Gallup Parts Ways With USA Today

This is interesting.

At the Washington Post, "Gallup and USA Today part ways."

Remember Gallup had Romney leading Obama in the final weeks of the campaign. I was routinely flagging Gallup's polls. But they were wrong, not wildly, but they were too bullish on Romney's standings. Neither Gallup nor USA Today mention the election polling issues, but those are definitely in the background. It was a strange year.

FLASHBACK: Frank Newport's post-election "statement" on Gallup's 2012 reliability is here: "Polling, Likely Voters, and the Law of the Commons."

Mokhtar Belmokhtar: The One-Eyed Jihadi

From Peter Beaumont, at Guardian UK, "Mr Marlboro: the jihadist back from the 'dead' to launch Algerian gas field raid":

For a man whose death in combat in the Malian city of Gao was announced last June, Mokhtar Belmokhtar – the Islamist militant allegedly behind the raid on the Ansema gas field in Algeria – has been surprisingly busy.

Since that raid – which saw the deaths of several foreign oil workers, including a Briton, and the kidnapping of 41 more – Belmokhtar has been described in journalistic shorthand as "al-Qaida".

On Thursday, as it was reported that some 25 of those captives had escaped, the real motives behind Belmokhtar's raid – and his relationships with other Islamist groups in the Sahel – began to emerge as far more complex than first reported.

The standard version of Belmokhtar's career as an Islamist leader is easy to summarise. The man dubbed the Uncatchable, as well as Mr Marlboro for his involvement in cigarette smuggling, was born in Ghardaia, Algeria, in 1972, starting his jihadist activities early.

By his own account – given in an interview at a time he was trying to shore up his leadership credentials – Belmokhtar, also known as Khalid Abu al-Abbas, travelled aged 19 to Afghanistan, where he claimed he gained training and combat experience before returning to his homeland in 1992.

This launched him into a two-decade career of Islamic militancy, first as a member of Algeria's Islamic Armed Group (GIA) in the country's civil war, then as a joint founder of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which started extending its attacks against security forces into countries of the arid Sahel, which forms the southern fringe of the Sahara.

That group evolved into al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a group as much interested in the financial benefits of kidnapping and smuggling as building an Islamic caliphate.

Despite the claims that Belmokhtar's latest actions were carried out on behalf of AQIM in response to the French military action in Mali, his real agenda is likely to be more complicated and opaque.

"He's one of the best-known warlords of the Sahara," said Stephen Ellis, an expert on organised crime and professor at the African Studies Centre in Leiden, the Netherlands. The reality is that Belmokhtar's relationship with the AQIM leadership – all Algerian like him – had become deeply strained even before this week's attack.

Well, U.S. forces should be tasked to track this f-ker down and kill him. Instead, the administration's flip-flopping back and forth on whether or not to give France logistical aid. It's painful watching this White House feel its way through one crisis after another. On CNN's Erin Burnett "Out Front" shortly ago, reports indicated that at least one American is still being held hostage in Algeria. Official sources won't confirm it for obvious reasons and CNN's withholding any identifying information for safety concerns.

I'll have more in updates.

IMAGE CREDIT: Jawa Report.

Whoops! Chrysler Opening New Jeep Factory in China After All

Oh boy, virtually the entire "mainstream" political class attacked Mitt Romney for his alleged malicious lies on (bailed out) Chrysler Corporation's off-shoring manufacturing jobs to China. The Washington post had the classically idiot "fact check." See, "4 Pinocchios for Mitt Romney’s misleading ad on Chrysler and China.?" And from Jill Lawrence, at National Journal, "Romney Ad Wrongly Implies Chrysler is Sending U.S. Jobs to China." Lawrence is one of the "journalists" who announced that O's visage belongs on Mt. Rushmore.

Well, our "fourth branch" of government failed yet again in fulfilling its basic responsibility to provide the people with clear and accurate information so that they can hold government accountable. See the Wall Street Journal, "Chrysler Looks to Restart Jeep Production in China":

Chrysler Group LLC majority owner Fiat SpA F.MI -1.32% has struck a deal with Guangzhou Automobile Group 2238.HK -2.18% to restart Jeep production in China, a major step toward expanding the brand in the world's largest auto market.

The Jeep was first launched in China in 1983, and although production there ended in 2009 when Chrysler filed for bankruptcy, the brand remains well recognized. Today, Jeep sells three models in China—the Grand Cherokee, Wrangler and Compass—all imported.

Fiat said Tuesday it had signed a "framework agreement" to expand its partnership with Guangzhou to build more Fiat models, as well as to add Jeep production to China. Fiat already jointly builds the Fiat Viaggio, a midsize sedan, with the state-owned Guangzhou and imports several other models, including the subcompact 500.

The company didn't offer an exact time frame for Jeep production in China, saying only that any models built there will be for the Chinese market exclusively. At this point, it's unclear what models are being considered.

Chrysler and Fiat Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne has targeted Jeep, along with Italy's Alfa Romeo, as two brands with the potential to grow globally. With new models and localized factory production, Mr. Marchionne aims to expand Jeep's presence in Europe, Russia and China.

"The expansion of the agreement with our GAC partners will allow us to unleash the potential of both our Fiat and Chrysler Group brands in China," said Jeep chief Mike Manley, who is also chief operating officer for Fiat and Chrysler in Asia. He said the next-generation Jeep midsize sport utility vehicle, the Liberty replacement, will also be sold in China.

And remember Stephanie Cutter, Team Obama's chief propaganda minister? She attacked Mitt Romney as a liar all year, but she's the one who'd been lying. I know. We knew that already. But the lies just keep coming, don't they? See the Obama for America clip here. And you know, Chrysler and GM were in the tank with the lies as well. Mitt Romney was right. Team Obama claimed a "fact-based" campaign. What they actually achieved was an Orwellian nightmare that leveraged them back into power on deceit and demonization.

MSNBC's 'Cauldron of Bias

I missed this piece from David Zurawik in November, at the Baltimore Sun, "MSNBC really is more partisan than Fox, according to Pew study" (via Instapundit):

In writing about the Pew study released today, I was struck by the big story of how negative coverage on several levels of presidential politics had become.

I think this is big trouble for democracy, especially the hostile level of discourse in social media. And that it's something the media need to address collectively after the election.

But here's one of several fascinating smaller findings of the study that are kind of stunning -- even if they seem obvious and ho-hum to some of my more jaded, postmodern, aren't-we-cleverly-ironic colleagues:

ON MSNBC, the ratio of negative to positive stories on GOP candidate Mitt Romney was 71 to 3.

That's not a news channel. That's a propaganda machine, and owner Comcast should probably change Phil Griffin's title from president to high minister of information, or something equally befitting the work of a party propaganist hack in a totalitarian regime. You wonder how mainstream news organizations allow their reporters and correspondents to appear in such a cauldron of bias.

More at the link.

And here's the Pew report, "BOTH CANDIDATES RECEIVED MORE NEGATIVE THAN POSITIVE COVERAGE IN MAINSTREAM NEWS, BUT SOCIAL MEDIA WAS EVEN HARSHER."

Tax Code May Be Most Progressive Since Era of Jimmy Carter's 'Malaise' in the 1970s

Way to go, progs!

At the New York Times, "After Fiscal Deal, Tax Code May Be the Most Progressive Since 1979" (via Memeorandum).

And things'll be getting more progressive as we move FORWARD!! into the future.

IMAGE CREDIT: The People's Cube, "In Progressive America Virtue Has No Value."

Added: The Times repeats the lie that taxes aren't going up on the "99 percent." See the Wall Street Journal, "The Stealth Tax Hike."

Obama Continues Terrorist Renditions

If you're a civil liberties advocate, this administration is much worse than the Bush administration. But no one's demonizing President Obama as they did President Bush, because, you know, O's a brother and all that.

At the Washington Post, "Renditions continue under Obama, despite due-process concerns."

Remember progressive hypocrite Kevin Gosztola? All he can muster is a mildly critical retweet:

MT @janehamsher Oh the quaint things we used to care about when Bush was in office & liberals decried rendition: fdl.me/10Ovz1M
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) January 2, 2013

More at Big Journalism, "Press Mum as Renditions Continue Under Obama."

Des Moines Register Columnist Wants Mitch McConnell and John Boehner Lynched

I clearly remember, back in the late-1990s, how the murder-by-dragging (lynching) death of James Byrd, in Beaumont, Texas, became a left-wing rallying cry against the purported "Jim Crow" racism the so-called "radical right." So I'll be waiting with bated breath for the progressive fever swamps to rise up in outrage at gun control extremist Donald Kaul's exhortaton that the Republican House Speaker and Senate Minority Leader to be dragged to their deaths. See, "Nation needs a new agenda on guns." After a long rant in which he confesses his "anger" at the Newtown massacre, here's Kaul's conclusion (via Memeorandum):

Then I would tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.

And if that didn’t work, I’d adopt radical measures. None of that is going to happen, of course. But I’ll bet gun sales will rise.

Interesting how Kaul calls for truly "radical" measures after that, which no doubt would be to simply kill all Republicans, kind of like how the Nazis tried to exterminate the Jews in the 1930's and 1940's.

Nice Deb's not kidding when she warns that fascism's coming to America.

It turns out as well that we've got Georgetown University Law Professor Louis Michael Seidman announcing that we should simply ignore the Constitution. It's just getting in the way of the left's totalitarian agenda, "Let's Give Up on the Constitution." Really. William Jacobson responds, "Extra-constitutional power is what they’ve always wanted":

I find myself agreeing more frequently than ever before with Glenn Greenwald, at least on the issue of the willingness and desire of “progressives” to go where even the demonized George W. Bush was not willing to go, and the willingness with which the progressive intelligentsia embraces such ideas in the service of Obama. Or maybe he’s agreeing with me.

Well, yeah. I've been finding myself agreeing with Greenwald too, since he's about the only one on the left who's willing to apply the Constitution to the current regime in power.

Remember my post from this morning, "Keep Fighting in 2013"? Well, folks need to keep fighting not only to preserve their liberty, but the lives. And I write this in all seriousness. We're getting multiple doses of the left's eliminationist rhetoric on a daily basis nowadays. Seriously. It's time to stand a post.

PHOTO CREDIT: "Jasper County Assistant District Attorney Pat Hardy displays the chain allegedly used to drag James Byrd Jr. to his death during a break in the trial of Lawrence Russell Brewer Thursday, Sept. 16, 1999, at the Brazos County Courthouse in Bryan, Texas," via the Beaumont Enterprise.

Hobby Lobby Fights the ObamaCare Birth Control Mandate

At the Oklahoman, "Hobby Lobby standing on principle in vow to continue its fight against mandate."

RELATED: At NewsBusters, "No, AP and Politico, It Isn't About 'What Hobby Lobby Says'; It's About What Is Actually True."

VIDEO CREDIT: Via Nice Deb, "Yes, Fascism Has Come to America."

Keep Fighting in 2013

I feel like throwing my hands up when I reflect on comments like Rabbi Pruzansky's, but then again, I imagine myself a dissident protecting the flame of liberty from the harsh gusts of leftist repression. I take a deep breath and say: "My country needs me." Perhaps that's too self-important? Okay. But then again, I keep reading folks who counsel against despair, like Claudia Rosett, "Girding for 2013":

Perhaps the most important bottom line in girding for 2013 is, if you care about capitalism and freedom, about a strong America and a safer, freer world, do not give up. There is a struggle of ideas going on here; and even when much seems lost — spun off the road, over the cliff — plenty may yet depend on even a few who keep the faith, and at the right moment, are ready with a plan.

Keep the faith. Keep fighting in 2013.

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky: Why Romney Lost

This is amazing, at Atlas Shrugs, "THE END":

Op-Ed: Why Romney Didn't Get Enough Votes to Win
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Israel National News, November 13, 2012

*****

It is a different world, and a different America. Obama is part of that different America, knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why he won.
The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is that Americans voted for the status quo – for the incumbent President and for a divided Congress. They must enjoy gridlock, partisanship, incompetence, economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility. And fewer people voted.

But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the facile explanations for the Romney defeat that will prevail among the chattering classes. Romney did not lose because of the effects of Hurricane Sandy that devastated this area, nor did he lose because he ran a poor campaign, nor did he lose because the Republicans could have chosen better candidates, nor did he lose because Obama benefited from a slight uptick in the economy due to the business cycle.

Romney lost because he didn’t get enough votes to win.

That might seem obvious, but not for the obvious reasons. Romney lost because the conservative virtues – the traditional American virtues – of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness – no longer inspire or animate a majority of the electorate. The notion of the “Reagan Democrat” is one cliché that should be permanently retired.

Ronald Reagan himself could not win an election in today’s America.

The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to compete against free stuff. Every businessman knows this; that is why the “loss leader” or the giveaway is such a powerful marketing tool. Obama’s America is one in which free stuff is given away: the adults among the 47,000,000 on food stamps clearly recognized for whom they should vote, and so they did, by the tens of millions; those who – courtesy of Obama – receive two full years of unemployment benefits (which, of course, both disincentivizes looking for work and also motivates people to work off the books while collecting their windfall) surely know for whom to vote; so too those who anticipate “free” health care, who expect the government to pay their mortgages, who look for the government to give them jobs. The lure of free stuff is irresistible.

Imagine two restaurants side by side. One sells its customers fine cuisine at a reasonable price, and the other offers a free buffet, all-you-can-eat as long as supplies last. Few – including me – could resist the attraction of the free food. Now imagine that the second restaurant stays in business because the first restaurant is forced to provide it with the food for the free buffet, and we have the current economy, until, at least, the first restaurant decides to go out of business. (Then, the government takes over the provision of free food to its patrons.)

The defining moment of the whole campaign was the revelation (by the amoral Obama team) of the secretly-recorded video in which Romney acknowledged the difficulty of winning an election in which “47% of the people” start off against him because they pay no taxes and just receive money – “free stuff” – from the government. Almost half of the population has no skin in the game – they don’t care about high taxes, promoting business, or creating jobs, nor do they care that the money for their free stuff is being borrowed from their children and from the Chinese. They just want the free stuff that comes their way at someone else’s expense. In the end, that 47% leaves very little margin for error for any Republican, and does not bode well for the future.

It is impossible to imagine a conservative candidate winning against such overwhelming odds. People do vote their pocketbooks. In essence, the people vote for a Congress who will not raise their taxes, and for a President who will give them free stuff, never mind who has to pay for it.

That engenders the second reason why Romney lost: the inescapable conclusion that the electorate is dumb – ignorant, and uninformed. Indeed, it does not pay to be an informed voter, because most other voters – the clear majority – are unintelligent and easily swayed by emotion and raw populism. That is the indelicate way of saying that too many people vote with their hearts and not their heads. That is why Obama did not have to produce a second term agenda, or even defend his first-term record. He needed only to portray Mitt Romney as a rapacious capitalist who throws elderly women over a cliff, when he is not just snatching away their cancer medication, while starving the poor and cutting taxes for the rich.

Obama could get away with saying that “Romney wants the rich to play by a different set of rules” – without ever defining what those different rules were; with saying that the “rich should pay their fair share” – without ever defining what a “fair share” is; with saying that Romney wants the poor, elderly and sick to “fend for themselves” – without even acknowledging that all these government programs are going bankrupt, their current insolvency only papered over by deficit spending. Obama could get away with it because he knew he was talking to dunces waving signs and squealing at any sight of him.

During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai Stevenson: “Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!” Stevenson called back: “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!” Truer words were never spoken...

Still more at the link.

Too Much Wishful Thinking on Middle-Class Tax Rates

From Greg Mankiw, at the New York Times, "Wishful Thinking and Middle-Class Taxes":

IN the continuing fiscal negotiations between President Obama and House Republicans, both sides have, from the very beginning, agreed on one point: Taxes on the middle class must not rise. But maybe it’s time to reconsider this premise. An unwavering commitment to keep middle-class taxes low could be one reason the political process has become so deeply dysfunctional.

Let’s start with the problem: the budget deficit. Under current policy, the federal government is spending vastly more than it is collecting in tax revenue. And that will be true for the next several decades, thanks largely to the growth in entitlement spending that will occur automatically as the population ages and health care costs increase. As a result, the ratio of government debt to the nation’s gross domestic product is projected to rise, substantially and without an end in sight.

That can happen for a while, or even a long while, but not forever. At some point, investors at home and abroad will start questioning our ability to service our debts without creating steep inflation. It’s hard to say precisely when this shift in investor sentiment will occur, and even whether it will strike in this president’s term or the next, but when it does, it won’t be pretty. The United States will find itself at the brink of an unprecedented financial crisis.

Republicans and Democrats agree on the nature of the problem, but they embrace very different solutions. My fear is that both sides are engaged in an excess of wishful thinking, with a dash of mendacity.

If Republicans had their way, they would focus the entire solution on the spending side. They say that reform of the entitlement programs can reduce their cost. The so-called premium-support plan for Medicare, from Paul D. Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice-presidential candidate, would let older Americans use their health care dollars to buy insurance from competing private plans. (Interestingly, it’s similar to the system envisioned for the nonelderly by President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.) The hope is that competition and choice would keep health care costs down without sacrificing quality.

The premium-support model may well be better than the current Medicare system, but its supporters oversell what it would be likely to accomplish. The primary driver of increasing health care costs over time is new technology, which extends and improves the quality of life, but often at high cost. Unless the pace or nature of medical innovation changes, this trend is likely to continue, regardless of structural reforms we enact for Medicare.

Democrats, meanwhile, want to preserve the social safety net pretty much as is. They balk at any attempt to reduce this spending, including even modest changes like altering the price index used to calculate Social Security benefits. They focus their attention on raising taxes on the most financially successful Americans, contending that the rich are not paying their “fair share.”

Fairness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Unfortunately, people’s judgment is often based on anecdotes that distort rather than illuminate. The story of the undertaxed Warren Buffett and his overtaxed secretary looms larger in the public’s mind than it should.

Here are some facts, so you can judge for yourself....

Even if President Obama wins all the tax increases on the rich that he is asking for, the long-term fiscal picture will still look grim. Perhaps we can stabilize the situation for a few years just by taxing the rich, but as greater numbers of baby boomers retire and start collecting Social Security and Medicare, more will need to be done.

Continue reading (via Memeorandum).

RELATED: I'm for shrinking government, so this is the bottom line for me, at The Lonely Conservative, "People Should Pay For the Government They Voted For." Raise taxes. Go over the cliff.  I guarantee you that Obama won't get off cost-free. The real cost of the election will start biting people in the ass.

Low- and Moderate-Income Taxpayers to Face Biggest Burden if U.S. Goes Over Fiscal Cliff

Here's an excellent Fox & Friends segment from over the weekend, especially the second half, "If Bush Tax Cuts Expire - What Would It Mean For Your Taxes?"

And at the Wall Street Journal, "Cliff Would Strike Low Incomes Hard":

If the U.S. goes over the "fiscal cliff," some Americans may fall harder than others.

The biggest impact in sheer dollars would land on relatively affluent households, particularly when it comes to the tax increases that make up the bulk of the cliff. But in terms of percentage of tax increases, low- and moderate-income taxpayers will face the biggest burden—an often overlooked part of the budget debate that's now getting attention as the year-end deadline nears.

Households earning $10,000 to $20,000 would see a large increase in their overall federal tax burdens, from an average of $68 to $605. The blow would be especially harsh for married couples and households with children. The fiscal cliff "clobbers low-income households with children," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. "It is striking how large some of the increases are."

A household that makes between $10,000 and $20,000 in income and has a child would get a $2,761 payment from the Internal Revenue Service under current rules, thanks to various tax breaks and credits. After the cliff, that would be cut by $1,324, or about half.

Married couples earning $20,000 to $30,000 today would get an average $15 payment from the IRS under current rules. In January, they would owe an average $1,408 to the IRS, because several of those breaks would be narrowed or eliminated.

Budget talks were mostly quiet Sunday, officials on both sides said, after a week when efforts between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) to cut a deal collapsed, and the House failed to pass a backup plan.

Some leaders, including Mr. Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), attended a memorial service for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye in Honolulu. Mr. Obama said he would cut his holiday vacation short and return to Washington this week to work on an agreement.

The so-called fiscal cliff comprises about $500 billion in tax-break expirations and government spending cuts that are set to take effect in early January, unless Congress acts. With little more than a week to find a solution, Democrats and Republicans are focusing on the real-world impacts of the fiscal cliff and seeking to shift blame for it.

"We're taking…this incredible mallet and [are] about to smash America," Newark's Democratic Mayor Cory Booker said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "People are going to be cut out of programs that support the poorest Americans….This is really what bothers me right now."

Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), said on Sunday: "Given the impact on all segments of the economy, it's disappointing that Democrats are so cavalier about letting the country go off the cliff."

The Obama administration contends Republicans would let much of the fiscal cliff's impact happen for moderate-income families, by allowing Obama-era breaks to expire.

If Congress misses its year-end deadline but quickly restores the expired tax breaks, the tax impact on lower-income households could be modest.

One problem, however, might be unavoidable: a delay in sending tax-refund payments that normally arrive between late January and March. The IRS already has warned lawmakers it might have to postpone the tax-filing season by several weeks, possibly for everyone.

Much of the tax debate has focused on upper-income Americans, who will likely see taxes rise in some form next year. If no budget deal is reached, households making more than $100,000 would absorb more than 50% of the total tax increase, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center. And those earning more than $1 million would see their taxes rise by an average 24%, from about $1.1 million to about $1.3 million.

At the other end of the income scale, the risk comes from the expiration of less-heralded parts of the Bush-era tax code, as well as Obama changes that expanded several breaks for lower- and middle-income households.

About two million people also face the prospect of losing unemployment checks starting in January, with the expiration of extended federal unemployment benefits. "For the long-term unemployed, their entire income may disappear," said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

See also, "How 'Cliff' Talks Hit the Wall: Behind Scenes, Boehner Failed to Sell Republicans on Taxes, While Obama's Spending Plans Rankled."

Obama's ball-busting budgeting. And I'll tell you, the Republicans aren't coming out too pretty here either. That video at top says the average tax hit for incomes over $108,000 would be more than $14,000. The liability would be enormous especially for people making over $1 million (around $100,000), but still. The bill comes due in April, as we're talking about the 2012 tax filings that will be affected, unless the IRS is able to reset the deadline. I doubt there'd be a better impetus to a new American tax revolt than going over the cliff, but perhaps an agreement will come at the 11th hour. We'll see.

Boehner's Budget 'Plan B' Collapses

Here's the key bit from the Wall Street Journal's editorial, "Teetering on the Cliff":

The Speaker's miscalculation was that, just as in 2011, he thought he could get into a room with the President and negotiate a grand bargain. His intentions were good but he misjudged the all-or-nothing ideological nature of this Presidency. After the debacle of 2011, Mr. Obama could have treated the negotiations as the art of the bipartisan deal that could set the stage for immigration reform and other second-term achievements. Flush with victory, he could have at least made a gesture on entitlements.

Instead, he has treated the talks as an extension of the election campaign, traveling around the country at rally-style events at which he berates Republicans for not accepting his terms of surrender. Grant gave Lee more at Appomattox.

Plan B was Mr. Boehner's attempt to salvage some political dignity and a policy victory or two in return for conceding on tax rates. The bill wasn't even technically a vote to raise taxes because the rates are set to rise automatically on January 1 if Congress does nothing. The bill also kept the estate tax at 35%, rather than going up to 55% as now scheduled, and it made the tax cuts on lower incomes permanent.

With a narrow deal on taxes, Mr. Boehner figured he could live to fight another day on spending

More at that top link. And a CBS News report, "House votes on Boehner's 'Plan B'."

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Boehner cancels House vote as 'Plan B' falls short of GOP support."

Libya Inquiry Sharply Critical of State Department

At The Hill, "Benghazi probe faults 'systemic failures' at State Department":

An independent review of the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi made public Tuesday night faults “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels” of the State Department.

The report by the Accountability Review Board says the local mission's reliance on Libyan guards and militia members was “misplaced” and that the Libyan government's response was “profoundly lacking.” However it “did not find reasonable cause to determine that any individual U.S. government employee breached his or her duty.”

The report also confirms that there was no peaceful protest ahead of the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, as the Obama administration initially said in the days after the attack.

“The Board concluded that there was no protest prior to the attacks, which were unanticipated in their scale and intensity,” the report says.

In a letter to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she accepted the report's 29 recommendations, all but five of which are unclassified. She said her department has already taken additional steps to beef up security at U.S. diplomatic posts around the world, including instituting periodic reviews of the 15 to 20 high-threat posts.

Of course she accepts the findings.

If she didn't accept them I doubt she would have taken to fainting so conveniently. She would have been up on Capitol Hill denouncing the politicization of the administration's foreign policy. But now she's just quietly accepting the recommendations, laying low while she eases out of office, keeping the road open to her 2016 presidential bid. How corrupt.

More at Legal Insurrection, "Benghazi Report — No protest, deteriorating security conditions ignored."

PREVIOUSLY: "Benghazi Reveals Obama Is a Coward and Disgrace."

Stimulus Forecasts Show Obama Can't Blame GOP for Poor Economy

At IBD, "Obama's Attacks On GOP Tax Policy Blunted By Own Data":

President Obama continues to blame the soft economy and record red ink on Republican policies, including "tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans."

But three years ago he seemed convinced the economy had made a clean break from those old policies, and would soon roar back on the strength of his own policies. The proof is in his economic projections.

In his 2010 budget, Obama predicted his American Recovery and Reinvestment Act would "jump-start our economy" and "create new jobs" and "many years of economic growth."

Stronger economic activity, he promised, would bring in more government revenues and "cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office," putting "our nation on sound fiscal footing."

"The time has come to usher in a new era — a new era of responsibility in which we act not only to save and create new jobs, but also to lay a new foundation of growth," the president said.

Didn't Deliver

His recovery plan included more than $1 trillion in new government spending. A Democrat-controlled Congress passed it without a single Republican vote.

Based on the new economic program, the White House forecast real GDP in 2012 would grow at a robust 4.6% clip, cutting the unemployment rate to 6.0%. It also saw the budget deficit dropping to 3.5% of the economy.

The projections didn't come even close to panning out. Real GDP growth has stagnated at 2%, while unemployment hovers near 8%. Far from being halved, the deficit had soared to 8.5% of GDP.

As the jobless rate soared to 10% — well beyond the promised 8% high point — the White House had to adjust its assumptions and timeline. In its 2012 budget, however, it still projected 4.0% economic growth.

Despite White House spin, it became clear the president's economic plan had failed to deliver on its promised stimulus.

They all knew this. Obama, David Axelrod, Stepanie Cutter --- they all knew all of this.

Which is why they lied 24/7 about the problems facing the country and launched the most unprincipled demagogic smears against private property and wealth accumulation in modern history. And it worked! I doubt four more years of economic stagnation will help the party maintain its general election majority, but then again, I was wrong about 2012, so who knows? Maybe another paradigm of lies will lift these criminal authoritarians to yet another presidential win in 2016. Democracy doesn't just collapse in one big instant, it withers away in the slow death of a thousand cuts. It's withering now under the Democrats, but all is not lost. The republic will survive when enough people who've been butt-reamed and had the wool pulled over their eyes wake up and scream, "I'm not going to take it anymore!"

Michigan Stuns Labor as Blue Model Continues to Unravel

From Walter Russell Mead:

Labor’s clout is in steep decline in the Middle West. In a move that was unimaginable just ten years ago, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed a pair of “right-to-work” bills into law, dealing a serious blow to unions in one of the states that gave birth to the modern labor movement in America. The Wall Street Journal:

Gov. Snyder’s willingness to sign the legislation—a reversal of his previous position that right to work was a divisive issue that he would prefer to avoid—highlights the diminution of union clout both in Michigan and nationally.

The UAW once had more than one million members in the U.S., and as recently as 2004 had 654,000 active members. Now, after years of cuts by Detroit’s big auto makers and their parts makers, the UAW’s national membership is down to roughly 380,000 members, according to Labor Department filings. In Michigan, about 17.5% of workers were union members in 2011, according to Labor Department figures.

Besides the realities of declining union membership, this development more broadly suggests deep splits and ambivalence in American politics: At the national level, Democrats are running strong, but in many states something different is happening. Michigan was long seen as a great example of the blue social model. The high wage, unionized automobile industry supported the state economy and promoted the development of a mass blue collar middle class. It was a great social achievement, and Americans were not wrong to love it, but it has been in gradual yet inexorable decline for more than a generation.

Today’s blue model liberals face a challenge. Can they find a path that actually restores states like Michigan and cities like Detroit to the kind of health they knew back when the blue model actually worked?

Continue reading.

Mead suggests that "red state conservatives have yet to show that they can deliver something better," although right-to-work states, across the country, enjoy far more robust employment sectors than do the states of the bankrupt blue state model. See Heritage: "Simple truths about Right-to-Work."

IBD/TIPP Poll: Fiscal Cliff Sinks Dems' Hopes After Obama Re-Election

From Investor's Business Daily, "IBD/TIPP Poll: Fiscal Cliff Deflates Democratic Hope":

Democrats stopped basking in the afterglow of President Barack Obama's re-election victory and abruptly lowered their outlook on the economy this month, as fears of the "fiscal cliff" dominate year-end headlines, according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll released Tuesday.

The Economic Optimism Index dropped to a year low of 45.1 in December from 48.6 in November, the second straight decline, with sentiment among Democrats falling by 8.2 points to 65.6.

Republican economic sentiment, which hit a record low right after the Nov. 6 vote, dipped 1.1 points to a new low of 23.7 in December. Readings below 50 indicate pessimism.

"Consumer confidence is driven largely by party affiliation," said Raghavan Mayur, president of TechnoMetrica Market Intelli gence, which conducted the poll.

Given the wide partisan disparity, a truer indicator could be how independents feel, he added. They turned slightly gloomier too, slipping to 42.3 from 44.

An earlier run-up in sentiment was first led by Democrats in September, when the successful presidential convention boosted re-election prospects and brightened their views on the economy. The index advanced further in October as Mitt Romney's strong debate performance lifted Republican sentiment.

But the election brought the index back down. A separate survey Tuesday also found it devastated hopes among small-business owners worried about regulation and ObamaCare costs.

The National Federation of Independent Business' sentiment gauge dropped 5.6 points to 87.5 last month, the lowest since March 2010. The share of small businesses positive about the economic outlook fell from a net 2% to a deeply pessimistic -35%.

You're 'Going to Die Painfully...'

This is why they're called thugs.

At Twitchy, "You’re ‘going to die painfully’: Gov. Snyder faces threats, death wishes over Mich. right-to-work bills; Update: Threat to kill Snyder’s family appears."

Big Labor Eliminationism in Lansing

From James Taranto, at WSJ, "'There Will Be Blood'."

As union violence escalates, Mich. House Dems delete tweet promising 'there will be blood' bit.ly/T56BoJ
— TwitchyTeam (@TwitchyTeam) December 11, 2012

As the Michigan House debated a right-to-work measure today, a member of that august body warned of--or perhaps threatened--violence. "We're going to pass something that will undo 100 years of labor relations and there will be blood, there will be repercussions," WWJ-AM quotes Rep. Doug Geiss, a Detroit-area Democrat, as saying. "We will re-live the battle of the overpass."

The station offers a refresher in labor history: "The battle of the overpass was a bloody fracas in 1937 between union organizers and Ford Motor Co. security guards. [United Auto Workers organizer] Walter Reuther was famously thrown down a flight of stairs and another union organizer was left with a broken back."

So far this time there are no reports of violence or threats by management (unless you count Geiss, who is after all supposed to represent taxpayers, as part of "management" vis-à-vis government employees). But union leaders have echoed the violent rhetoric. WWJ quotes Terry O'Sullivan of the Labor International Union of North America, as saying at a rally, in reference to elected officials who support the right to work: "We are going to take you on and take you out."

MLive.com, a Michigan news site, reports that union thugs "tore down a large tent maintained by American's [sic] For Prosperity Michigan, which reserved the space to support the right-to-work legislation"

More at the link.

Also at Instapundit, "ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: Hoffa Predicts ‘Civil War’ in Michigan."

PREVIOUSLY: "#Savage Union Thugs Attack Conservative Steven Crowder in Lansing, Michigan."

#Savage Union Thugs Attack Conservative Steven Crowder in Lansing, Michigan

At Fox News, "Fox News contributor punched in face at pro-union protests in Michigan."

And at The Other McCain, "BREAKING VIDEO: MI Union Thugs Greet Right-to-Work Law With Thuggery and Cupcakes, But Mostly Thuggery." All the video at that link.

And from Bob Belvedere, "The Naked Face of Leftism: Thug America":

This is exactly the kind of behavior the Left wants to see. Ever since Leftism came into being in the mid-18th Century, they have believed a necessary first step in bringing about Revolution is to sow Chaos in all areas of the society. They want the populace to break into tribes of competing grievance groups. To achieve this, the Left needs many groups from various fields it can count on to do it’s dirty work — bureaucrats, elected officials, academics, etc. These minions of the Masterminds lay the ground work by sabotaging all of the institutions of the Society from within and without, working to pervert and, thus weaken, the existing Culture.

At some point, however, the Leftist Masterminds need to move to the next phase of the march to Revolution: violence. We have entered that phase in the last few years in The United States Of America. Barack Hussein Obama and his comrades have encouraged and nurtured and unleashed forces designed to tear this country apart.

Well, yes, it's classic mob violence.

These are monstrous progressive freaks. More from Dana Loesch, "Donors offers $$$ For Info Leading to Arrest Of Union Thug **UPDATED ONE THUG IDENTIFIED" (at Memoerandum).

IMAGE CREDIT: Instapundit.