taxpayers would be paid back LAST after the
  Like, who COULD make any business a success with $535 million taxpayer dollars? Who? And how many other dollars did these two "businessmen" borrow from private investors? Was that fair too?
  No, there's obviously nothing to be concerned about here.
  It's every day that businesses borrow a half billion dollars and default within the same year. The building itself cost $344 million. What's another $200 million? Not to mention private investors' money?
  Oh, and there's this:

A new factory built with public money boasted a gleaming conference room with glass walls that, with the flip of a switch, turned a smoky gray to conceal the room’s occupants. Hastily purchased state-of-the-art equipment ended up being sold for pennies on the dollar, still in its plastic wrap, employees said.

  And this, from the liberal press:

A key question for lawmakers is whether Solyndra executives misled Congress about the financial state of the company as late as July, when questions about the loan surfaced on Capitol Hill.  

  But there's nothing to investigate and certainly not aggressively.
  Naw.

Maldives: Satire is Hurtful

You remember the Maldives? The string of twenty-six small islands is frequently portrayed as the entity most threatened by climate change as rising sea levels would submerge them. The Maldivians adapted well to their poster child image and have done their level best to extract pity and money but especially money from the developed world. They held a mock climate change treaty signing underwater prior to the failed climate conference in Copenhagen. The Maldivian are serious people not given to levity, at least at their own expense. As part of a hoax following
Times Comprehensive Atlas Of The World decision to produce a map suggesting that Greenland has lost 15 per cent of its ice cover in the last twelve years, James Delingpole of London Daily Telegraph wrote:

"All right, it may not be strictly geographically accurate to say the Maldives and Tuvalu will definitely have disappeared in about ten years time when our next edition appears," said Times Atlas spokesman David Rose. "But did you see that picture of the Maldives cabinet holding a meeting underwater? If the Maldives government says the Maldives are drowning, they must be drowning. And frankly I think it's despicable, all those deniers who are saying it was just a publicity stunt, cooked up by green activist Mark Lynas, to blackmail the international community into giving the Maldives more aid money while simultaneously trying to lure green Trustafarians to come and spend £1500 a night in houses on stilts with gold-plated organic recyclable eco-toilets made of rare earth minerals from China. Why would a government lie about something as serious as climate change?"

The probably don't get Saturday Night Live in the Maldives but maybe someone should send them a couple of DVD's and in the future the government would not embarrass itself by demanding a retraction and an apology which was the exact government response. The Maldives' acting high commissioner in London has written to the newspaper's editor seeking a clarification and apology. He said "the post had implied that his country's climate change plight was a con-trick, and this was despicable and hurtful."

"Hurtful"? Did this guy major in women studies? Let me end this post with another quote from Delingpole without comment.

"Though full details of the Uber Rogue Trader – known only by his initials B.O. – have yet to be released, he is believed to be either of Hawaiian or Kenyan birth, with a plausible speaking manner and a deceptive aura of competence and gravitas. He is said to be "coolly unrepentant" about his crime, which, he claims, he was only doing to provide "hope and change" to his 200 million victims."

17 minutes...how many dollars?

  Buried in the LA Times Andrew Malcolm's latest column entitled, "New Gaffe: Obama Hails historic building of "Intercontinental Railroad" is this little nugget:

So here's how the ex-state senator from the Chicago machine reacts: At an operating cost of $181,000 per hour, he flies Air Force One nearly four hours roundtrip for 17 minutes of remarks touting infrastructure repairs by a bridge that doesn't need them. 

The real reason he's at the Brent Spence Bridge is because it links the home states of both congressional Republican leaders, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. So Obama can cutely blame Republicans for holding up his jobs bill, even though it's Nevada Democrat Harry Reid. 

Obama turns the empty rhetoric into a pep rally for himself, leading the obedient audience to chant, "Pass this bill! Pass this bill!"

  The clock is ticking. Time is getting late. We need to move.
  Baby boomers, whose youths were so pampered, need to make a stand to preserve this country for our children. 
  Step up. 
  Now, if you never did before. 
  Now, if you did in the 60s. 
  Step up. 

Ethics Vanish Faster Than The Speed Of Light Squared

If, as Brit Hume has said, "Fast and Furious has the smell of Watergate all over it" Light Squared has the smell of Teapot Dome all over it. To get to the nitty gritty, the White House and the FCC have contrived to make a wealthy donor an extremely wealthy donor. Somehow in the muddled thinking of the left the heretofore private sector of telecommunications has become "infrastructure" and the newest deprived minority are the women, children, and minorities who are forced to use dial up Internet service. To remedy this perceived deprivation "government must partner with the private sector" to bring forth a new nation were every child has access to the "affordable" broadband service he deserves. Not surprisingly these government-private joint ventures look more like crime syndicates than benevolent agents of the commonweal.

LightSquared was formed in July 2010 to build a new nationwide wireless broadband network using the "4G" wireless technology called LTE. Its primary investor, billionaire hedge fund investor Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners, saw big potential in building a new nationwide 4G wireless network as demand for wireless data services explodes. Rather than compete with ATT and Verizon directly, Light Squared envisions a wholesale marketing scheme through retailers. Using spectrum acquired from the satellite provider SkyTerra, LightSquared now has a nationwide license for about 59MHz of spectrum mostly in the 1.6GHz band. In January, the company received a waiver from the Federal Communications Commission that will allow the spectrum, which had been limited for use for devices that offer both satellite- and land-based communication, to be used for land-based-only LTE communication. Here is where the the aroma of Teapot Dome begins to waft in the air. Former FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth questioned the process by which the FCC granted the waiver. “That decision from January was an unprecedented and surprising development. That they would make this decision at the bureau level and not at the full commission level is just stunning.”

More stunning than the lack of propriety of the waiver are the results of that waiver which firstly, create a real potential to disrupt GPS service and secondly, add an astounding $10 billion to Light Squared balance sheet. Here is how it worked. Light Squared acquired the spectrum band from SkyTerra for satellite use. The FCC waiver allowed it to use the spectrum band for terrestrial use. Light Squared purchased spectrum of limited value but thanks to the FCC it now has sufficient spectrum to build out and be a full fledged competitor to ATT and Verizon while disrupting GPS service in the process. Light Squared commissioned a study by the Brattle Group and in footnote 2 it reads;

"This implies that the economic value for LightSquared’s 40 MHz of nationwide L band spectrum dedicated to terrestrial broadband is
approximately $12 billion. Furthermore, wireless broadband spectrum is typically thought to generate consumer surplus equal to at least 10 times the original value of the original spectrum."

It is noteworthy that Falcone and Harbinger Capital Partners purchased bankrupted SkyTerra for under $2 billion. TFM Associates MSS Blog writes;

"Once this $10B windfall is more widely recognized, I think it is going to represent an enormous political problem for both LightSquared and the FCC Chairman during the upcoming Congressional hearings, making Solyndra’s $535M loan look like small beer."

Right, and the witness tampering by the White House when it tried to persuade an Air Force general to change his Congressional testimony won't go far in solving that enormous political problem.

Ah, how the TOTUS suffers!

  Everybody's clucking today about the $42,000 diamonds old Michelle is wearing at one of her fundraisers. As usual, her shows her sensitivity to the sacrifice of the people of the United States.
  From Media Bistro, we learn that the two narcissists DO share admiration for someone other than themselves:

In a White House Pool Report by NYT‘s Helene Cooper filed late Tuesday night President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama made their feelings for each other plain at a fancy NYC fundraiser at Gotham Theater. They’re still hot for each other. And if that thought makes you uncomfortable, you might not want to read the mushy details.

  What's amusing about the picture released with the $42,000 diamond bracelet?
  Take a look:

  If you can tamp down your gag reflex from the awkwardly posed smooch, please note that the TOTUS (teleprompter of the United States) is once again standing guard for POTUS and FLOTUS.

  One wonders where else they take their teleprompter.

  Ahem.