When our President is beholden to union special interests and a failed Keynesian economic dogma, most of us could have  did predict his “recovery” plans would have been a complete FAIL.

From Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com:

When running for President, Barack Obama decried the decline of American household income, which certainly dropped during the 2007-2009 Great Recession.  Since the recovery began in June 2009 — a recovery for which Obama has repeatedly claimed credit — that trend has gotten worse, not better.  A new report shows that the percentage of decline in household income during the so-called recovery actually doubled that of the recession:

During the recession, which economists say lasted from Dec. 2007 to June 2009, the median annual household income fell by 3.2 percent, from $55,309 to $53,518, according to a report authored by two former U.S. Census Bureau officials. But in the post-recession period from June 2009 to June 2011, the figure fell by 6.7 percent, from $53,518 in June 2009 to $49,909 in June 2011. …

The study found that during the post-recessionary period, families with just a male or female head with no spouse present saw a 7.3 percent decline in income compared to the 4.5 percent drop for married-couple households. Income for households with a head under the age of 25 fell by 9.5 percent, significantly more than the 5.5 percent decline for households with a head who is 45 to 54 years old.

Again, I repeat: Our President Spent $787 Billion Dollars Of Our Money And We Got Was This Lousy 9.1% Unemployment Rate (Forever…)

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

So I’m reading today how the Stalinization of Healthcare Act of 2010 is facing renewed Constitutional scrutiny, this time at the hands of a three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Georgia. Much hay has been made since the passage of the monstrosity and immediate court challenges thereto of the political make-up of the judges who have so far heard arguments and their seemingly ideologically mirrored conclusions about the federal government’s Constitutional authority to force its subjects citizens to purchase a service for no other reason than that they happen to live in America. Which is to say, up until now, every judge appointed by a Democrat has sided with the Administration, and every Republican-appointed judge has sided with Americans.

What’s gratifying about what we learned today is that members of the panel of the 11th hearing this particular case (this is the one in which twenty-six states have filed suit), made up of two Clinton appointees and on GHWBush appointee, are skeptical of the Administration’s position. If they were to rule the way observers are thinking they will, it’d be the first time a body representing the judicial branch has, ahem, crossed the aisle.

And to be honest, that’s what’s making me grit my teeth a little bit.

Yes, yes, yes. I’m all upset (or whatever) about the “politicization of the Judicial Branch…”

And yes. It’s always grated on me how the Left in America tends to go bawling to the Bar when they can’t convince a majority of their fellow citizens to go along with their cockamamie schemes. When accusations of ‘hate’, ad hominem insults, and attempts to shame voters (or legislators) into going their way don’t seem to win the other side over (imagine, huh?), the Left seems all too prepared time after time to lawyer-up and take their adversaries to court, rather than ever attempting (really) to settle their difference the good old-fashioned representative democratic (“American!”) way: at the ballot box.

So that’s partly—but only partly—why if (hopefully when) this charlie foxtrot is finally dispensed with, it’ll be a Pyrrhic victory for us. Not only because we had to go hat-in-hand to the Black Robed Sages like a bunch of little bitches…

No, no. It’s because this whole national humiliation has said some very troubling things about the state of our alleged democratic republic.

Consider: (more…)

Well, well, well…. (h/t – Instapundit)

Even Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, who made battling earmarks a cornerstone of his Congressional career since his election in 1990, said he would not have predicted that Congress could kick the habit.

“Think of this fight we have had for 20 years,” Mr. Boehner said in a recent interview. “If somebody would have asked me, ‘Will you ever get there?’ I would have had my doubts.”

But through a confluence of events, Mr. Boehner and the rest of the anti-earmark crowd did get there; the impact of the decision by leaders of the House and the Senate to ban earmarks for at least the next two years is already being felt.

When House Republicans were searching for cuts to offer Senate Democrats as part of a temporary spending plan to avert a government shutdown, they were able to reach into accounts set aside for earmarks and find nearly $2.8 billion that would have previously gone to water projects, transit programs and construction programs. No earmarks, no need for that money, and the threat of an imminent shutdown was eased.

Lawmakers said the absence of earmarks also allowed for a more freewheeling debate on the House floor during consideration of the Republican plan to slash $61 billion from this year’s budget since Democrats and Republicans were not caught up in protecting the special provisions they had worked so hard to tuck into the spending bill.

ACTUAL change you can believe in.  Boehner’s Congress has already shown to be a better steward of our money than every Congress in a generation before.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

A good reminder of the significance of this date…. from the Heritage Foundation.

On this day in 1773, a group of colonists disguised as Indians boarded British merchant ships and dumped into the Boston Harbor an estimated £10,000 worth of tea as a protest against British colonial policies.. John Adams declared this event, that we celebrate today as the Boston Tea Party, to be the “grandest event which has ever yet happened since the controversy with Britain opened.” What led once loyal colonists to protest the World’s leading power?  How should we think about the Tea Party two hundred thirty-seven years later?

The American Revolution began as a tax revolt. After defeating France in the Seven Years’ War (which began in North America as the French and Indian War), Great Britain gained control over vast areas of land in the Americas, but also incurred massive debts. For the first time, Parliament looked to the American colonies as a source of revenue, and so began the long train of abuses against the American colonies. The American Revenue Act (sometimes called the Sugar Act) expanded import and export duties and created new government mechanisms to enforce trade laws. The Stamp Act was the first direct tax levied on America, requiring all newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, and official documents—even decks of playing cards!—to have stamps as proof of payment of taxes.

These new policies outraged the colonists. The problem with the policies was not the amount of taxation—the taxes were actually quite low—but the process by which the British government imposed and enforced these taxes. As loyal colonists, the Americans recognized Parliament’s authority to legislate for the empire generally. But, the power to tax was a legislative power reserved to the colonists’ own assemblies rather than a distant legislature in London. The English Bill of Rights of 1689 had forbidden the imposition of taxes without legislative consent, and since the colonists had no representation in parliament they complained that the taxes violated their traditional rights. Thus the American’s rallying cry became: “No taxation without representation!”

The British rejected the Americans’ argument for self-government. The Declaratory Act of 1766, asserted Parliament’s absolute sovereignty over the Americans, including the power to make laws for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” “No taxation without representation” meant no taxation without the approval of the British Parliament. It never literally meant—not for the Americans or even for the overwhelming majority of British citizens—representation in that body. The colonists, like all British subjects, enjoyed “virtual representation” of their interests by the aristocrats that controlled Parliament.

After repealing the earlier taxes, the British government passed a new series of revenue measures (called the Townshend Acts) in 1767, which taxed goods such as paper, glass, lead, and tea—and once again affirmed the power of British courts to issue undefined and open-ended search warrants (called “writs of assistance”) to enforce the law. Asserting that the sole right of taxation was with the colonial legislature, Virginia proposed a formal agreement among the colonies banning the importation of British goods—a practice that quickly spread to the other local legislatures and cut the colonial import of British goods in half. So Parliament eventually repealed those duties, too, except for the tax on tea.

Our forefathers did not destroy the tea cargo because of a simple tax dispute. At issue were the principles of self-government, consent, and natural rights. These principles are enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and continue to define us as a nation and inspire us as a people.

In 2010, we have our own intolerable act—Obamacare, a massive bureaucratic expansion of government over one-sixth of the American economy and many aspects of our lives and medical decisions. But there is a key difference between the situation now and that of 1773. Those early patriots had to establish their independence and to start anew. But, our task is different. “It is not about fixed bayonets but fixed principles; not about bullets but ballots. Our task is not to overthrow; it is not revolution; it is renewal and restoration of those self-evident truths of constitutional government at the heart of America.”

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

The trailer.  The website.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Wow…. two weeks in a row, baby!  Tonight I’ll be talking with Ben Howe — a conservative activist and host of BTR’s “Renewing America”.  Ben attended the “Restoring Honor” rally in DC on Saturday and has some on-the-scene commentary to share. 

(Photo courtesy of Jon Ward from The Daily Caller)

Oh yeah… and I’m broadcasting tonight live from our nation’s capital — Washington, DC.  I couldn’t make it for the 8/28 rally, but I’m here this week for my “real” job.

And I’m just a few blocks from The White House.  Maybe I’ll hop on over to 1600 Penn Ave and ask Michelle for a crumpet.

Tune in tonight at 8:30PM for GayPatriot’s America.  We have a great chat room too!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Note the jump in unemployment AFTER the “Stimulus” passed in February 2009. (h/t – Instapundit)

HOPE AND CHANGE!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Okay, so let me get this straight:

The ever-so nuanced and most brilliant leader in a generation, President Obama, comes out after the passage of Obamacare and declares that:

I’m not exaggerating…Leaders of the Republican Party … called the passage of [The Stalinization of Health Care Act of 2010] “Armageddon.”…

So after I signed the bill, I looked around to see if there were any asteroids falling or some cracks opening up in the earth. Turned out it was a nice day. Birds were chirping. Folks were strolling down the Mall.

(my emphasis)

Now there’s a guy who knows the power of words. Or something. We’re to believe the leader of the Free World and what they’d have us believe is the most eloquent speaker of our generation is so dense he can’t tell a rhetorical flourish when he hears one? He can’t discern methaphorical language? Perhaps it’s a certain font on the TelePrompter, and if he’s not reading it, he doesn’t recognize it.

Anyway, comes now the toadies in the left to once again jump on an actual professional speaker, Rush Limbaugh.

In a mockery of the mockery, Rush has this to say:

You know, a couple of days after the health care bill had been signed into law Obama ran around all over the country saying, ‘Hey, you know, I’m looking around. The earth hadn’t opened up. There’s no Armageddon out there. The birds are still chirping.’ I think the earth has opened up. God may have replied. This volcano in Iceland has grounded more airplanes — airspace has more affected — than even after 9/11 because of this plume…Earth has opened up. I don’t know whether it’s a rebirth or Armageddon. Hopefully it’s a rebirth.

How does the Left play this? deadpan serious and completely without irony.

It’s not the president to them who looks like the jackass by completely missing the point and condescendingly belittling those who’d rather not have Kathleen Sebelius determine thier health care needs. It’s Rush Limbaugh for pointing it out.

Coming next? Criticism for Limbaugh saying “Obama ran around all over the country”. Technically, he flew on Air Force One. Sheesh, doesn’t this guy do any fact-checking before he shoots his mouth off?

Score another one for the death of Poetry.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

UPDATE (from Dan, trying to be funny):  But, doesn’t Obama realize that the bill doesn’t kick in until 2014.  Guess he wanted to give us time to prepare for Armageddon.

I’d take Bush’s recession over Obama’s recovery, any day.

Here! Here!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

This ASSociated Press story is mindboggling.  Not only because of the content, but because the AP writer was allowed to write it and it was published.  I guess sometimes the Kremlin does allow the truth to leak out.  I have to wonder why…

Anyway, if you think the economy is good because of Wall Street…. think again, mate.

The U-3 unemployment figure of 9.7% is a palatable gauge of unemployment designed to make Wall Street happy, or so you would think. Looking at the U-3 numbers it becomes obvious that the real bull market is not in equities, but in unemployment (see chart below).

However, the real unemployment rate, even by the standards of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is much higher. The U-6 unemployment number, as the real data is called, is at 17.5%, within 0.5% of its all-time high. This figure includes discouraged workers who’ve stopped looking, marginally attached workers, and workers that are forced to work part-time because full-time jobs are not available.

The post 2007 recession has eliminated 8.4 million jobs and rendered 15.7 million American’s jobless.

The mere fact that the palatable version of the unemployment rate has remained at 9.7% for three straight months, has Wall Street cheering.

Before chiming in, consider what it will take to simply get back to a normal unemployment rate of 5%. This is mindboggling.

The current labor force of 154 million will increase by about 1.8 million over each of the next five years because of ‘newbies’ entering the job market. By 2014, the labor force will be around 163 million. A 5% U-3 (not U-6) unemployment rate would equate to 8.15 million workers without a job.

7.55 million jobs will have to be created to reduce the number of job-less workers from today’s 15.7 million to 8.15 million. To accomplish this, there would have to be 125,833 jobs created each and every month over the next five years with no jobs lost. 

The average monthly job growth over the past 10 years has been about 50,000. The average monthly job growth over the past 20 years has been about 90,000. Keep in mind that the 1990 – 2010 timeframe hosted the biggest bull market and economic expansion in history.

It is worth repeating:  7.55 million jobs will have to be created to reduce the number of job-less workers from today’s 15.7 million to 8.15 million. To accomplish this, there would have to be 125,833 jobs created each and every month over the next five years with no jobs lost.

Reagan would have cut taxes and eased regulations on small and medium-sized businesses — the mainstay of American middle class jobs.  What does Obama do to the middle class?  Borrows against our future, taxes us into oblivion with hidden healthcare taxes and higher premiums and increases the power of the EPA to regulate every part of an individual and business’ comings and goings. 

Barry — that ain’t gonna spur 126,000 jobs a month, I assure you.  Folks we are in some serious shit.  And it sure the hell isn’t Bush’s fault.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I’m beginning my first road trip for work under the Era of Obamacare this morning.  I start in Charlotte, head to Baltimore, then off again to spend the night and most of Wednesday in Pittsburgh.   And yes, as Dan mentions below, PatriotPartner and I are headed to Los Angeles on Thursday for a long weekend.

How will this new Era of Socialism Utopia treat me as I travel the TSA-mandated skies of America?  Will people be nicer now that they have a new bloated entitlement program that will bankrupt this and successive generations?  I haven’t seen it yet.  The TSA agents and US Airways ticket agents had the same scowl on their faces as they did last week.

But haven’t they heard that we are in the Era of Sunshine, Unicorns and Lollipops?  I mean first Obama raised his hands and single-handedly stopped the 15 foot Chilean Tsunami from ravaging Hawai’i.  He did tell us the seas would fall after he was elected!

And now everyone is walking around with the statisfaction that we all have healthcare coverage.  Nevermind that our taxes will go up significantly.  Nevermind that the cost of healthcare will continue to rise.  Nevermind that the premiums that the middle class pays for their health insurance will also go up.  And nevermind that those who are covered by Domestic Partner benefits will be the first to be dropped when the Individual Mandate is enforced.

Nah, what is really important is that the Obama Presidency was saved!

Funny, the Americans walking around the Charlotte, NC airport this morning look as worried and stressed and anxious as they did last week.

I guess it really isn’t funny at all.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)