The Cult of Obama
I refer to hardcore extremist Obama supporters as cultists. I prefer this term to “O-Bots” or “Moonbats”, because it is more descriptive of the behavior exhibited. You can observe them dropping their supposedly “core beliefs” as soon as they become in conflict with their devoted worship of our Dear Leader. The so-called “Peace movement” for example. Our Dear Leader followed the Bush timetable in Iraq, doubled down in Afghanistan, and started the unprecedented Drone War. Yet to the Obama cultists, Bush & Cheney are still “War Criminals” while Barry is making America “more loved” throughout the world. This is despite the growing military threat of Communist China, the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, Islamofascists taking over in the Middle East after the so called “Arab Spring, Russia walking away from missile defense treaties, and Al Qaeda murdering an US Ambassador.
I had one Obama cultists flat out deny that the US Congress has failed to produce a budget in over three years. That is an undisputable fact! No budget has made it through both houses of Congress in over three years. The House has passed several, but no budget has made it out of the democrat controlled Senate, including several submitted by President Obama! Not only did this cultist deny the reality of the lack of an actual federal budget, he went on to claim that the debt was growing at the same rate under Obama as it was under GW Bush. Let’s review that one. In the eight years of the GW Bush administration, the debt grew by $4 Trillion. There are even clips of Obama calling that level of debt growth “unpatriotic.” At the point I was having the “discussion” with Obama cultist, the federal debt had grown another $4 Trillion in less than four years since Obama took office. Even skimming a half Trillion that he “inherited” from the previous budget (i.e. the last federal budget passed and signed by the President, which was GW Bush at the time), that is still $3.5 Trillion in new debt in under four years! That is almost double the rate that our Dear Leader called “unpatriotic!” The reality of actual math wouldn’t sway this cultist from his belief in the Lightbringer. At that point I just stopped trying to have an actual intelligent discussion with cultist, who in other aspects of his life, is actually quite bright. There is an old saying about wrestling with pigs in the mud that applies here.
During the election cycle, there were Obama cultists, who “didn’t care” (their exact words) about the 300 plus dead Mexicans, and at least one US Federal agent, killed by Obama’s Fast and Furious program, or the fact that all of Obama’s records, college, medical, etc. were sealed, but were livid over Governor Romney only releasing one years of worth of tax return. They were on their high hobby horses claiming criminal fraud. They also viciously attacked anyone who dared disagree with them over the slightest point of their claims, which, of course, had absolutely no evidence behind them what so ever. When the details of Governor Romney’s tax returns came out, showing that not only was there no evidence of criminal fraud what so ever (in fact, he deliberately over paid his federal taxes because of his own personal concepts of “fairness”), there was not one word of apology or even admission of “over stating” the issue from the cultists in question. They just moved their hatred of anyone who dared to question their deity to the next DNC sanctioned talking point.
This post requires basic math and reading comprehension skills
Filed under: economy, Obama Economy, Our Dear Leader, Politics
The November 2012 unemployment numbers are out and, of course, the followers of the Cult of our Dear Leader are saying how wonderful those numbers are and those with basic math and reading comprehension skills are not so quick to jump in and join the cheering.
As in most cases, the truth lies between the two camps, but it’s closer to those with the basic math and reading comprehension skills.
According the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U3 unemployment rate (the so-called “official” rate) dropped from 7.9% in October to 7.7% in November. That is the official government number. No books were cooked to get there. It was calculated the same way the federal BLS calculated the U3 number for the past couple of administrations. Just how the feds calculate that number is important to know. I’ll get to that later.
For a more accurate look at the health of the US labor force, you need to look at the BLS’ U6 rate, which includes the underemployed. People who can’t find full time jobs and are working part time for example. That number has been in the low to mid teens for most of the Obama regime. That fell from 14.6% in October to 14.4% in November. Moving in the right direction, but still crazy high considering the U6 rate averaged 9.2% during the GW Bush administration. That was with the declining economy he inherited, the economic recession caused by the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks, and the sub-prime housing bubble bursting! It’s even worse when you compare the Obama Economy to the Reagan Recovery, which at this point in President Reagan’s first term, the economy was producing over 800,000 new jobs a month.
The question the media should be asking is how those unemployment numbers are dropping. Yes, the economy is adding new jobs, but at a rate barely above the 125,000 new jobs a month needed to meet population growth. The numbers for October and September were revised downwards, so we should take the November number of 146,000 new jobs with more than just a few grains of salt. Even adjusting for the level of error seen in October and September, the number new jobs number is still probably over 125,000, but certainly not enough to lower the U3 and U6 numbers by two tenths of a percent in a single months time.
Now it is time to address how the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates the various unemployment rates, including the U3 and U6 numbers. The key thing to know here is that this rate is based on the official federal workforce count. If you are collecting unemployment, and thus are officially looking for work, you are part of the official workforce that the federal government counts. If your benefits run out, you are no longer counted as part of that workforce, so you are not part of those BLS calculations. If you were on unemployment but start receiving other benefits, such as food stamps or welfare, you are removed from the official workforce count as well. So as the number of Americans on food stamps (which aren’t actual stamps anymore, but EBT cards) rises to record levels under the Food Stamp President, the size of the American workforce, as calculated by the federal BLS, shrinks in a corresponding fashion.
So while approximately 146,000 new jobs were added to the economy in November 2012, the size of workforce dropped by over a half million. To put it another way, the reduction in the workforce was well over three times the size of the increase in the workforce. Combine those two numbers and now that 0.2% drop in both the federal U3 and U6 rates make sense.
If the U3 rate was calculated using the same size workforce as existed when Barry Obama took office, the U3 rate would be 10.7%. Clearly, the primary goal of our Dear Leader and congressional democrats has not been job creation, but the illusion of job creation.
So what the November 2012 unemployment numbers really tell anyone willing to look past the smiling faces of the democrat operatives with press credentials, is that there are more people receiving money from the government (i.e. money obtained from tax revenues), than are people paying taxes than there were last month. That is the legacy of the Obama Economy.
Update: Since I posted this, the BLS “adjusted” the November 2012 unemployment rate upwards from 7.7% to 7.8%. Given the economic stewardship of the Obama regime, don’t expect that to get any better. The initial BLS U3 rate for December 2012 was 7.8%. I wouldn’t be surprised if that gets “adjusted” upwards as well.
Correct in every detail
Filed under: Culture of Corruption, Our Dear Leader, Politics
Friday B-Movie Pick: The Commitements
The story of a group of young Dubliners who form a Soul group. Why, because the Irish are the Blacks of Europe, and Dublin is the Blacks of Ireland. A fun film with really good music and great characters.
Summing up the left’s so-called “argument”
1. Change subject
2. Add strawman
3. Play Race Card
4. Walk away like a 6 year old
Muir nails it again. Really, the hypocrisy of the left concerning their leftist savior is pushing cultist behavior.
There are idiots still driving around with Obama “peace signs” on their cars despite his doubling down in Afghanistan and the drone war (which has the official Dick Cheney seal of approval).
“Compassionate and Caring” so-called “liberals”, and I quote, “really don’t care” about the 300 plus dead Mexicans, and at least one federal agent, killed by Obama’s “Fast and Furious” program of supplying firearms to Mexican drug wars.
The same so-called “liberals” who wanted VP Cheney hauled away in handcuffs over the non-outing of a non-covert CIA agent, even after the facts came out showing it was a non-political mid-level state department staffer, are utterly and completely uninterested in the Benghazi cover up that resulted in the murder of four Americans, including a US Ambassador, by Al Qaeda terrorists.
The list goes on and one, but these are some of the more obvious examples.
Quote of the Day
“This week, CBS News became the first news organization besides Fox to ask President Obama ‘Who changed the Benghazi talking points?’ See, this is very dangerous to the White House if journalists should suddenly start asking real questions.”
Quote of the Day
“Liberals can tolerate anything except dissent.”
Friday B-Movie Pick: The Expendables
Arnold Schwarzenegger is back again. OK, not a big role, but he is in this flick, along with most of the big action movie stars from the 80s, 90s, and a couple of kids who were doing action flicks in the early 00s. Don’t expect Oscar performances here, just a lot of action and explosions. The actors had a good time making this film and it shows. Fire up the popcorn and enjoy.
Quote of the Day
“For a century or so, guided by brilliant private sector leadership, California was a beacon to the world, a land of opportunity such as never had existed in human history. Unimaginable wealth was created. Yet it required only 40 years of liberal governance to bring the whole thing crashing down. Today, California is the most spectacular failure of our time. Its government is broke. Productive citizens have been fleeing for some years now, selling their homes at inflated prices (until recently) and moving to Colorado, Arizona, Texas and even Minnesota, like one of my neighbors. The results of California’s improvident liberalism have been tragically easy to predict: absurd public sector wage and benefit packages, a declining tax base, surging welfare enrollment, falling economic production, ever-increasing deficits. Soon, California politicians will be looking to less glamorous states for bailout money. Things have now devolved to the point where California leads the nation in poverty.”
Quote of the Day
Filed under: economy, Obama Economy, Our Dear Leader, Politics
“…nobody’s worried about being overrun by Mexicans anymore, because what Obama’s doing to the U.S. economy will do more to stanch immigration from Mexico than any border fence.”