On January 2nd of last year I made 10 predictions and here’s how I did:
10. Mitt Romney will be the Republican presidential nominee.
Correct
Thought Mittens lost, he beat all other challengers for the nomination.
09. Barack Obama will keep Joe Biden as his Vice President despite rumors of a switch to Hillary Clinton.
Correct
We’ll have Joe Biden to kick around for another 4 years.
08. Iran will not test a nuclear device because there will be a bombing of their nation by United States forces with help from Israel.
Half Correct
Iran did not test a nuke nor did they get bombed.
07. A Supreme Court justice will step down giving Barack Obama a last minute pick of a justice.
Incorrect
The justices are still healthy but at their age, several will be stepping down… just a matter of time.
06. The European Union will not come to an end but nations like Greece, Italy, and Spain will be forced to leave the monetary union.
Incorrect.
Although there is talk of Greece leaving the EU’s monetary union, it hasn’t happened… yet.
05. By the end of December, U.S. unemployment will be under 7.5%.
04. The nations of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, and Iraq will be Islamic theocracies.
Half Correct.
Although it’s going in this direction (Egypt) they’re not all Islamic theocracies… yet.
03. A “peace treaty” with the Taliban will emerge allowing Barack Obama to claim American forces can begin leaving Afghanistan. Of course, this treaty will be a sham but it will provide political fire for withdraw.
Incorrect.
Obama did float the idea of a peace treaty but nothing has been signed.
02. Uprisings in Russia, surrounding presidential elections, will lead to mass killings by the government of its citizens.
Half Correct.
There were mass protests over the presidential elections but, fortunately, mass killings did not materialize.
01. Barack Obama wins a second term. Social Conservatives, appalled by Romney’s nomination, stay home causing the balance to tilt to the Democrat’s side.
Half Correct
Obama did win re-election but Romney’s loss doesn’t seem to have involved Social Conservatives who supported him at about the same level as with Ronald Reagan.
       
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Capitol Commentary’s Daily News
Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld breaks down the year’s most tabloid-icious scandals.
Spoiler alert: Most of them involve Washington. Shocker, I know.
WATCH:
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
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Filed under News | Comment (0)One of my favorite parts of the season is finally here…
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Filed under News | Comment (0)Before he became the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. David Petraeus was already a pretty fascinating personality. But it wasn’t his big promotion which led him to top Barbara Walters’ list of the year’s “most fascinating” people — it was his spectacular fall from grace amidst a Washington sex scandal and international cover-up:
On her Wednesday night ABC special, Barbara Walters named Gen. David Petraeus as her Most Fascinating person of 2012.
“We argued for months,” over the choice, said Walters.
“David Petraeus was not chosen this year for his war record or his exemplary service to his country,” said Walters. “This is about military honor, colliding with sex and lies in the digital age.”
This year marks Petraeus’ second appearance at the top of Walters’ annual list since 2010.
Other newsmakers on the “10 Most Fascinating People of 2012″ list this year:
• Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James
• Actor Ben Affleck
• New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
• Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas
• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
• British boy-band One Direction
• 2013 Oscars host and creator of TV’s Family Guy , Seth MacFarlane
• Prince Harry and Honey Boo Boo were also featured on the list but were not interviewed.
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Filed under News | Comment (0)GULF BREEZE, Fla. – Investigators say a neighbor and his friend used a bow and arrow to shoot and kill a Panhandle family’s pet turkey for their Thanksgiving dinner.
Sheriff’s deputies arrested two Santa Rosa County teens on Monday. They’re charged with armed burglary, armed trespassing, theft of livestock and animal cruelty.
The teens told deputies they planned to eat the 30-pound turkey for Thanksgiving.
So not only did they lose a beloved family pet, but they also lost their Thanksgiving dinner? Unacceptable.
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Filed under News | Comment (0)Just in time for the holiday season, Consumer Reports is out with its own analysis of company products, politics and practices identifying the year’s best and worst on its third annual Naughty & Nice list. The findings are based on contributions from Consumer Reports staff members and comments submitted by Facebook fans.
Naughty companies guilty were hit for hidden fees and fine print, while the nicest were praised for superb customer service.
Companies on this year’s Naughty List include BMW, CompUSA, Delta Airlines, Forever 21, Spirit Airlines and Time Warner Cable. Being named to this year’s nice list were Drury Hotels, Home Depot, PNC Bank, OXO and Honda, among others.
To see Consumer Reports’ complete 2012 Naughty & Nice List and how each business was judged, click here.
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Filed under News | Comment (0)Via Politico:
“The usual suspects are out, and they’re saying, ‘Rush, we gotta reach out now to the Hispanics and reach out to the minorities, blacks.’ Okay, let me remind you of something. Let me take you back to the Republican convention,” he said. “We had Suzanne Martinez, female Hispanic governor, New Mexico. We had Condoleezza Rice, African-American, former secretary of state. Both of those people eminently qualified, terrifically achieved. They have reached the pinnacles of their profession. We had Marco Rubio. We had a parade of minorities who have become successful Americans. And they all had a common story: up from nothing, hard work, their parents sacrificed for them.”
“Now, why didn’t that work, folks? The answer to that is our future,” he continued. “Why didn’t it work? Some people say, ‘Well, Rush, we pandered.’ No, we didn’t pander. Everybody says that we need to reach out to minorities. We have plenty of highly achieved minorities in our party, and they are in prominent positions, and they all have a common story. They all came from nothing. Their parents came from nothing. They worked hard. They told those stories with great pride. Those stories evoked tears. It didn’t work.”
If it didn’t work, Limbaugh argued, it was because Obama “successfully painted Romney’s policies as caring primarily about the rich… successfully convinced roughly half the country that his policies will favor the middle class.”
I somewhat agree with Rush here. I think it would be a mistake to, say, adopt the libertarian “solutions” of embracing amnesty, legalized drugs and gay marriage. On the contrary, I think Republicans need to stop apologizing for their views on social issues — i.e. if you are pro-life, don’t try and avoid the issue by claiming that a woman’s body can “shut down” a pregnancy resulting from rape. Instead of someone standing firmly on sound principles, you look like a moron with no principles (I’m lookin’ at you, Mourdock).
Why should we apologize for being pro-life? Opposition to abortion is an issue where we aren’t even in the minority, yet conservatives have yielded the high ground to liberals time and time again.
Why should we apologize for expecting immigrants to respect our nation’s laws? Forget this “self-deportation” nonsense which equates to fence-sitting on law enforcement. Abide by the law or face the consequences.
Why should we apologize for our religious beliefs? Forget party identification or ideology — a faith in God and his Divine Providence is the most important idea that unites Americans of all different races, classes and political beliefs.
If conservatives and/or Republicans want to stop the bleeding following Tuesday’s election, I recommend the Republican establishment stop apologizing for who we are. Placating doesn’t win over votes or hearts — leading does.
P.S. — If I hear another Republican float the idea of running Marco Rubio because he can attract Latino voters, I’m going to scream. We don’t believe in affirmative action because merit is more important than skin color — so why on earth would we ever use it to elect our leaders?
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Filed under News | Comment (0)Of all the self-identified “religious” voters in America, President Obama won the majority on Tuesday. Here’s the breakdown, via HuffPo:
Despite Obama’s “War on Religion” with mandated contraception coverage which runs contrary to the Catholic Church and lack of support for our Israeli allies, Catholics and Jews both turned out in pretty big numbers for the president.
Then again, so did the “religiously unaffiliated.”
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Filed under News | Comment (0)Obama’s victory was a slim one… currently under 2 million votes out of 117 million. If the Republican Party was truly from yesterday, the difference would have been much larger and they wouldn’t hold 29 out of 50 governorships (North Carolina went Republican for the first time in 20 years).
Voter turnout was down, too. According to early reports, in non-hurricane affected states turnout was down 11% in Texas and 7% in Maryland. Record numbers of people voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and likely inflated the totals beyond what they would have been otherwise.
No word on whether Republican turn-out was higher or not versus 2008.
So Obama’s victory, while slight, is still a win. The House and Senate remain unchanged in terms of party control so while it was not a repudiation of Conservatism, Romney’s vision for America lost out to 4 more years of Hope and Change.
Why?
The media didn’t do Conservatives any favors. Scandals like Benghazi, Solyndra, and Fast & Furious were largely ignored by the media while Romney’s every misstep – no matter how slight – were magnified and covered wall-to-wall. According to Fox News:
Case in point: the GOP candidate’s trip to Europe and Israel in late July. A Media Research Center analysis of all 21 ABC, CBS and NBC evening news stories about Romney’s trip found that virtually all of them (18, or 86%) emphasized “diplomatic blunders,” “gaffes” or “missteps.”
Romney – whether fairly or not – was often portrayed as a flip flopper. The “Etch-a-Sketch” comment comes to mind. Romney’s positions have altered over the years but so have Obama’s. Yet Romney was held to a higher standard for consistency it seems.
Obama got a pass on the economy, too. Despite the fact that he was never able to get a budget deal done in 4 years, few Americans were aware of this fact. And when Obama repeatedly called for the wealthy to pay their “fair share” he was never called a divider despite the fact that what he was engaged in was pure class warfare. Record debt, deficits, and unemployment? The press spent little time on it. Rising gas prices all of the sudden weren’t an issue, probably because a Republican wasn’t in office.
Some on the Right say that Romney wasn’t Conservative enough. Others say the primary battles forced him too far the Right and this turned off women voters. What is likely is that a little of each is the truth – and we’ll be exploring this topic Friday so please feel free to join us for that.
There will be plenty of time for finger pointing – and soul searching among the GOP faithful – however Conservatives need to face the facts that this is the second time our brand didn’t sell and it is a certainty that Obama is going to get the chance to re-make the Supreme Court over the next four years and, depending upon who gets confirmed, a chance to re-make the lives of everyone who lives in this nation.
How the voting looked.
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Capitol Commentary’s Daily News
There are many lessons to take away from yesterday’s election, but the GOP needs to make sure they’re taking away the right ones.
Now I understand that after a crushing defeat, one’s first instinct is to make changes — the bigger the defeat, usually the bigger the changes. I’m seeing many folks around the blogosphere today, for example, suggesting that the GOP needs to broaden its base by embracing amnesty for illegal immigrants or abandoning its socially conservative values.
Uh, not so fast, guys.
First, let’s look back at the campaign. I personally think Mitt Romney ran one of the most effective GOP campaigns in a while. But, as Erick Erickson notes, it’s the messaging, stupid:
Neither side bothered to put forward a serious agenda that stood for much of anything. Barack Obama ran on beating up Mitt Romney and Mitt Romney ran on running away from himself. He stood for nothing and everything at the same time. At least Barack Obama campaigned on the consistent message of hating Mitt Romney.
Compare Romney to Scott Walker. Scott Walker took on the unions in Wisconsin and won big. Romney barely took on Barack Obama. He drew few lines in the sand, made those fungible, and did not stand on many principles. Americans wanted to assess a contrast between the candidates and got blurred lines instead. They went with the politician they knew instead of the one who was different depending on the election season, constituency, and time of day.
Next, the electorate. The times, they are a’ changing and this means the Republican party is also going to need to change its strategy. Sean Higgins of the Washington Examiner writes:
The polls have run almost exactly along with the election results. It turns out they were sampling so many more Democrats … because there are more Democrats in the electorate now. Obama’s presidency has attracted more people to the Democratic Party.
That has tough implications for the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Since George W. Bush it has operated on the presumption that needs only to rev up its base voters to win an election. This had the happy coincidence of also meaning that the way to win an election was to be solidly conservative. The 2012 election suggests that is no longer enough.
As for where we go from here, I give you Ed Morrissey:
We do not need to change our values, but we do need to find ways to communicate them in an engaging and welcoming manner. We need to think creatively about big issues, philosophy, and how we can relate conservative values to the needs of a wider range of voters. Conservatism cannot become constrictionism, or the realignment will continue, and it will become ever more difficult to win national elections.
This will require a new set of national leaders for the Republican Party and conservatism. We need men and women who can think creatively, produce a positive agenda that isn’t defined by an oppositional nature, and who can eloquently communicate that agenda and the values that drive it. …
Finally, for some closing thoughts, Patriot Danny offers some sage advice:
We had a bad night. Our county lost, our children lost… even New Hampshire chose “die.” There is very little we can do to console ourselves. We must move on. Read your Bible, hug your children, salute a soldier and remember America is still the best country on planet Earth. Keep your head up and pray that the House holds the line and hardens their resolve to resist evil.
As for us, we’re doubling down, not giving up:
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