From the National Federation of Independent Business:

The Index of Small Business Optimism fell 0.3 points in May to 90.9. This month marks the third monthly decline in a row. The proximate cause is the fact that 1 in 4 owners still report weak sales as their top business problem. Consumer spending is weak, especially for “services,” a sector dominated by small businesses. the index makes clear that optimism is moving in the wrong direction: a recession-level reading for an economy fighting its way through a recovery. Also, inflation is a growing concern now with 1 in 10 citing this as their most serious business problem meaning cost side pressures coming in the “back door,” not rising food prices at home.

Heck of a job there, Barry – got anything else for us? Oh, yeah – more stimulus and money printing. That’ll fix it!

HAT TIP: Mish’s

From the Washington Times:

Stepping up a simmering constitutional conflict, House Speaker John A. Boehner warned President Obama on Tuesday that unless he gets authorization from Congress for his military deployment in Libya, he will be in violation of the War Powers Resolution.

In a letter sent Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Boehner, the top Republican in the constitutional chain of succession, said Mr. Obama must provide a clear justification by Friday for committing troops to Libya…

We’ll see if we can, for once, hold a Democrat accountable under law – time and time again when push comes to shove Democrats are able to bluster their way out, but we’re on very solid ground here: Obama has to terminate the war in Libya, or obtain Congressional approval. Failure to do so would be an impeachable offense..if we have the courage to press the matter.

From the Wall Street Journal:

A wave of violent unrest in urban areas of China over the past three weeks is testing the Communist Party’s efforts to maintain control over an increasingly complex and fractious society, forcing it to repeatedly deploy its massive security forces to contain public anger over economic and political grievances…

With inflation getting quite out of control – and don’t believe official numbers; they are bad enough, but don’t even come close to reality – and China’s property bubble in the process of collapsing, things are getting dicey, to say the least, in China. A corrupt, brutal oligarchy has thus far been able to convince the people of China to let them rule…but the deal is that politics is off limits to the masses as long as they continually get better off. That deal is breaking down – and has been for some time now.

The stories that China is some sort of rising super power which will shortly displace the United States are utter nonsense. To be sure, we’re in a bad way right now, but our fundamental strengths far outweigh China, even on our worst day. Most importantly, our government – much as we may be upset with it at the moment – does reflect the will of the people. Obama is President because we elected him; Boehner is Speaker because we voted Republican…there is no one in China outside the ruling clique who had anything to do with selecting China’s leaders. There is a world of difference between a legitimate leader, no matter how much disliked, and someone who was chosen by and answerable to no one.

Chinese dissent, this time around, started in the countryside – which is why it hasn’t been in the news much. Foreigners don’t tend to go in to the large Chinese hinterland. When not discouraged by official action, there is the fact that there is not much for a foreigner to do there – unless you have a hankering to study China in depth, there is no cause for you to get outside Beijing, Shanghai and a few other large, metropolitan areas. But trouble has been brewing there for a long time – spurred on by the way China’s corrupt leaders have been screwing China’s people out of their ancestral lands (something always of great sensitivity in Chinese culture; land is being taken for showpiece projects and even for things as absurd as golf courses…and with little real compensation for the dispossessed). But now it is spreading to the cities – where food prices are fast rising, housing has been ever more expensive and the people watch the well connected piling up vast amounts of wealth while they see little or no direct improvement. This is just the sort of mix which sparks revolutions.

What will come of it remains to be seen – the Chinese security forces have a well-deserved reputation for being able to stamp out dissent. But things may be different now – the troops, of course, are drawn from the very people most angry with the state of affairs. It isn’t some complete stranger who is having his land taken away or seeing his paycheck being eaten up by inflation…it is mom and dad. There could come a situation where the rank and file go easy on the protestors…and that would take the lid right off. In favor of the Chinese government is the Chinese willingness to forgo the personal in favor of societal harmony…there really is a strong disposition to endure in silence rather than rock the boat (and thus endless movements towards liberty in China have been choked off time and time again).

HAT TIP: Mish’s

Bad news from Syria from France 24:

Syrian armed forces continued a “scorched earth” campaign near the country’s borders with Turkey and Iraq, witnesses said Tuesday, as the US and Europe stepped up condemnation of the Syrian government’s deadly crackdown on protests…

There is no good outcome here – either the Iran-backed Assad regime will prevail, or some variety of Moslem Brotherhood government will emerge…and be in alliance with Iran. No matter how you slice it, the people of Syria will suffer and terrorists will continue to be backed by Damascus. Given that the terrorists will gain more support from the coming Moslem Brotherhood government in Egypt, we’ve getting the right mix for a resumption of the Arab/Israeli “hot war”.

A big win for Governor Walker, the Wisconsin GOP and liberty – from JS Online:

Acting with unusual speed, the state Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to all but end collective bargaining for tens of thousands of public workers.

The court found a committee of lawmakers was not subject to the state’s open meetings law, and so did not violate that law when they hastily approved the measure and made it possible for the Senate to take it up. In doing so, the Supreme Court overruled a Dane County judge who had struck down the legislation, ending one challenge to the law even as new challenges are likely to emerge…

And you can count on that last bit – remember, for liberals the war is never over until they win, which is why we have to fight them until they are utterly destroyed as a political force in the United States.

But, still, this is a victory, and a major one – not only a win on the specific issue of being able to curb the corrupt public sector unions (which shouldn’t even exist – my goodness; allowing public employees to essentially conspire against the public for higher wages and benefits! It is just absurd…), but also putting a crimp in the way liberals find themselves a friendly judge and get the ruling they want. The fast strike-down of this will make liberals more wary of using it for fear not only of losing on the particular issue, but if eventually getting State and federal Supreme Court rulings striking down whole swaths of liberal laws and jurisprudence.

Celebrate the day – but remember that tomorrow and every day there is another battle to be fought.

HAT TIP: Don Surber

Erin Haust of the Minneapolis Conservative examiner has done some digging, that more than sheds light on Romney’s allegiance to the hysteria that is man-made global warming:

Most news outlets and political pundits are talking about Romney’s “belief in man-made climate change” but there is a more practical explanation for his affection for Mother Earth.

Romney has a financial stake in the success of climate change legislation.

Since 1977, Romney has been employed by or been CEO of the consulting firm Bain & Company or its spinoff Bain Capital which Romney co-founded in 1984. Bain & Company and Bain Capital LLC are profitable to the tune of billions of dollars and have offices all over the world.

(Continue reading here)

In my book, this is more than enough to tell me that when it comes to choosing a Republican Presidential candidate for 2012, Romney is more than worth panning.

Thank goodness for that stimulus – from CNS:

Twenty-eight months after Congress passed President Obama’s signature economic stimulus law, and nearly one year after he declared the summer of 2010 to be “Recovery Summer,” 1.9 million fewer people are employed.

In February 2009, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that 141.7 million people were employed. By the end of May 2011 – the last month for which data are available – that number had fallen to 139.8 million, a difference of 1.9 million…

But, wait, you say – jobs have been created, haven’t they? Sure – but if the BLS says “X number of new jobs” were created in 2010, that doesn’t mean it was a net gain. The report does note that there are slightly more people working since December of 2009, the overall effect of the first two years of Obamunism is a smaller number of people working in the United States.

Why is this? Because as anyone who thinks about it realizes, the government cannot create a job – and this is because government cannot create wealth. Its like this: if I start up a business growing watermelons I have just created one job (for myself) while also creating the wealth to pay for that job (the watermelons for sale); if I do well then I might hire another person and pay them with wealth that never existed until I started up the watermelon farm.

Along comes Uncle Sam and says, “the economy is not good, so we’ll start some shovel ready stimulus to create jobs”; he then taxes me and regulates me and prints up money and I’m forced to let my employee go…who is then hired to build the road past my now abandoned farm. Government “created” a job only by destroying another one. You can some times and for very short periods of time get a net increase in jobs by doing the government route…but as the wealth for government jobs must be extracted from the wealth used for other, private sector jobs, it is always – at best – a wash. Often it is a net loss because government starts to absorb so much wealth that there is not enough surplus left over for a money man to back a new idea…and so jobs which would have happened never get started.

The quicker we get government out of the equation, the better it will be. Its no about the idiotic liberal dichotomy of “are you in favor of helping the poor or are you a callous bastard”…its a matter of understanding that the poor are better served by a genuine free market…a market free of government interference as well as crony capitalism. That is the ideal to head for – and that is where the wealth to re-employ Americans will be created.

For goodness sake:

Yes, it is an opinion piece…but it is an opinion piece that passed editorial muster on CNN, which claims to be an unbiased news source. This headline over at Daily Kos or Huffpo wouldn’t cause a stir…but it does cause a stir when an outfit which pretends to be a trusted news organization lets it out.

It is, however, useful that it came out like this – if you had the slightest doubt that the MSM would be in the tank for Obama and the Democrats in 2012, this should dispel that notion.

HAT TIP: Hot Air

I didn’t watch it – I tend not to watch actual politicians on stage because I let my political-junkie mind get in the driver’s seat. I’m always looking at it like someone who actually cares about a position one of them took 6 years ago on some obscure issue – but that is not how these things should be viewed. They should be viewed by people of intelligence, character, good basic knowledge but no dog in the hunt: in other words, the view of Joe or Jane Average American. My usual victim to have watch these things is thus the Mrs. It was the Mrs, after all, who tipped me to Obama early on – playing a large role in my prediction in September of 2007 that Obama would be the Democrat nominee. But she was busy, so no one in the house to watch this particular debate. I have, however, read after-action reports from people I respect and, on balance, it doesn’t look like it was a stellar performance by anyone.

Mark Steyn takes note of the debate, and hits upon a very important point over at NRO’s The Corner:

…I also agree that the answers on Afghanistan about deferring to the commanders in the field were pathetic – for a couple of reasons:

First, as I said in NR a couple of issues back, you can’t win a war unless you have war aims – and war aims are determined by a nation’s civilian leadership. So, if Romney & Co mean what they say, it helps explain why America has nothing to show either for a decade in the Hindu Kush or for three months over Tripoli.

Alternatively, if they don’t mean it, then they’re just pandering in a bumper-stickerish “I So Totally Support Our Troops I’ll Take My Orders From Them” kind of way. And this political season ought to be one not for panderers but for tellers of hard truths.

That is extraordinarily true and the answers given by the gathered GOPers were, from what I can see, uniformly weak – except for Ron Paul’s “get ’em out” point of view, on the grounds that it was at least a decision. I believe Paul is wrong, but I’d rather have a President who will flat out surrender than one who is so afraid to make a decision that we neither surrender nor fight to victory. Victory is always preferred, but if you won’t fight to win then you’d better pack it in before a lot of lives are lost. To defer to the military on whether or not to begin or terminate any military operation is to fail at the core aspect of Presidential leadership. At the end of the day, this is the function of the President – to decide what should be done.

President Obama routinely fails this test. We don’t move at all, or we move too late, or move with too little, or move with no clear goal in sight. This is making a hash out of things with Russia, Libya, China, Syria and Egypt…and Obama’s fat is only being pulled out of the fire in Afghanistan (and that only tenuously) because of the magnificent courage of US and allied soldiers. Like all too many leaders in history, Obama just doesn’t want to lose – but he’s afraid to make the decisions which would ensure victory. Afraid? Aren’t you being a little unfair there, Noonan – what do you mean by “afraid”? I mean precisely that – but don’t get me wrong, most political and military leaders prove, in the crisis, to be afraid. Those who aren’t turn out to be history’s great leaders and captains.

We cannot know if any of the potential GOP candidates have this rare thing – the courage to make decisions when the risks are high. It could be that all of them would fail as badly as Obama has. But one or more of them might also prove to have the stuff it takes. Only time and circumstance will ever tell that – but as it relates to the 2012 election and the necessity of getting Obama out of office, it is vital that the GOP candidate be someone who can at least articulate what is wrong with Obama’s leadership. And in this context it means setting a series of policy goals and then showing a willingness to do what proves necessary to achieve the goal. Do you want to pull out of Afghanistan? Then you’d better give us the why, give us the how you plan to do it and, additionally, tell us what you’ll do in the aftermath of a precipitate US withdrawal. Do you want us to stay in Afghanistan? Then you’d better tell us why we should stay, and what you’ll do to obtain the result you desire.

We need to point out Obama’s failures – but we can’t do so simply by echoing polling data which is showing things like Afghanistan and Libya to be unpopular. Doing that is just pandering for votes – but to win decisively over Obama we have to explain where he’s gone wrong, what we want different and how we’ll do it. These GOP candidates have it within them to offer a reformed America – the real hope and change we wanted in 2008, but were swindled out of by Obama’s slick campaign. But we can’t get there from here by saying, “bad Obama” over and over again…we have to offer someone for President who demonstrates superior Presidential ability…and that means having the courage to state what you want and what you’ll do to get it.

Hopefully there will be a major back-bone implant in to the GOP field by the time the next debate is staged – they need to do it, we need them to do. There is still plenty of time – it is beyond waaaay early right now. But it can’t be put off, forever…one of these fine people will have to start acting like a President…or someone else out there will have to get in and show how its done.

From Rasmussen:

…A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 26% of Likely U.S. Voters feel the United States should continue its military actions in Libya. Forty-two percent (42%) are opposed and 32% are undecided…

This is the result of not going through normal procedures for a war – it is the result of having NATO and the UN decide if we will fight, rather than having Americans decide, for themselves, if war is the answer. The war in Libya is the strongest evidence to date of Obama’s fundamental contempt for the United States, its people and our form of government. To an uber-liberal like Obama, transnational organizations like NATO and the UN are inherently superior in judgment to the American people, as well as their elected representatives. To have consulted the people – or Congress – would be to put the wise and far-seeing judgment of UN apparatchiks at the mercy of a nation of bitter clingers.

The really sad thing about it is that intervention in Libya is in America’s best interest – and I also believe that Obama could have easily secured popular and Congressional approval for the action, had he sought it. He refused to take us in to his confidence and presented us, instead, with a fait accompli…almost daring us, now, to pull the plug on the adventure. He knows that on his side there will be many who simply won’t want to cross a Democrat President, while many on our side won’t want to undercut an ongoing military operation. President Obama has placed us all in a very bad position and has gravely weakened the United States…we neither have the leadership to seek total victory nor the political will to terminate the effort.

All we can say to this is that 2012 cannot get here fast enough…