Obama: Ice Cream for the girls. Iranians: I scream for freedom.

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Nero-bama has Ice Cream while Tehran Burns.

In an tone deaf moment that would have sunk a Republican president, President Obama took his daughters for ice cream on Saturday as Iranians, including women, were beaten, shot and killed in the streets protesting a patently repressive regime. Several bloggers have put together side-by-side comparisons of the twittering of Obama’s ice cream social and the nearly simultaneous violence in Iran.

The weekend began, however, with the White House denying there was any split between Vice President Joe Biden and Obama on how to best handle Iran. (Biden thinks we should just raise taxes on their 7-11 and Dunkin-Donuts stores).  Also on Friday, both houses of Congress passed (nearly unanimous) resolutions condemning the Iranian government, adding political pressure on Obama to say something more than “the world is watching.” Congressional Republicans were particularly outspoken in calling for a more forceful statement from the President.

Finally, late Saturday, just before heading out for ice cream, Obama issued a terse written statement. Perhaps the President was afraid to get ice cream on his beloved teleprompter, or maybe he just couldn’t be bothered to wear a suit for the cameras on a Saturday just to denounce the killing of innocent civilians.  In any event, the press release meekly called for Iran to “stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people.” That’ll fix ‘em, sir.  I hope that harsh language isn’t too off putting, though.  Some of the mullahs can be a bit sensitive after a long day of shooting young girls and beheading journalists.  Maybe next time, you’ll be more thoughtful of their feelings.

In Iran, Saturday and Sunday brought more chaos, rioting, Iranian police firing at unarmed civilians and reports of tanks rolling in the streets. As many as 150 people may have been killed, while enemies of the regime, including journalists and students, were arrested.  One young student, Neda Agha Soltan, was shot and killed, allegedly by Iranian police (graphic video).  Both ABC’s Jake Tapper and the BBC have good summaries of the weekend’s events in Iran, as does HotAir here and here.

Obama’s image has been tarnished by his hands off approach to the massacres.  On Sunday, Rasmussen reported that its daily tracking poll for Saturday showed that, for the first time, President Obama’s approval index was negative (-2%).  The approval index is the difference between those who strongly approve of the job the President is doing (32%) and those who strongly disapprove (34%).  This is the first time Obama has had a negative index since becoming President.

Somewhat unrelatedly, JibJab recently came out with a new animation: He’s Barack Obama:

Obama Continues to Lose Ground on Socialized Medicine.

Obama suffered a personal setback of sorts on Friday, when his doctor of 22 years criticized his health care plan. No doubt, this will soon not be the doctor Obama once knew.  Separately, Democrats tried to bolster morale with a biased NYTimes/CBSNews poll out Saturday, allegedly showing support for Obamacare.  The problem, however, was that the poll grossly oversampled Obama voters.  It is not too difficult to find support for Obama’s plan when you ask those who voted for him 2-1.

Meanwhile, fresh off the heels of an embarrassing $1.6-$4 trillion debacle that would cover only 16 million people, Democrats unveiled a half-baked plan to cover 50 million people, including those who have decided to spend their money on things other than health insurance. In order to pay for this health care giveaway, Congress is, of course, considering brand new ways to tax you. Those new taxes may include taxes on soda, a higher tax bracket for families with AGI’s of over $200,000 and taxing employer-provided health care benefits. Funny, I thought someone called that the “the largest increase on middle-class taxpayers in American history.” And that was when McCain was offering an offsetting tax credit with it.

The Congressional Budget Office, after a cursory review of the plan, explained that the new plan would force employers to drop the existing health insurance they provide for employees, contrary to Mr. Obama’s repeated, clear, unambiguous assertions to the contrary. The plan would, in effect, give free health care to 50 million people who don’t now have it (because they don’t want it or can’t afford it), while taking it away from 10 million people who now get it as part of their job benefits.  Exactly the thing Obama said would never, ever happen.  When this was pointed out, the White House said (and I swear I’m not making this up) that Mr. Obama’s promises were not meant to be taken literally. I hope world leaders didn’t hear that, it may damage his credibility. If only he had any.

Global Warming™: Who are you gonna believe Obama, or your lying eyes?

Despite record low temperatures throughout much of the United States, predictions of a lost summer, and an increasing skepticism of anthropogenic (or even natural) global warming, the White House on Friday released a report claiming that Global Warming™ is causing damage now. The report, which contains no new research, claims that the unproven theory may lead to an 11 degree increase in global mean temperature by the end of the century. Over the past 10 years, the average mean global temperature has not increased. Not one tenth of one measurable hair’s breath of a degree.

Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats, who have free reign to destroy the economy as they tilt at their imaginary windmill of Global Warming™, are beginning to bicker amongst themselves. The always unreasonable Henry Waxman (D-Neptune) is trying to run roughshod over Democrats from agricultural and other real-economy states, causing the legislative negotiations to “blow up” on Thursday. Hopefully the explosion was carbon-neutral.

In an irony-meets-bureaucracy moment, the Obama administration suggested Friday that the federal government create a national zoning board to deal with the NIMBY do-gooders on Cape Cod who want others to pay higher electric bills, but don’t want wind turbines spoiling their view (or property values).  Federal zoning board. That should be a hoot.

Hope-ocrisy: Secret is as Secret Does.

In a dizzying, flip flop that would make even John Kerry proud, the Obama administration announced on Friday that it would not, after all, release the CIA report on interrogations. It had promised earlier to release the report on Friday, but as always, if you don’t like an Obama policy, just wait five minutes.

In a related, but shocking lapdog bites man story, Newsweek (also known as the Obama Fan Club Newsletter), who’s editor in chief, last week, called Obama “kind of a God”, published a story criticizing Obama’s blatant hypocrisy on issues of secrecy and transparency. We are assured Newsweek’s position in the kennel is not in danger.

Obama is following the Bush administration’s policy on state secrets to such a degree that, on Friday, even a federal judge expressed surprise that he was requesting confidential treatment of remarks former Vice President Dick Cheney made regarding the Valerie Plame matter. Obama’s attorneys argued that the remarks could be used politically and would discourage officials from cooperating with future investigations.  Obama had mercilessly criticized Bush and Cheney when they made the exact same argument in the exact same case.

Separately, as proof that the NY Times does, in fact, know how to keep secrets, it was announced this weekend that the Times had withheld reporting on one of its reporters, who had been kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan. (The reporter escaped and is now safe).  We suppose that, had it been William Kristol or an American soldier, results may have varied.

“Unproven” Missile Defense System Rushed to Defend Obamaland

As Hawaiian residents, businesses and tourists braced for North Korean sponsored fireworks on July 4th, President Obama ordered a missile defense system to the tropical island. You may recall that the last time North Korea tested long range missiles, Obama’s immediate response was to cut funding for the missile defense programs that he is now relying on to defend Hawaii. If consistency is a hobgoblin of little minds, Obama’s giant, hobgoblin–free, but chronically inconsistent mind cannot reasonably be relied on by either our allies or our enemies in global affairs.

Bermuda? I hardly know ‘er!

President Obama’s fly-by-night (literally) dumping of four Uighurs in Bermuda is still causing an international incident as Bermudans forced a no confidence vote on Premier Ewart Brown. The Premier survived the no confidence vote on Saturday, but Al Sharpton is flying down to Bermuda, ostensibly to meet the Uighurs and lend support to Brown (and for the boondoggle on the dime of whomever is dumb enough to be paying for his trip). The divisive Sharpton is more likely to cause problems than solve them, so Brown may not be in calm seas just yet.  And any white police officers in Bermuda would be well advised to take a vacation while Sharpton is in town.

Dishonorable Mention

• On Friday, the White House announced the appointment of more campaign contributors to posts as Ambassadors, bringing the average cost of an Obassadorship to roughly $253,000 in bundled campaign contributions. That’s not Change, and it doesn’t seem much like Hope.
• Also on Friday, the United States Senate unanimously apologized for slavery. Senator Byrd (D-Old), the only sitting Senator with a known connection to the KKK and who may just be old enough to have owned slaves, did not make the vote.
• Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, waited until Friday to cave to political pressure and resign from an all-women’s club in California. I suppose it took the richness of her experiences a while to catch up. That, or she was hoping no one would notice on a Friday in the summer.
• After a week of being embarrassed by gay rights groups, a White House official expressed regret for having compared same sex marriage to incest and bestiality in an official legal brief supporting the Defense of Marriage Act.  Of course, like all admissions of guilt from the Obama administration, this was really a deflection of blame onto the Bush administration. Apparently the Bush DOJ password protected their legal briefs, or something, and Obama’s DOJ didn’t want to start from scratch. Crafty Republicans.
• In a story that should have been, but wasn’t, in The Onion, Obama promised not to take lobbyist money at a fundraiser held Thursday night. Instead, he held a second fundraiser Friday morning, where the lobbyist cash was officially collected. That is the Audacity of Bullshit.

This is important because the poll’s “horse race” number (i.e., who voters will vote for) is adjusted to fit this model. For example, if you poll 100 people and 45 say Obama and 44 say McCain, that may or may not be the reported result.  If, out of those 100 people, let’s say 30 identified themselves as Democrats and 30 were Republicans and 40 were independents.  If you believe there are more Democrats than Republicans, you weight the poll, meaning the 30 Democrats get counted more than the 30 Republicans.

Historically, there have been about 3-5% more Democrats than Republicans.  But many polls this year are assuming far more of a difference than that.  The ridiculous Pew poll that has Obama up by 15% is the perfect example.  Below is a chart of the party identification for the last 20 years of Pew Polls.

So Pew is telling us that it adjusted its actual results to reflect the “fact” that there are 15% more Democrats than Republicans, even though the historical average differential is 4%, and the maximum differential over the last 20 years was 9% (1987).  In fact, even the difference between the minimum percentage of Republicans (25% in 2007) and the maximum percentage of Democrats (35% in 1987) is only 10%, only 2/3rds of the alleged difference this year.

I wondered what would happen if we used Pew’s 20 year average and reworked the poll.  I assumed Democrats go for Obama 90-1 over McCain and Republicans go for McCain 90-1 over Obama (9% are undecided in this poll), and Independents go 47% for Obama and 44% for McCain (these are the numbers that give us the 53% to 38% lead for Obama).  Let’s also lump in “others” with Independents so we have 100%.

If we now re-weight the polls to be 33% Democrat, 29% Republican and 38% Independent (or other), Obama leads 48% to 43%.  A 5 point lead, nearly within the polls 3.5% margin of error.  A far cry from the quoted 15%.

It occurs to me that we have two scenarios brewing, neither of which are good. The first is that Obama wins next Tuesday.  As I pointed out earlier, this is the texbook definition of a parade of horribles. The second option is, with Obama with a (Real Clear Politics average) lead of 6-10% going into election week, Obama loses.

Why is this bad? Because instead of the horrors of four more years of Jimmy Carter, we will have four more years of “You stole the election” along with heaping helpings of “you racist bastards.”

Ayers
Obama says he was 8 years old when Ayers tried to kill innocent people with nail bombs.  McCain should fire back, “really?  Well I was three when Hitler invaded Poland, but I never had him over for afternoon tea.”  It wouldn’t hurt to add “you sanctimonious bastard,” once in a while either.

Healthcare
Obama and Biden like to point out that the average cost of healthcare is $12,000 and McCain wants to tax it, and replace it with a $5000 tax credit.  Obama even said last night that “For the first time in history, you will be taxing people’s health care benefits.  By the way, the average policy costs about $12,000. So if you’ve got $5,000 and it’s going to cost you $12,000, that’s a loss for you.”

McCain should say “Is that the kind of backwards drunken donkey math they teach at Harvard now?  My plan would tax $12,000, true, but the taxpayer receives a $5000 tax credit.  Let me say that slowly tax credit. Unlike you, I do not favor a 100% tax bracket, so the taxes on $12,000, even at the highest tax bracket would be less than $4,000.  My plan would give taxpayers a net tax decrease of at least $1,000.”

Negative Ads
McCain keeps saying that the ads would not be so negative if Obama would have agreed to the townhall debates.  Fair enough, but this is getting old and it’s pretty thin to begin with.  Instead, McCain should say, “Look, I’m sorry if you cannot take criticism well.  I know you’re unaccustomed to it, as the media has given you a free ride over the past two years.  Now, I may lose this election, but the American people need to know who it is they are electing.  If the media won’t address these issues of character, judgment and whom you chose to associate with, I have to.  Today there is a story in the Washington Post claiming that AT&T and Verizon did favors for me by putting up cell towers on my ranch.  Are you kidding?  Obama has acknowledged ties to ACORN, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Antonin Rezko, William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, and these people are investigating cell phone towers in Arizona.  If you’re going to be president, Senator, you need to grow a pair.”

Conservatism and Capitalism, I can assure you, are both alive, though not so well.  These twin pillars saved America and the free world from feckless impotence of Jimmy Carter and the very feckled and potent ambitions of the Soviet Union; they will not crumble in the face of Barney Frank, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi or any other mental midget on the Left.

Conservatism, while not dead, is homeless.  It was run from its home by Republican greed, avarice and incompetence.  I don’t agree with John McCain on much, but we do agree that Republicans came to change Washington, but Washington changed Republicans.  Spending has run unchecked, earmarks and wasteful programs have run rampant.  These new toys have led Republicans to lose their way and compromise their principles.  Perhaps four years in exile will focus the party’s attention and lead to meaningful reform.  It will at least lead to new blood.

Capitalism is not dead, but it has been framed for murder.  Capitalism did not kill your 401(k), Barney Frank did.  Had he, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and others not allowed (nay, encouraged) two government created behemoths to flood the mortgage market with billions in subprime loans, everyone would have been better off.  Housing prices would have stayed low, banks would have stayed solvent and retirement accounts would have stayed fat.

Laissez faire capitalism remains the most efficient economic theory.  Consider the following: whom would you trust to advise you and negotiate a transaction on your behalf: Warren Buffett or Nancy Pelosi?  Donald Trump or Barney Frank?  Michael Milken or Mark Foley?  Those who have the mental tools to understand the economy make money.  Those who don’t, run for office.  It is the nature of our world that some politicians will be among the dumbest, least informed, greediest, most incompetent of us.  Almost everyone else will do better things with their talents.  This is not to say every politician is completely out of their depth, but I would not bet on a majority of them being smarter than my dog.  The less the government interferes with your life, your business and your finances, the better.

Nonetheless, it is not yet time to “go John Galt.”  This is not the beginning of the end of our way of life, it is end of the beginning.  Together, we have destroyed slavery, fascism, communism and socialism.  Our task now is to destroy modern liberalism.  We must destroy political correctness and nihilism before it destroys us.  We will overcome the soft bigotry of lowered expectations and restore accountability and common sense to the economy, the legal system and the government.

Conservatism and Capitalism are wounded, but they will return stronger than ever.  Patience is a virtue; capitulation is a sacrilege.  In time, we will see the end of the Democratic majority and the Obama administration.  In time, we will see an end to the forced charity of “patriotic” taxes.  We will see the last welfare check cashed.  We will see an end to the tortured twisting of the words in the storied document that governs us.  We will see a government that knows its limits, recognizes its enemies and aids only its allies.  We will see a strong, proud America leading the world, the entire world, into a free, peaceful and democratic future.  We will once again be a shining city on a hill.