It’s Wednesday, September 28th, 2011….and here’s The Gouge!

First up, a forward from Jeff Foutch in which White House Dossier‘s Keith Koffler reports….

The paper writes that Obama campaign manager Jim Messina has told Democratic officials that the president will raise about $55 million in the quarter that ends Sept. 30, about $30 million less than he raised the first quarter of his campaign – which was the second quarter of the year, ending June 30. The news was – gosh who would have expected – buried within the Times story.

No doubt, $55 million is a lot of money. But something’s not right.

The campaign attributes part of the decline to the need for Obama to stay in Washington address budget battles with Republicans. That is – sorry for the inconvenience – the need to be president.

But a separate Times article Saturday that said many small donors are hesitant to start giving to Obama again. And it’s no secret that even for Democrats, the thrill is gone.

This helps explain the vitriol Obama has been dumping out on the campaign trail. He needs to get people motivated to send him their money, and if he can get the hating thing going – hate Republicans, hate the rich, hate EVERYONE – maybe they’ll part with some cash.

In a related item, here’s today’s “And If You Believe THAT, I’ve Got This Bridge In Brooklyn!” segment, courtesy of Speed Mach and a very submissive bit of reporting from ABC News:

$200K Per Job? Geithner Says White House Jobs Plan Is Still a Bargain

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner didn’t dispute a Harvard economist’s estimate that each job in the White House’s jobs plan would cost $200,000, but said the pricetag is the wrong way to measure the bill’s worth. And he also pointed out, in an interview today with ABC News’ David Muir, that there is no other option on the table for getting the economy moving and putting more people back to work.

“You’ve got to think about the costs of the alternatives,” Geithner said when asked about Harvard economist Martin Feldstein’s calculation that each job created by President Obama’s American Jobs Act would cost taxpayers about $200,000. “If government does nothing, it does nothing now because they’re scared by politics or they want to debate what’s perfect, then there will be fewer Americans back to work, the economy will be weaker,” he said. (You know….like after the FIRST Stimulus!)

“We can borrow money for 10 years as the government of the United States because people have confidence in this country at less than 2 percent,” he said. “The responsible path now is to take advantage of the unique position we’re in as a country. People have a lot of confidence in us. Let’s take advantage of that now to do things that help growth in the short-term.”

Geithner told Muir he believes there is a “very good chance” the Jobs Act will pass because the proposals have seen bipartisan support in the past and the cost of inaction is far too high.

“If the alternative plan is for Washington to do nothing, that’s unacceptable,” Geithner said. “If the alternative plan is to sit there and say we’re going to cut our way out of this by just cutting spending, that would make the economy weaker. Or we’re going to sit here and just complain about regulation. … That will not do anything to help the average family now still suffering so much from the crisis.”

At the same time as Geithner is trying to help spur the U.S. economy, he is pushing European leaders to act quickly in the face of a looming crisis.

Aaahhh!  Speaking of Europe; across the Pond….mein Gott in himmel!  Az zis next item frum Bill Meisen tellz uz, ze Germans have finally grasped the true economic prowess of Timmy the Tax Cheat and Team Tick-Tock:

Germany slams ‘stupid’ US plans to boost EU rescue fund

Germany and America were on a collision course on Tuesday night over the handling of Europe’s debt crisis after Berlin savaged plans to boost the EU rescue fund as a “stupid idea” and told the White House to sort out its own mess before giving gratuitous advice to others.

Seriously….in every aspect of their governance, Team Tick-Tock makes the Carter Administration look like the Pros from Dover.

Since we’re on the subject of those that make us yearn for the Carter years….

DEM NC Gov Says: “Suspend Elections for Congress”

The Democrat governor of North Carolina has suggested that the country dispense with Congressional elections for two years in order to help the “economic recovery.”

“You have to have more ability from Congress,” said Gov Bev Perdue, “I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that.”

So not only should we suspend elections, she says, but we should also not hold any actions Congress might take- actions taken for our own good of course- against them.

Perdue’s campaign has been under investigation for illegal contributions and suspicious spending. No word from the governor’s office about whether she’d like to suspend the state’s campaign finance laws as a part of broader reform efforts.  And people wonder why there is a Tea Party movement?

Perdue’s camp has since suggested the good Governor wuz jus’ joshin’!  Hardly.  As contributor Bill Meisen notes:

“The Founding Fathers intentionally created a system that would gridlock.  They were deathly afraid of a powerful centralized government, which is why there are so many checks and balances….why it is so difficult to get major legislation implemented.”

Which helps explain why elections are timed to empower voters with a ready response to complacency….or tyranny….as the GOP and Dims both learned to their great dismay in 2006 and 2010 respectively.

If Governor Perdue wishes to live in a country where one party subverts the national constitution and rules in perpetuity….for the good of the people you understand….we suggest she move to Venezuela!

Next up, the WSJ updates on the latest developments in the Solbama scandal:

Solyndra Violated Terms of Its U.S. Loan

Solyndra LLC had such steep financial problems in late 2010 that the company violated terms of its loan-guarantee agreement with the Department of Energy and technically defaulted on its $535 million loan, according to people familiar with the matter.

The failed solar-panel maker, which is under numerous criminal and congressional investigations, ran so short of cash in December 2010 that it was unable to satisfy certain terms of its U.S. loan agreement, these people said. The agreement required Solyndra to provide $5 million in equity to a subsidiary building its factory but cash-flow problems prevented those payments.

Solyndra’s cash-flow problems in late 2010 had previously come to light but it was not known that the company technically defaulted on its loan and violated its agreement with the U.S. government.

The company’s financial problems prompted the Energy Department early this year to allow it to reshuffle its debt. Under the arrangement, private investors agreed to provide a new $75 million loan and won the right to be paid ahead of the government if the company was liquidated.

The default is the latest indication of the serious financial troubles afflicting California-based Solyndra, which filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month. It will likely add to questions surrounding the Obama administration’s backing for the company even as its financial problems mounted.

Like the Energizer Bunny, this Solyndra thing keeps going….and going….and going!  We only hope it lasts until November 2012!

And in Tales From the Darkside, Best of the Web presents the Vidal Sassoon-MSM “If’n HE Don’ Look Good, WE Don’ Look Good Neither!” segment, courtesy of the professionally-biased across this great land:

The Dialect Dialectic

Is it racist to translate a black speaker’s quote into standard English–or is it racist not to?

“Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’,” President Obama lectured the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation on Saturday, according to the Associated Press. According to the White House transcript, the president said: “Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying.” Dylan Stableford of Yahoo! News reports that the case of the missing g’s is now prompting charges of racism:

On MSNBC, the African-American author Karen Hunter complained the news service transcribed Obama’s speech without cleaning it up as other outlets did–specifically including the “dropped g’s.” . . .

Hunter called the AP’s version “inherently racist,” sparring with New Republic contributing editor and noted linguistics expert John McWhorter, who argued the g-less version “is actually the correct one,” noting that the president’s victory in the 2008 election was due, in part, to how effortlessly “he can switch into that [black] dialect.”

Whatever the reason, Hunter found it offensive. “I teach a journalism class, and I tell my students to fix people’s grammar, because you don’t want them to sound ignorant,” she said. “For them to do that, it’s code, and I don’t like it.” (Ms. Hunter….decode this: here’s a quarter; call someone who gives a flyin’ fart WHAT you like!)

This brings back memories. Too many years ago, when we were a reporter on our college newspaper, we did a story on a student-government election debate. (We have paid our dues in this business.) One of the candidates was a black fellow, and he was asked about a recent racial kerfuffle, the details of which we’ve long since forgotten. Referring to whatever it was that was allegedly insensitive, the candidate said: “It’s not no racist thing.”

We had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it seemed a bit cruel to embarrass the young man by calling attention to his poor grammar. On the other hand, a reporter is supposed to quote people accurately. We went to the editor with our dilemma. He–perhaps mindful that the faculty adviser was a bit fanatical about racial sensitivity–decided to report the quote as “It’s not a racist thing.”

The Obama case is different in two ways. Militating in favor of Hunter’s position, “cleaning up” Obama’s quotation does not involve changing his words, only spelling them in the usual way rather than phonetically to capture his pronunciation. That is a common practice. When someone says “gonna” and is quoted in print, it usually reads “going to.” When Rick Perry, in a debate earlier this month called President Obama what sounded like “an abject lahr”, it was quoted as “an abject liar.” (Somebody on Twitter speculated that the governor might have meant to liken the president to Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion in “The Wizard of Oz.”)

On McWhorter’s side of the argument, this is the president of the United States, not some student at a third-tier Western university, and the style in which he speaks to various audiences is a matter of public interest. We are wholly persuaded by AP reporter Mark Smith’s defense of his decision to drop the g’s:

“Normally, I lean toward the clean-it-up school of quote transcribing—for everyone,” Smith tole Mediaite. “But in this case, the President appeared to be making such a point of dropping Gs, and doing so in a rhythmic fashion, that for me to insert them would run clearly counter to his meaning. I believe I was respecting his intent in this. Certainly disrespect was the last thing I intended.”

It should be noted that the dropping of g’s is a feature not only of black speech. When trying to sound folksy, Obama does it in front of largely white audiences too, and so do many white politicians. As far as we know, nobody accused reporters of being disrespectful to Sarah Palinwhen they quoted one of her most famous utterances: “How’s that hopey changey stuff workin’ out for ya?”

….We’re inclined to agree with Washington (and to think our editor made the wrong decision back in college). And we think Michael Smith made the right call in quoting Obama with the dropped g’s: The president’s manner of speaking to the CBC Foundation was in fact newsworthy…..

By the way….The Obamao speaks “street” about as well as….

….Steve Urkel!

And thus, though Progressives continue trying to classify every Conservative as “racist”, the Tea Party demonstrates why the label just won’t stick:

Dorothy Rabinowitz on the appeal of Herman Cain.

The pundits busy divining the reasons Herman Cain won that Florida straw poll so handily can’t be blamed—it was a compelling spectacle and a distinctly satisfying one as straw poll results go. To have listened to the candidate’s prescriptions in his speech to the delegates Saturday was to see why. Everything he told the audience had been said, in one way or another, by most of the leading Republican candidates. The difference here was—is—Mr. Cain’s unfailing capacity to speak as though from a core of fire deep inside him. An irresistible strength—as is the mordant humor he brings to the battle.

So it happens that he can deliver a steely jibe about defense cuts (“You don’t put a bull’s-eye on the backs of our men and women in uniform”) or the way America’s wars must be fought (“The mission is victory. . . . If we are not in it to win it, we will not be in it”) and make audiences feel they’d never heard anything so bracing. . . .

An early response to the Florida poll results came from a friend, historian Alan C. Kors, who observed in mock puzzlement: “So, the ‘Tea Party racists’ in a Republican straw poll chose the self-made black Herman Cain—mathematician and successful businessman—son of a cleaning woman and a janitor, as their choice of nominee for the presidency of the United States. Well! What a bigoted group, what a caste society!”

It’s an observation whose point wouldn’t be lost on Herman Cain.

On the Lighter Side….

And in News of the Bizarre….AND Ignorant, as this last item from Ocala.com suggests, real racism must be so absent in most of the country many Americans don’t even know what it looks like:

Patrons mistake ice cream shop mascot for KKK robes

Co-owner Jose Cantres says rumors are swirling on Facebook about the exact nature of the little vanilla cone, and employees heard through word of mouth that potential customers have steered clear of the shop to avoid the character.

Liza Diaz, who manages the store for Cantres and co-owner Jesus Diaz, said an employee at the bank where she does business told her a co-worker was so frightened by the white dollop patrolling the street corner that she called her husband crying and refused to drive through the intersection.

“One (customer) told me, ‘I had to think twice before coming in here because I thought it was KKK,’ ” Diaz said. Interestingly, Diaz, who is from Puerto Rico, had never heard of the KKK before this controversy. She can’t even quite get her tongue around the name, referring to the white supremacist group as the “Ku Ku Klan” without a hint of irony or sarcasm.

“….so frightened by the white dollop patrolling the street corner that she called her husband crying and refused to drive through the intersection.”?!?  As we’ve often noted, there’s no cure for “stupid”!

Finally, in “I’ll Take Geography In The Top Right Corner To Win, Wink!”, we learn not only does The Obamao not know how many states there are in the Union, his handlers can’t even locate them on a map:

Oops!  White House Fails Basic Geography Test

Looks like someone in the White House press office needs to brush up on his or her U.S. geography. The press office issued credentials to those reporters and photojournalists who are covering the president’s trip this week to Washington state, California, and Colorado. The credential even provides a handy graphic highlighting (in white) which states the president will visit.

The only problem? Wyoming is highlighted, not Colorado. To be fair, both states are rectangular, nearly identical in size, and stacked next to each other. But we doubt our third grade teachers would buy that!

More importantly, would the MSM have let this slide had Bush II been the one headed West?!?

Magoo