Not What I Once Knew

This is not the economy I once knew!

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 3.3 percent in the second quarter of 2008, (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to preliminary estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 0.9 percent.

via bea.gov

So much for the bloviating talking heads at the DNC who tell us things are really, really bad in the economy.

This is not the First Amendment I once knew!

It seems that at the DNC the Press isn’t all that welcome when they’re trying to do real reporting.

DENVER–Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.

Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.

A cigar-smoking Denver police sergeant, accompanied by a team of five other officers, first put his hands on Eslocker’s neck, then twisted the producers arm behind him to put on handcuffs.

A police official later told lawyers for ABC News that Eslocker is being charged with trespass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order. He also said the arrest followed a signed complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel.

Watch Video

via ABC News

These are not the poor African-Americans I once knew!

Sen. Barack Obama’s wife and three close advisers have been involved with a program at the University of Chicago Medical Center that steers patients who don’t have private insurance — primarily poor, black people — to other health care facilities.

Michelle Obama — currently on unpaid leave from her $317,000-a-year job as a vice president of the prestigious hospital — helped create the program, which aims to find neighborhood doctors for low-income people who were flooding the emergency room for basic treatment. Hospital officials say such patients hinder their ability to focus on more critically ill patients in need of specialized care, such as cancer treatment and organ transplants.

Obama’s top political strategist, David Axelrod, co-owns the firm, ASK Public Strategies, that was hired by the hospital last year to sell the program — called the Urban Health Initiative — to the community as a better alternative for poor patients.

via suntimes.com

This is not the article I once knew!

When Politico reporters working on a story about Obama’s law review presidency earlier this year asked if he had written for the review, a spokesman responded accurately - but narrowly - that “as the president of the Law Review, Obama didn’t write articles, he edited and reviewed them.”

The case comment was published a month before he became president.

The six-page summary, tucked into the third volume of the year’s Harvard Law Review, considers the charged, if peripheral, question of whether fetuses should be able to file lawsuits against their mothers. Obama’s answer, like most courts’: No. He wrote approvingly of an Illinois Supreme Court ruling that the unborn cannot sue their mothers for negligence, and he suggested that allowing fetuses to sue would violate the mother’s rights and could, perversely, cause her to take more risks with her pregnancy.

The subject matter took Obama to the treacherous political landscape of reproductive rights, and — unlike many student authors — he dived eagerly into the policy implications of the court decision. His article acknowledged a public interest in the health of the fetus, but also seemed to demonstrate his continuing commitment to abortion rights, and suggested that the government may have more important concerns than “ensuring that any particular fetus is born.”

Exclusively via Politico.com

Evidently, the government should be either not care about prenatal human life or treat it as some kind of trivial concern. Interesting.

What’s yours is mine!

“If you talk to Warren [Buffet], he’ll tell you his preference is not to meddle in the economy at all — let the market work, however way it’s going to work, and then just tax the heck out of people at the end and just redistribute it,” Obama said. “That way you’re not impeding efficiency, and you’re achieving equity on the back end.” He continued by saying that he thought there was some merit in Buffett’s argument.

via The New York Times

“Tax the heck out of people.” Sounds like a winner.

This is not the Joe Biden I once knew!

These are the Communists I admire!

“Everybody’s watching what’s going on in Beijing right now with the Olympics. Think about the amount of money that China has spent on infrastructure. Their ports, their train systems, their airports are vastly the superior to us now, which means if you are a corporation deciding where to do business you’re starting to think, “Beijing looks like a pretty good option.”

via hotair.com

This is still not the surge I once knew!

Obama Inadvertently Concedes Surge Achieves Key Administration Goal

STATEMENT: “Originally, the administration suggested that the key measure was whether it gave breathing room for political reconciliation. So far, I think we have not seen the kind of political reconciliation that’s going to bring about long-term stability in Iraq.” — Barack Obama, July 22, 2008

EXPIRATION DATE: August 20, 2008: “Let’s be clear, our troops have completed every mission they’ve been given,” Mr. Obama said at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Orlando, Fla., where the likely Democratic presidential nominee courted military voters who are expected to play a pivotal role in several swing states. “They have created the space for political reconciliation.”

All statements by Barack Obama come with an expiration date. All of them.

via National Review Online

These are not the homeless I once knew! (dare I call this the The Audacity of Soap?)

DENVER – When Sylvester and Ghandia Johnson saw news reports about homeless people being given vouchers to the zoo and the movies during the DNC, they didn’t feel it was right.

“We just kind of felt like in news reports lately it was like, ‘What are we going to do with them,’ trying to sweep them under the rug,” said Ghandia Johnson.

The couple owns Sly’s Salon at Grant Street and 16th Avenue, in downtown Denver. They decided to use their business to create a so-called cut-a-thon specifically for the homeless.

“We thought we could help some of Denver’s homeless residents by giving them a fresh look, giving them real good self esteem and helping them feel part of the DNC, so they look their best,” said Ghandia Johnson.

She says homeless people who want to be in public during the convention shouldn’t feel ashamed about their appearance. That’s why the salon gave free haircuts, washes and styles to more than 150 adults during the all-day event on Monday.

via 9news.com

or perhaps we could do as Neal Boortz suggests: give them all berets and tell everyone that they’re French tourists.