Obama's Palace Guard Rushes

To Save Him From His 

Latest 'Gaffe'

I put "gaffe" in quotes because as we all know by now, these aren't gaffes or mistakes at all; these statements are where Obama says precisely what he believes & then his political handlers & his media enablers rush to 'explain' what he really meant.

http://www.drudgereport.com

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/08/obama-lets-repeat-auto-rescue-with-every-manufacturing-131566.html

Naturally, the MSM immediately realized what a stunningly telling thing it would be for the President to talk about massive transfers of taxpayer funds to industry to 'help them build that'.

Ace at Ace of Spades wonders when we can start taking Obama's own words at face value:

http://minx.cc/?post=331789

Anyone notice a pattern continuing from 2008...? Obama continuously expresses his strong preference for European socialism -- "redistribute the wealth," "you didn't build that," let's do bailouts "with every industry" -- and the media is always Johnny-On-The-Spot to insist to you your ears did not just hear what they just heard. 

At what point do we begin crediting the alleged super-genius and supposed master orator of our time with comprehending the words that come tumbling out of his corrupt mouth? 

Is Obama a big boy? Does he wear his big boy pants? Then let him choose his own big boy words, and stop trying to tell us he meant something other than what he said.

He then goes on to point out how Politico rushed to 'clarify' what Obama meant:

Politico has now "fixed" the story, because they claim they were "unclear" about Obama's intent, about his main thrust. Although they don't say so, they're attempting to now say Obama did not mean he wants to heavily invest government money in every industry -- even though his actual examples are about precisely that (subsidies for the wind farm industry, for example).

Obama wants to use government $ to 'help them build that' - he's being entirely consistent here, but now watch the MSM rush to convince people they didn't hear what they heard.

Do The People Making These 

Obama Ads Have An 

Internet Connection Or Not? 

I'm assuming they'll engage in basic research FIRST before they put out an ad.  After all, it costs money to make these ads and then you have to pay big $$$ to have them run on various media sites.

Last week it was MoveOn.Org rolling out an ad that made the claim the Romney's collected a $77,000 deduction on Ann's dressage horse.  

MoveOn.Org debuted that ad on August 2nd.

The only problem? That claim had been thoroughly DEBUNKED weeks before.  Here's Lee Stranahan tracking down how the smear got started and cataloging every Lefty site that passed it on without doing even basic research. And he was doing this back on July 13.  By that time even the sites that had originally started the smear had made corrections and admitted they'd gotten it wrong:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/07/13/Beating-A-Dead-Horse-The-Left-Media-Lies-About-Romney-Taxes

We're not talking like a few DAYS before that ad was rolled out.  Anybody who spent 5 minutes researching the claim on the internet would have learned the claim had been debunked over a month before.  It never had any truth to it; the only thing that got it started was the same thing that kept it going for weeks in some circles: ignorance and people finding it 'too good to check'.

Now another PAC shilling for Obama has put out a new ad that's selling another debunked smear, only this one is even OLDER than the one about the $77,000 tax break.  

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/07/obamas-sleaziest-ad-yet-romney-kinda-sorta-killed-a-mans-wife-by-closing-down-his-steel-plant/

It's been a matter of public record for months that Romney left Bain in 1999.  Yet watch what this ad put out by Priorities USA claims:

Romney leaves Bain in 1999.
Steel plant is closed down in 2001;
Soptic's wife passes away from cancer in 2006.

So yeah.....Romney's fault.  Obvious, right?

They've gone RIGHT BACK to claiming Mitt's responsible for business closings that occurred after he left Bain.  They already tried this and got caught, yet they've gone right back to it.

Even IF Romney HAD been at Bain during this time, this attack is a non-starter.

In private equity firms like Bain you can't save every business.  It's not like the federal government which never gives up or ends a program and just keeps shoveling millions more of taxpayer's money into it.  Private equity firms are in business to make a profit. Sometimes you have to restructure a company by letting workers go; you save the company but some people lose jobs.  And sometimes - like in the case of the steel plant being discussed here - you can't save the business.  Government can subsidize failure with other people's money as long as they can politically get away with it, but private sector businesses don't have that option.

When Obama & Co. took over General Motors, fired thousands of people by closing hundreds of GM dealerships, restructured the company by reducing it's size, and saved money by cutting lose a bunch of non-union pensions, they were doing EXACTLY what Bain does, except they were doing it as the State, not a private business.

It's time to ask: do the people putting these ads together have an internet connection or not? Can they not bother to spend like 10 minutes doing basic research on something before spending big $$$ on something like this that is so easily debunked?

If they want to keep making it THIS easy to debunk their BS, hey I'm all for that.  I'm just wondering why they don't even seem to be trying any more.

LATE BREAKING DEVELOPMENT:  At the time of the GM takeover, there was a big stink over the fact that 20,000 GM workers had their pensions gutted.  People noticed all the UNION workers at GM didn't have their pensions gutted, just those that weren't union members.

The Administration INSISTED at the time they weren't responsible for making this decision.  And now evidence has turned up that they lied to Congress under oath about this:

http://minx.cc/?post=331715

UPDATE:  No basic fact checking at all. None. Zero. Zip. Bubkis.

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/07/cnn-wife-of-steelworker-in-new-obama-super-pac-ad-still-had-job-and-health-insurance-after-he-lost-his/

CNN does the actual fact-checking that Team Obama couldn't be bothered to do:

Soptic's wife still had health insurance through her own job at another company, which she kept AFTER he lost his at the steel plant.  #EPIC FAIL there, Team Obama.

UPDATE II: After this latest exceptionally vicious smear attack ad blew up in their faces in all of one day, even the people who put it together are distancing themselves from it, claiming they have no idea who didn't do the due diligence:

http://minx.cc/?post=331750

Legally Team Obama can't coordinate with a PAC; and yet that appears to be exactly what's happened here.

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/08/video-obama-campaign-now-pretending-it-didnt-know-details-of-steelworkers-story-after-featuring-him-in-two-ads/

Via Politico. Remember, thanks to the lame legal fictions of campaign finance law, the Obama campaign is forced to pretend that the Obama Super PAC responsible for yesterday’s smear heard ’round the world is entirely independent of it rather than a wholly owned subsidiary. What you’re about to see is the absurdity of that fiction taken to its logical conclusion. So eager is lifelike talking-points robot Stephanie Cutter to keep the campaign’s fingerprints off the cheap lies in the PAC ad that she claims at 4:00 below not to know the facts about when Soptic’s wife got sick or when she died. Minor problem: The campaign itself featured Soptic in not one but two ads several months ago and had him tell the story of his wife’s death after he lost his insurance during a conference call with — ta da — Stephanie Cutter. 

http://www.therightscoop.com/busted-obama-campaign-caught-lying-about-the-soptic-story/

UPDATE III:  Somebody got around to noticing the relevant fact that while Romney had left Bain in 1999, it was OBAMA BUNDLER Jonathan Lavine who was actually RUNNING Bain when the GST steel plant was closed: 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/19/Obama-bundler-Bain-Capital

Size of US Federal Gov't Doubled

From 2000-2011 But Let's Keep

Talking About The 

RICH NOT PAYING THEIR

FAIR SHARE OF TAXES

Last year Sen. Tom Coburn when on a Sunday morning talk show and ended making the claim the spending was so far out of control in Washington that the size of the US federal government had actually DOUBLED in just 10 years - from 2001 to 2011.  

Intrigued by this claim, Politifact decided to investigate to see if Coburn's claim was true: 

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/aug/05/tom-coburn/sen-tom-coburn-says-government-twice-size-it-was-d/

Such was the hue and cry raised by liberals after Politifact rated Coburn's claim "Mostly True" that they felt they needed to 're-examine' it and revise downward to 'Half True'. 

Adjusted for inflation, Coburn's 10 year window is missed by several months, so yes he got that wrong.  It actually took 11 years for the Federal Gov't to balloon to 2X it's former size.  

AAAHH HAH HA HA...You're WRONG, Coburn!!

Liberals everywhere rejoiced that Coburn had been proven wrong!  It took 11 years, not 10 like he said!  Uhmmmmm.........yay?

See, if Coburn is correct, and the reason we are now having $1 trillion + deficits every year is because of exploding levels of spending, this undercuts the constant Progressive argument put forth by people like Michael Moore that the real problem here is not taxing the rich enough to cover the gap.  

This would mean the real problem isn't RICH PEOPLE in the private sector who live outside of Washington.  

And that just won't do.  It cuts through and exposes all this class warfare BS we've been hearing for exactly what it is: an attempt to deflect responsibility for what politicians in Washington did by holding out private sector scapegoats.  

Most people have not taken the time to research just how the national debt exploded from the $5 trillion it was when Bush entered office, into the staggering $15 trillion + it is today. 

Well I'm not most people.  Here's the research: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

GROWTH OF THE FEDERAL BUDGET:

2012 United States federal budget - $3.7 trillion (submitted 2011 by President Obama) 2011 United States federal budget - $3.8 trillion (submitted 2010 by President Obama) 2010 United States federal budget - $3.6 trillion (submitted 2009 by President Obama) 2009 United States federal budget - $3.1 trillion (submitted 2008 by President Bush) 2008 United States federal budget - $2.9 trillion (submitted 2007 by President Bush) 2007 United States federal budget - $2.8 trillion (submitted 2006 by President Bush) 2006 United States federal budget - $2.7 trillion (submitted 2005 by President Bush) 2005 United States federal budget - $2.4 trillion (submitted 2004 by President Bush) 2004 United States federal budget - $2.3 trillion (submitted 2003 by President Bush) 2003 United States federal budget - $2.2 trillion (submitted 2002 by President Bush) 2002 United States federal budget - $2.0 trillion (submitted 2001 by President Bush) 2001 United States federal budget - $1.9 trillion (submitted 2000 by President Clinton) 2000 United States federal budget - $1.8 trillion (submitted 1999 by President Clinton) 1999 United States federal budget - $1.7 trillion (submitted 1998 by President Clinton) 1998 United States federal budget - $1.7 trillion (submitted 1997 by President Clinton) 1997 United States federal budget - $1.6 trillion (submitted 1996 by President Clinton) 1996 United States federal budget - $1.6 trillion (submitted 1995 by President Clinton)

I've bolded the section where Bush had a Republican controlled Congress to work with. Note also the Wikipedia entry on the final 2 years of Bush's term are simply wrong: his final 2 budgets submitted to the Democratic controlled Congress were not passed. Instead Congress under Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid used Continuing Resolutions to fund the government.  This way, they did not have to lay out a budget in which they had to show the public all the spending increases they were doing.  Bush would lay out his budget with it's spending increases made plain, but the Democrats found a better solution to make all the spending increases they wanted without having to take any political heat for it.  Simply don't do a budget - problem solved! 

In fact, they like this trick so much they've done it for over 3 years now, circumventing the law by not passing a budget for well over 1,000 days.

In Bush's first year total federal spending topped out at $1.9 trillion. In the last year he had a say on how much got spent, it was $2.8 trillion. So from the 2002 fiscal year to the 2007 fiscal year, Bush and the Republicans added $900 billion to the federal budget.

Note from 2007-2011, a 5 year period, the Democrats managed to grow the federal budget from $2.8 trillion to $3.8 trillion.  So people unhappy about the growth of the federal budget under Bush have even MORE reason to be upset with it under the Democrats since those 2006 mid-terms.  From going up $900 billion in 6 years to going up $1 trillion in 5 is not exactly 'progress'.  

You can thank the results of another midterm election - 2010 - for the fact the federal budget was actually forced to DROP IN SIZE for once, from $3.8 trillion in 2011 to $3.7 trillion in 2012. 

 GROWTH OF THE NATIONAL DEBT:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

When Bush entered office in 2000, the federal debt was just over $5 trillion. When Democrats got control of the country's purse strings in 2006, it was $8 trillion. And a lot of people didn't like what Bush was doing with the debt from 2000-2006. Plenty of conservatives complained about what the Republicans were doing; their staying home in disapproval in 2006 had a lot to do with the Democrats winning control.

But this turned out to be counter-productive; if you didn't like a Republican controlled Congress adding an additional $3 trillion to the public debt in 6 years, stand back. The Democrats were about to show you how to REALLY GO ABOUT IT.

At the end of the 2006 fiscal year the debt was $8.4 trillion. In 2012, it's presently over $15 trillion. Politicians in Washington added over $7 trillion in just 6 years, a clip of over a trillion a year in new debt with no end in sight.

The $248 billion deficit in 2006 was Bush's largest; the following year in 2007 it had shrunk to $161 billion. With the economy rebounding from the tax cuts it likely would have continued shrinking had not the 2007 housing bubble bursting threatened the entire American financial system. 

Now remember: the DEFICIT is the gap between what the Federal Gov't collects in revenues and what it plans to spend that year.  Let's look at the deficits from 2006 to 2012 and see how they grew: 

2006

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_United_States_federal_budget 

Revenue: $2.42 trillion

Spending: $2.66 trillion

Deficit of: $248 billion

2007: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_federal_budget 

Revenue: $2.57 trillion

Spending:  $2.73 trillion

Deficit of:  $161 billion

2008: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_federal_budget

Revenue: $2.7 trillion

Spending: $2.9 trillion

Deficit of: $454 billion

Note something interesting: the leap of almost $300 billion in the deficit is NOT due to the 2007 recession yet.  Note that revenue actually CLIMBED from 2007-2008. So the recession can't be blamed for this single year $293 billion jump in the gap. 

2009:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget

Revenue: $2.105 trillion  

Spending: $3.518 trillion

Deficit of: $1.413 trillion

Two things happened this year: The financial drop in revenues collected finally hit, with revenues plunging from $2.7 trillion down to $2.1, a drop of over $600 billion.  But at the same time, Obama & the Democrats in Congress ramped up the spending with the stimulus bill, adding over $800 billion in new spending due to their confidence in Keynesian economics.  

So revenues dip by $600 billion + at the same time Washington increased spending. This is how you go from a deficit of $161 billion from just 2 years before to almost $1.5 trillion.  

2010: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget

Revenue: $2.165 trillion

Spending: $3.721 trillion

Deficit of: $1.267 trillion

Note an interesting thing here: Democrats sold the $800 billion + stimulus bill as a one-time thing that would help jump start the economy.  That's why Americans were asked to swallow an unprecedented trillion dollar deficit that year.  Well, it's next year.  What happened?  There WAS no second $800 billion in new stimulus, yet note the spending level went up anyway, from $3.518 trillion in 2009 to $3.721 trillion in 2010.  

2011: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_States_federal_budget
Revenue: $2.314 trillion
Spending: $3.630 trillion
Deficit of: $1.56 trillion 

NOW that you have a better grasp of just how we got here, we see that Sen. Tom Coburn's point was CORRECT.  The reason we are here right now facing a financial cliff is not because Washington hasn't been taking enough tax dollars from rich people in the private sector.  

It's because federal spending exploded from $1.9 trillion in 2001 to a staggering $3.8 trillion in 2011.  Even after the recession hit in 2007 and caused revenues to drop dramatically, all Washington did was floor the spending pedal anyway.

I don't know about you, but I thought the Federal Gov't was already pretty fricken' HUGE in 2001.  It now costs 2x as much to keep it afloat than just 11 years ago.  

There is NO WAY this is a revenue problem if you are growing government at this rate.  

Make no mistake, no matter what you hear from people like Michael Moore and others on the Far Left: this didn't happen because greedy rich people weren't being taxed enough from 2001-2011.  These huge deficits erupted because politicians in Washington were incredibly irresponsible.  

And now these same people are trying to deflect any accountability for what they've done for ballooning the Washington Leviathan to 2X it's former size in just over a decade by demagoguery, assuring all who will listen that the reason we face a financial crisis is because of 'inequality' and people not 'paying their fair share'.  

This class warfare stupidity must STOP. Responsibility for the mess we are in must be placed SQUARELY where it belongs: on those in power in Washington.  Every time they try to hide behind a bunch of rich Americans and deflect attention from what they've done, we need to put the accountability right back on them.  

Now Pay Attention Folks:

THIS Is How You Troll

A Troll

Especially When That Trolls Name Is

HARRY REID

As somebody who's been on the Internet since around 1995, I've seen every troll trick in the book.  Many of of my readers will no doubt be familiar with some of them:

1. The ad hominem: "You are a bad, baaaaad person for disagreeing with my political views."  Goal: get you on the defensive.  They call you a racist, a homophobe, a sexist, a hater of the poor, drowner of of kittens in your toilet or whatever, and you are supposed to start wasting your time attempting to prove to this person that you are NOT in fact a bad person because you disagree with their political views.


Remedy: Ignore it. Act like they didn't even say it.  Keep to the point and keep talking about what you were talking about.  You are NEVER going to win a game of "So when DID you stop beating your wife, eh?" with somebody on the internet or anywhere else.

2.  Subject change: "You made a good point there but rather than respond I'll simply change the subject and get off this current topic because this is not a give-and-take debate it's about how smart & I am and how stupid you are."  Goal: By changing the subject they catch you flat-footed, interrupt the flow of the conversation and short-circuit any attempts to build a case.  If you are attempting to make an argument with multiple points, they will keep changing the subject to avoid letting you get anywhere.


Remedy: Force them to stick to the subject or end the conversation.

3.  Strawman/Motives: "I will now take the argument you made and refashion it into a strawman that I'll then easily knock down while at the same time claiming the only reason you are not agreeing with my political views is because your motives are evil."   Goal: To never have to actually deal with what was said & to get the other person on the defensive by ascribing their desire to communicate to racism, sexism, homophobia or some other bad, evil motive.


Remedy: Take their strawman and refashion it back into the argument you were actually making until they do 1 of 2 things:


1. Respond to the actual point you were making or
2. Give up.


A few days ago Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid {D-Nev} decided to try to get the media to put intense pressure on Presidential candidate Mitt Romney by trying one of the oldest troll tricks in the book.

4.  Burden of Proof: "I will now make this outrageous accusation against you without proffering any proof whatsoever and since you bear the burden of proving my outrageous accusation is not true, you'd better get busy trying to defend yourself to me."   Goal: Sort of similar to troll trick #1, they want to get you on the defensive, but the additional trick here is they want you to expend time and energy doing research and proffering EVIDENCE to them, links, webpages, books, articles, even private info, so you can 'prove' to them that their claim is not true.


Remedy: Remind them it's THEIR claim and so the burden of proof lies squarely on them.


The burden of proof trick is nothing more than a PC show trial maneuver.  They sit you in front of them, launch an absurd accusation at you with no proof & then demand you demonstrate to them you are innocent.  YOU'RE the one that's supposed to run around frantically finding evidence to acquit yourself while they sit there and laugh at you.


Because most of the time they aren't arguing facts but MOTIVE this is of course IMPOSSIBLE to do.  Which is the point.  THEY KNOW IT'S IMPOSSIBLE. That's why they can't lose if you fall for their goading you into playing this game.


"Oh you don't support President Obama? Prove to me you are not a racist."
"Oh you don't support the HHS contraception mandate? Prove to me you don't hate women."
"Oh you support Walker in Wisconsin? Prove to me you don't hate working families." 

"Oh so when DID you stop beating your wife?"  


Now at the time Reid first made this allegation at the Huffington Post, he came right out and said:


1. He had heard this from a source he would not name, and
2. He had no evidence if what the source was telling him was true.


And yet what has Reid claimed for 3 straight days now?  He's claimed that MITT ROMNEY bears the burden of proof here, and the only way Mitt can prove he's innocent is to release more of those tax returns.


For decades Conservatives have watched Democrats and their Media shills play this game.  They make the accusation and boldly admit they have no proof but the ALLEGATIONS ARE SO SERIOUS there needs to be an investigation!  The target must prove his/her innocence! Why has the target not produced evidence of their innocence yet, if in fact they are innocent?!  Why does the target keep denying the allegations? WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE!!!??, etc. etc.


Within hours of Harry Reid making this desperate, foolhardy gambit in an attempt to pry more tax records out of Mitt Romney, the New Media was in full pushback.


First to fire a shot across Reids' bow was David Burge, @iowahawkblog.  Now pay attention: THIS is how you troll a troll using the 'Burden of Proof' trick: You turn it around on them and make your OWN baseless accusations with no evidence whatsoever and demand they prove their innocence.  And the longer they fail to supply you with such proof why, the SERIOUSNESS OF YOUR ACCUSATION ONLY INCREASES.


Note: because this is IowaHawk's twitter feed screen grabbed, you have to start at the bottom and read your way upwards:

Another blogger active on Twitter, @aceofspadesHQ also began rhetorically bitch-slapping Reid for his troll attack on Romney:

Then David Axelrod took it upon himself to tweet THIS:

Yes, it is a lame attempt to get the 'burden of proof' troll attack back on track by trying to convince people that Romney has the burden of proof here.  

Note the reply Axelrod got from me.  

@DrewMTips , a blogger at Ace of Spades HQ,  then took it upon himself to e-mail Reid's office about these swirling rumors of pederasty:


http://minx.cc/?post=331602

We could call this the Reid Standard of Proof: I make an allegation you've committed a felony with no proof and it's your job to prove your innocence.  But for some strange reason when you boomerang this back on the clowns trying  this, all of a sudden they think you're being 'cute' and nobody should take you seriously.


Reid's tactic here is so odious even Jon Stewart had to go after him.  Not just on the absurd tax accusation but also for claiming George Romney would be 'ashamed' of his son.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-august-1-2012/you--harry-reid--are-terrible


As Ann Coulter pointed out in her recent column, grabbing ahold of documents and then spinning them to damage opponents is Obama's whole modus operandi:


http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2012-08-01.html#read_more


Democrats have now gone all-in on trying to force Romney into handing over more tax returns so they can pick through them for something to attack him with.


Given that Move-On.org rolled out a political ad the other day still shilling for the now totally debunked 'OMFG, Romneys got a $77,000 tax deduction for dancing horse!!11!!!', it doesn't stretch the imagination to see what kind of fun they'll have with any documents Mitt can be intimidated into handing over.


The IRS is perfectly fine with Mitt's tax returns.  If he committed a felony they would already know about it.  They don't need Harry Reid flinging absurd accusations in public to do their job.


It's just turned August and this is the kind desperate, stupid BS the Democrats are forced into as they watch Black Jesus slowly sink 'neath the waves.

Media Polls Already Skewing
To An ABSURD Degree
To Keep Obama Afloat &
It's Only AUGUST! 

Anybody remember this post from back in May when I called out the Associated Press for putting out an especially skewed poll?

http://drawandstrike.blogspot.com/2012/05/associated-press-is-up-to-its-old.html

Yeah.  Well turns out not only was I right, I was even more right than I knew.


But I.......even I..........cynical long-time political observer that I am, did not expect this.


Today Pew Research - which styles itself as an above-the-fray non-partisan polling organization - released a poll with a +19 pt advantage to Democrats in the sample.


That's right.  Pew released this thing with a straight face.  Totally serious about it.

http://www.people-press.org/files/2012/08/8-2-12-Detailed-Tables.pdf

That breaks down to a D/R/I of 43%-24%-32%, which is utterly and completely without excuse.  Pew couldn't even try to defend this.  But it's OK because nobody in the MSM will point it out, so Pew won't have to.

As Ace at Ace of Spades said on this: 

http://minx.cc/?post=331580 

I'm sure if Rasmussen pushed a poll showing an R+10 electorate, the lulz would never cease. Pew? Total silence.

That's right. Pew can put out a poll claiming a D+19 electorate & they know no one in the MSM will call them out on it.


In case anybody forgot what the electorate actually looked like the past few election cycles:

As I said back in May:

So - quick recap.  Democrat's Party ID advantage: 

2008: +8

2009: +6 

2010: +2 

2011: +4

So the AP expects people to believe that the Democrat Party advantage has surged to over double what it was last year to +9 or more?  

Laughable.  Note as you read the end of the PDF the AP mentions they also weighted their sample but does not say HOW or in which direction.  How much did they swing the weighting of the sample to get a +9 Dem advantage & how much did that affect the +8 lead the poll gives Obama over Romney?

To get an accurate poll they need a sample that mirrors the current electorate, which would give Dem's a +4 Party ID advantage at best.  Instead they more than double that to an absurd +9.  

To get Obama above the 3.9 MOE, they have to resort to this?  Can't wait to see how big the skewing of the sample gets the next few months.  

And now we know! D+19! I can't wait to see which MSM polling org. is the FIRST to cross the D+20 line! Who will it be? Will it be CBS? NBC? CNN? The AP?


They attempt to create public perception with these polls, but all they REALLY end up doing is fooling their own Lefty base.  The simpletons out there will just look at the headlines and go "Oh hey, Obama's got this in the bag. 10 points up! Awesome!"


This is why the idiots in the Progressive base always walk around stunned after they lose an election, blubbering "B-b-but the POLLS!!!!???"


They fall for this Kabuki Theater all the time.  This is how they can scream the election must have stolen because..................the polls! 


If Pew had to massage this thing to D+19 to get Obama to a 10 pt lead over Romney, you know in a fair weighting he's down at least 6-7 pts.  Obama is underwater and sinking fast, so we can expect MSM organizations like Pew to totally shred whatever credibility they had left to try to drag his ass over the finish line.

The Dark Knight Rises:

Review With Spoilers

Writer/Director Christopher Nolan's final 3rd part to his Batman trilogy is now playing in theaters.  Having seen it twice this weekend just as my own personal FU to the Aurora shooter, here's my review.  It focuses more on the philosophical themes of the film. 

The basic plot is easily explainable: A mysterious revolutionary named Bane shows up at the head of his own private army which he claims has been created from the poor and downtrodden living in poverty underneath Gotham. He proceeds to start a 'French Revolution' style takeover of the city after launching a series of devastating attacks, which draw Bruce Wayne's Batman out of retirement.  


John Nolte sums the film up brilliantly in one sentence in his own review over at Big Hollywood:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2012/07/21/Dark-Knight-Rises-Review-Nolte

"Rises" is about many things, but it is mostly about a rousing defense of an America under siege by a demagogue disguising his nihilistic rage and thirst for revenge and power as a noble quest for equality.

Say...does that sentence remind you of a certain politician who's made it his personal mission to 'transform' America while talking about 'fairness' & 'equality' all the time?


When the film begins Bruce Wayne is a secluded cripple, needing to use a cane after too many injuries while helping to finally get Gotham cleaned up and safe.  

Thanks to the Harvey Dent Act, Police Commissioner James Gordon (Gary Oldman) has locked away the cities most dangerous criminals.  Peace and safety have been achieved, but we see Gordon struggling with having achieved this positive result based on a lie.  At a yearly commemoration of Dent he plans to finally come out and tell the truth, but changes his mind at the last moment, tucking his planned confession notes back into his jacket pocket.  


Through subsequent events, that confession falls into the hands of Bane, who decides to reveal the truth to the citizens of Gotham to further his own plans of causing chaos. 

Bane is a composite of a lot of leaders that promise an egalitarian utopia to the masses that turn out to be anything but what was promised.


Those who hold up the French Revolution as a positive thing don't know much about it. The French Revolution led to a horrific bloodbath that culminated in a military dictatorship that led to fun military conquests & wars all over Europe and extending down South as far as Egypt. Yeah. Real swell outcome there. France didn't get anything even remotely close to a democracy or a republic until all the French revolutions aholes were long dead. We're talking like 3 or 4 decades.  

"Hey thanks you French Revolutionary butchers! I'll take it from here!

You've been swell! Really!"

Like the French Revolution, Bane convinces many the rich in the city can't be part of their new order, resulting in show trials that are presided over by madman Jonathan Crane aka 'The Scarecrow', who obviously relishes his new role.  Having just left a century in which one class warfare demagogue after another turned it into history's worst bloodbath, we should all know this agenda quite well by now.  So WHERE things are going is no surprise, it's how they get there that Nolan excels in setting up and revealing his story.  

Bane does deliver what he promised - equality...but it's equality in squalor & misery. The rubes fall for it like they always do, easily talked into believing the present capitalist system that requires hard work to achieve success is inherently unfair because THEY didn't succeed in it.


Newsflash to the clueless: just because YOU did not succeed in the present system does not ipso facto prove it is unfair in any way. ANY system that does not guarantee equality of outcome by making everyone financially equal is inherently 'unfair' because SOME will ALWAYS work harder, longer and smarter than others.  And guess what? There has NEVER been such a system in all of human history.  Each new Utopian scheme is literally trying to do the impossible. 


There is no escaping this. It's human nature.


The only way you can create a system in which all are exactly equal financially is to remove all differences between people that cause some to rise above others through their own self-initiative. It results in a lowest-common denominator leveling of every one.


This is why each insane utopian scheme ever since the French Revolution has involved forcing people to dress & act & live EXACTLY ALIKE, with individual expression, freedom and 'wrong' choices all forced out or at least underground.  

Coming to America? Uhm...in your dreams. Half of us would die first.

Mad utopian schemes always result in elites at the top trying to rigidly force human nature into their little predetermined boxes.  And if you can't or won't fit into the little box the elites have prepared, then there's no place for you in the new 'utopia' they are building.  


It is arrogant beyond belief. People who try it need to be scorned, ridiculed, mocked and resisted to the last breath. It is a denial of what makes us all human, and it's the deliberate attempt to remove liberty and freedom of individual choice for the 'common good'.


Success in life & equality are NOT the same thing.  Progressives have made a cottage industry out of deliberately conflating the two.  

They know they will never get anywhere making the insane demand of "I demand the Government make me successful!" so pull a rhetorical trick by saying "I demand the Government make me EQUAL to the successful by pulling them down to my level.  Because it's only fair." 

Utopian elitists believe everybody should be 'guaranteed a sufficient living' by the State apart from their own efforts or abilities.  


But some people want MORE than a 'sufficient living'. And they have the intelligence, ambition and drive to put in the hard work and longer hours to make it happen.


Elite progressives always try to explain this crucial human difference in moral language that reflects badly on the successful.  That people who got wealthy some how cheated or robbed other people to get where they are, so it's only fair they be pulled down into 'equality' with those who never even tried for an exceptional life.


In his new film, Nolan does an exemplary job of truly displaying just how empty and stupid this kind of thinking is.  

Naturally he's being attacked in some quarters for doing so.  The movie reviews at Slate.com and The Guardian both accuse TDKR of 'perpetuating a conservative agenda'.  [Wonder how many times those reviewers have accused a new film of perpetuating a LIBERAL agenda?]


In fact, the OWS-like 'create a fair utopia' scheme Bane uses to pander to people is shown in the final quarter of the film to be nothing more than a COVER STORY for his REAL intentions.

This is where Talia Al Ghul reveals herself and tells a stunned Batman that he's actually been fighting a reformed League of Shadows and that she's the daughter of his nemesis from the first film, Ras Al Ghul.  Turns out she & Bane's plan has ALWAYS been to destroy Gotham, just like her father intended, so this has really all been about paying Batman/Bruce Wayne back and fulfilling her daddy's original agenda.  


So while the film DOES make valid points about Utopian revolutionary movements, it also makes the point that people who use these kind of schemes always have a darker agenda working behind the scenes, but they hide this agenda from their adoring throng until AFTER they have the power they want.  

As for the film itself, the supporting cast is superb.  Anne Hathaway is so enigmatic as Selina Kyle, slinky, sexy thief extraordinaire, that it takes a very strong performance from Christian Bale to keep her from stealing the movie.  


Kyle's Catwoman is the moral center of the film, as we watch her go from believing herself to be assisting in a Robin-Hood-style overthrow of an unjust society by robbing from the evil rich to give to the simon-pure poor to realizing she's helped unleash a monster on innocent people and needs to make amends.  

Early in the film Kyle tells Bruce Wayne a statement that perfectly encapsulates class warfare thinking, in which she tells him the rich of Gotham had better batten down the hatches because a storm is coming, and when it arrives they'll all be wondering how they could live so well while leaving so little for everybody below them.  


This is a classic exposition of the 'zero-sum' belief about wealth creation; that if you earned $1,000,000 in wealth for yourself, that left a bunch of other people collectively $1,000,000 poorer.   Progressives know their class warfare BS can only be believed as long as people buy into the concept that success in life is a zero-sum proposition & the capitalistic system is rigged on the basis of gender, sex, race and class.  

If some guy never applies himself, barely graduates from high school, meanders around and takes low paying jobs and never gets more than $20,000 in a year, while one of his classmates who became the same high school's valedictorian, put himself through college while working a job, then put in 4 years in law school or 8 years of medical school, so that when they hit 40 years of age one is still pulling in $20,000 a year but the other is making $200,000 a year, can you HONESTLY say 'society' has been 'unfair' to one of them?  


Progressives actually believe that they can say this, that 'yes, society has been unfair to one of them.'

Damn. Empty safe = 1 unhappy kitty

Trying to build a society based on envy and resentment of those more successful than others always results in unleashing a monster that leaves nobody better off.  Kyle figures this out too late, but not so late as to help undo what she helped cause.  

Nolan handles the confrontations between Batman & Bane creatively.  There is a kinetic energy to the fights that many films try for and fail to achieve.  Tom Hardy as Bane has most of his face obscured by the voice projector Bane wears, and so makes good use of his eyes to convey the characters rage and fanaticism. 

Sorry, Batman. Paper beats rock!

As an action film it works if you choose to totally dispense with any kind of message or deeper themes, but Nolan does have much thought-provoking exposition in this film.  Is a society where it's up to individual choice in taking risks and effort to determine your level of financial success a fair society?  Or is a society where such things are determined for you by a strong leader  'better'?  


In his 3 Batman films Nolan has brought Gotham's Dark Knight face to face with 3 real threats to a societies well-being:  

A League of Shadows that turned out to be ruthless fanatical vigilantes who kill the innocent along with the guilty, who are convinced Gotham can't be saved,

An anarchist who just wants to watch the world burn, to tear down Gotham's moral core and replace it with chaos because chaos is 'fair', 

A Utopian revolutionary who claims he wants to sweep out an old order of inherent injustices & corruption and bring about 'fairness & equality'. 


Each threat forces the citizens of Gotham & it's dark protector to confront the basic beliefs that holds them together.  Civilization is a fragile thing.  It's not man's natural state and maintaining a society of just laws is hard work because there will always be people out there trying to attack it because they are convinced they have a better way.  


It always starts with convincing enough people the present order is corrupted and unfair to the point it can't be saved or fixed and just needs to be swept away and replaced with something new.  

At the end of the film we see the fight against such people never really ends, and Bruce Wayne knows this.  And so John Blake, the intrepid patrolman we see heroically putting his life on the line for others repeatedly throughout the film, gets rewarded with becoming Gotham's new Dark Knight.  


Nolan is a big enough film maker that while most of Hollywood is churning out nihilistic crap he's not afraid to explore and even defend the big themes that hold American society together.  And he pulls it off brilliantly.  


This is a film I can give the highest recommendation to anyone.  I give it a solid 9/10.