The Final Five: May 4, 2012

Featured Article:
The Life of Julia
Okay, so this is actually not an article, but it is something definitely worthwhile to watch for a few laughs. Misfit Politics turns the Obama campaign's Julia story into the truth about liberalism.

Tonight's Crazy Story:
Speeder Tells Cops His Bike Can Go 190 MPH
An unlicensed motorcyclist in New York was pulled over for excessive speed. When he was told that the police clocked him at 150-170 mph, the biker responded by saying that the bike could go even faster.

Topic One: The Unemployment Rate
The good news about the April BLS statistics release is ... nothing really. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.1% last month, but that was primarily due to a decline in the labor force participation rate, which now stands at its lowest point in 30 years. Meanwhile, the economy added a meager 115,000 jobs in April, barely enough to meet the needs of those entering the workforce. The full BLS report is available here.

What college grads really need: "President Barack Obama has been on a tour of college campuses touting proposals to lower student loan repayments for college graduates. He hopes to rekindle the enthusiasm of young voters, who in 2008 favored him over Sen. John McCain by more than two-to-one. Ironically, these same young Americans may suffer most from the administration's inability to get the economy back on its feet. College graduates who enter the workforce during an economic downturn accept lower wages in lower-quality jobs, and the effects on their income and promotions can last for well over a decade."

A teen with a job is a rarity: "Only about 25 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds currently are working, a drop of 10 percentage points from just five years ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The percentage of teenagers who have jobs, expressed as the ratio of employment to population, hovered between 40 and 50 percent for much of the 1980s and 1990s. The percentage began dropping about a decade ago, but the declines have been especially steep since the beginning of the Great Recession in late 2007. With summer approaching and the job market showing signs of improvement, teens could have a better shot at getting hired than they have had in years. But it could take many more years for teens to resume working at pre-recession levels."

Time for a Laugh:
"President Obama admitted this week that a former girlfriend that he wrote about in his autobiography was made up and not a real person . . . So Obama had an imaginary girlfriend. Big deal! He had an imaginary economic plan. It’s all the same."
-Jay Leno

Topic Two: "Julia"
Have you met Julia? Julia is a fictional character being used by the Obama administration to explain how his policies will help her throughout her lifetime. Is it just me, or does the thought of the President planning out your life sound just a little creepy? Misfit Politics has a different take, showing how President Obama's policies will help Julia/Julian

Breitbart editor Dana Loesch has a take on Julia: "Today, the Obama campaigned launched its Dads Are Unnecessary, Single Women Are Helpless campaign, simply titled "Julia." It features a faceless composite, which seems to be the type of woman with which the campaign is most comfortable. Under the Obama administration, federal financial support for elective infant death as a form of birth control is increased, meaning that Julia would never have been born. The end. It wouldn't be any fun to end the article right there, so we'll just say that under President Obama, Julia's parents are apparently nonexistent and the government enrolls her in a proven failed program. She needs to figure something out because she is born into a $16k share of our national debt."

Michelle Malkin's take: "Instead of two parents preparing her for school, Obama credits Head Start bureaucrats with ensuring that Julia is "ready to learn and succeed" in kindergarten. Instead of individual teachers, private mentors, home-school organizers or charter school leaders, Obama extols his federal Race to the Top program for implementing the high school "classes she needs to do well" in college. Instead of thrift-minded families who save for their own kids' higher educations (or who opt for non-college alternatives) and who encourage those kids to work in private-sector summer jobs, Obama praises his "opportunity tax credit" and Pell Grants for putting Julia through college."

Debt Watch:
$15,671,202,480,642.98
( As of Thursday, May 3, 2012 )

Change: -$9,293,415,498
Your share as a citizen: $50,117.68
Share per household: $137,182.70
Debt since Obama inauguration: $5,044,325,431,730

Topic Three: It Could Be Worse...
...sort of like it is in Europe: "Across the euro area, unemployment is worsening. The unemployment rate touched a new record high in March: 10.9%, up a full percentage point from the prior year. Of course, the pain is not evenly distributed. It is low and reasonably steady in the north but high and climbing in the south. Youth unemployment rates are staggering—over 50% in Greece and Spain, 36% in Portugal and Italy, rising sharply in all four."

"The picture is distressing. It is not surprising. The euro-zone economy is large and overwhelmingly driven by domestic demand. That demand has been steadily squeezed by a broad, sustained fiscal tightening. Monetary policy is providing almost no relief. The ECB raised rates last year, and while it has since unwound the 50-basis-point increase from 2011, it shows no interest in cutting rates further below the present 1% level. Quantitative easing looks out of the question. The ECB's extraordinary lending to banks seems to have stabilised bank-financing conditions; it does not appear to have prevented a sharp slowdown in lending to the private sector. There was no way to avoid a return to recession amid such circumstances." "Ordinarily, of course, policymakers would react to this deterioration by taking steps to stabilise the economy. What is most frightening about the euro-area picture is that this is not happening. For now, austerity remains the rule. Despite the nastiness of the economic picture, the ECB is widely expected to take no action at its meeting tomorrow. The euro area is walking, eyes wide open, into depression. Led by its periphery, which is already there."

Tweet of the Day:
Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter): I am a Conservative: End all student loans - it's a scam to impoverish students to subsidize useless academic faculty parasites. #caring

Topic Four: Not Going Away
Fast & Furious is not going away: "Exactly one year after the Attorney General lied in front of the House Judiciary Committee about the Phoenix operation known as Fast and Furious, Rep. Darrell Issa has distributed a staff briefing paper and draft of the contempt of Congress resolution against the sitting AG."

"Republican members of the House Oversight Committee have laid out a compelling case citing Holder's Department of Justice for witness intimidation, "false denials," withholding subpoenaed documents and willfully obstructing the committee's investigation into the gun walking program."

Food for Thought - A Quote from our Founders
"Political interest [can] never be separated in the long run from moral right."
-Thomas Jefferson

Topic Five: The Future of Healthcare
Washington-controlled care: "Yesterday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a watershed set of conditions in a decision to cover a new device for repairing damaged heart valves. Patients and product developers take note. The ruling is a vivid example of how our healthcare is going to get reimbursed now that Washington calls more of the shots."

"At issue is a device for repairing the main valve carrying blood out of the heart. As people age, this aortic valve can become brittle. As the valve narrows, it can cause debilitating heart failure, and even death. Fixing the problem used to require open-heart surgery. In November, FDA approved a device that lets doctors repair the valve using a tiny catheter that introduces a replacement valve through an artery in the leg. FDA only approved the device for patients who are too sick to have the open-heart procedure. Yesterday, CMS said it will pay for the procedure, but with a lot of extraordinary strings attached."

Tomorrow in History
May 5, 1961 - Travelling on board Mercury-Redstone 3, Alan Shepherd becomes the first American to travel into outer space.

Grab Bag - Interesting and Important Stories to Conclude Your Evening:
Occupiers offer alternatives to capitalism

A medical study on the three-second rule

Judge rules that an IP address does not identify a person

Rand Paul launches campaign to end the TSA

Republicans and women's rights

Soros SOS project quietly dies

Who are we empowering?

2-year-old becomes youngest Mensa member

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The Final Five: May 3, 2012

Featured Article:
Why Societies Fail: The 'Other' Consequences of Debt
Richard Robbins explains how our system of debt creates the need for permanent economic growth.

Tonight's Crazy Story:
Alice Mainville Balks At Paying Old $73 Debt To New Jersey
35 years ago, a New Jersey woman receiving unemployment benefits received $73 too much on her check. Now New Jersey has contacted her wanting her to pay the money back.

Topic One: The Unemployment Crisis
The official BLS unemployment statistics will be released tomorrow at 8:30 AM, but the ADP numbers have been reported, and they do not look good. ADP reported a gain of 119,000 private sector jobs in April: a number that is not even enough to keep up with the number of people entering the workforce. If the BLS report tomorrow looks anything like the ADP report, it will not be good for the economy or the President.

CNN analyzes the effect of those "not in the labor force". "While it's true that the unemployment rate is falling, that doesn't include the millions of nonworking adults who aren't even looking for a job anymore. And hiring isn't strong enough to keep up with population growth. As a result, the labor force is now at its smallest size since the 1980s when compared to the broader working age population. ... A person is counted as part of the labor force if they have a job or have looked for one in the last four weeks. Only about 64% of Americans over the age of 16 currently fall into that category, according to the Labor Department. That's the lowest labor force participation rate since 1984. It's a worrisome sign for the economy and partly explains why the unemployment rate has been falling recently. Only people looking for work are considered officially unemployed."

Time for a Laugh:
"Vice President Joe Biden stayed behind. He did not go on this trip [to Afghanistan]. Well, thank God for that. What if there had been an emergency here at home and Americans needed somebody to come up and say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time?"
-Jay Leno

Topic Two: Reforming Entitlements
Australia vs. the United States: "Let’s start by looking at some numbers from Australia, where workers set aside 9 percent of their income in personal retirement accounts. This system, which was made universal by the Labor Party beginning in the 1980s, has turned every Australian worker into a capitalist and generated private wealth of nearly 100 percent of GDP. Here’s a chart, based on data from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. ... The two charts aren’t analogous, of course, but that’s because there’s nothing to compare. The Social Security system has no savings. Indeed, it discourages people from setting aside income. And Australia’s superannuation system doesn’t have anything akin to America’s unfunded liabilities. The closest thing to an analogy would be the safety net provision guaranteeing a basic pension to people with limited savings (presumably because of a spotty employment record). So now ask yourself whether Australia should copy America or America should copy Australia? Seems like a no-brainer."

The Entitlement Addiction: "No doubt that [Michigan] has its problems. Among them is the fact that it has created generations of entitlement leeches who are so embedded that, even when they come into a fortune, they are loath to be removed from their bloated (yet bankrupt) host. Not only are Mr. Fick and Ms. Clayton guilty of defrauding the taxpayer, they are an example of the worst kind of greed. Other than get "lucky," neither of them did a thing to accumulate their wealth. Yet they continued unapologetically to seek more through other means that would again require them to do almost nothing. They are the poster children for an entitlement society."

Debt Watch:
$15,680,495,896,140.50
( As of Wednesday, May 2, 2012 )

Change: +$7,266,157,761
Your share as a citizen: $50,147.40
Share per household: $137,264.05
Debt since Obama inauguration: $5,053,618,847,228

Topic Three: The Marbury Moment
In 1803, Chief Justice John Marshall faced a dilemma as the court decided Marbury v. Madison. The court wanted to side with Marbury, but Marshall realized that the court lacked the power to enforce its decision. The result was the landmark decision Marbury v. Madison, in which the court established the power of judicial review by striking down the law that allowed Marbury to bring his case before the court. Since that decision, many other publicized decisions have been compared to the decision in Marbury.

One case that is likely to draw comparisons is the case involving the Affordable Care Act. An American Thinker article describes how a decision to strike down this law could impact Constitutional law for generations, just like Marbury v. Madison: "Roberts' choice of words will weigh heavily on America's future. More than just resolving a politically charged case, his opinion could determine the extent to which our republic is and remains a nation under law. He must write a masterpiece not only for the present constitutional dilemma, but for the ages. ObamaCare's constitutionality will be decided nearly two and one-tenth centuries after Marbury v. Madison, the landmark case best-known for establishing the doctrine of judicial review. Just as practically no one today other than constitutional scholars know the underlying legal dispute in Marbury v. Madison, few people a hundred years from now will know, much less care, about individual mandates or many other aspects of ObamaCare. What will matter is something grander about the Constitution, and the role of government under the rule of law."

Tweet of the Day:
@WhiteOne413:
I find it ironic that the left touts freedom but heads straight towards socialism. Enjoy your high gas & high insurance premiums. #tcot

Topic Four: The Election Fraud Lobby
WND founder Joseph Farah on the election fraud lobby:  "It’s true that we have an election fraud lobby. It’s a big one. It’s a heavily funded one. And it extends from ACORN-style grass-roots activist types all the way to the man sitting in the Oval Office.  What this lobby is all about is ensuring that the party behind it never loses an election again – winning, as the old Marxist slogan went, “by any means necessary.”  The most important activity and initiative for this election fraud lobby is to open polling places to anyone who shows up, regardless of their citizenship status, their residency, their registration, their age and any other qualifications. And the way they do this is to fight against all voter-identification requirements – labeling any attempt at standards of fairness and propriety as racist efforts equivalent to Jim Crow poll taxes."

"In a society like that, carrying identification is not burdensome. We all do it all the time. So why would it be a problem to bring ID to the polling place for what is the most important civic duty Americans perform?  There is no other reason for opposing voter-ID laws other than the desire to promote voter fraud."

Food for Thought - A Quote from our Founders
"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
-John Adams

Topic Five: The Consequences of Debt
The consequence of debt is a continual need for constant growth: "We have a debt economy. Debt is the way that we create money; it is lent into existence. The government issues bonds (debt) to the Federal Reserve, which then takes the debt, which is now an asset of the Federal Reserve, and hands it out to member banks. For every dollar they receive, the banks can lend 10, further multiplying the money supply. There is no exception; every dollar represents a debt that must be repaid with interest. The interest is the key. Since every dollar must generate itself and the interest, the economy must grow to allow lenders and/or investors to realize a return on their investment. If the economy doesn't grow at a sufficient rate (at least 3 to 5 percent), bad things happen; unemployment and bankruptcies increase, banks fail and the economy tends to seize up as investors stop lending or investing. Thus by creating money as debt, we create also the need for perpetual economic growth."

"What is the necessary rate of growth? The total debt in the U.S. (consumer debt, government debt, business debt, etc.) is approximately $60 trillion. With U.S. GDP (that is, our national income) at about $15 trillion, if we assume an average of about 7 percent interest on the debt over 10 years, the economy would need to grow roughly at about 15 percent a year for the debt to repaid to lenders and/or investors, a level approached only during WWII."

Tomorrow in History
May 3, 1979 - Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Grab Bag - Interesting and Important Stories to Conclude Your Evening:
Islamists able to run for office in Libya

Why unions are wrong on right-to-work

The structure of a disinformation campaign

Do Hispanics just vote on immigration?

Perverting charity

Texting while driving now on driving tests in Belgium

FEMA uses Waffle House to gauge necessary response

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The Final Five: May 2, 2012

Tonight's Crazy Story:
Philadelphia Man Closes Missing Child Case After Finding Himself on Website
Imagine looking at age-progressed photos of missing children and finding your own picture. Read the story of how a man found his real father after being considered missing for 34 years.

Topic One: Perfecting Budget Failure
William Cohan on the recipe for budget failure: "Bowles, a Democrat, then laid on the crowd some pretty simple, but devastating, arithmetic. He explained that 100 percent of the tax revenue that entered the Treasury in 2011 went out the door to pay for mandatory spending -- such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- and to pay the interest on our staggering $15.6 trillion national debt. That means that every single dollar we spent on everything else, including two wars, national defense, homeland security, education, infrastructure, high-value-added research and the like, was borrowed. "And," he warned, "half of it was borrowed from foreign countries. And that is a formula for failure in anybody’s book."

Obama has deficit attention disorder: "President Barack Obama seems to be governing in some parallel universe — where the United States exists without mortal dangers threatening its economy and the nation’s most pressing exigency is the reelection of its president. But when Obama swore to defend the Constitution, and therefore the nation, he did it in the dimension where the rest of us exist, where the economy appears to be headed toward its annual spring stall and an endless series of massive budget deficits threatens to unleash a financial crisis at any time."

We are focusing on the wrong debt: "All the political hubbub over this issue is understandable, given that these loans are associated with a rather important voting bloc, that is college-age and young professionals, and that the elections are only six months away. Yet, the total student loan debt stands at $870 billion--a mere pittance when compared to our nation's ever-growing overall federal debt. Our federal debt load in the United States stands at $15.7 trillion--an enormous and incomprehensible number for many of us. When Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, the federal debt stood at $10.626 trillion. A mere three and a half years later, the federal debt level has jumped a whopping 48 percent."

Time for a Laugh:
"The Secret Service has withdrawn its protection of Newt Gingrich in advance of him formally announcing the suspension of his campaign. His Secret Service protection was costing us $44,000 a day. I guess they figured it wasn't worth it anymore to protect Newt from all the people trying to ignore him."
-Jay Leno

Topic Two: Occupy May Day
The Occupy movement chose one of Communism's big days to stage a huge protest across the country and around the world. And just like any other Occupy protest, it would not be complete without a huge dose of crime. Seattle's mayor was forced to issue an emergency order allowing police to confiscate items that were being used as weapons. Oakland police had to use stinging gas to control the crowds. Occupiers in San Francisco took over a building owned by the Catholic church and destroyed numerous other cars and buildings. However, not to be outdone, Occupiers in Cleveland plotted to blow up thea bridge.

Debt Watch:
$15,673,229,738,379.98
( As of Tuesday, May 1, 2012 )

Change: -$19,138,328,925
Your share as a citizen: $50,124.16
Share per household: $137,200.45
Debt since Obama inauguration: $5,046,352,689,467

Topic Three: Social Insecurity
When the Detroit papers are calling for entitlement reform, you know things must be getting bad: "A significant finding of the report: Social Security is now in worse shape than it was before the 1993 reforms that didn't fix the entitlement, but did postpone the truly tough decisions until after that generation of politicians was out of office. Now here we are again, faced with an even grimmer crisis, less time to avert it and an even weaker political will to act. If that will is ever to be mustered, it must be forced by the people, who must let Washington know that they recognize action must be taken, that sacrifice is inevitable and that there's no time to waste."

HuffPo's Jim Jaffe makes a totally useless suggestion: eliminate the Social Security trust fund and pay benefits from the general revenues. It is useless because...that's exactly what we have been doing. Yes, we have a numerical designation of a trust fund somewhere in the books, but the revenue that comes in for Social Security is used to pay not only benefits, but also all types of other expenses that have no relationship to the Social Security system. When it comes time to cash in some of those "Special Issue Treasury Bonds" in order to pay for benefits, that money has to come from other revenues.

Allan Sloan discusses how to cut Social Security mercifully. He begins with the premise that cutting benefits will be necessary at some point, and proceeds to analyze how and when would be best to do it. "Social Security benefits represent a stunning 92% of the net worth of single non-homeowners whose income is in the bottom 80% of all Americans, according to this study, compared to 62% for married homeowners in the bottom 80%, and only 19% for married homeowners in the 80%-to 99% bracket. (I'm in the top 2% or 3% bracket, which isn't broken out.) So if we're going to cut benefits -- which I think is inevitable -- let's be careful to concentrate the impact on the likes of me (for whom Social Security is important, but not crucial) and mitigating the impact on the less fortunate."

Tweet of the Day:
Loren Heal (@lheal):
But @RBPundit, you are being unfair to @SenatorReid. To pass a budget he would need 51 votes, and he only has 53. #FireHarryReid #tcot #p2

Topic Four: The Real Vote Suppression
CNN has an opinion piece up on the supposed voter suppression taking place: "Unfortunately, the Republican Party has made this massive voter suppression campaign a hallmark of their strategy to win the White House in 2012. My Republican friends want folks to think that there is nothing wrong with requiring voters to show identification at the polls. But what is even more sinister is that the voter ID laws, along with other measures enacted in more than 30 states, really are a so-called solution in search of a problem. The GOP calls their efforts voter protection, an effort to combat voter fraud. Yet when the Republican Lawyers Association tried to wave a report "proving" voter fraud, they came up with little more than 300 cases over 10 years."

Are we really naive enough to believe that even though voting fraud is so easy (as evidenced by Project Veritas), the penalties will deter it from occurring? Yes, there have been very few cases of voter fraud that have been discovered and prosecuted, but there is much more that occurs without detection every day. If we truly believe in the idea of "one person, one vote", then we must take every necessary step in order to ensure that each person is allowed to vote only once.

Food for Thought - A Quote from our Founders
"(T)he foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; ...the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained..."
-George Washington

Topic Five: The Real Cost of College
James Miller explains why the student loan system does not work: "Common sense says that if you subsidize anything, you get more of it. Pay people not to work, and they generally won't seek employment. And giving students increased access to financing their way through college via debt offers no incentive for colleges to lower tuition costs. Guaranteed loans for higher education are merely a ruse to buy votes from naïve students. The steady stream of funding ends up being passed on to pay for the electoral support of the unionized professors and administration. Meanwhile, the president is slowly driving to make college attendance necessary."

Miller goes on to say: "The irony is that a valuable lesson in teaching the real price of an education is being missed. Subsidizing degrees in unpractical subjects such as English literature or gender studies results only in more such degrees being issued. Students then graduate with just as much work-related skills as they had on their first day as freshmen. Between lectures on the evils of capitalism and on the greatness of Franklin Roosevelt, out-of-the-box thinking is never encouraged. It therefore shouldn't be surprising that Mark Zuckerburg, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs were all college dropouts. The fact that their creative thinking wasn't a byproduct of the college industrial complex is a real lesson in itself."

Tomorrow in History
May 3, 1960 - The Anne Frank House officially opens in Amsterdam.

Grab Bag - Interesting and Important Stories to Conclude Your Evening:
How Congress has handled immigration for the past 25 years

ObamaCare could end employer health insurance

Obama slogan tied to Marxism, socialism

Legislators battle over extending wind power tax breaks

Obama claims bailout success; GM still owes TARP money

Perry: God forgives "Oops!" moments

South Korea approves cap-and-trade system

Start of Egyptian presidential campaigns marred by violence

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The Final Five: May 1, 2012

Featured Article:
The Lone Path to Cheap Healthcare Is Expensive Healthcare
John Tamny uses a basic economic principle to explain how the only path to affordable healthcare for everyone is to make it astronomically expensive today.

Tonight's Crazy Story:
Drunk Man Reports His Car Stolen in Seattle, But Is Found in Passenger Seat
Police responded to a report of a stolen car to find the man who called in the report sitting in the car he claimed to be stolen.

Topic One: The Hunt for Osama
CIA Veteran Jose Rodriguez says it didn't start with Obama: "As we mark the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, President Obama deserves credit for making the right choice on taking out Public Enemy No. 1. But his administration never would have had the opportunity to do the right thing had it not been for some extraordinary work during the George W. Bush administration. Much of that work has been denigrated by Obama as unproductive and contrary to American principles. He is wrong on both counts."

Paul Mirengoff analyzes: "Before becoming president, Obama criticized the use of enhanced interrogation techniques and black sites. On the second full day of his presidency, he banned such methods and ordered the black sites closed. Would we have found bin Laden if the CIA had been forced to operate throughout the post 9/11 years under Obama’s restrictions? It’s a far more interesting question than whether Mitt Romney would have made the no-brainer decision to take out Public Enemy No. 1 once he was located."

There is no denying that Obama deserves credit for his decision to authorize the strike that ultimately killed Osama. Those who claim that it was not a "gutsy" decision have no idea what the pressures on the President really are. The President was authorizing a strike inside the national boundaries of one of our "allies" against a compound which was believed to be the hideout of Osama bin Laden. If it turned out that our intelligence was wrong, the strike would turn out to be an embarrassment. If the attack failed, it would be a major embarrassment. Even if that turned out to be bin Laden's compound, but we did not find him there at the time, we would have blown our knowledge of his whereabouts and we would probably have lost track of him for another ten years or more. One of the jobs of the President is to make these difficult decisions, and one year ago, the President made an excellent decision.

Time for a Laugh:
"President Obama has revealed his new re-election slogan — "Forward." That's a good message for Obama. He's telling voters, "Whatever you do, don't look back at all those campaign promises I made."
-Jay Leno

Topic Two: Epic GreenFAIL
Don't let Obama pick your lottery numbers: Can Obama and the DOE pick 'em, or what? And all those bankruptcies have an effect on green jobs that Obama promised. Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), said, "If projects like this [speaking about Nevada Geothermal] did not contain a certain level of risk, alongside their enormous potential for creating jobs and generating clean energy, there would be no need for the bipartisan loan guarantee program." Creating jobs? Generating clean energy? How are these projects creating and generating in light of all the bankruptcies and reorganizations? Obama promised in 2008 that a $150-billion investment would generate 5 million jobs over 10 years. The White House said in November 2010 that its clean-energy efforts had generated work for 225,000 people. Let's see. Obama promised 5 million jobs, and as of 2010, 225,000 had been created. He has some work to do if he wants to keep that jobs promise."

PowerLine's Green Loser of the Week award goes to wind power: "That would be the wildlife that isn’t driven off by the construction and footprint of the wind mills themselves (wait—you didn’t think wildlife was only disturbed by oil and gas wells, did you?), or the winged wildlife chopped up by these Cuisinarts of the Sky. Brilliant. As I like to remind people, there is only one form of energy that doesn’t have an environmental trade off of some kind: the bicycle the Professor built Gilligan on the Island. (And even that deciwatt generator might be said to be banana-powered.) But President Obama is making a bid for Green Loser."

RELATED STORIES: Solyndra abandoning toxic waste || Obama's next energy idea: poop || Fracking not harming the water supply

Debt Watch:
$15,660,736,663,887.96
( As of Monday, April 30, 2012 )

Your share as a citizen: $50,185.37
Share per household: $137,367.98
Debt since Obama inauguration: $5,065,491,018,392

Topic Three: The Race to 270
A WaPo analysis shows that Romney probably has a ceiling of 290 electoral votes, something that gives him only 20 votes to spare come November. "A detailed analysis of Romney’s various paths to the 270 electoral votes he would need to claim the presidency suggests he has a ceiling of somewhere right around 290 electoral votes. While Romney’s team would absolutely take a 290-electoral-vote victory, that means he has only 20 electoral votes to play with — a paper-thin margin for error."

"Given the narrowness of his electoral map window, the key for Romney this fall is to win in places that Bush, McCain and other Republican nominees over the past two decades have struggled to make inroads. No Republican has carried Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes), Michigan (16) or Wisconsin (10) in any of the past five elections, for example. Win even one of them and Romney has a bit more flexibility when it comes to getting to 270 — and beyond."

However, Obama also has a support problem. While many of the demographic groups that lean his way are unlikely to vote for Romney, they are also left with the option of not voting. Obama won in 2008 partially due to a historic turnout of his major demographic groups, but historic turnouts are historic because they do not happen every four years. A friend of mine who is a member of a construction union stated that the union members are disgusted with Obama's anti-employment policies. The 18-24 year-old vote that came out to support him in 2008 is now graduating with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt and are finding it difficult to find a job any better than they could have found with just a high school diploma. The black vote will likely turn out for Obama again, but even many of them have learned that there is no extra "Obama money" coming to pay their housing, food, etc. Ultimately, if Obama is going to win, he will have to get these groups to turn out in high numbers again.

Tweet of the Day:
@R_Burdette:
@benshapiro BREAKING: Obama hurts arm patting himself on the back over bin Laden death. Blames Bush.

Topic Four: The Big-Time Law Violator
Phyllis Schlafly on the legal violations of the Obama administration: "Where is the mainstream media's coverage of the shocking "memo" issued by nine state attorneys general detailing 21 specific violations of law by the Obama administration?

That's too many violations to list in this column, but here are some of the more outrageous examples of what the attorneys general call "violations of law" by "an increasingly overreaching federal government."

One consistent aspect of these actions is that the Obama administration is aggressively using administrative agencies to enforce policy objectives that are outside the law and would not be approved by Congress. Not even by Harry Reid's democratic Senate."

Food for Thought - A Quote from our Founders
"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin

Topic Five: Expensive Healthcare Leads to Cheap Healthcare
John Tamny had an excellent article at Forbes on Sunday, titled "The Lone Path to Cheap Healthcare Is Expensive Healthcare". "In his 2007 book, A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark pointed out about the rich that “their current lifestyle predicts powerfully how we will all eventually live if economic growth persists.” Clark was of course elegantly channeling the thinking of Andrew Carnegie who long ago proclaimed that “Capitalism is about turning luxuries into necessities”, along with Ludwig von Mises who found that “Every advance first comes into being as the luxury of the few rich people, only to become, after a time, the indispensable necessity taken for granted by everyone.”

All of which brings us to the current debate about healthcare. As evidenced by the wailing on both sides about making healthcare “affordable” through legislative fiat, it’s apparent that the Right and Left both are unaware of the beautiful truth that much like all other market goods, expensive, largely inaccessible healthcare must be introduced free of government distortion at nosebleed prices so that those same prices can eventually fall.

But rather than allow markets to work their essential magic, the political class deludes itself and naïve portions of the electorate into believing that when it comes to healthcare, basic economics can be suspended. Essentially politicians, voters and a large portion of the chattering class believe that plentiful, life saving healthcare can be wished for, or in the case of politicians, legislated. Lots of luck there."

RELATED STORIES: Why your doctor hates ObamaCare || And they want to run health care || Administration using Medicare to conceal ObamaCare's true cost

Tomorrow in History
May 2, 1611 - The first King James Bible is published by printer Robert Baker.

Grab Bag - Interesting and Important Stories to Conclude Your Evening:
The Obama "recovery"

Government funds 16 "financial literacy" programs

Obama moves "Forward"

Is this what "bipartisanship" means?

Elizabeth Warren: affirmative action in action

Blogger threatened with jail for writing about his own health

Obama gets four pinocchios for bridge comments

Big government killing California

1 World Trade Center retakes title as NYC's largest building

NYC considers eliminating Happy Hour

London considers placing missiles on apartment roofs during Olympics

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D.C. Daily: May 1, 2012

Both houses of Congress are in recess this week, so the D.C. Daily will not be published until May 7, 2012. Because the D.C. Daily was not published last week, this edition contains a summary of Congressional action last week.


Senate

On Monday, the Senate confirmed Brian C. Wimes to be United States District Judge for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri by a vote of 92 yeas to 1 nay. The Senate also considered S. 1925, the "Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act" and S.J.Res. 36, providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the National Labor Relations Board relating to representation election procedures.

On Tuesday, the Senate passed an amended version of H.R. 4348, the "Surface Transportation Extension Act", and requested that the House go to conference on the bill. The Senate also passed S. Res. 432, designating April 30, 2012, as "Dia de los Ninos: Celebrating Young Americans" and S. Res. 433, designating April 2012 as "National Child Abuse Prevention Month". The Senate than resumed consideration of S. 1925, the "Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act", S.J.Res. 36, providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the National Labor Relations Board relating to representation election procedures, and S. 1789, the "21st Century Postal Service Act of 2012".

On Wednesday, the Senate passed S. 1789, the "21st Century Postal Service Act of 2012", by a vote of 62-37. The Senate also agreed to S. Res. 437, congratulating the Boston College men's ice hockey team on winning its fifth National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Men's Hockey Championship; and S. Res. 438, to support the goals and ideals of National Safe Digging Month. Finally, after agreeing to the motino to proceed to consideration, the Senate then began consideration of S. 1925, the "Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2011".

On Thursday, the Senate passed S. 1925, the "Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2011", by a vote of 68 yeas to 31 nays. The Senate also passed fifteen measures honoring individuals and naming Post Offices. Finally, the Senate agreed to S. Con. Res. 43, providing for an adjournment of the House and Senate. The Senate agreed to meet in pro forma session next week unless the House also agreed to S. Con. Res. 43.

House

On Monday, the House met in a pro forma session, but did not conduct any significant business.

On Tuesday, the House passed three measures under suspension: H.R. 2947, to provide for the release of the reversionary interest held by the United States in certain land conveyed by the United States in 1950 for the establishment of an airport in Cook County, Minnesota; H.R. 491, to modify the boundaries of Cibola National Forest in the State of New Mexico and to transfer certain Bureau of Land Management land for inclusion in the national forest; and H.R. 2157, to facilitate a land exchange involving certain National Forest System lands in the Inyo National Forest. The House also considered three measures: H.R. 1038, to authorize the conveyance of two small parcels of land within the boundaries of the Coconino National Forest containing private improvements that were developed based upon the reliance of the landowners in an erroneous survey conducted in May 1960; H.R. 2050, the "Idaho Wilderness Water Resources Protection Act"; and H.R. 2240, the "Lowell National Historical Park Land Exchange Act of 2012".

On Wednesday, the House passed three measures under suspension: H.R. 2146, the "Digital Accountability and Transparency Act"; H.R. 3336, the "Small Business Credit Availability Act"; and H.R. 1038, to authorize the conveyance of two small parcels of land within the boundaries of the Coconino National Forest containing private improvements that were developed based upon the reliance of the landowners in an erroneous survey conducted in May 1960. The House also disagreed with the Senate amendment to H.R. 4348, the "Surface Transportation Extension Act", and agreed to go to conference on the bill.

On Thursday, the House agreed to four measures under suspension: H.R. 2050, the "Idaho Wilderness Water Resources Protection Act"; H.R. 2240, the "Lowell National Historical Park Land Exchange Act of 2012"; H.R. 3523, the "Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act"; and H.R. 4257, the "Federal Information Security Amendments Act of 2012".

On Friday, the House passed three measures under suspension: H.R. 2096, the "Cybersecurity Enhancement Act"; H.R. 3834, the "Advancing America's Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2012"; and H.R. 4849, the "Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Backcountry Access Act". The House also passed H.R. 4628, the "Interest Rate Reduction Act", subject to a rule. Finally, the House agreed to S. Con. Res. 43, providing for an adjournment of the House and Senate.