“Obama to Offer Aid for Families in State of the Union Address“, state media the New York Times crows. What, like, in the middle of the address he’s going to write them a check? And how much more useless can the NYT *get*?! This is a news story, not an editorial, and yet we get unattributed statements like “a package of modest initiatives” to describe the speech’s content. By whose measures “modest”? What evidence do we have that the initiatives proposed will be “modest”? That’s not fact, so cite your source.

J-school. I dunno.

Obama: “Because in the end, that’s how Joe and I measure progress — not how the markets are doing, but how the American people are doing.”

I love this Wall Street bashing. It’s so populist and yet so, um, counter-productive. I dunno. Maybe we *should* nationalize every industry known to man. Seems to be working out really-really well for Venezuela. Just ask Magglio Ordonez. And certainly there’s no correlation between the stock market, the economy, and the wellbeing of the American proletariat people.

And this is choice:

Addressing advisers who developed the plans, Mr. Obama tried to frame them as part of his efforts to build what he calls “a new foundation” for the American economy and took credit for creating or saving two million jobs since taking office through his stimulus spending and tax cut program. But he acknowledged that seven million jobs had been lost, which he called “an epidemic that demands our relentless and sustained response.”

So anyone who’s newly employed, that’s down to Obama. Anyone who lost their jobs, well, that’s because of all the bad people. Wall Street, I’d assume. And seriously, the last thing the economy needs is a “relentless and sustained response” from the government.

Here’s how this recovery will eventually work:

1. The government says and does nothing.
2. The private sector realizes that they don’t have to worry about the Dear Leader firing their CEOs, doubling their healthcare costs, declaring their lines of business illegal, nationalizing their industries, giving their competitors blank checks, etc., etc.
3. Confident they understand the rules of the game once again, the private sector makes plans to grow in the next year.
4. Businesses make money, the economy grows.
5. American Families get new jobs, promotions, raises, etc., etc.

That’s the only way recession recoveries ever seem to work. Anything else a politician tells you is grandstanding. Even if the government *could* manage to get some sort of Keynesian multiplier going by throwing its money around, any gain that it gets is just borrowing from the future and that borrowing will be paid back in either taxes or inflation later on. It’s kind of an immutable law. Like physics. And if it stops working, we’re all screwed.

And just to be clear, I’m pretty dang amazed at how blatant especially the NYT is about supporting the current regime:

Mr. Biden rejected criticism that the proposals Mr. Obama was unveiling were relatively small-bore compared with the vast and sweeping measures he pushed during his first year in office. “They’re big-deal things if you’re just able to give some respite for a husband and wife, both working, to give a little bit of help,” Mr. Biden said.

Which is basically the NYT telling you that if you think the government is spending too much, they’re not — this is relatively “small-bore”. But if you’re a lefty and think they’re not spending enough, why, Joe Biden says you’re wrong and you know what a good lefty *he* is.

Hugo Chavez + Benito Mussolini = Barack Obama? It’s a working theory. We’ll see how it plays out all the while keeping in mind that politics are cyclical.

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So Joe Biden’s son Beau isn’t going to run for senator from Delaware after all, saying “I have a duty to fulfill as attorney general, and the immediate need to focus on a case of great consequence. And that is what I must do.” The case of great consequence is a child molestation case. I mean, I kind of respect his humility; it’s disarming. He thinks the value of himself as US Senator for six years (vs. an average replacement senator) is less than the value of prosecuting one child molestor. Disarming and I don’t necessarily think he’s wrong (unless the guy’s not guilty, then…).

OTOH, I think it’s an interesting indication of how pundits are always more alarmist than they ought to be. As is anyone with a mouth at some point. There were accusations a few weeks ago — prior to the Brown Revolution in Mass — that the Dems had several “legacy seats” that were being kept warm by placeholders until rightful heirs like Beau could assume them. I mean, stuff happens, things change, it’s a rich tapestry, and so on. It’s like when you’re watching a college football game, one team goes up by two touchdowns in the third quarter, and the commentators start talking about the game like it’s over already — which makes it *so much more interesting* when the opponent then comes back to tie the game in the fourth. It’s like that.

It’s also like the bastard Economist, which condescended to tell us backwoodsy Americans back in ‘07-08 that our democracy was fundamentally broken because once Hilary Clinton became president, we’d have effectively restored hereditary rule to our fair shores. I mean, sure, our democracy is fundamentally broken, but not for *that* reason.

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Marketing. Marketing is the reason. Or, better said, humanity’s susceptibility to marketing.

Prove me wrong.

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Stories like this one (thanks, LA Times!) about serial letter-writer “Ellie Light” are what make the Internet (thanks, Al Gore!) all worthwhile. It’s the whole story that’s interesting, not the post on the LAT. The LAT post is a good compilation though. Just clarifying.

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Colorado’s Nazis are showing a kinder, gentler side by purifying cleaning state highways (thanks, DenPo).

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I almost entered “stove-top hat” for the headline, but fortunately thought to look that up first. OTOH, maybe there *should* be such a thing. Maybe I can get rich off it.