GDP is stuck in a slump. Here is what we can expect.

Economic growth slightly faster than first thought
WASHINGTON (AP) - The economy grew slightly faster last summer than first thought, benefiting from stronger spending by U.S. shoppers and improved overseas sales of U.S. goods. The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that the economy expanded at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the July-September...

Notes: understand this this 3rd quarter report, a measure of GDP, wil l be revised in the coming weeks. It may turn out that this is little more than "legitimatized propaganda" for the Administration. There was all that talk about growth in 2009. In the end, "real" GDP compared to 2008 actually declined but that did not make the headlines. This year, the third quarter is averaged into the previous two quarters, 2.0 % and 1.7 %. Growth at 2.0 % is not strong enough to produce more jobs than we are losing. Most experts agree that we need a growth rate of 2.5 to 3.0 percent to create a positive jobs report.

Yesterday, we carried a report that the stale economy may be with us through 2011.

Obama's DOJ suffers another defeat. Last week, it was the terrorist trial debacle. This week, it is a court reversal.

Appeals court derails use of GPS to track suspect...

Editor's notes: remember all that whining about the Patriot Act? For years, the TV series "Law and Order," used make-believe abuses of the Patriot Act as fodder for its story lines. Now that the Democrats are in power, the Patriot Act has been continued and the DOJ has gotten more intrusive.

The D.C. COURT OF APPEALS has just rejected Eric Holder's DOJ decision to put tracking devises on our vehicles without court warrants. The vote was 5 to 4 against the Department of Justice.

Midknight Review is only surprised that the vote was a close one. The Court upheld the notion that the citizenry has a legal expectation for privacy, even while in a vehicle. We agree.

This is another defeat for Obama's DOJ. The list of miscues and mistakes is a dynamic one, more involved than the failings of any modern day Administration including the Carter Administration.

It is a shame that these missteps include Justice. Such re-enforces the realization that this Administration has little in common with the American majority when it comes to matters of the Constitution. That is why this Administration must be defeated.

North Korea reminds us all that the Korean War never actually ended . . . seriously.

Here are a few of the morning's headlines regarding the Korean Crisis. Last night, N. Korea began firing on the South. Two South Korean soldiers were killed and a number (more than 20) of civilians were injured in the shelling. Since the 1950's, there have been more than 150 such incidents, this being one of the most critical. The shelling comes on the eve of military maneuvers by the South.

The United States has 30,000 troops stationed there.

There is a strategy for the North in this incident. In exchange for "peace," the North will accept aid from whoever . . . the U.S. , China, South Korea. In the coming negotiations, assuming that Obama will try to deal with the problem via some level of talk, North Korea will make certain demands for food, energy and money, the attending world will pay them off and we will all move on.

One of the reasons why Midknight Review is opposed to the nuclear proliferation treatise known as START is that it does not include countries such as China, Iran, India, Pakistan, or N. Korea. It borders on stupid to decrease nuclear weaponry when most of the rest of the world, all enemies of America, are doing just the opposite.

At any rate, here are those headlines:

NKorea's military command vows 'merciless' military strike against SKorea...
Fires artillery onto island...
South denies seeking redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons...
Returns Fire...
May strike NKorea's missile base...
'Intentional, planned attack'...
Japan prepares for 'any eventuality'...
CHINA WATCHES... WHITE HOUSE CONDEMNS...
Russia Sees 'Colossal Danger'...
FLASHBACK: UK fears NKorean attack on Seoul G20 summit...

Velma Hart just lost her job. Don't know who that is? Maybe you should read this post.

Velma Hart — a wife and the mother of two, a veteran, and an African-American Obama supporter — had this to say to Mr. Obama, last September 22:

Quite frankly, I’m exhausted – I’m exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are right now. I have been told that I voted for a man who said was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I’m one of those people and I’m waiting, sir. I’m waiting. I don’t feel it yet. And I thought while it wouldn’t be in great measure, I’d feel it in some small measure. I have two children in private school and the financial recession has taken an enormous toll on my family. My husband and I have joked for years that we thought we were well beyond the hot dogs and beans era of our lives, but, quite frankly, it’s starting to knock on our door and ring true that that might be where we’re headed again, and, quite frankly, Mr. President, I need you to answer this honestly. Is this my new reality?

Editor's notes: this well spoken woman, an Obama supporter, lost her job two days ago. With that reality in mind, we suggest that the reader go back and read Velma's words [above] again.

A National Association for Business Economics survey predicts hard times through 2011

• Survey: Economic growth will be tepid through 2011Nov. 21, 2010, 11:01 p.m. CST

  NEW YORK (AP) — The pace of the U.S. economic recovery will remain steady but slow in the face of persistently high unemployment and heavy debt burdens, according to a new survey. The National Association for Business Economics survey, set to be released Monday, found economists now expect growth of . . . .

Editor's notes: the 111th Democrat congress passed a series of bills, each measuring a thousand pages or more (health care was 2700). Understand that none of these bills were fully written. Funding sources and regulations for heath care and the FinReg (the financial regulation bill) are two such bills. FinRig will be fully written sometime in the early spring and the health care bill will not be fully written until the end of the year . . . . . . . . . . 2011. As a result, businesses cannot plot their labor and material costs and are reluctant to hire because of that reality. The corporate/investing world is sitting on 3 trillion dollars, waiting for Washington to get their act together.

Added to the pressure to NOT hire is the issue of taxation. While Obama has decided that the "rich" are those making over $200,000 a year, a rather stupid notion, he has failed to appreciate the fact that this group of represent all of the major manufacturing jobs, all of the large construction and private utility companies, and 70% of all small businesses (those companies with fewer than 500 employees).

Understand that no one secures a long term job from a poor person. ALL long term jobs are produced by rich folk. Period.

Midknight Review believes that a "rich" person is someone who nets a million dollars a year, after taxes. The fellow who makes $200,000 a year clears around $100,000. That is "well off" but not rich. A doctor in general practice makes around #130,000 a year; his net income is around 70,000 dollars.

On a national level and with regard to our Gross Domestic Product, real GDP was a minus .6% for 2009 ; to date for 2010, GDP is near 1.8% - not enough to see a positive jobs increase. Most analysts tell us that a 2.7% to 3 % growth rate in our GDP is needed before more jobs are created than lost for any given period of time during the year. The survey cited above projects 9.2 % unemployed through 2011.

Point of post: to remind us all why the economy remains a serious problem and why that problem is not going away anytime soon.

Turns out Maxine Waters is not the only crook in town. This may be the biggest story of the next two months.

You will need to remember OneUnited. It is a bank, but just not any old bank.. It is the bank of which Maxine Waters' husband owns a "substantial" interest. Last week, the crook, Charles Rangel, was found guilty of 11 charges of misconduct, some of which appear to be criminal.

Now we have the Maxine Waters affair. The trial was to start after this week's break but has been postponed. The following is from the Finance Committee and is an explanation for the postponement. It seems that more Democrats than Waters are complicit in the transference of money (these clowns call this money "loans").

A newly discovered exchange of e-mails led the House ethics committee on Friday to delay its trial of Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat accused of helping steer bailout money to a bank in which her husband owned shares.

The e-mails are between Mikael Moore, Ms. Waters’s chief of staff, and members of the House Financial Services Committee, on which Ms. Waters serves. The e-mails show that Mr. Moore was actively engaged in discussing with committee members details of a bank bailout bill apparently after Ms. Waters agreed to refrain from advocating on the bank’s behalf. The bailout bill had provisions that ultimately benefited OneUnited, a minority-owned bank in which her husband, Sidney Williams, owned about $350,000 in shares. ..

The subcommittee’s original report found that in early September 2008, Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts and the committee’s chairman, told Ms. Waters not to get involved with any issues involving OneUnited and that Ms. Waters agreed to refrain from advocating on the bank’s behalf. The case against Ms. Waters hinged largely on a series of e-mails between Mr. Moore and OneUnited, which may suggest that Ms. Waters’s office continued to lobby on behalf of the bank, although Mr. Moore has argued that he was primarily on the receiving end of the messages.

A person directly involved in the investigation said the new e-mails could show that members of her staff continued to work on the bank’s behalf.

“It may directly contradict a bit of Maxine’s story, if not the actual facts, the way she has told it,” said the person, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the trial.

Remember a thing called TARP ? It was intended to be spent on "toxic assets." Turns out that not a nickle went to such assets, seriously. Instead, the Fed took care of that problem and we taxpayers are paying off the Fed bill; could be well over 1 trillion dollars.

The bank, OneUnited, received several millions in TARP money, and unlike the other 706 applicants, got to count that cash among its assets before actually receiving the money. Understand that there were more than 700 banking applicants and OneUnited was the only bank permitted to count the money as an asset.

Barney Frank is a member of Financial Services committee; folks at Treasury may be complicit as well. In fact, he is the current chairman of this committee. And the Republicans are coming to town loaded with subpoena power.

The Left is more than disappointed and is circulating a letter to their president: we have that letter. Its from MoveOn.org.

Dear MoveOn member,

Remember Barack Obama in 2008? The guy who refused to go along with a "dumb war" and said, "In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."

I miss that guy. Imagine if someone told you in 2008 that Barack Obama was actually thinking about signing legislation to extend the Bush tax giveaways for the rich.¹ I wouldn't have believed it.

Now more than ever, we need the Barack Obama we elected in 2008—the smart, tough, hopeful progressive champion who inspired millions of us—to stand up and say "no" to a millionaire bailout.

Right now, with the change we all fought for hanging in the balance, President Obama needs to hear from those of us who supported him the most.

So we're asking MoveOn members nationwide to record a video message from the heart to tell President Obama to go to the mat to stop any extension of the millionaire tax giveaways—and to bring back the progressive fighter we all knew and supported in 2008.

Could Obama be more unqualified as a negotiator? Ben Smith kind of says "no."

Here is a review of the Middle East foreign "policy" by Ben Smith. Sometimes ol' Ben is right on and at other times, he appears to be a communist. Today, we like what he has to say.

Barack Obama is his own worst enemy

JERUSALEM — Vowing to change a region that has resisted the best efforts of presidents and prime ministers past, Barack Obama dove head first into the Middle East peace process on his second day in office.

He was supposed to be different. His personal identity, his momentum, his charisma and his promise of a fresh start would fundamentally alter America’s relations with the Muslim world and settle one of its bitterest grievances. Two years later, he has managed to forge surprising unanimity on at least one topic: Barack Obama. A visit here finds both Israelis and Palestinians blame him for the current stalemate — just as they blame one another.

Instead of becoming a heady triumph of his diplomatic skill and special insight, Obama’s peace process is viewed almost universally in Israel as a mistake-riddled fantasy. And far from becoming the transcendent figure in a centuries-old drama, Obama has become just another frustrated player on a hardened Mideast landscape. . . . READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>>>

Editor's notes: there really isn't anything that needs to be added to the words of this article. We are pleased that Ben has finally seen the light. While the article puts the "mainstream" on line with the truth about Obama's foreign policy, it certainly is not news to the conservative pundit.

Obama could not have treated the Israeli Prime Minister more insultingly. Besides multiple public scoldings, Obama even walked out on talks being held at the White House to "have dinner with his family." Geeeesh.

Obama has proven himself to be a punk with regards to negotiations with Israel and an inept buffoon with regard to N Korea and, especially, Iran. And his most recent trip to Asia was as big an embarrassment as any president has authored in recent memory. No serious pre-trip negotiations. It is obvious that Obama thinks he can walk into a room and BAM !! , his ideas become the thinking of the world. Nonsense.

Why the "pat down" controversy?" Because we have hired a bunch of dummies as TSA inspectors.

TSA Pat Down Went Too Far, Agency Chief Says

TSA Pat Down Went Too Far, Agency Chief Says

TSA kept quiet on new rules to not provide ‘roadmap’ to terrorists

These and another 20 or 30 headlines for the day, for the past weekend, for the past week !!

We have almost nothing to say about this "news story." It is simply a waste of time, from an editorial point of view.

How about stories that deal with alternative "attack" strategies for the terrorists? How about a story or two about the cost of all this chatter. While we are all zeroed in on air travel, how many terrorists are traveling via automobile? And why are we telling the terrorist what we are doing about security ?

Friday, the Sean Hannity Show spent the entire 3 hours talking about this situation. Good grief.

I want to know what is going on. An article a day on this subject is more than enough, but it has become a nation obsession .

We carried one article on the subject last week and it was simply a scanned image with the caption, "Want to know what all the fuss is about?"

Understand one thing; our TSA people are trained some 12 hours compared to months of training for the Israeli version of our TSA. Most of the TSA have no previous experience except maybe as hamburger flippers. The TSA is little more than an employment opportunity for the uneducated masses. It is a "give me" jobs. We are no more safe now than we were three years ago. As an employment opportunity, it (the TSA) has been co-opted by the "trickle up" geniuses in the current Marxist Administration and we are all the more at risk because of it.

Remember when we realized that high school graduates could not count change into a cash register? Well, we created an onboard computer that told these Ignorants exactly what kind of "change" to offer back to the customer. That is the very same thing going on in the case of latest controversy.

The TSA could not AND HAS NOT kept the bombs off our planes, so, now, because we have hired an entire population of dummies, we now have to do something that should otherwise be unnecessary.

Understand that these folks are "Ignorants" because of a failed educational system, in part, that gave them no practical skills as they were making their way through the "educational" system.

Rasmussen Report: A Review

Obama's 7 day average approval rate remains at 45.857% ; almost no change from the days before the November midterm elections.

Worse yet is the fact that his "strongly approve" number is a pathetic 27% while his "strongly disapprove" comes in at 40%.

A majority of voters believe that he should not run again and many on his side of the aisle agree,