June 16, 2016

Media/GOP treating Trump same as Romney post-Benghazi

NeverTrump Republicans are indulging a fantasy that if only the Republican Party had a "normal" candidate, if only Trump behaved in a "polished" way, the nominee and the party at large would avoid a lot of P.R./media hea...

March 3, 2016

John Oliver pulled a Trump on you

The 22-minute production by John Oliver's team was a great spiel.  The argument of the monologue was that Trump is taking everyone on a ride with lies – except, of course, Oliver is the one who is taking you on a ride. First Oliver ...

October 26, 2015

Odd Praise for Hillary's Benghazi Hearing Performance

The Media narrative coming out from the Benghazi hearings was and still is that Hillary performed well. In other words, ignore the facts that the public learned Thursday about the cover up of a terror attack 50 days before an election and focus on Hi...

October 25, 2015

Hillary covered up a terror attack, Nixon a burglary

Thursday was the first time that the public saw email evidence of Hillary Clinton partaking in a cover-up of a terror attack as the attack took place.  An attack that killed a U.S. ambassador.  Context?  Nixon covered up a burglary...

September 17, 2015

Watch the GOP blow this

Wednesday morning, the Census released important data on 2014.  The numbers are really bad: Household income was "not significantly different" from 2013, they report, but was actually down by 1.5% in 2014 compared to 2013.  Ove...

August 24, 2015

Trump, Immigration, and the GOP Elite

While I  object to the plan which calls on the removal of all illegal immigrants, I cannot stand how the establishment types of the Republican Party insult the intelligence of the public when it comes to Trump's plan to remove the 11 million...

January 20, 2015

Two presidents, two different poll results

The country is divided 48% vs. 48% on whether it approves of the job President Obama is doing on the economy, according to the latest Washington Post poll.  George W. Bush at this time of his presidency (early 2007) was upside-down on ...

January 8, 2015

GM is not alive, and Obama didn't save the auto industry

Here are the numbers: GM sold fewer vehicles in the U.S. in 2014 than in 2008. GM had about 17.6% of the U.S. market in 2014, down from about 21.9% in 2008. GM bailout had a net loss of $10.4 billion (bank bailouts a net gain of $24.3 billi...

December 29, 2014

An 'Awesome Economy'? Not Even Close

"Everything is awesome", stated the headline of a recent Politico piece by Michael Grunwald which goes on to list many economic statistics showing how well things are going in the U.S. Indeed, some economic indicators are now better...

June 26, 2014

We <em>are</em> in Recession.

The economy is in a recession in effect if one quarter GDP (Gross Domestic Product/economic activity) wipes out the gains of the previous quarter. You do not need officially two consecutive quarters of a flat or minus GDP headline to be called a rece...

June 20, 2013

Five Things to Know About CBO Projections and Estimates

Regardless where you stand on the immigration bill, the following information as to how the CBO operates is healthy to have in mind any time the CBO releases a projection: 1) The CBO is a calculator. They simply add up the numbers that Congress give...

April 29, 2013

Clinton's Legacy in Peril

"It's the Economy, Stupid" is the political slogan that Bill Clinton used in 1992 to bash the elder George Bush. He won the election and ever since considers himself the de-facto political authority on economics. He used this authority in 2012 a...

March 13, 2013

Why Peter Beinart is Wrong

Peter Beinart of the Daily Beast writes "The younger Bush may be flirting with a run, but for a Republican to seriously compete in 2016, he must publicly distance himself from George W. Bush -- and in five interviews Sunday, Jeb showed he wouldn't do...

March 3, 2013

Clinton Proves Obama is Wrong on Sequester Effects

Many reports keep pointing out that Sequester affects discretionary spending; a category which is only 1/3 of the total Federal Budget. In addition, Obama keeps warning that those cuts will do harm to do economy. The chart below shows total discre...

January 28, 2013

Kerry's Shocking Revelation

We all "know" that Obama "bravely" worked against Pakistan to capture Osama Bin Laden. Right? Well, not if you listened to the last 90 seconds of John Kerry answering questions from Senator Rand Paul last week: Said Kerry: "We had intelligence cooper...

January 12, 2013

What Piers Morgan Does Not Tell You About UK Homicides

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January 4, 2013

2012 GM Auto Sales Worse Than Any Bush Year

I know, I know. The bailout worked and all headlines today present GM as having its best year since this and that. But here is raw data that you won't see in many places: в—Џ GM sold 2,595, 717 units in the Unites States during 2012; this is an 11% d...

December 4, 2012

Balancing the Budget by 2016 the Clinton Way

Between FY1992 and FY2000, the budget in actual dollars rose by about fifty billion dollars a year, on average.  Ever since, the budget rose on average three times faster per year.  In fact, even if we accept the $400 billion in fiscal cl...

November 30, 2012

Americans Spend as Much on Lotteries as on Afghan War

Dems keep yelling that instead of spending billions on the war in Afghanistan, we need to spend for the poor on home. But here are some interesting facts: 1)    The direct cost of the Afghan War will be approximately $650 billion throu...

November 29, 2012

Media at it Again with Economic Spin

A month ago I had an article here at American Thinker, outlining how the media was hyping economic reports. The sample back then was new home sales which CNN Money said is "another sign of the Housing Recovery" when sales "hit a 2½ year high." As I p...

November 26, 2012

In Defense of Michael Medved

The case for Clinton-era-style spending rates could easily be made two years ago, and things haven't changed much since.  As an example, education rose a total of only six percent in Clinton's last six years (when the GOP had Congress), yet it e...

November 11, 2012

Nate Silver Admits Pollsters Correct Methods Days Before Election

Nate Silver of the New York Times writes: "Our method of evaluating pollsters has typically involved looking at all the polls that a firm conducted over the final three weeks of the campaign, rather than its very last poll alone. The reason for this ...

October 31, 2012

Living Through Sandy (and No Obama Leadership)

No, my apartment did not get flooded and my car did not get crushed by a tree, but yes... Thousands of people in my community in Rockland County, New York are living through Sandy on the third day since it arrived: From utility wires obstructing traf...

October 24, 2012

'Two-Year High' Home Sales: Among the Worst on Record

CNN Money reports this morning that "...in another sign of a housing market recovery, new-home sales rose in September to the highest level in more than two years... Sales sold at an annual rate of 389,000 homes in the month, according to the Census ...

October 18, 2012

Housing Start 'Surge' is Worse Than in the Bush years

I don't know what it is, but in the last four weeks all economic reports seem to be "the best in four years" which is heard as if good economic times are back. The last such number is from the Commerce Department which reported that Housing Starts in...

October 17, 2012

About That $250M that GOP 'Gutted' From Hillary's State Department

VP Biden argued at the debate last week and other Democrats keep making this point, that the GOP House voted to cut $250M from the State Department's security budget. This is used to excuse the flop of ignoring pleas to provide more security in Libya...

October 8, 2012

The 7.8% Unemployment Rate in Context

I agree with the editors of Saturday's Wall Street Journal who argued that resorting to conspiracies to explain the drop in the Unemployment Rate detracts from the issue at hand: The job market is a bloody mess even with the numbe...

September 24, 2012

Clinton Lies Again About Obama's Jobs Record

Former President Bill Clinton went on CBS News Face the Nation to explain that Obama inherited a very bad jobs market, and that Obama's job record - certainly when looking on the private sector claims Clinton - is better than the previous eight years...

September 23, 2012

A big reason Romney can't seem to get a lead

Herer are some headlines that were posted by major news sources and media this past Wednesday regarding: Existing home sales, housing starts jump in August 7.8%; Existing home sales take off in August; Sales of US Existing Homes Climb to a Two-Yea...

September 12, 2012

The FY2012 Budget Deficit in Perspective

As you sure know by now, the CBO reported Monday that the Federal Government ran up $192 billion in new deficits during August to a total of $1.17 trillion in deficits for the first 11 months of FY2012. Let's put these numbers into perspective*: ...

September 10, 2012

By Bailing Out GM and Chrysler, Obama Was Betting Against America

In November 2008, before one bailout dollar was handed out to the auto industry, Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed with the headline "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." In it he argued that the best way to help and save the auto industry would be through a structure...

September 3, 2012

Why Republicans Ignored Afghanistan at the Convention

Many Democrats, including at the White House, are attacking the GOP for rarely mentioning the war in Afghanistan during the national convention. I didn't hear this from an insider but my best guess is the issue was ignored because it's a mess. We are...

May 24, 2012

Even with Nutting's Math, Obama 1st Term Spending up 24% vs. Bush's Last Term

Many writers, including me, shot out of the water the false math by Rex Nutting of Market Watch which places all of FY2009 spending at Bush's door step. But even if you take all of the FY2009 outlays and blame it on Bush - which would include the sec...

May 23, 2012

The False Obama Spending Math by Market Watch

Columnist Rex Nutting over at Market Watch has a story with the headline "Obama spending binge never happened." In it he argues "of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree...

May 20, 2012

For Equity Markets, Week of Facebook Worse Than Week of Lehman

Facebook went public Friday May 18, 2012 almost three years into a recovery, while Lehman Brothers collapsed Monday September 15 2008, almost a year into a recession. Here is how the equity markets looked in both of those weeks:    The Dow ...

April 26, 2012

Britain Has No Austerity. Blame its Recession on Last Year's Tax Hikes

Robert Reich has written an article headlined "Britain's Austerity Recession." In it he laments his own created fact that the reason for Britain slipping into a recession recently is due to their austerity; better known as Budget Cuts. But his claim ...

March 12, 2012

Newt's Game of 'Concede' and 'Focus'

Newt Gingrich promises to go all the way to Tampa to fight for the nomination. OK, if he says so. However, I have a question for him: Where is the Great Moment that he keeps promising? After losing Nevada, Gingrich gave a 22-minute press conference s...

February 4, 2012

When Obama Came into Office...

Every time you challenge Democrats on the bad shape of the economy three years (and $5 trillion) into Barack Obama's presidency, you get hit with something like "when Obama came into office, the economy was so bad," etc. So let's remember exactly how...

January 3, 2012

Judaism Fits With Economic Conservatism, Not Liberalism

Sunday, Sixty Minutes interviewed Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who is Jewish. The reporter asked him if there is something in the Jewish faith -- such as helping the poor -- that pushes Jews to vote for Democrats. The reporter went o...

December 26, 2011

Obama's Post Recession Job Record in Historical Context

Obama campaign spin is headed our way. He has turned around the economy, they will say, and employment numbers prove it. In 2011 over a million new jobs were created. We've turned the corner, the plan is working, so we must stay the course.  By...

October 3, 2011

Comparing 2011 Polls to 2007 Polls is Wrong

Various sages tell us current polls on the GOP presidential don't mean much, because at this time during the 2008 contest, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson were leading the national polls, yet neither of them came close to winning the nomination. For ...

August 22, 2011

1,369 US Troops Have Died Under Obama. For What?

While Obama supporters point out that Gaddafi apparently is kaput without costing American lives, would any of them know what Obama has to show for the 1,369 troops who died in recent years? According to www.Icasualties.Org, 1,369 US troops died in I...

July 25, 2011

CBO: How We Swung From $5.6 Trillion Projected Surpluses to $6.2 Trillion Actual Deficits

In early 2001, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the USA will accumulate a total of $5.6 trillion in budget surpluses from 2002 through 2011, but the government instead racked up $6.2 trillion in new debt in this very time. This is an $...

June 18, 2011

Why America Needs Governor Perry as its President

Reports have it that America's current longest-serving Governor, Texas Republican Rick Perry, may enter the 2012 Republican presidential primary race.  While Tim Pawlenty is my favorite within the group who already have declared that they are se...

June 4, 2011

Why Libs do Not Deserve a Pass on Ethics Scandals

Lib TV Hosts Lawrence O'Donnell explained that Congressman Weiner and other Libs that get caught up in scandal deserve a pass because they don't preach against immoralities, but Republicans do preach and therefore they need to be held to a highe...

April 12, 2011

Important Difference Between a Certificate - vs. Certification - of Live Birth

I am not trying to sort out the broader issue of President Obama being born in the United States or not. However, I do want to point out a small, yet important, point regarding the names of documents flying around this issue; a point that even Donald...

March 21, 2011

By the Numbers: Obama's Alliances vs. Bush's Unilateralism

The attacks of Democrat Senator and 2004 Presidential candidate John Kerry against then-President Bush's "unilateral" and "go at it alone" policies of Iraq are something I did not forget yet. I also remember the gleeful reports of...

March 17, 2011

Obama Leads Sheen by Only 13 Points More Than Does Palin

A Poll conducted by Public Policy Polling shows that former AK Governor Palin trails Charlie Sheen 36-41 among Independent voters in a hypothetical match-up, but Palin would beat Charlie Sheen 49-29 among all voters. President Obama would beat Sheen ...

March 16, 2011

WI Republicans Leading in Lib Recall Poll

Public Policy Polling produced a poll for the Daily Kos showing that five of the eight Wisconsin State Senate Republicans would actually beat unidentified Democrat candidates in a Recall matchup. Three of these five would get more than fifty percent ...

March 8, 2011

The $223 Billion February Deficit in Perspective

The Washington Times reports that the federal deficit for February 2011, was approximately $223 billion. No I didn't write 2.23 billion dollars. It is $223 billion; a record for one month. Here is some context:Dividing the $223 billion in the 28...

February 23, 2011

The Wisconsin Numbers that Democrats are Ignoring

The way the left is attacking Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and claiming to be in favor of "democracy" could make one think that the Republicans are the ones who lost the November election there, and therefore Walker should not be doing w...

February 20, 2011

The number of FDIC forced bank closings not slowing down

When the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) sees that a bank has financial troubles, it moves in Friday afternoon to seize the bank, and hands it over to another bank that runs it at the start of the next Monday. Back in 2007, when the economy was...

February 9, 2011

By the Numbers: Who is 'Struggling With Leadership'?

As reported, the House had only 277 votes Tuesday night to pass extensions of the Patriot Act, falling short of the 284 needed. Among the Nay votes were 26 Republicans. Leading Dem Congressman Van Hollen said on this that, "I think our Republica...

January 31, 2011

George W. Bush: Visionary or just lucky?

A few days ago, I was finishing up my reading of the book The Greatest Story Ever Sold, written by Bush-hating New York Times writer Frank Rich (Penguin Press, 2006). In the Epilogue, Rich writes two scenarios how Bush's Iraq war may end. He went wit...

January 27, 2011

By the Numbers: CBO Stats that the Left Won't Like

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is out with new numbers today regarding economic growth and budget issues for the years to come. The Left's take-away of all this (illustrated here, here and here) is that the Obama/Republican tax cut is pushing ...

January 25, 2011

Obama's polling 'surge'

 Many news sites (such as this, this and this) are reporting today with great fanfare a new CNN Poll that 43% think things in the United States are going well, versus 56% who say things are bad. The 'great' news is that the gap between both numb...

January 7, 2011

Democrats and the CBO's ObamaCare numbers

During ObamaCare debates, past and present, Democrats point to the estimates of the Congressional Budget office which show that enacting Health Care Reform gives the U.S. $143 billion in savings over the first ten years (starting in early 2010), and ...

January 3, 2011

Did Republicans Save the Stock Market for 2010?

Granted, I have nothing scientific here. However, the following is just my observations.The top three U.S. Equity Indexes gained between 11% and almost 17% for calendar year 2010. Most of these gains took place from early October, a month b...

December 20, 2010

The Clinton Tax Myth

Thursday evening in the House of Representatives, House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer gave a forceful speech regarding the "Obama-Republican Tax Deal."  He pointed out that in 1993, we raised taxes on the top earners in the country and...

December 9, 2010

The Economic Legacy of the Four-Year Democratic Congress

From early 2007 through the end of 2010, the Democrats had strong majorities in -- and control of -- the U.S. House of Representatives and also the U.S. Senate. Both are chambers where laws and policies that affect the economy are created and shaped....

September 4, 2010

Obama Succeeds Most When He Does Least

While on the domestic front President Obama seems to be driving America deeper into a ditch, he had a success in Iraq when he was able to keep a campaign promise to draw down U.S. forces there by the end of August 2010.For the record, Obama is actual...

September 3, 2010

The secret to Obama's Iraq 'success?' Do nothing

While on the domestic front President Obama seems to be driving America deeper into a ditch, he had a success in Iraq when he was able to keep a campaign promise to draw down US Forces in Iraq by the end of August 2010.For the record, Obama is actual...

August 26, 2010

Who's to blame?

When the right has a policy, they are to blame for any violence that may come out by people who are against the policy. But when the left has a policy, the opponents are at fault for the violence. NY Governor David Paterson suggests that the reason a...

August 19, 2010

Why it is better to run as a Democrat

I am a registered Republican with Conservative views on most issue. However, after long debate with close friends and supporters, I concluded that I will have to run for office as a Democrat. The reason is this: Back in 2005, some people close to ...

August 12, 2010

The argument for a larger Stimulus, doesn't hold water.

As it became more undeniable in recent weeks that Obama's Stimulus Economy is a spectacular failure, Liberals went into spin gear claiming that if only the Stimulus was larger, if only it was $1.2 trillion as Ms. Christina Romer wanted, things would ...

July 19, 2010

The Stimulus: A Different Story Every Day

A vast majority of people surveyed recently believe that the economy, eighteen months after the Stimulus, is still in a very poor shape. Indeed, with an Unemployment Rate double than before Dems took control of Congress; the private sector economy - ...

July 4, 2010

The 'good news-bad news' scenario for the Dems in November

While most political people foresee the Dems going through hell this coming November, in large part due to the weak economy, I think the Dems have a positive sign by looking back to the last midterm elections.Back then, going into the November 2006 e...

June 18, 2010

BP Should Fight the Government on Costs

I know it is in style to gang up on BP for the oil spill, but let me get straight to it: The United States Coast Guard (USCG), according to regulation, plan and/or law, is responsible to contain and clean up oil spills that affect the US waters, in a...

June 3, 2010

Comparison of response to Katrina and BP Oil Spill

Some on the right claim that President Obama's response to the Oil Spill is just like President Bush's Katrina response back in August of 2005.The fact however is, the two instances are not the same.Saturday morning, approximately 48 hours before Kat...

May 30, 2010

Republicans, Drop it!

National Republicans should drop the Sestak case, because there are plenty of more relevant things that Republicans can use to attack the Dem/Obama record which will keep more voters away from the Dems in November, than by focusing too much on this S...

March 25, 2010

It's Reid's victory, not Pelosi's

House Speaker Pelosi has been named "the most powerful woman in American history," and others are congratulating Pelosi for her win with Health Care Reform (HCR).After thinking back how HCR came about on the legislative side, we ma...

January 27, 2010

About that spending 'freeze' Mr. President

Obama is putting up some "conservatism" by announcing that he wants to "freeze" non-defense discretionary spending (NDDS). Meaning, non-defense spending that the federal government can spend according to its discretion, should not...

December 22, 2009

About that Democratc 'victory' in health care reform...

The Democrats are VERY happy they got the 60-40 Health Care Reform (HCR) vote, but instead of thinking that they have a political victory, the Dems should wait until...... Until more voters notice that some Senators voted for the bill mainly because ...