The DCCC linked to this on Twitter:

# Last year, the Senate met for 191 days, and the House met for 159 days. Total time in session was 1,420 and 1,247 hours, respectively.

# More than 9,071 measures were introduced, of which 1,444 passed.

# Looking strictly at non-military nominations, 89% (or 3,222) nominations were confirmed; 4% (126) remain unconfirmed; and 0.4% (15) were withdrawn. Overall, the Senate received 24,951 nominations and confirmed 23,051.

Ok, Americans, are any of you happy that 1,444 measures passed? Has anyone got a handle on what even 10% of them dealt with? How about those 3,222 nominations – for what? When were the hearings held? The votes? All we’ve heard about for the past year is Spendulus and Health Care…it seems they were busy behind the scenes, doesn’t it?

But when government is the whole point of your existence, then this is what you’re proud of. They’re not proud of a new farm started up. A new family formed. A new church built. Nope – they’re proud that they passed 1,444 measures! They probably hope to increase that number in 2010.

We need a Congress which will do the right thing, not be proud of just grinding out the government as if there’s no tomorrow.

The news:

An exodus of discouraged workers from the job market kept the U.S. unemployment rate from climbing above 10 percent in December, economists said.

Had the labor force not decreased by 661,000 last month, the jobless rate would have been 10.4 percent, according to economists including David Rosenberg at Gluskin Sheff & Associates in Toronto and Harm Bandholz at UniCredit Research in New York.

“The actual unemployment rate is higher than shown by the official numbers,” Bandholz said yesterday after a Labor Department report released in Washington showed the economy unexpectedly lost 85,000 jobs in December while the jobless rate was unchanged.

About 1.7 million Americans opted out of the workforce from July through December, representing a 1.1 percent drop that marks the biggest six-month decrease since 1961, the Labor Department report showed. The share of the population in the labor force last month fell to the lowest level in 24 years.

The economy is not getting better. To be sure, a lot of fiat money is being shoved through the economy and this, in turn, allows the government to calculate that GDP has grown, but the net amount of economic activity has been reduced and continues to decline. It will continue to do so until we stop borrowing, stop printing money and start encouraging wealth creation by making, mining and growing things.

As long as Obama’s policies are in place, this will continue to get worse.

Quite stunning:

Public Policy Polling reported today that the Massachusetts Senate race is now a toss up.

Buoyed by a huge advantage with independents and relative disinterest from Democratic voters in the state, Republican Scott Brown leads Martha Coakley 48-47.

And word is that a Boston Herald poll to be released tomorrow also shows it a 1 point race. Obama won the State by 26 percentage points in 2008 – if Brown cuts it to 13 or less, then he’s done a fantastic job. If he cuts it to 6 or less, he’ll scare the bejabbers out of Democrats, everywhere. If he wins, it’ll shake up American politics in an amazing way – don’t think in terms of what happened in the past or what talking heads are saying. Just go forward in 2010 figuring that no one knows what the heck is going to happen and just do whatever you think best.

Gonna be a fun year, I think.

We’ve lots of grand mountains here in Nevada, and now we want to name one for the greatest President of the 20th century:

Citizen Outreach Foundation announced on Friday the launch of an effort to name a significant landmark after the late President Ronald Reagan before what would have been his 100th birthday on February 6, 2011. There are over 3,000 named tributes to President Reagan worldwide, yet no such commemoration exists yet in the Silver State.

Karri Bragg, Executive Vice President of Citizen Outreach Foundation, will head up the new project. She’s the former Executive Director of the national Ronald Reagan Legacy Project sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform in Washington, D.C.

“Commemorating President Reagan in our state is key to ensuring that future generations of Nevadans will recognize and appreciate the great ideas, principles, and strong leadership that he provided in an uncertain time,” Bragg said. “This landmark will help assure that our children and grandchildren are able to do more than just skim over Reagan’s name in history class.”

The project’s first choice is to name a mountain peak – “Mount Reagan” – after the nation’s 40th president somewhere in Nevada, Bragg said. To that end, the application process with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names has already been started. According to the USBGN, no other request for naming a mountain peak after President Reagan has been made.

It is hoped that it will be complete by Reagan’s 100th birthday next year – and all of us Republicans here in Nevada (including those we’re feuding with) have joined together in this grand effort.

Geesh:

The top Democrat in the U.S. Senate apologized on Saturday for comments he made about Barack Obama’s race during the 2008 presidential bid and are quoted in a yet-to-be-released book about the campaign.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada described in private then-Sen. Barack Obama as “light skinned” and “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Obama is the nation’s first African-American president.

“I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words. I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African-Americans for my improper comments,” Reid said in a statement released after the excerpts were first reported on the Web site of The Atlantic.

This comes from Democrat group-think – we’re all just whatever group we belong to. High time the Democrats started treating people as individuals, don’t you think? It’d at least spare us from having a Senate Majority leader who makes us cringe whenever he opens his mouth.

In my view, because the Common Man has had enough – the builders of this world, the people who make it work, have had quite enough of corrupt elites ruling and ruining everything. Pretty much since the 18th century – and really stretching back a few centuries earlier – the story of the world has been the continuing effort of varied elites to lock up the Common Man and make him obey the dictates of the elite.

The reason the United States has stood as a bastion against this is because of the happy accident that the elites didn’t want to come here early on. America was founded by and developed by Joe and Jane Average and it was only in the early 20th century that elites started to latch themselves upon us. And while in the rest of the world the Common Man has been ground down and make the weak dependents of the elite, in the United States there is still sufficient number of people to say, “no” – and now these people are not just refusing the dictates, but are insisting that the elite abdicate and go away.

This essay by G.K. Chesterton is an excellent description of the Common Man and what he’s up against – a quote:

The thesis is this: that modern emancipation has really been a new persecution of the Common Man. If it has emancipated anybody, it has in rather special and narrow ways emancipated the Uncommon Man. It has given an eccentric sort of liberty to some of the hobbies of the wealthy, and occasionally to some of the more humane lunacies of the cultured. The only thing that it has forbidden is common sense, as it would have been understood by the common people. Thus, if we begin with the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, we find that a man really has become more free to found a sect. But the Common Man does not in the least want to found a sect. He is much more likely, for instance, to want to found a family. And it is exactly there that the modern emancipators are quite likely to begin to frustrate him; in the name of Malthusianism or Eugenics or Sterilisation or at a more advanced stage of progress, probably, Infanticide.

That was written quite a long time ago – and as we can see, here in 2010, we have “progressed” and now we do have infanticide, in the form of abortion. And if the elites get their way, we’ll eventually have infanticide in the form of killing babies outside the womb – all in the name of making the world a better place, it goes without saying.

If you take a look at it, what do our elites not want us common folk to have and do? Well, they don’t really want us owning our own homes – too large a carbon footprint. They’d like it much better if we didn’t have our cars – so wasteful that we live in the suburbs and work in the city. It is a certainty that they don’t want us starting a farm, opening up a factory or digging a mine. Its terribly inconvenient that we want to rule our own medical decisions. Our religion is a gigantic annoyance to them – all those demands for adherence to absolute standards of right and wrong. Goodness, can you imagine any elite agreeing that the parents should have complete control over their childrens’ education? The attitude of the elite has been best expressed, of late, in the reaction to the town hall protests of this past summer – they were outraged, and quite frightened, that the Common Man dared to question his masters.

So, what will they allow us to do? We can have all the sex we want. Provided we use birth control and have no prejudice against abortion.

But the world is not for the elite – it is for the Common Man. The meek shall inherit the earth. The last shall be first. At any rate, the facts speak clearly – we could do without everyone in the MSM and government, but couldn’t last very long without our farmers. Its not that one particular person is more valuable than another, but that what people do is more or less valuable. Farmers, craftsmen and miners are vastly more valuable than bureaucrats and academics. Mothers are more valuable than social workers. Soldiers more valuable than diplomats.

And here, in the Year of Our Lord 2010 (not, “CE” as the elites are attempting to make it – CE – Common Era…common to what?), the Common Man has had enough. Mad as heck and not going to take it, anymore.

Longest cold spell since 1895:

KNOXVILLE – Wishing for warmer days? Think Monday.

The harsh cold that’s threatening to tie an 1895 cold-snap record is expected to last through Sunday, according to the National Weather Service’s latest forecast.

The low tonight will dip to about 13 degrees, and Saturday’s high is only expected to reach 23, with a 20 percent chance of scattered snow showers.

On Sunday, we can expect a mostly sunny day with a high in the upper 20s. Assuming we stay below freezing, we will have matched the existing record of nine consecutive days – set in February 1895 – during which highs failed to top 32 degrees.

Someone find me the global warming model which predicted this…

Neo-Neocon has the details, and then figures why:

It’s not just that Obama lied, it’s the obviousness of the mendacity. There’s no wriggle room on this one; anyone who’s been paying any attention for the last two years knows it’s a bald-faced lie. And in addition, there’s been no explanation for it, and no excuses. The administration is simply ignoring the lie as though it doesn’t matter, and insulting the press in the bargain. This makes pundits who liked and supported Obama look foolish, and they don’t like to look that way. Thus, the anger—it’s personal now.

We’ll see how far it spreads. Unfortunately, most of the MSM is quite servile in outlook. They want a master, and so they set up whomever is in charge of liberalism as their master and then they just fall all over themselves defending the guy. But, there are clearly some rumblings among that part of liberalism which has at least some spirit.

I’d like to ask a question of our liberals – and, please, give us an honest answer. When Obama set himself up as some sort of Roman Emperor for his acceptance speech in 2008, did any of you cringe?

I pegged Obama as the nominee back in September of 2007 – it was obvious that the un-Bush was going to get the Democrat nomination, and Obama was the most un-Bush there was, other than Kucinich, and he’s just too kooky. But I really didn’t expect him to win. I mean, the guy is clearly out of his depth. Its a matter of thinking, “ok,Mark Noonan, are you ready to be President?”. As I could only answer “no” for myself and saw that Obama had far less real world and executive experience than I did, I just couldn’t see anyone other than dyed-in-the-wool liberals falling for the scam.

But, hey, a majority did. Amazes me to this day. Right up to the end, I thought that common sense would triumph – but, 2008 showed that if you work things just right and get a few breaks, the most stupid things can happen even when they are easily preventable. Its like a train wreck happened because we decided not to put on the breaks even though we had plenty of time to do it and good reason to think we needed to.

This is the clearest indicator so far that Brown has a real chance of winning:

I received this e-mail from a Massachusetts resident and businesswoman (and I verified her identity through publicly available sources), regarding a phone call she received last night:

I got an odd call last night that presented as a survey on the Kennedy election. I was willing to participate in the survey but was left with a bad feeling when it was over. Today I am hoping to let a few people know. I saw your blog.

They identified themselves as McGrath [sic – see below] from Denver but I was unable to find anything on Google. The questions were obnoxious; for example: “would knowing that hate groups support Scott Brown change you opinion of him?”.

They did not identify what a hate group was and today I wonder if they might be referring to a group to which I belong (one never knows in this environment when the ground may shift and you are left as a member of a hate group).

I’m not sure how to proceed, so I am just putting it out there. I’m really sick of politicians doing everything except telling us who they are when they run for office.

In a follow up, the e-mailer went into more detail about the call. The caller initially asked which candidate best represented the e-mailer’s views. After the e-mailer identified Brown, the caller asked one question about Coakley (whether knowing she was “a tax and spend” liberal would change the e-mailer’s mind) and then a series of negative questions about Brown:

“After this, there were 6 or 7 questions about Scott Brown that were framed the same way: if you knew he was a supporter of the Bush tax program, if he was supported by hate groups, etc.”

The e-mailer used *69 on her phone, and the number which came up was 888-327-2771. This is a fairly notorious telemarketing/opinion surveying number.

They only do push polling like this when they are worried they’re going to lose. Liberals, this has nothing to do with whether or not anyone else ever has – the subject here is why the Democrats are doing it in Massachusetts, 11 days before the vote? Try to keep on that subject in your comments.

Anyways…

The smell of desperation is hanging in the air – and its not just that electing Brown would be a severe blow to the chances for passage of ObamaCare. The larger issue is that if Brown wins – or even comes very close – then there will be a stampede for the exits. We could expect to see a large number of retirements as well as a drying up of Democrat campaign funds – and a rise in GOP funding. In a very real sense, what happens in Massachusetts sets the stage for the rest of 2010 – a solid win by the Democrats gives them a sign that its not all bad while a loss or close win signals possible disaster.

So, given this, why haven’t you backed Brown with something solid, like money or volunteer time? No time like the present.

I know, I know – the MSM says that the unemployment rate stayed steady at 10% in December – and thus it hasn’t gotten worse. But behind the numbers is this:

53,000 construction and 27,000 manufacturing jobs were lost last month – we continue to lose out where its most important, in the wealth-creating jobs. Things are not getting better – not by a long shot. The whole “recovery” has been smoke and mirrors – bogus numbers put out by idiots and/or con artists who are trying to sucker us in to disbelieving our lying eyes. For crying out loud, a net of 10,000 retail jobs were lost in December! During December. That doesn’t happen if the economy is in any way, shape or form on the mend.

You can go ahead and believe the happy talk, if you like. I know you Democrats will because you’re worried sick about massive losses and think that the “recovery” will set things right before November. You believe this because you really think that a bankrupt nation can borrow itself back in to prosperity. Fine. Believe that. But when the “re-crash” hits, you just remember what I and others told you – and then, please, wake the heck up.

UPDATE: Another way to understand the unemployment numbers:

Then will come the second-take stories that will notice the shrinking labor force, which dropped by nearly 700,000 from November. Had it stayed stable for last month, the jobless rate would have been 10.4 percent. Had it stayed stable since August, the jobless rate would be 11 percent!

But wait, there’s more! The U-6 rate rate which combines the basic jobless rate, discouraged workers, part-timers-who-would-rather-be-full-timers climbed to 17.3 percent. And the average duration of unemployment rose to a record high 29.1 weeks.

And now the report that the BLS is underestimating the number of people actually getting unemployment compensation makes far more sense – if you’re a Democrat, better to have 10% unemployment than 11%. And if you have to lie to get the lower number, what is there in Democrat politics to make you think you shouldn’t?

UPDATE II: Why would Democrats want to lie about unemployment? Here’s why.