LEE RODGERSMORE BLOWN BUX ON ELECTRIC CARS ...
MITT MAULS NEWT
... BARNEY-READY NUPTIALS
... BARNEY-READY NUPTIALS
Congratulations appear to be in order. Retiring Congressman Barney Frank, 71, is engaged to be married to Jim Ready, 42. Cong. Frank told interviewer Charlie Rose, “I’m in love for the first time in my life.”
The happy couple will be married in Massachusetts. No indication which, if either, will wear white.
We're attempting to ascertain whether Barney and Jim are registered at Walmart or Victoria's Secret.
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Here we ago again, with another expensive (to the taxpayers) flop by the enviro-nuts and their Maximum Leader in the White House.
The Ener 1 Company, which got a $118,500,000 "stimulus" grant from the Energy Department to develop batteries for electric cars, has filed for bankruptcy.
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Scott Rasmussen of the Rasmussen Reports poll was a longtime on-air regular during my lengthy broadcasting career and I have a high regard for the accuracy of his organization. (I often told him, "You're at the top of my list of pollsters. Of course, if you're wrong on a big one or two, I'll drop you like a bad habit." He took it in good humor.)
This is simply to preface his latest Florida polling of likely Republican voters, which at this writing has Romney over Gingrich, 39%-31%.
Of course, given the volatility of the race, along with polling that shows a third of those Republicans would like to have another entrant, current polls could be outdated by sunset.
There's a growing consensus, however, that Newt is getting sunburned in the Sunshine State and that Romney got the better of last night's debate and Gingrich faltered -- again.
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The Rasmussen daily presidential tracking poll, which measures those likely voters who strongly approve of Obama's performance against those who strongly disapprove, not long ago had the "disapprove" rating running upward of 20% over the approvals. As of yesterday, it's down to a 13% spread on the negative side. And still slipping as the Republicans continue to macerate each other.
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At times I have worked in TV and radio operations that used call-in audience polls (the same thing done now via internet, Twitter, etc.) as fodder for on-air discussion.
I always made it a point -- sometimes to the dismay of management -- to clearly state that since the participants in such a poll were self-selecting, it was in no way scientific or representative of the general public and was therefore unreliable. Fox News Channel polls today are a current example of such bogus "polling".
All this comes to mind because of Gingrich's demand for airing of audience reaction at the "debates". It is a tactic familiar to comedians, Elmer Gantry-type evangelists, et al. It's been a common tactic used throughout history to get momentum from a crowd. To choose another example from history, ol' Adolf wowed 'em at Nuremberg. Really got 'em fired up!
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Public figures, even in this age of massive data storage, seem to forget that their words can come back to haunt them. Reader Rick exhumed this Quote of the Decade:
"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies.
"Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."
Who said it? The man who has increased the national debt by more than all previous presidents combined.
Senator Barack Hussein Obama, speaking in March, 2006.
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Economics Professor Walter Williams of George Mason University summarizes Obamanomics ...
"Last week, President Barack Obama, at a Capital Hilton fundraising event, told the crowd, 'We can't go back to this brand of you're-on-your-own economics.' Throughout my professional career as an economist, I've never come across the theory of 'you're-on-your-own economics.' I'm guessing what the president means by -- and finds offensive in -- 'you're-on-your-own economics' is that it's a system in which people are held responsible for their actions, that they take risks and must live with the results, that people can't force others to pay for their mistakes, and that they can't live at the expense of other people."
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Liberals threaten it when a Republican is elected; some conservatives actually do it when a socialist is elected president. Bail out, that is.
The numbers are relatively small, but the fact is that the number of Americans renouncing their citizenship to live elsewhere has drastically increased since the election that put Obama in office. Approximately 4,000 people gave up their citizenship from fiscal year 2005 to FY 2010. Renunciations increased sharply within the past three years, from 146 in FY 2008 to 1,534 in FY 2010. And during the first two quarters of FY 2011 alone, 1,024 Americans ditched their citizenship.
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John Crudele (NY Post) takes a shot at Ben-the-boob at the Fed ...
"Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Federal Reserve bigwigs met Wednesday and said they would continue to keep interest rates low, probably through 2014. And Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the biggest wig of all, is still seeing those green shoots in the economy.
"March, in case you’ve forgotten, will be the third anniversary of Bernanke first spotting those shoots that never seem to sprout into a full plant, despite being watered by historically low interest rates over an abnormally long period of time."
Addendum: Little Timmy Geithner, our tax-evading Secretary of the Treasury, has announced he won't be back if there's a second Obama term. Perhaps even someone as dumb as Timmy has figured out he's in line to be thrown under the bus as part of Obama's excuse-a-thon for his administration's economic failures.
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Reader Tom poses a pertinent question ...
“If liberals think that a SUSTAINABLE ecology is a good idea, and we all need to live SUSTAINABLE lifestyles, relying on SUSTAINABLE sources of energy, how come they don’t believe in a SUSTAINABLE economy?”
“Or, do liberals think that borrowing forty cents of every dollar spent by the government every year as far as the eye can see is a SUSTAINABLE fiscal program?”
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The Los Angeles Times reports that Robert Hegyes, an actor whose Jewish-Puerto Rican character Juan Epstein was one of the Sweathogs on the 1970s TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, died Thursday of a heart attack in New Jersey. He was 60.
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Mr. Sorkin reminds us of a time-tested Milton Friedman quote. The great economist said, "I’m in favor of freedom, and freedom is not fairness.
Fairness means somebody has to decide what’s fair.
The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither.
The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.
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It happened in Florida. A woman was stabbed in the chest by her fiance's ex-girlfriend. The victim was saved by a recently-acquired boob-job. The silicon implants protected her, stopping the knife from deeper penetration.
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So Pat Sajak 'fesses-up to taping some episodes of "Wheel of Fortune" while he was drunk. Of course, his job didn't exactly present great intellectual challenges.
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More media mangling of the language ...
To DEFUSE is to remove the fuse from an explosive, or in common usage, to minimize friction or disagreement. To DIFFUSE is to scatter something thinly.
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Sam proudly (?) presents Socially Unacceptable Humor ...
I saw a poor old lady fall over today on the ice. At least I presume she was poor. She only had $1.20 in her purse.
A wife says to her husband, “You're always pushing me around and talking behind my back.” He says, “What do you expect? You're in a wheel chair.”
Sam, go to your room! You're grounded for a month!
"...and now, if you'll excuse me..."