The Final Five: June 5, 2012

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Tonight's Crazy Story:
Trapped Bank Robber Cut From Air Duct, Police Say
A man broke into a Chicago bank vault and made off with $100,000, but he then got stuck in an air duct as he tried to escape.

Topic One: Wisconsin Recall
Wisconsin recall could impact November: " President Obama holds multiple paths to re-election, with a handful of battleground states being able to slip away without leading to his defeat. But each possible outcome on his campaign map has always shared a common trait: winning Wisconsin. A Republican resurgence here, which has burst into full view as the party determinedly defends its sitting governor in a rare recall election, is spilling into the presidential race. The result is poised to shape the general election fight between Mr. Obama and Mitt Romney, who intends to add Wisconsin to his list of targeted states."

Another article detailing how Wisconsin reforms are working: "Wisconsin struts onto the stage Tuesday in the drama known as the crisis of the entitlement state in the Western world. The state’s recall election of Gov. Scott Walker upstages, however briefly, the story line of Illinois trying to come to grips with its unfunded $83 billion liability in government employee pensions, the comedy of Gov. Jerry Brown pursuing an extravagantly expensive high-speed train to nowhere as California sinks under a $16 billion budget deficit, and the starring role of Greece in the wrenching euro zone tragedy. Passions typical of a Greek tragedy are driving polarized voters to the polls in Wisconsin to determine Walker’s fate. He is, according to your world view, a heroic figure who has tamed the avaricious public sector unions leeching off the taxpayer or a villain spearheading an assault on workers, their rights and their unions."

And don't worry about fraud in today's recall, the DOJ is going to be monitoring the election.

Time for a Laugh:
"On Friday, President Obama spent the night at his home in Chicago for the first time in over a year. It was nice — he even went down to the basement and dusted off some old campaign promises."
-Jimmy Fallon

Topic Two: Obama's Legacy
Obama's pathetic legacy: "What I want to focus on here is how pathetic it is that Obama is now reduced to posing as a fiscal conservative. Did Obama run in 2008 on a platform of restraining federal spending? Of course not. He represents the left wing of the Democratic Party, whose main object>ive is increased federal spending. To the extent that he has influenced legislation, has it ever had the purpose of limiting federal spending? Don’t be ridiculous! His signature legislative “achievements,” the stimulus and Obamacare, entailed billions of dollars in new federal appropriations. Has he ever even proposed to limit spending in any meaningful way? No. On the contrary, his budgets have been so flamboyantly profligate that in the last two years, not a single Senator or Congressman has been willing to vote for them. Obama has never been, or tried to be, anything but a far-left spendthrift. So the fact that he now is reduced to posing as a green-eyeshade cost-cutter is simply pathetic."

The do-nothing President: "Not only does the Obama team not have, as it has never had, a plan to deal with the Great Recession; it also has no motivation to take action now in the face of economic stoppage. As the economy sinks into the 1%-growth range, if not recession, we’ve got a do-nothing president. In an election year. Pretty weird stuff. Now, Obama is trying to cast things the other way. He says we’ve got a do-nothing Congress. He has what he calls a “jobs bill” which has been on offer since last fall. On its face it’s a collection of half-measures and penny-ante Keynesianism: tax credits for small businesses, tax increases on multinationals (no kidding), a veterans’ jobs corps, that sort of thing. The president did zero last fall to build up support in Congress for this rubber chicken. All he said—all he boomed—was “PASS THIS BILL!” In other words, the “jobs bill” was never meant as serious legislation—only a rhetorical crutch to cover up the administration’s lack of a program and absence of initiative."

Debt Watch:
$15,728,112,402,859.92
( As of Monday, June 4, 2012 )

Change: +$3,205,037,865
Your share as a citizen: $50,299.68
Share per household: $137,680.88
Debt since Obama inauguration: $5,101,235,353,947

Topic Three: Going Green
Green politics: "At the beginning of his administration, President Obama insisted that if we didn’t follow their lead, we would surrender the hugely profitable renewable energy sector to those sagacious Spaniards. In 2009, researchers at King Juan Carlos University found that Spain had destroyed 2.2 jobs in other industries for every green job it created. It also calculated that the Spanish govern-ment has spent more than half a million euros for each green job created since 2000, while wind industry jobs cost more than 1 million euros apiece. “Since 2009,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “the Obama administration has awarded more than $1 billion to American companies to make advanced batteries for electric vehicles. Halfway to a six-year goal of producing one million electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, auto makers are barely at 50,000 cars.” Well, that leaves just 950,000 cars to go. Obama believed he was smart enough to start whole new industries simply by sluicing taxpayer dollars into the right maws. Any suggestion that the transition to inefficient energy sources might come at a cost to taxpayers or economic growth was derided as a "false choice."

The 'scientifically illiterate' are more likely to believe in climate change: "A US government-funded survey has found that Americans with higher levels of scientific and mathematical knowledge are more sceptical regarding the dangers of climate change than their more poorly educated fellow citizens. The results of the survey are especially remarkable as it was plainly not intended to show any such thing: Rather, the researchers and trick-cyclists who carried it out were doing so from the position that the "scientific consensus" (carbon-driven global warming is ongoing and extremely dangerous) is a settled fact, and the priority is now to find some way of getting US voters to believe in the need for urgent, immediate and massive action to reduce CO2 emissions."

Tweet of the Day:
Dana Loesch (@DLoesch): I wonder if it will be a zombie apocalypse today with the dead rising to vote in #WI.

Topic Four: Steal Money, Buy Votes
A discussion of the investment strategies of both Romney and Obama: "Private equity firms partner with financial institutions, venture capitalists, and private investors to purchase companies that are often poorly managed and losing money. The private equity firms believe that with hands-on management, possibly a reduced work force, restructuring, the sale of some assets, the company can be salvaged, either for a sale or ongoing profitability. The goal is to make money for the investors, not to guarantee someone a job. Some companies make it and others do not. The risk of gain or loss remains with the investors with their own money at no risk to tax payers."

"President Obama and some of his fellow Democrats have criticized Mitt Romney’s tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital. What’s there to criticize? Romney and his business partners invested their own money in failed companies and brought a good number of them back to life. Sounds like a good thing to me. Did some people lose their jobs? Yes. Did some people keep their jobs? Yes. If the investment had not been made, would everybody have lost their jobs? Yes."

President Obama has been using money that the government took from you and me to “invest” in companies for political purposes. We didn’t give him permission to do this. There is no constitutional basis for such “investments.” If a private equity firm stole money from you and me to invest in a company – no matter how good the investment might be – the managers of that company would go to jail."

Food for Thought - A Quote from our Founders
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
-Thomas Jefferson

Topic Five: The Overplayed Hand
Erick Erickson discusses why the Obama campaign team has failed to live up to its expectations: "Between his election and now, Barack Obama had the House and Senate, did nothing to improve the economy, caved in to Republican demands, grandstanded at the Olympics meeting only to see Chicago lose out, campaigned for Democrats in Virgina, Massachusetts, New Jersey and elsewhere only to have them lose, and has routinely overplayed his hand in office. That is, in fact, Barack Obama’s true pattern behind the hype and myth. He overplays his hand and has his spin machine convince the Washingto Press Corps that it was all intentional and his campaign team are geniuses. The only thing is — they aren’t."

"Campaigns and people are fickle. No doubt at some point the Romney campaign will have a worse week than Barack Obama. But for everyone wondering right now how such a well polished and brilliant campaign team could have such a bad series of consecutive weeks the answer is simple. They never were the brilliant, well polished campaign team they’ve claimed to be."

Tomorrow in History
June 6, 1946 - 155,000 Allied troops land on the beaches of Normandy as part of Operation Overlord, now known as D-Day.

Grab Bag - Interesting and Important Stories to Conclude Your Evening:
Stealth destroyer could undermine China strategy

More Americans identify as independent than at any time in the past 75 years

The IRS's lies about religious political involvement

Court orders photographer to violate religious beliefs

TSA not doing its job

52% of unemployed have been to college

The "Eco-Thugs"

FOX's 'The Five' beats Stewart and Colbert

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