AUSTIN, Tex.—Hundreds of people braved temperatures exceeding 100 degrees on Monday to send a message to President Obama: “Keep your hands off Texas.”
Hours after Obama visited the city for a Democratic fundraiser and a speech to University of Texas students, speaker after speaker at the Hands Off Texas rally contrasted Texas’ somewhat vibrant economy with a much bleaker national picture.
“The President wants to enact a liberal agenda in Texas by electing Democrats,” said Lathan Watts, Lewisville city councilman. Calling Texas an “inconvenient truth” for Obama, Lewis said state policies of low taxation, spending and regulation have helped Texas avoid the worst of the economic stress affecting most of the country. . . .
Ben Quayle‘s been the subject of a bizarre mini-scandal for the past couple of days, after gossip/sex site TheDirty.com revealed that he’d been a “contributor” in the site’s early days as DirtyScottsdale.com, about trashy Scottsdale nightlife. Site founder Nik Richie claimed that Quayle had written under the pseudonym “Brock Landers,” which he used to “document his quest to find the ‘hottest chick in Scottsdale.'” (Landers is the name of one of the characters from the movie Boogie Nights.)
I think he should hire Eric Stratton, GOP spokesman. You got to admit: Ben’s doing a great job of making everybody forget about Rand Paul and Aqua Buddha.
McKelway’s live report [from a protest event in DC] began with a factually correct statement about BP’s donations to President Obama. McKelway accurately noted that Obama received $77,051 from the BP employees . . .
When McKelway asked one of the event’s participants to comment on it, Ted Glick of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network acknowledged it was a problem for Obama. The rally was organized by left-wing groups Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Public Citizen.
OK, maybe a tad over-the-top there in the headline. As of 3:30 p.m., the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off about 260 points, but that’s not quite 2.5% of the index value, so it’s too early to expect stockbrokers to start jumping out windows in Lower Manhattan. See if you can’t spot the magic word here:
Stocks were deeply in the red Wednesday after the U.S. trade deficit widened unexpectedly and a string of weak economic reports from Asia and Europe heightened concerns that the global recovery is veering off track.
At a time when workers’ pay and benefits have stagnated, federal employees’ average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn, a USA TODAY analysis finds.
Federal workers have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years in a row. The compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade.
Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
That story was sent to me by a federal employee, BTW. They not only get paid more than we do, they have spare time to rub our noses in it.
UPDATE II: The DJIA closed 10,379, a loss of 265 points, while the S&P closed at 1089, down 32 points. And the latest news from D.C. is not really encouraging:
Government Plans More Aid for Jobless Homeowners
The Obama administration announced on Wednesday morning another round of direct assistance for unemployed homeowners at risk of foreclosure.
The aid, which totals $3 billion, comes against the backdrop of a weakening economy, stubbornly high unemployment and a housing market destabilized by millions of foreclosures.
Liberal logic: If what you’re doing isn’t working, do more of it!
Right now the rest of the world should be buying U.S. exports. Instead, it is using the sickly U.S. consumer as a cheap fix for its own problems. The world is addicted to U.S. demand. With Wednesday’s surge in the dollar, we are feeding the addiction even more. Ultimately, as the U.S. economy weakens, so does everyone else.
Read the whole thing. Casey isn’t arguing for protectionism, but rather explaining why U.S. consumers — devastated by the collapse of the real-estate bubble — can’t be counted on as the driving engine for a global recovery.
“The perceived rising danger of a US double–dip recession, the risk of a hard landing in China and the threat of a financial or sovereign crisis in Europe . . .” (Market Watch)
“. . . the US economy is poised now on the cusp of a double– dip recession . . .” (Business Times)
” . . . the downside risk of a double–dip recession and a deflationary spiral has increased over the past few months . . .” (Financial Times)
Looks like she’s got Rule 5 (“Everybody Loves a Pretty Girl“) nailed down cold, but she’s experiencing a problem I’ve experienced myself: Getting linked for the funny stuff, while more serious work gets overlooked:
Trying to get a good content mix — hard-core politics, media criticism, cultural commentary, silly fun stuff — is an experimental process and there’s no magic formula, but there is method to the madness. It ain’t all bikini pics and blogwhoring.
Having a traffic-growth approach to blogging requires patience and a willingness to do some serious “eat your vegetables” stuff that doesn’t get a lot of traffic, but which functions as ballast to the more light-hearted material.
UPDATE: Lest you think I’m merely joking about the bikini picture, I’ll include this screen-cap of conservative blogger Cassy Fiano’s sidebar. You’ll notice that, wedged between the cleavage shot and the bikini shot, is a link for her bridal registry.
This is what we call marketing genius.
Cassy is an excellent blogger whose recent blog topics have included:
An interesting mix of topics, you see. And she doesn’t seem the least bit embarrassed about looking good in a bikini, which may help explain why she and her new husband, Matt, are now expecting their first child.
Congratulations, Cassy! And thanks for your shameless obedience to Rule 2.
Yesterday, Karen Handel called Nathan Deal a “corrupt relic of Washington.” Today, however, Handel said she is endorsing him as the GOP nominee for governor.
In a statement just released from the Handel campaign, she said she called Deal this morning to concede the nomination.The November ballot is now set. Deal will represent the GOP and face Democrat Roy Barnes and Libertarian John Monds.
Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said that U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., coordinated the phone call between Handel and Deal.
Good news, then, that Republicans have united to help save my native state from a return of Retread Roy Barnes. And thanks to Orit Sklar for giving me the heads-up last week.
UPDATE: Let me hasten to add that Libertarian gubernatorial candidate John Monds is a friend of mine and a great guy. In 2008, John and I were part of a 2,800-mile round-trip in a 15-passenger van full of “smelly libertarians” for the Libertarian Party national convention in Denver. Tom Knapp was also aboard for that trip.
We know that Sarah Palin endorsed Handel, who lost the GOP primary to Deal, and we know that Palin endorsed libertarian-leaning Rand Paul in Kentucky. If Palin really wanted to “go rogue” in Georgia, she could endorse John Monds on the Libertarian ticket — which would be a real game-changer.
Yeah, a Palin endorsement of the Libertarian candidate here would be a guaranteed nightmare for both Democrats and Republicans in Georgia. It’s extremely unlikely, of course, but I’m throwing the idea out there, just in case Team Sarah wants to try stirring up some serious “you betcha” mischief.
