Someone decided to poll Obama and Bush in Ohio:

From Tom Jensen at Public Policy Polling on Tuesday: “We’ll start rolling out our Ohio poll results tomorrow but there’s one finding on the poll that pretty much sums it up: by a 50-42 margin voters there say they’d rather have George W. Bush in the White House right now than Barack Obama.”…

I guess we can certainly say that the bloom is off the Obama rose. This is what happens when you hide your past and pretend to be something you aren’t – once you get found out, people turn pretty swiftly on you.

From Fox News:

The South Korean government, in an effort to raise money for its military, wants to sell nearly a million antique M1 rifles that were used by U.S. soldiers in the Korean War to gun collectors in America.

The Obama administration approved the sale of the American-made rifles last year. But it reversed course and banned the sale in March – a decision that went largely unnoticed at the time but that is now sparking opposition from gun rights advocates…

The official story is that the Obama Administration is afraid the weapons will fall in to the wrong hands. My attitude is: almost of all of them will certainly fall in to the right hands – ie, the hands of the American people. The chances that gangsters or terrorists will want the weapons is small – they are large, heavy and impossible to conceal. They are not the weapons of criminals and thugs, but of people who want to defend themselves.

As a matter of fact, if these weapons are in good working order (and from what I understand, they are) they are precisely the sort of weapons Americans should have. Powerful, durable weapons which would be excellent for home defense. They are also, of course, good for target practice or just for collecting a famed weapon – it was with the M-1 Garand that we won the Second World War, after all.

This move by the Obama Administration just shows that gun-grabbing is still intrinsic to the left…they just can’t stand the thought of American citizens being armed.

From the Wall Street Journal:

In an ominous sign for the holiday shopping season, American consumers behaved like skinflints in August, focusing on bare necessities and budget-priced deals as they made back-to-school purchases.

Shoppers spent slightly more last month than they had the year before, according to MasterCard Advisors, which crunches data from credit cards, checks and cash payments to form sales estimates. But in nearly every category, the sales numbers were far short of 2008 levels, indicating the economic recovery remains sluggish…

That last should actually say “indicating the economic recovery remains a figment of Bernanke’s imagination”. Who has money to spend right now? For those who do, who is willing to greatly extend themselves when the next couple of months might bring economic collapse and spreading unemployment?

Get ready for a grim rest-of-the-year, and then a miserable 2011 as the Bush tax cuts expire and put yet more downward pressure on the economy.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

Freudian slip, or liberalism’s true color? We report, you decide:

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Obama administration is considering a range of new measures to boost economic growth, including tax cuts and a new nationwide infrastructure program, according to people familiar with the discussions…

…in the mix: a possible payroll tax cut for businesses and individuals, as well as other business tax breaks, according to people familiar with the discussions…

A payroll tax cut would be the most useful thing Obama could do immediately for the economy – and for the people. But this also shows the level of desperation Democrats are reduced to – facing big losses in the fall, they are looking for expedients to just hold the line. Their thinking might be that a tax cut with a flourish enacted shortly before election day might give them a boost…might, that is, save the Senate for them, and prevent a complete blow out in the House.

If it works – I’m not so sure it will; given the attitude of the American people, such a move could backfire and be seen for a cynical, political ploy.

But, my fellow Americans, we’ve got them on the ropes – they are considering a dose of Reaganism two months in front of an election to boost their popularity!

From the Wall Street Journal:

Stocks limped to their worst August since 2001, battered by a wave of discouraging data that cast doubt on the faltering economic recovery.

Investors now enter September, a month that has been historically challenging for the stock market, against a backdrop of broad uncertainty, including slow growth and deflation fears.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average battled to a stalemate on Tuesday, rising 4.99 points, or 0.05%, to finish at 10014.72. The blue-chip index’s 4.3% drop for the month was the worst since a dismal May, and the measure’s first down August in five years. The Dow had rallied 7.1% in July…

I’m not so sure that September will prove a bad month – seems to me that the markets are being either manipulated, or controlled by coked-up monkeys. It should be down thousands of points from where it is as the economy is clearly in the dumpster – but, it still hangs on around the 10,000 mark. It will eventually fall, but I suspect that the Powers That Be will try their best to keep it up until November 3rrd.

The curious thing is that I don’t see how we get out of this while Obama is in office. Supposing the GOP wins big in November, the fact remains that the only thing the GOP can do for sure is halt any further Obama initiatives…but with Obama holding the veto, we can’t roll back any of the disastrous policies (Obama-made or inherited from decades past) which are preventing us from recovering. It could be a very long two years.

Victor Davis Hanson notes:

…The truth about Iraq is that, for all the tragedy and the loss, the U.S. military performed a miracle. After nearly seven years, a constitutional government endures in that country. It is too often forgotten that all 23 of the writs for war passed by the Congress in 2002 — from enforcing the Gulf I resolutions and stopping the destruction of the Kurds and Marsh Arabs, to preventing the Iraqi state promotion of terrorism, ending suicide bounties on the West Bank, and stopping Iraq from invading or attacking neighbors or trying to acquire WMD — were met and satisfied by the U.S. military. It is also too often forgotten that, as a result, Libya gave up its WMD program; Dr. Khan’s nuclear franchise was shut down; Syria left Lebanon; and American troops in Saudi Arabia, put there as protection against Saddam, were withdrawn…

Our troops behaved magnificently – their courage and devotion has won a major victory. This is also very much President Bush’s victory, as without him it would never have been started, and never carried through. This victory should be the signal of a new Middle East – a reformed Moslem world, but I fear that Obama’s temporizing attitude towards Iran and other threats will lose us the ultimate fruits of victory.

But nothing can take away what the troops did – in spite of all odds and immense difficulties and heart breaking losses, they carried out their duty and won what so many people said could not be won. They have proven themselves the worthy successors of the soldiers of America’s past wars.

From CNS News:

…When Obama was inaugurated last year, Americans who said they never or seldom go to church were more likely to approve of the job he was doing as president than Americans who said they attended church every week or Americans who said they attended church nearly weekly or monthly…

…In the week of Aug. 23-29, according to Gallup, only 48 percent of those who never or seldom go to church said they approved of the job Obama was doing. Meanwhile, 49 percent of those who go to church nearly weekly or monthly said they approved, and 34 percent of those who attend church weekly said they approved…

One does wonder, a bit, just why this should be. After all, Obama is pretty much being what every intelligent observer expected – and the unbelievers claim they are much, much smarter than we believers. You’d have expected such smart people to have looked carefully in to Obama’s views and background and only come to support him as the result of rational thought.

Unless, of course, the old saw is true – people who don’t believe in God don’t believe nothing, they believe anything.

From Ed Morrisey over at Hot Air:

Remember when both the Republican and Democratic Parties tried to insist that Arlen Specter was the only path to victory in Pennsylvania? A new poll by Reuters and Ipsos puts a stake through the heart of that argument once and for all. Pat Toomey leads Joe Sestak in the Senate race by ten points, but Arlen Specter would be losing it to Toomey by 12…

Morrisey notes that with the gubernatorial race also slipping away from the Democrats, the votes down ballot for House seats may also crater for the Democrats. Pennsylvania could end up quite red on November 2nd.

More and more, “wheels coming off the cart” describes the Democrats’ predicament.

Got the details over at Noonan for Nevada.

The third sitting Senator to fall in the primaries in 2010.