One of my contributions to PJTV’s year-end “Eleven in Two” series.

Let us begin with some more painfully childish hysteria mongering from the climate change freaks. This follows the usual pattern: make up an authoritative sounding title (Director of Sustainability), talk about the latest Magic 8 Ball computer model predictions and try to scare the general public. This time, they’re threatening to take away your coffee with the made-up crisis.

Here is yet another “isolated incident” from one of the Occumorons. This idiot decided to go occupy a bank in Milwaukee because, of course, banks are the Death Star in what passes for the brains of the OWS crowd. Notice how enthralled the passersby are. While there is no official total yet, these “isolated incidents” of the Occumorons acting violently or stupidly now number in the thousands. (h/t Verum Serum)

Finally, a perfect illustration of what’s so annoying about Ron Paul supporters. Yes, there are some who are capable of conversation. Most just spit talking points like some bad political version of The Stepford Wives. Here, one engages Alec Baldwin as he visits Occupy Wall Street. The result? You’re not so annoyed by Alec Baldwin once you’ve had to listen to the Paulbot.

Irony illustrated.

The recession is taking a toll on union jobs, which are disappearing in California at a faster rate than anywhere else in the country, according to a UCLA study published Monday.

In the 12 months ending in June, the union membership rate dropped from 18.3% to 17.6% in California and from 12.4% to 12.1% nationwide, the study found. The drop was most acute in the counties of Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, Ventura and San Bernardino, where unionization rates fell from 17.5% to 16.5%.

At some point, even the most Kool-Aid drunk amongst the liberals are going to have to start noticing that the states where unions have the biggest strangleholds also have the most impossible-to-sustain economic situations. We’re well past the point where anyone needs special economic knowledge to connect these dots.

Big Labor and the Democratic party have been dancing arm-in-arm towards this toilet for decades. The Dems roll over like underachieving dogs for anything Big Labor wants and the unions devote money that could be spent on their members to elect politicians who will eventually implement policies that destroy jobs. It’s an infinity loop of stupid that is now reaching it’s logical (an unknown concept to liberals) conclusion.

The last “Don’t break up with me!” gasp in this sickly dysfunctional relationship will be the thoroughly frightening expansion of government jobs that this administration has demonstrated is the only thing it knows how to do. It makes sure that economic sleight of hand creates enough union jobs to keep the family together, whether it’s good for the kids or not.

The losses have been particularly acute in private sector industries such as residential construction and manufacturing. For the first time, the number of union members nationwide is greater in the public sector than in the private sector: 7.76 million compared with 7.19 million, the study found.

Of course, explaining that the private sector taxes are necessary to fund the federal behemoth and keep it in existence to a liberal is slightly more difficult than getting your toddler to replace your transmission. The “no private sector, no money for the bureaucracy” argument does nothing but create even blanker stares on the Left.

The power of the myth is strong on the other side of the aisle. We can only hope that one or two prominent voices over there emerge from the fog and get a peek at reality.

Or we can win elections.

Image is everything

Since his impossible schedule prohibits Vice President Joe Biden from making it around to every stimulus spending project across the country, the government has come up with the idea of posting project signs to show your $787 billion of hard-earned future tax money at work.

Even if you no longer are at work because the national unemployment rate that was supposed to be capped at 8% by the spending is now 9.5% (higher west of the Mississippi).

The signs are an idea used widely across the country but perfected in Chicago Democratic politics, where everything good carries the name of the current mayor (but none near the unemployment offices or where traffic jams might occur).

Not that any of the bright orange signs are intended to remind potential voters which elected public officials should be remembered as taking care of things come election time.

Between President Obama’s shift to playground mode for the upcoming elections and this little Chicagoland political throwback, we’ve officially moved into the “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” portion of the Hope and Change era.

Remember, it’s not that things are really bad, it’s that we’re too stupid to understand the awesomeness as it’s happening, according to the president and his flying monkeys in the press corps. There seems to be a fervent, blind, desperate hope that the repetition of a wishful mantra can obviate the awakening of the electorate before November.

Despite the constant wailing from the unhinged left that this is all about race, an intellectual examination of the debate reveals that it is, and always has been, about the role of government. There are those who continue to ignore reality and believe that a hyperactive federal bureaucracy that ignores elementary school math principles can “help”. It might in the short run, the way one of those “payday loans” with usurious interest rates help. You feel better for a moment but the payback is a ten ton bitch with halitosis.

The federal behemoth can’t practice efficiency because it’s antithetical to its nature. Couple that with the fact that the people who advocate for greater federal action are also the least likely to ever seek accountability and it’s already a disaster before the ingredients are even mixed.

The insanity of these people is perfectly illustrated by none other than-SHOCKER!-President Obama’s home state of Illinois. Deeply in debt and unable to pay its bills, Illinois has nonetheless spent a cool $650,000 on these signs.

$4.4 billion in debt but able to piss away $650K with impunity-where’s the incentive to be efficient there?

Democrats of a bygone era operated somewhat within the rules of economic reality. The modern hybrid Progressive Democrats who dominate the left right now aren’t bound by anything other than short-term perception. Whatever they can shove down your throats in the name of feeding you what you need is acceptable. When choke on all that help they’re backs will have already turned to you and they’ll be moving towards the next “beneficiary” while you’re being quickly dispatched in the memory-wipe that’s necessary to maintain a Progressive point of view.

So, good luck with that, everyone.

It all depends on what you’re seeing here.

For the first time, the US has more government workers than goods-producing workers

If you get a feeling of free-falling into the dark bowels of an unsustainable future, you’re a conservative.

If, on the other hand, “Happy Days Are Here Again” begins playing in the back of your mind, grab some Kool-Aid and group hug a delusion.

And Paul Krugman keeps telling us that FDR didn’t do enough.

The entire freakin’ country is turning into the DMV and the people currently in charge want to accelerate the process. Then again, I’m just fear mongering if I caution against an America full of unmotivated, impossible-to-fire, government types who blankly stare at the rapid demise of the tax base that sustains them.

Hope and Change. Feel it.

If only Harry Reid was capable of a Grinch-like epiphany.

Senate Democrats are celebrating this morning for passing their version of health care reform, but voters still don’t like much of what they see.

At the start of the week, 41% of voters nationwide were in favor of the health care bill, but 55% were opposed. This is the fifth straight week with support for the legislation between 38% and 41%. Rasmussen Report is continuing to track support for the plan on a weekly basis and will have new numbers on Monday morning. Part of the opposition comes from a general skepticism about Congress, rather than specific policy issues.

But there are specific policy issues that also raise challenges as the Democrats try to pass a final version of this legislation in early 2010.

The devil, of course, is in those specifics (I know, you thought it was behind Pelosi’s mask). This “most transparent congress and administration ever” tried to keep the details from us as long as possible but they couldn’t do it forever because this isn’t Soviet Union-The Sequel.

Yet.

Fifty-four percent (54%) say taxpayer-funded health insurance should be prohibited from covering abortions, up six points from September. The House version of the legislation includes such a prohibition, but the Senate version does not.

When the president excoriated people for making false claims about health care reform he must have been referring to some version of it that he personally scrawled on a napkin, not the steaming pile of legislative dung that he’s so proud of today.

Yes, there’s a little journey this federal steamroller has to take before it can officially begin “helping” in that ever-so-unhelpful federal way.

They’re going to have to bring in a team of euphemism experts to make sure the president is able to say he didn’t lie about virtually everything.

On another hot-button topic, 87% believe that before anyone receives government health care subsidies, they should be required to prove they are legally in the United States. President Obama and congressional Democrats insist the health care plan will not cover illegal immigrants, the legislation does not require proof of citizenship for those seeking taxpayer-funded health care help.

Only eight percent (8%) of voters oppose the requirement for proving that recipients of health care subsidies prove they are in the country legally. Public attitudes on this point have changed little since September.

I can’t purchase decongestants at CVS using my own money without giving them my driver’s license but, hey, if the government is paying for it there’s no reason to quibble over such technicalities.

As with the death panel/advisory board semantic hand-job, the president can stake a claim to some sort of veracity only if he ignores the real application of the law once it’s passed. Obama’s pathological arrogance is infusing the Democratic party at the moment. They believe that the American people are stupid enough to fall for “We didn’t say you could but we didn’t say you couldn’t .”

Whether we’re able to derail this nightmare or not, President Obama and his federally hyperactive minions are going to find one thing out. This merry band of idiots they believe themselves to be the divinely appointed rulers of have long memories.

And we can read.

This just popped up in my inbox.

The site from the NSRC gives multiple options for contacting the Senators who might be wavering. They’ve even written the tweets for all the Twitter activists.

Hey, it’s better than rolling over and playing dead while the freight train is barreling toward you.

Remember the drunken hordes chanting “O-BAM-A!”? That was SO 2008.

Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America’s new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric — and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught.

One can hardly blame the West Point leadership. The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama’s speech would be well-received.

Just minutes before the president took the stage inside Eisenhower Hall, the gathered cadets were asked to respond “enthusiastically” to the speech. But it didn’t help: The soldiers’ reception was cool.

One didn’t have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama’s speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.

We all knew that the first huge case of buyer’s remorse was going to hit the Obama faithful last night, we just didn’t know it would travel across the Atlantic so quickly.

The ascension of Barack Obama during his campaign for the presidency was achieved with a lot of idealist rhetoric that any clear-headed observer could see didn’t have much real world application. But cults of personality like President Obama’s aren’t exactly known for their clear-headed thinking.

The realities of the job are pressing upon Obama and he’s beginning to realize that he can’t just show up, do his Fonzie act and hope that everyone gets so caught up in how cool he is that they don’t notice all of the pain in the ass real world stuff going on.

Now he’s doing the worst thing a war time president can do: he’s trying to throw everyone a bone. More than likely, this is because his need for adulation overrides much of his decision making. His “partial surge with an exit strategy that doesn’t include victory” approach is already showing signs of fallout on all sides.

There is a problem with electing the cool kid to do the world’s most difficult job and it’s about to start showing up more frequently. President Obama couldn’t completely commit to the effort in Afghanistan because it would alienate the very people who thrust him into prominence. It was, after all, his anti-war stance that helped him leave Hillary Clinton in the dust when she was already picking out drapes for the Oval Office. There wasn’t much else that separated them as candidates.

Now, when Obama uses language that’s more appropriate to the real world, he loses the Kos Kids. And the Germans.

It was as though Obama had taken one of his old campaign speeches and merged it with a text from the library of ex-President George W. Bush. Extremists kill in the name of Islam, he said, before adding that it is one of the “world’s great religions.”

Again, an attempt to appeal to everyone wears thin in a hurry:

It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal, of marching to and fro.

Unfortunately, those of us who have known all along that Obama was never ready for this gig feel no vindication now. “I told you so” is neither satisfying or appropriate when we’re talking about the lives American troops.

The more that reality intrudes upon the Obama Cult of Personality, the more difficult it will be for the president to dismiss detractors with pithy catch phrases that his devoted sycophants in the American media dutifully repeat for him.

True, the European press was largely caught up in Obamamania last year. Non-American journalists, ironically, have more freedom to criticize this president.

Obama’s Magic No Longer Works

But in this case, the public was more disturbed than entertained. Indeed, one could see the phenomenon in a number of places in recent weeks: Obama’s magic no longer works. The allure of his words has grown weaker.

It is not he himself who has changed, but rather the benchmark used to evaluate him. For a president, the unit of measurement is real life. A leader is seen by citizens through the prism of their lives — their job, their household budget, where they live and suffer. And, in the case of the war on terror, where they sometimes die.

Political dreams and yearnings for the future belong elsewhere. That was where the political charmer Obama was able to successfully capture the imaginations of millions of voters. It is a place where campaigners — particularly those with a talent for oration — are fond of taking refuge. It is also where Obama set up his campaign headquarters, in an enormous tent called “Hope.”

In his speech on America’s new Afghanistan strategy, Obama tried to speak to both places. It was two speeches in one. That is why it felt so false. Both dreamers and realists were left feeling distraught.

We are now desperately in need of a war time president but find ourselves being led by a homecoming king.

A classic example of why I don’t believe any of the snake oil sales pitch about health care costs.

Maybe when you print money all day, it becomes easier to spend.

A Republican congressman is taking a hard look at a program in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing that would give hundreds of senior employees $75 gift cards in exchange for their printers, which the government already owns.

“It’s absurd and demeaning that managers would offer employees gift cards for the simple act of returning office property,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee, said in a written statement Tuesday.

It gets better, wait until you see the rationale behind the incentive program.

The Washington Post reported that the bureau created the incentive program because it wanted to cut down on printer use to save money.

The article said at least 534 employees have individual printers. The gift cards were offered as a way to induce those who might otherwise be possessive about the printers to give them up and use a network printer.

The medical community has a name for this kind of behavior: functionally retarded.

In the real world, where people use brains and other silly stuff at work, employees would have been ordered to return property that belonged to their employers, or else. But there is no “or else” in the la-la, can’t-fire-me-unless-I-kill-someone world of federal employment (thank your local labor union official for this mess).

There are no real business, math or fiscal responsibility rules in the world of the fedtards, that’s how they continually claim to be saving money while spending it. It doesn’t matter which bloated arm of the federal government is making things up, inefficient appropriation of taxpayer funds is their mission statement.

Just look at today’s CBO report that the Democrats are lauding as proof that Obamacare won’t raise costs.

Before taking account of federal subsidies to help people buy insurance on their own, the budget office said the bill would tend to drive up premiums. But as a result of the subsidies, it said, most people in the individual insurance market would see their costs decline, compared with the costs expected under current law. The subsidies, a main feature of the bill, would cost the government nearly $450 billion in the next 10 years and would cover nearly two-thirds of premiums for people who receive them.

Get that? The government will be spending $450 billion to keep costs down. Where does it get that money? From its summer job? No, it’s a direct cost to the American consumer. So, if we all just spend almost half a trillion dollars for ten years, most premiums won’t cost more. But get the KY out on April 15th every year for the next decade. It’s a semantic game, not an economic reality. In the interest of me getting to my lunch quicker, let’s not even examine the history of government expenditure predictions that are almost always lower than actual costs.

Most people focus on whether the government should be attempting to do all that Team Lightbringer wants it to do. I remain focused on whether it even can do any of it.

And if we’re looking at past performance as an indicator of future behavior…

And I don’t want to be friends.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. Most (52%) remain opposed.

Only 25% Strongly Support the plan while 42% are Strongly Opposed.

Hardly the “everybody wants it” scenario the elected goons in this now delusional representative republic have been describing, right?

It should be obvious to even the most casual observer that the Botox Hag and her Flying Monkeys up on Capitol Hill have lost touch with the concept of representation as it’s described in the U.S. Constitution. Then again, it’s probably it’s probably a stretch to hope that most of them have read any of the Constitution in the first place.

The simple fact of the matter is this: the health care reform that Congress and President Obama long to see annihilating the economy isn’t something that’s wanted by a majority of the people they represent. It’s a pet project for the president’s progressive street cred and a byproduct of Speaker Pelosi’s San Francisco delirium. Generations of Americans are about to be sold out for an Obama vanity project that will appease the fringe of the Democratic party.

Despite the president’s best used car salesman attempts to lie about the ultimate goal of “reform”, many Americans remain immune to the spell.

Naturally, we can’t discuss this rationally because it’s an issue that’s near and dear to the progressive Left, which means it’s all about emotion. I would LOVE to have a discussion about fixing the things in the health care system which really need fixing. However, unless I subscribe to the marching orders issued from the White House through Congress, I’m branded an ignorant racist who is merely interested in blocking whatever the president does.

Actually, I’d just like to participate in what used to be a deliberative process that valued an exchange of ideas. A massive overhaul of several sectors of the American economy that has to be sneaked past us on a Saturday night in the hope that everyone will be too drunk to notice makes me a little skittish. Pelosi did everything but give us rufis prior to this reaming.

Paraphrasing Rep. Peter Roskam from last Saturday’s, um, debate: If this is something that everybody wants why are you threatening imprisonment for those who don’t participate?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but this dysfunctional relationship between Congress and the people it purportedly serves is wearing me out. It’s beyond the point where even Dr. Phil can fix it.

I want out. Nancy, you’re gonna have to go. Pack up your socialist nonsense and go back to San Francisco. No, no, keep the pension. Just leave.

Now.