AFTERMATH: The Whale, The Disinterested, and The 1%...

First, "The Whale"- More specifically, Project ORCA (Ace really let's 'em have it in that link), Team Romney's election-day GOTV (get out the vote) machine and the failure of a not-thoroughly-tested smartphone/tablet/computer app that basically harpooned the efforts of 37,000 GOTV operatives.  More about it here and here.  RedState's Ben Howe has a fascinating take on the whole mess here.  Ace of Spades takes the Romney camp to task for their weak response to the claims of the massive system failure.

But this only had a limited effect on the overall voter turnout because...


Secondly, "The Disinterested" - As of this moment (updated 12/3) in the almost finalized numbers, while Romney received three quarters of a million more votes that McCain got in 2008, Obama received 4.2 million fewer votes than he did four years ago.  Counting all candidates who received votes, in 2008 there were a total of 131.4 million votes cast.  This year, 128.3 million.

Basically, over 3 million people who voted in 2008 were so disgusted with either candidate that they decided to just stay home (in addition, a small percentage voted for a third party candidate in both elections; approx. 1.5%, or 2 million).  In 2008, 58.8% of voting-age people voted. In 2012, only 54.6% of voting-age citizens voted.

Given that with a US population of 315 million, and of those 235 million are of voting age, that means 45.4% of voting-eligible citizens never bothered to vote on Tuesday (many never even bothered to register to vote).  [All numbers updated 12/3.]


Third, "The 1%" - The left and the Occupy Wall Street fanatics ranted and raged against the evil 1% (the richest 1% of the country), so they went out and voted for Obama 50.8%-47.4% (because Romney was in the backpocket of those evil 1%'ers, donchaknow).

Fact:  The Top 10 richest counties in the country voted on Tuesday, and 8 of the 10 counties voted for Obama.  Those eight counties combined voted for Obama by a 60%-40% margin!!  All Top 10 combined voted for Obama 56%-44%!  Notice that it's by a much large margin than the general population.  Those who voted in those counties accounted for 1.1% of the voters on election day.  In other words, those evil 1%'ers.  So the lefties voted for the exact same candidate that the evil 1% wanted.

That is a dish called "Irony" prepared, cooked and served to utter perfection.

So, why did the 1% vote that way?  Obvious (to some, at least).  Obama will be raising taxes on the wealthiest, but they can use tax loopholes and shelters to avoid the proposed increases.  Which means that the shortfall will have to be made up on the backs of the middle class. (DUH!)  Romney wanted to keep or lower those tax rates, but close a bunch of those precious loopholes for the rich.  Can't have that now, can we.


Passing thoughts by Gateway Pundit:

November 6, 2012 is the day America changed.

8 to 9 percent unemployment is the new normal. It’s good enough. 46 million people on food stamps is OK. It shows we care. Debt spending is good. It will get paid off some day and if not, our kids can worry about it. Trillion dollar deficits make sense. 

Socialized medicine is good. It will cost more, but did you honestly believe it wouldn’t? It doesn’t matter what you were told. Catholics should pay for abortions. Sandra Fluke is a prophet. Abortions and birth control should be free. We should fund abortions overseas, too.

The First Lady should be allowed to blow millions on lavish vacations. The White House parties should cost millions, too. The president should play as much golf and basketball as he pleases. They deserve it. They work hard.  They’re Democrats.

Greedy Americans should pay more taxes and millions of Americans who pay no taxes should receive more free money. It’s only fair. Businesses can afford to pay more taxes too. That’s what they teach you in school, right? We all know the Bush tax cuts that brought the deficit from $450 billion to $175 billion in four years and created millions of jobs didn’t work. Obama said so. And did you know Obama created 5 million jobs? Who cares how he came up with that number. In September he even created 600,000 part-time jobs somewhere. And, don’t you dare question his math.

Benghazi was a protest, or a terrorist attack. Obama said so from the beginning. Who cares anyway. Things like that happen all the time. And the media never covered anything up to help the president either. Right, 60 Minutes?
Al-Qaeda is dead or on the run.

We pushed the restart button with Russia. Putin is a democrat. He can be trusted. What do you mean there are Russian subs in the Gulf and off the east coast?

It’s not racist that 97% of blacks vote Democrat. It’s racist if you are white and vote Republican.

The media is your friend. The mainstream media is not biased. They would never hide anything from you.

Katrina was a national embarrassment.  It was Bush’s fault.  Sandy was not so bad.  And Obama did a great job focusing on it from between campaign stops.  The people are not suffering so much or we would have heard about it in the news.

America was once the land of the free. Now we want to be told what to do. More government is good. We want stuff.

On Tuesday America changed.

But the fight is not over.

God help us in the days ahead.

Passing thoughts by PoliPundit:

The end of America

No, I’m not exaggerating.

I’m an immigrant. I felt like I was born in the wrong country – a country where free speech was optional, freedom needed to be justified against other considerations, the successful were hated and resented, government was the career of choice for smart people, and business was severely limited by burdensome regulations. In short, a country in inevitable decline.

I yearned for America, a land of limitless possibilities where the people loved freedom, and a two-hundred-year-old Constitution guaranteed it. I made my way here as soon as I could, thus correcting the mistake fate had made when I was born.

For many immigrants, America was their last best hope, the only country that matched their ambition and optimism. There was no othersanctuary for people like me.

And now there is no sanctuary left.

The choice in this election was stark, and Americans have made their choice. They have chosen liberal piety over America’s future, free condoms over freedom. They have voted for a government that, in our president’s words, believes that American exceptionalism is the same as British exceptionalism or Greek exceptionalism. Given the course Americans have chosen, he may be right.

Consider:

• Our national debt dwarfs our GDP in the same manner as, say Greece’s debt dwarfed its GDP and led to the troubles Greece faces today.

• That will only get worse as we run trillion-dollar deficits for the foreseeable future.

• Not to mention the massive cost of entitlements, including the new one called Obamacare.

• Amid all this, government ties down business with endless regulation, and wants to punish success by raising taxes on “the rich.”

• Half the American people no longer pay federal income taxes. They have an incentive to soak the rich.

• Millions more get monthly payments from Social Security disability, unemployment “insurance” and the like. In fact, one in three Americans lives in a household that gets some kind of direct government assistance. They too will want to soak the rich.

• Power-hungry politicians will continue to divide us by gender, race, ethnicity and income. Each party will vie harder than the other to win the favor of this or that group. Freedom of speech, religion, and property will suffer. The idea that we are all created equal will effectively be written out of our founding documents.

• In fact, our freedoms are already gone. Government can mandate that we purchase products and, soon, “hate speech” will doubtless be criminalized, like in Europe. Don’t believe me? Look at the official assault on Chick-Fil-A. Do you think any company will dare to oppose gay marriage again? Or look at the federal persecution of anyone who dares to make movies disparaging Mohammed. How much longer before “anti-gay” or “anti-Muslim” speech immediately gets you fined or thrown in jail, like in the UK?

What exactly is the difference between America and Greece? I can’t tell anymore. Except that the scale of our problems dwarfs that of Greece, and has the potential to take down the entire world.

Hence the title of my post, “The end of America.” America is no longer exceptional, and no longer has much of a future. It is thus no different from doomed entities like Greece, Spain, or California. We are in a state of inexorable decline. The question is just how andwhen we’ll decline, not if.

Like Greece – and its apprentice on the Pacific, California – America will grow ever broker, ever more stifling, ever faster declining, ever more self-righteous, and ever more leftwing. The worse it will get, the more voters will vote for worseness. The decline will only accelerate. We may occasionally elect “Republicans” and “conservatives” to the odd office, but they will be compromised compromisers, powerless to stop the decline.

The decline may even be comfortable. What’s left of the American spirit, and our unimaginable wealth and resources, will ensure that. But, as in Europe, by the time the consequences are fully apparent, we will be unable to undo them.

Decades hence, America will take its place among the great civilizations whose success was their eventual undoing. Our descendants will marvel at the wonders we wrought, and they’ll wonder why they can’t come close to matching our achievements. Then they’ll go vote for faster decline. If they can still vote.

That’s not just me talking. It’s 53 percent of you.

Passing thoughts by Creative Minority Report.

Hitting Bottom

I can't help but think that America is now like your brother who can't keep a job, drinks too much, is constantly asking for money, and oh, has a crazy bad addiction that's destroying his life.

You tried just lending him money every time he promised to go straight but he just ain't gonna' do it. At some point you accept that he's going to have to hit bottom. You don't know what bottom looks like but you know that he's racing towards it. It might be jail, death, brain damage. Nobody knows. But at some point he'll hear the thud and wake up face first in a pool of his own vomit and he'll have to make the decision to turn over and get back up or just die.

And that's where America is heading. This country is going to have to go absolutely bankrupt and hit bottom before it starts getting better. This country is borrowing money from children that they're killing in the womb in record numbers. That, is not a recipe for success.

And of the children that we do have, many of them are being born into single parent homes where their chances of spending some time in jail are increased while their economic outlook is severely diminished.

For too many years we slept. Maybe we saw it coming, maybe we just suspected that everything was going to hell.

Leftists have taken over our education establishment, giving them firm control over what our children learn (unless you homeschool or have a great Catholic or private school). The left has long controlled the media and therefore control what people hear about current events. So think about it, they have control over the teaching of history and the present.

And why didn't we think we were going to be routed? And what did we do to prevent this? We talked about school choice but got weak kneed when the fight got bloody. We snarked about the media and congratulated ourselves on how many interesting and funny ways we tweeted that Chris Matthews was stupid. Here's the thing, pretty much everyone in the media agrees with him. It's an MSNBC media. Some just hide it a little better.

If you want to understand the true power of the media, this election is a prime example. The media propped up a corrupt and egotistical ideologue throughout this entire campaign. They ignored Solyndra. They ignored Benghazi. They covered up the economic ruin we were inviting on ourselves. Sure, FoxNews and the new media have hurt the media establishment but what the MSM showed in this election is that we can snark it up all we want, they've got one hand firmly on the levers of power and the other around our throats.

But here's the thing. I've gotten to the point now where I'm thinking about the fact that I have five kids, a wonderful wife, and a good parish. My life is good and full of love. We try to give to charity and work with a home for unwed mothers. We'll continue with these things. I'm focusing on what I can do in my life. I'll continue to write and work but I know where this country is heading.

I know where the country is going. I'm not going there and neither is my family. The Church will continue to exist whatever happens to this country. The country's barreling downwards and when it hits bottom it's going to explode like shrapnel. My job is to protect my family from the flying pieces. And then we'll start gathering the pieces.

The only good news in all this is that I think that we'll hit bottom awfully quick because we're heading there awfully fast.

You should read Erick Erickson's post-election post here.

Another important one by Erick here.


In the end, Romney was a poor candidate. Even though Obama was disliked and no longer trusted by a large portion of the public, Romney made those "not-Obama" potential voters go, "Meh."

Consider this.

Reagan won re-election in 1984 in a landslide with 59% of the popular vote, and all electoral votes except for Minnesota (which Mondale won by less than 0.2% of his home state's popular vote) and D.C.

Bush Sr. won election in 1988 by 53.3% (with the assumption that it would be Reagan 3.0) against Dukakis.  After breaking his "no new taxes" pledge, the country going into a recession, and voters realizing that he wasn't Reagan… here is a list of the "winners'" popular vote percentages of the following presidential elections:

Clinton in '92 (ugh) with 43.0% [against Bush Sr (ugh) and Ross Perot (ugh)]
Clinton in '96 (ugh) with 49.2% [against Dole (ugh) and Ross Perot (ugh)]
Bush W. (ugh) in '00 with 47.9% [against Gore (ugh)]
Bush W. (ugh) in '04 with 50.7% [against Kerry (ugh)]
Obama (ugh) in '08 with 52.8% [even with the hopey-changey rhetoric, against McCain (ugh)]
Obama (ugh) in '12 with 50.9% [against Romney (ugh)]

Notice that the first three didn't even get a majority of votes, and two of the remaining three barely got above 50%.  This is and has been a deeply divided and disillusioned country since approx. 1990, in desperate need of a true Reagan-like, common sense, constitutional conservative leader.  None of the candidates on either side since 1988 have measured up to that standard, and thus we are where we are.


Erick Erickson of RedState has one more must-read post here.

Michelle Malkin lists 21 things that went well on election day for conservatives.

Daniel Horowitz at RedState has 21 observations.

UPDATED with added text and links.

UPDATE #2:  Erick at RedState has much more to say about Romney, Conservatism and the Republican Party.  Please read not only his three posts (which I linked above here, here and here), but also his "No" and "I Told You So" posts.

Benghazi - The Investigation Continues...

News dates and the headlines:

9/13 - The Marines were not permitted to have live ammunition.

9/13 - After the June attack on the consulate, no extra security measures were taken.

9/13 - Total security at time of attack on Sept 11, 2012 = just locked doors and four Libyan guards.

9/13 - Administration was warned of impending attack 48 hours before it occurred.

9/19 - Killer of the Ambassador was leader of US-backed rebel force.

9/19 - Killer was also an ex-Gitmo detainee who was released by Obama Administration.

9/20 - Obama refused meetings with Israeli officials while instead meeting with  Egypt's leader (who's also now head of the Muslim Brotherhood)

9/20 - New Obama campaign "flag" very similar to fingered blood stains at recently attacked Libyan consulate:

10/12 - Biden claims that no one knew that more security was needed at the consulate.

10/12 - Gingrich says that Biden's comment will come back to haunt the Administration.

10/23 - Within two hours of the attack, White House & State Dept  received word that a jihadi group claimed responsibility.

10/26 - CIA gave order to stand down?

10/26 - General Petraeus states that no one in the CIA gave the order to stand down.

10/26 - Painting a target with a laser, and what it means.

10/29 - Flopping Aces has more on this crucial point about "painting targets".

10/26 - Father of fallen SEAL Tyrone Woods tells what Sec of State Hillary Clinton told him at his son's funeral.

NOTE to the clueless… that lame YouTube video had absolutely NOTHING to do with the attack, even though for two whole weeks that's what the Administration continued to lead everyone to believe.  There was NO "spontaneous" protest re: the video.  This was a well planned and orchestrated terrorist attack.

10/27 - VP Biden's crude and classless comment to Mr. Woods at his sons funeral.

10/29 - Mr. Woods "forgives" Obama and the administration, but wants answers…truth.

10/30 - Why the AC130's were not deployed.

10/30 - Audio tapes at the time of the attack!!!

10/31 - Do two networks have proof that orders came from someone in the Administration to "stand down"?

11/1 - Did the communications cable go straight to Sec. Clinton's office?

11/1 - Obama did NOT convene the Counter Terrorism Response Task Force during the attack.

11/1 - Documents found in consulate after the attack shows extreme concern about impending attacks.  State Dept never asked for military back-up.

11/2 - Three hours before attack, consulate warned of arms being gathered by the attackers.

11/2 - And the Obama Administration did NOTHING!

11/2 - And the finger pointing begins… State/CIA/WhiteHouse.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration hired an Al Qaeda radical to run security at the Tripoli embassy.

Empty Chair… Empty Suit… Exactly What I thought in 2008 & 2009...

Two days ago I posted about National Empty Chair day, and said I thought this was the best pic to describe "The One":

Then I remembered what I had written about the guy on April 1, 2008:

"The Obamessiah (the Inexperienced Empty-Suit Charlatan)"

And on April 15, 2009:

Given that it's tax day today, I want to express - in 50 words or less - what I have thought and felt about the current occupant of the White House since the first day he appeared on the national scene a year and a half ago:

He's a smug, snobby, arrogant and inexperienced empty-suit charlatan with a narcissistic messiah complex who sprung from and was steeped in the notoriously and perpetually corrupt Chicago Democrat Party political machine, and who brings a militant pro-abortion culture and a radical socialist agenda that will bankrupt and destroy America.  Period.

Don't say I didn't tell yah.  Don't say I didn't warn yah.  :-/

HAH!!! It's National Empty Chair Day...

Michelle Malkin called today National Empty Chair Day.  Was so successful she had to open a second post.

Gateway Pundit has a list of some great chairs.

My favorite is this one:

And this one:

No..... THIS one... yeah, this one:

Making Sense of the SCOTUS Ruling on ObamaCare...

NOTE: It is well worth your time to read through all of the linked stories and analyses.

So, Chief Justice Roberts says that it's not a penalty, and it's not valid under the commerce clause, but it IS a tax.

Gee, what did Obama say about whether it was a tax or not??? (via Gateway Pundit, from an ABC News interview):



Ace went nuts:

It wasn't a tax for purposes of getting it passed politically, also wasn't a tax for purposes of delaying judgment based on the Anti-Injunction Act, but then magically became a tax in order to be upheld.

If the government now has the power under the taxing power to enforce its preferences regarding how citizens live their lives, Ed Morrissey proposes, modestly, a new tax on those who refuse to buy a gun.

Allah considered a similar question yesterday: Whether the government could put a punitive tax on you for owning a gun. Gun ownership is a right, he thought, so the ObamaTax logic wouldn't fully apply. You can't burden a right.

Well, owning a gun is a right, but not owning a gun is not a right. Or at least it's no more of a right than not owning insurance. 

We can pass a great many laws like this, enforcing our preferences in any area that isn't an explicit (or penumbra-ish) right under the Constitution. 

Don't go to Church regularly? Why, we can tax that. And before you say it's your right not to go to church -- of course it is, but we can compel all Americans to spend at least two hours each week on philosophical contemplation, whether it be at church or in Quiet Home Study of non-religious philosophical texts. 

If a temporary majority in Congress thinks it's a good idea -- tax away! 

The Constitution apparently gives the government the right to dictate almost all of our personal choices, so long as it enforces these preferences via punitive taxes. So let's get started.

Major fraud is being charged by one of the leading attorneys who argued the case in front of the Supreme Court.  This same attorney, Michael Carvin, had this other analysis that Ace posted on March 30.

Erick at RedState is seeing the decision from a different angle.

Thomas Crowne at RedState has a different opinion, and is not happy with Chief Justice Roberts.

Slate headlines that Obama may have won the battle, but Roberts won the war. because it guts the commerce clause and prevents the penalties on states that opt out of the MedicAid expansion.

Real Clear Politics also has a lengthy analysis on what they term "The Roberts Gambit".

Erick at RedState posted 24 hours later and points out the fact that the sleeping giant (The Tea Party) has been rudely awakened, and will make it's collective voice heard come November.

The US Catholic Church is NOT happy with the decision as it stands right now.  The HHS mandate has already riled them up.

For those who compare the ObamaCare mandate to auto insurance and fire insurance, there's this response.

On March 23, I posted this analysis about that same point:

[F]irst of all, it's the states that mandate auto coverage, not the federal government. Second, you are required to only have coverage for others and their property if you are at fault in an accident. You are not required to have coverage on yourself. And you are only required to have coverage on your own vehicle if you are still making car payments, and don't own the car outright (it's a required coverage not by the state but buy the financier of the vehicle to protect against any potential loss).
The same with home owner's insurance. You are only required to buy it if you still have a mortgage to pay (it's, again, a requirement of the bank to protect against a potential loss). If you own your home outright, you're free to not have HOI.

The Republican Party just got energized.  So did the Romney campaign.  So much so that in just 24 hours they've raised over $4.6 million from 47,000 donors.

Santelli chimes in.

So does Bachmann, who states that they only need 51 votes in the Senate to repeal ObamaCare, not 60.

The Republicans plan to bring up a repeal vote on July 11 to get set the record on who and who is not for the continuation of ObamaCare, and to set the stage for the November elections.

And LA Governor Bobby Jindal vows to never implement ObamaCare in his state.  (I reeeeally like him as a VP choice).

It's been a crazy 24 hours.

UPDATE:

The RNC already has up another new ad:



The AFP also has a new ad:



The Daily Caller tries to read the tea leaves of Roberts' decision.

Justice Thomas had this to add in his dissent.

And Ace of Spades continues along the reasoning that, yes, this can be voted down with a simple majority vote in the Senate as a reconciliation...because it was a tax bill. (hehehe)

ObamaCare Round-Up...

$200 million of taxpayer dollars was spent by the Obama Administration for ObamaCare propaganda.

Starbuck's CEO not thrilled with ObamaCare.

Even doctors are not thrilled with ObamaCare.

A list of companies, corporations, unions, organizations, and event states (Maine has an exemption; Louisiana is the 9th state requesting to be exempt) that got exemptions from ObamaCare from the administration - as of early January this year. ("Government mandates for thee but not for me," huh?)

Judges and Courts across America (26 states, actually) ruled that ObamaCare is unconstitutional.

The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. They took the case. More info here. Next week begins oral arguments. Of interesting note is this info about Justice Kagan. More info here:

"...calling on Justice Elena Kagan to disqualify herself in the ObamaCare litigation because of her role, as Solicitor General, in preparing its constitutional defense. These calls have intensified with the release of recent emails. Justice Kagan’s supporters respond that she testified in her confirmation hearings that she had nothing to do with ObamaCare.

First, her phraseology was much more precise. She said she would only recuse herself from any case in which she “officially formally approved something,” or “served as counsel of record” or “played any substantial role.” But the statute requires disqualification if Kagan, as a federal employee (she was the former Solicitor General) “participated” as an “adviser” on a matter, even if she did not give any formal advice. She also must disqualify herself if her impartiality might reasonably be questioned.

In March of 2010, there are a series of emails to or from Kagan; the subject line of all of them is “Health care litigation meeting.” The DOJ refused to disclose these emails because they discuss legal arguments for the “expected [health care] litigation.” If Kagan hermetically sealed herself from discussions on shaping defenses for ObamaCare litigation, why is she repeatedly sending and receiving emails shaping defenses for ObamaCare litigation? The Government refuses to release these emails, on grounds of a litigation privilege, while claiming that it erected such a solid wall around Kagan that she never would send or receive such emails. This wall must have more holes than Swiss cheese. If we can read theses emails, we will learn if the legal theory developed in those meetings is the legal theory that Kagan adopts when she rules on the case.

A week after the president announced her nomination to the Supreme Court, a DOJ press officer emailed the Deputy Solicitor General and asked if Kagan had been involved in the preparations for health care litigation. Notwithstanding these earlier emails, he responded, a minute later: “No she never has been involved in any of it. I've run it for the Office, and have never discussed the issues with her one bit.” A few minutes later, he forwarded that email to Kagan.

One would think, if Kagan’s Deputy was correct, that Kagan would simply say, “of course,” or, perhaps nothing. But that is not what happened. Less than two minutes later, Kagan wrote: “This needs to be coordinated. Tracy [the DOJ press officer], you should not say anything about this before talking to me.” What is there to “coordinate”? Why would Kagan suggest that they have to get their stories straight? And why “talk” instead of using emails (which leave a paper trail)?"

Whether or not she'll recuse herself (as well she should) will be known on Monday. I'm not holding my breath.

The recent CBO report on the projected cost of ObamaCare. It's twice as expensive as projected by the Obama Administration. Annnnnd 20 million extra people will lose their private healthcare coverage because of it.

RomneyCare (the precursor from you-know-who as governor of Massachusetts) spending is shown here. In November, Romney refused to walk away from his own failing healthcare initiative, which was the model for ObamaCare on a national level. He still won't do a mea culpa.

Romney's brown nosed supporter, Ann Coulter, gets taken to task here about it. Obama stated recently that RomneyCare isn't really that different than ObamaCare.

And check this out:

"... a 2009 op-ed Romney wrote for USA Today has recently surfaced in which he urged President Obama to adopt his program, including an individual mandate, for his federal healthcare makeover. The Obama administration has claimed it used Romneycare as its model for Obamacare."

His advisors/staff specifically helped the Obama Administration to draft ObamaCare from the RomneyCare model.

BTW, RomneyCare now funds free abortions.

Charles Krauthammer posts about next week's Supreme Court case:

Ultimately, the question will hinge on whether the Commerce Clause has any limits. If the federal government can compel a private citizen, under threat of a federally imposed penalty, to engage in a private contract with a private entity (to buy health insurance), is there anything the federal government cannot compel the citizen to do?

If Obamacare is upheld, it fundamentally changes the nature of the American social contract. It means the effective end of a government of enumerated powers — i.e., finite, delineated powers beyond which the government may not go, beyond which lies the free realm of the people and their voluntary institutions. The new post-Obamacare dispensation is a central government of unlimited power from which citizen and civil society struggle to carve out and maintain spheres of autonomy...

Rarely has one law so exemplified the worst of the Leviathan state — grotesque cost, questionable constitutionality and arbitrary bureaucratic coerciveness.

10 am Monday it starts. The official court ruling will be made know probably in late June (after the GOP primary elections are finished).

UPDATE: BTW, I've heard the argument that the government can mandate auto insurance coverage, so why not health insurance, too. Ummm... first of all, it's the states that mandate auto coverage, not the federal government. Second, you are required to only have coverage for others and their property if you are at fault in an accident. You are not required to have coverage on yourself. And you are only required to have coverage on your own vehicle if you are still making car payments, and don't own the car outright (it's a required coverage not by the state but buy the financier of the vehicle to protect against any potential loss).

The same with home owner's insurance. You are only required to buy it if you still have a mortgage to pay (it's, again, a requirement of the bank to protect against a potential loss). If you own your home outright, you're free to not have HOI.

GOP Primary Round-Up: Part 1 - Romney

UPDATED:

Erick at RedState is pretty much resigned to the fact that Romney's will be the Republican nominee. The delegate math certainly is in his favor after Illinois (although Louisiana this Saturday is trending big for Santorum). It's possible that there could end up being a brokered convention. Stranger things have occurred (remember the 2000 main election fiasco???).

Below are a few links to Romney-related stuff. The next post will focus on ObamaCare (and RomneyCare). The third post will be Santorum-related info.

===========

Leon at RedState asked in early February, "What is wrong with Romney?"

"It's not about picking someone with your own beliefs and principles," says a Romney surrogate.

Romney says that Obama has "fought against religion".

Michael Medved "wants a different conservative base" (says Erick at RedState).

Gateway Pundit says Romney will have a hard time exciting people to vote for him versus Obama come November.

Romney complained that Santorum was trying to get Democrat voters to vote for him in the Michigan primary (which was open) to influence the race. Yet, Romney did the same thing. And the whole Reagan coalition in the 80s included what has always been termed "Reagan Democrats". BTW, Romney won that state, where he grew up and where his dad was a successful governor, by only 3%. And he won Ohio by only 1%. Both states he had to out-spend Santorum by 6-to-1.

The possible Ron Paul/Mitt Romney alliance. A study proved that in over 20 debates, Ron Paul attacked his rivals 39 times... except for Romney, whom he attacked a grand total of ZERO times.

Cadillacs & NASCAR.

Etch-a-Sketch candidate.

UPDATE:

Erick at RedState chimes in on Santorum's comment here:

"I think it was clear from the context of his remarks that Santorum was not expressing his own thinking, but expressing the thinking of general election voters. And I think he is absolutely right, which is also why I think Romney makes such a bad nominee...

"Right now Mitt Romney has higher negatives with independent voters than Hillary Clinton did in 2008. Add in the Etch-A-Sketch comment and he is ripe to be painted as the next iteration of the Massachusetts flip-flopper no one can trust.

"I think Santorum was spot on in describing how voters would see the race in November. Why would they want to give up a guy many of them like, but who don’t much care of his job performance, for a guy they don’t like whose own campaign admits is like an Etch-A-Sketch."

And Romney rules out Santorum as a running mate. Says he (Santorum) is "too liberal".

Gibson Guitar Update...

Click here for the other posts about the government raid of Gibson Guitars.

NRO has a really good article on the situation here.

Hot Air followed up late last month. Still no government charges a year after the raid.

Red State also reports.

Tis the Season for a Woeful Economy... fa-la-la-la-la... la-la la la....

3rd Quarter growth weak due to cut in inventories.

The U.S. economy grew more slowly than previously estimated in the third quarter... Gross domestic product grew at a 2.0 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, the Commerce Department said in its second estimate on Tuesday, down from the previously reported 2.5 percent...

The government revised third-quarter output to account for an $8.5 billion drop in business inventories, the first decline since the fourth quarter of 2009.

The November unemployment rate drops to 8.6%. Reeeeally???

There are three elements that U-6 tracks that the official U-3 does not – “discouraged” workers (which is not nearly the same as the “want a job but haven’t looked lately” number mentioned above), those who hadn’t searched for work in the last 4 weeks because of reasons other than the job market (both not seasonally adjusted, and together being the number of those marginally attached to the workforce), and those employed part-time because of economic reasons.

The number of “discouraged” workers rose from October’s 967,000 to 1,096,000 in November, though the BLS does note that November 2011′s number is less than November 2010′s 1,282,000.

So, what about those questionable unemployment numbers.

The civilian participation rate in the workforce dropped 0.2% to 64.0% last month, barely above the 30-year low of 63.9% achieved in July of this year. The reason that both the topline and U-6 numbers declined is that both are based on the base number of workers, actual and potential, in the labor force that have plummeted in the last two years. The dramatic reduction in this number is what allowed a gain of only 120,000 jobs — which only covers the population growth in a month — drop unemployment by 0.4%.

In other words, the drop isn’t an indication of hope — it’s an indication of despair.

The "400,000 benchmark" myth explained.

Economy now hitting the breaks.

A different look at the economy in relation to past recessions and their subsequent recoveries.

Retail sales for November aren't so hot (so much for Black Friday saving the day).

Retail sales grew at their slowest pace in five months in November, tempering expectations for a strong holiday shopping season.

Retail sales increased a weaker-than-expected 0.2 percent after gaining 0.6 percent in October, a Commerce Department reportshowed on Tuesday...

Some of the weakness in the November retail sales might be because stores discounted heavily to attract customers, said Millan Mulraine, a macro strategist at TD Securities in New York.

"It's fairly disappointing given that all the evidence was pointing to fairly strong gains during the month," said Mulraine.

Oh, yeah... and that 2.0% growth for the 3rd quarter I posted just a few inches above in this post? Ahem... it's actually been revised downward to 1.8%.

Meanwhile, S&P warns all 17 Euro nations that they could be downgraded if things don't improve there.

Fitch ups the timeframe of a possible downgrade of France.

Fitch also warns of a possible downgrade of the U.S. rating (something S&P already did this summer).

Charting Two Months of Housing Woahs...

Starting in late August there was this news report:

Sales of new homes fell for the third straight month in July, a sign that housing remains a drag on the economy. If the current pace continues, 2011 would be the worst year for new-home sales on records dating back at least half a century.

Sales fell nearly 1 percent in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 298,000, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. That's less than half the 700,000 that economists say represent a healthy market.

Last year, 323,000 homes were sold — the worst year on records that go back to 1963.

While new homes represent less than one-fifth of the housing market, they have an outsize impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs and $90,000 in taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

High unemployment, larger required down payments and tougher lending standards are preventing many people from buying homes.

The following day, this report came out about mortgage apps:

Home mortgage applications for purchases fell to a nearly 15-year low last week as resurgent worries about the strength of the economy kept buyers at bay, an industry group said on Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home purchase demand, fell 2.4 percent in the week ended August 19.

The seasonally adjusted gauge of loan requests for home purchases tumbled 5.7 percent to its lowest level since December 1996, the MBA said. Refinance demand also sagged as interest rates rose, with the refinance index slipping 1.7 percent.

Mortgage rates then did this the day after that:

Fixed mortgage rates edged up this week from their lowest levels in decades. But few have been able to capitalize on them.

The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage rose to 4.22 percent, Freddie Mac said Thursday. That's up from 4.15 percent last week, the lowest level on records dating to 1971.

The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage, a popular refinancing option, rose to 3.44 percent. Last week it fell to 3.36 percent.

At that point in time, the local area had this report:

About half of all residential real estate sales in Ventura County this spring involved properties in some stage of foreclosure, according to data released Thursday by RealtyTrac Inc.

RealtyTrac, a foreclosure listing service, said 50.1 percent of the 1,349 Ventura County home sales in the second quarter were foreclosure-related, with an average price discount of 24.7 percent. Nationally, only 31.3 percent of sales involved foreclosure-related properties, but the price discount was larger — 32.1 percent.

When September rolled around, this news came in:

Builders broke ground on fewer homes in August, a reminder that the housing market remains depressed.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that builders began work on a seasonally adjusted 571,000 homes last month, a 5 percent decline from July. That's less than half the 1.2 million that economists say is consistent with healthy housing markets.

Single-family homes, which represent roughly two-thirds of home construction, fell 1.4 percent. Apartment building plunged 12.4 percent. Building permits, a gauge of future construction, rose 3.2 percent.

Hurricane Irene also slowed construction in the Northeast.

Overall, homebuilding fell to its lowest levels in 50 years in 2009, when builders began work on just 554,000 homes. Last year was not much better.

Consumer confidence remained weak in September:

...depressed consumer and business sentiment is holding back recovery. The Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer attitudes was little changed at 45.4 this month from 45.2 in August. Economists had expected a rise to 46.0.

"Consumers appear to have lost some hope in this recovery and may cause them to retrench spending, which could augur poorly for the recovery," said Millan Mulraine, a senior macro strategist at TD Securities in New York.

Details of the confidence report were mixed. More Americans plan to buy houses over the next six months, but fewer intend to purchase cars and other big-ticket items.

The steep stock market sell-off, political bickering in Washington over budget policy and the worsening debt crisis in Europe all have eroded confidence, viewed as a key gauge of consumer health.

Consumer spending data on Friday will shed more light whether the decline in equities -- with the Standard & Poor's 500 index down 13 percent since late July -- caused households to hunker down. Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, slowed sharply in the second quarter.

August home sales numbers rolled in next:

Sales and prices of new single-family U.S. homes fell in August despite historically low mortgage rates, underscoring the difficulties policymakers face in efforts to boost the moribund housing sector.

A stagnant job market and a big overhang of unsold existing homes have combined to keep new home sales on the rocks even as mortgage rates returned to lows not seen since at least the early 1970s.

New home sales slipped 2.3 percent last month to a 295,000 annual rate, a six-month low, the Commerce Department said on Monday. That was in line with analysts' forecasts and did little to allay fears the United States could slip back into recession.

The median sales price also moved lower from the previous month and was 7.7 percent below year-ago levels.

And what about those mortgage rates?:

Fixed mortgage rates have fallen to historic new lows for a fourth straight week and are likely to fall further.

The average on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 4.01 percent from 4.09 percent this week, Freddie Mac said Thursday. That's the lowest rate since the mortgage buyer began keeping records in 1971. The last time long-term rates were lower was in 1951, when most long-term home loans lasted just 20 or 25 years.

The average on a 15-year fixed mortgage, a popular refinancing option, ticked down to 3.28 percent. Economists say that's the lowest rate ever for the loan.

Then they did this!!!:

Mortgage rates have never been cheaper, with the 30-year rate falling below 4% for the first time in history.

The interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate loan fell to 3.94% this week, the lowest rate since mortgage giant Freddie Mac began tracking it. Meanwhile, the average for a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage also hit a record, falling to 3.26%.

It then fluctuated and went to this:

The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage was nearly unchanged for a second straight week after rising from a record low.

Freddie Mac said Thursday that the rate on the 30-year loan fell to 4.10 percent from 4.11 percent last week. Three weeks ago, it dropped to 3.94 percent. The National Bureau of Economic Research says that's the lowest rate ever.

The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage was unchanged at 3.38 percent. Three weeks ago, it hit a record low of 3.26 percent.

Low rates have done little to jolt the struggling housing market. Sales remain depressed, and home prices are still dropping in many markets.

High unemployment and declining wages have made it harder for many people to qualify for loans. Most of those who can afford to refinance already have.

The number of Americans who bought previously occupied homes fell in September and is on pace to match last year's dismal figures — the worst in 13 years.

Analysis of the situation says...:

Today's record-low mortgage rates are out of reach for millions of U.S. homeowners who would benefit from them most.

One in four homeowners with a mortgage — 11 million people — owe more than their home is worth. These "underwater" borrowers have virtually no shot at refinancing.

Their plight is a drag on the housing market and the broader economy.

The Obama administration is hoping at least 1 million of these borrowers will take advantage of its refinancing program under more lenient rules unveiled Monday. Homeowners who are current on their payments will be eligible to refinance no matter how much their home's value has dropped.

Still, it's unclear how many borrowers will benefit. Lenders will remain under no obligation to refinance a mortgage they hold.

A growing number of these people are missing mortgage payments and falling into foreclosure. And the higher rates they're locked into limit how much they can contribute to a weak economy. If they were able to refinance at today's rates, it could boost consumer spending by tens of billions of dollars, economists say.

Underwater homeowners are paying an average 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 5.7 percent, according to an analysis of mortgage data by CoreLogic and The Associated Press. That compares with today's average rate of 4.11 percent on a 30-year fixed mortgage. For a homeowner with a $250,000 mortgage, the lower rate would save more than $200 a month.

The One announced a new program to "help" those in the mortgage/housing crunch.

Via Hot Air, here's some analysis of this "wonderful" program by The One:

This plan is for current borrowers who want to get a lower monthly payment through a lower mortgage rate. Yes, it’s the first plan that “rewards positive behavior,” says Florida attorney and mortgage expert Shari Olefson, but it doesn’t do anything for the now 6 million plus borrowers who are either behind on their mortgage payments or already in the foreclosure process. It also does nothing about all those foreclosed properties sitting on the books of Fannie, Freddie, the FHA and the big banks that still need to be sold and right now can only be sold at below-market prices. This plan does nothing to stop the bleeding in home prices.

Another analysis here.