MILLIONAIRE CASHES IN CLUNKER

Michael Silence reports that former [TN] Sen. [Bill] Frist cashes in a clunker for a new auto. Is anyone surprised?

As commenter Joe Michels pointsd out: "Who ever said CFC was for poor people? If you though[t] that you misunderstand who buys new cars. It is not poor people. They buy... well clunkers. Instead of having clunkers to buy o[u]r government is taking that opportunity away. What then do poor people buy?"

Good question.

OOPS!

Here's MSNBC hyperventilating about an ObamaCare protestor who appeared at a health care rally outside of President Obama’s speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix, Arizona who "wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip."



There was only one little, teeny problem that the "news"-casters from MSNBC missed - the man carrying the weapons is black!

Here he is, in a news photo from the Arizona Republic newspaper.



Read the whole article at NewsBusters.

UNIQUE BONDS

Till Death Do Us Part

"Any man in combat who lacks comrades who will die for him, or for whom he is willing to die," William Manchester wrote of his time as a Marine in World War II, "is not a man at all. He is truly damned." A century earlier, Robert E. Lee famously remarked that it was good that war "is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it." Neither was glorifying war -- they hated its carnage. They were, rather, paying homage to the unique bonds forged in war, especially the one that enables so many to risk their lives, not only for friends but also for those they might have just met or have nothing in common with back home.

I was at a military retirement ceremony last week. Truer words have never been spoken.

CRAZY IS A PREEXISTING CONDITION

Birthers, Town Hall Hecklers and the Return of Right-Wing Rage. Rick Perlstein in the Washington Post August 16: "The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests."

I'll let Professor Bainbridge respond to Perlstein's nuttiness, and simply add the following picture which was part of the Perlstein diatribe in the print edition, but not available online.



Note the "crazies" in the picture - the signs in the background are all pro-Obama. The "Obama as a Nazi" poster in front is being held by an Obama supporter, and the poster itself was found to be from "LaRouchePAC.com," the political action committee website for Communist and perpetual [Democratic] Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. No right-winger he. The poster can be found here.

Perlstein's right, of course. Crazy is a preexisting condition; he's just wrong about which side is crazy.

HOW TO TELL THAT OBAMA IS FAILING

The Washington Post is attacking the Bush administration.


(Cartoon appeared Sunday, August 16)

OBAMA'S APPROVAL STILL FALLING

President Obama's approval index in the Rasmussen daily tracking poll continues to fall.


This chart differs from earlier ones (here and here) in that I've extended the scale through December 2009, changed the trend lines from linear to a first-order polynomial fit, and projected the trends forward 90 days.

Based on the trend lines, Obama's base (strong approvals) appears to be leveling ever so slightly, but the "undecideds" (no strong feelings) appear to be moving much more strongly toward disapproval as compared to the earlier charts I posted, where the trend was for strong approvals to migrate to approvals, approvals to disapprovals, disapprovals to strong disapprovals.

Gallup is showing roughly the same trends as the Rasmussen tracking poll when strong approvals are combined with approvals, strong disapprovals with disapprovals (via Instapundit).

The Obama administration is in trouble.