1.) How many Dow Jones points did Obama create or save? — President Obama wasn’t scheduled to give a speech yesterday, oddly enough. But considering what the markets were doing, he quickly reconsidered and scheduled a 1PM statement. Which was then delayed until 1:30. At 1:52, he finally showed up and said… not much, really. Apparently he spent those extra 52 minutes making sure his accusations and blame-dodging were worded as vaguely as possible, and he didn’t give us anything he hasn’t said countless times before. But hey, at least he said something to reassure everyone, right? Better than nothing, right? Well… TheDC’s C.J. Ciaramella reports: “The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 635 points today, but it shed more than 200 of those points after President Obama began speaking on the economy this afternoon. At a press conference at the White House today, Obama tried to brush aside the recent downgrade of the U.S. credit rating by Standard & Poor’s from AAA to AA+. ‘No matter what some agency may say, we’ve always been and always will be a triple-A country,’ Obama said. The markets weren’t encouraged, however. The Dow closed below 11,000 for the first time since last November. All three major U.S. stock indexes sank between 5 percent and 7 percent. Overall, U.S. stocks have fallen 15 percent during the past two weeks. A graph prepared by a conservative political action group American Crossroads shows the stock market’s continued sell-off after Obama starts what the group calls his ‘vanity press conference.'” Consider it the markets’ show of confidence… in whoever ends up running against this guy.
2.) Waste, fraud, and abuse: consider it done — Considering the state of the union under Obamanomics, it’s a good thing Obamacare is going to save us all that money, right? Well… TheDC’s Neil Munro reports: “Federal payments required by President Barack Obama’s health care law are being understated by as much as $50 billion per year because official budget forecasts ignore the cost of insuring many employees’ spouses and children, according to a new analysis. The result could cost the U.S. Treasury hundreds of billions of dollars during the first ten years of the new health care law’s implementation. ‘The Congressional Budget Office has never done a cost-estimate of this [because] they were expressly told to do their modeling on single [person] coverage,’ said Richard Burkhauser in a telephone interview Monday. Burkhauser is an economist who teaches in Cornell University’s department of policy analysis and management… Employees and employers can use the rules to their own advantage, he said. ‘A very large number of workers’ will be able to apply for federal subsidies, ‘dramatically increasing the cost’ of the law, he said.” $50 billion here, $50 billion there… Pretty soon you’re talking real money! Nancy was right: We would never have found out what was in this bill if we hadn’t passed it.
3.) Cash-and-Carry Barry still bilking the rubes — But don’t worry about Obama. He’s separating the suckers from their wallets while they’ve still got ’em. Neil Munro reports: “President Barack Obama had a bad day at the White House, but a good day on the campaign fundraising circuit. After watching the Dow Jones index drop 635 points, following his brief lunchtime statement, he spent the evening at two fundraisers in D.C. Roughly 140 people attended the $7,500 per plate event at the home of Don and Katrina Peebles, raising $1 million for his re-election campaign. Roughly 60 people attended the second fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel in downtown D.C., according to a press report which did not include any financial data… At both events, he called for increased taxes, and emphasized ‘fairness.’” If you can’t afford or don’t want to buy a $7,500 ticket to be scolded about not paying enough taxes — which you can hear Obama say any other day of the week for free — you must be a dumb teabagger or something.
4.) And NOW for something completely different — Politics really does make strange bedfellows. A few weeks ago, many conservatives criticized TheDC for reporting on Michele Bachmann’s migraines. Now she’s the subject of an unflattering Newsweek cover story, and she’s being defended by… the National Organization for Women??? Try to remember the last time they had anything good to say about Bachmann or any other conservative woman, and then read the following from TheDC’s Caroline May: “One of presidential candidate Michele Bachmann’s major political opponents is defending her against what it says is blatant sexism on the part of Newsweek magazine. Monday, the National Organization for Women (NOW) spoke out against Newsweek’s most recent cover, which features an extreme close-up of Michele Bachmann and the title ‘The Queen of Rage.’ ‘It’s sexist,’ NOW president Terry O’Neill told TheDC. ‘Casting her in that expression and then adding The Queen of Rage… Gloria Steinem has a very simple test: If this were done to a man or would it ever be done to a man – has it ever been done to a man? Surely this has never been done to a man… Who has ever called a man ‘The King of Rage?’” Man. Who knows, man? The main man at Newsweek needs to man up and tell whoever’s manning the controls to stop manhandling Bachmann, man. Just kidding. After all, it’s only Newsweek. Let’s all chuckle indulgently at the once-great magazine’s precipitous slide into irrelevance.
5.) Kanye West doesn’t care about sane people — Did you know people look at Kanye West like he’s Hitler? Because Kanye West says people look at him like he’s Hitler. TheDC’s Laura Donovan reports: “Performing at the Big Chill music festival over the weekend, the ‘All of the Lights’ singer complained that others treat him as if he’s a crazy person or the Nazi leader. ‘And once again I wake up, and I’m a monster,’ West said. ‘And I walk through the hotel and I walk down the street and people look at me like I’m f***ing insane, like I’m Hitler… One day, one day a light will shine through and one day people will understand everything I ever did, ever said, was to throw myself on the blade for the sake of someone else, for the sake of people.'” Ima let you finish, Kanye, but Hitler had one of the best narcissistic crybaby rants of all time. Of all time!
6.) Today’s words of wisdom from Alec Baldwin’s Twitter feed — “Buy and read a newspaper every day. In print or online, there is information in newspapers you will never get from other media.”