1. The Birthday List 2012

2. On Jobs, Obama is Running from Reality

3. Remember the Keystone XL Segment Pres. Obama “Fast-Tracked”?

4. Seriously, Sierra Club?

5. Aww. Barack Obama *misses* the nice, civilized 2008 election cycle!

1. The Birthday List 2012

It is the Erick Erickson Annual Birthday post. Yesterday I turned 37. Here is what I want for my birthday:

Donations to the Salvation Army or Mission to the World to help them help others.

Campaign contributions to Ted Cruz.

And anything you can donate to one of these five organizations, which are my top five favorite political organizations in the country:

American Majority

American Majority Action

Club for Growth

Heritage Action for America

and the Senate Conservatives Fund.

And if you are just insistent that it be something for me and to me, I’ll take this with the ottoman in vintage cigar thank you very much.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. On Jobs, Obama is Running from Reality

President Obama has failed to live up to the promise of his candidacy. In 2009, he and his team promised an unemployment rate below 6 percent by 2012. We’re far from it.

And now, President Obama talks about the economy as though he has not been president for the last three years.

“It is absolutely critical,” he said Wednesday, to make sure the economy is “moving full speed ahead.”

Yes, it is. But Obama has spent the last three years holding us back. The president yells, “Forward!” even as he moves backward.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. Remember the Keystone XL Segment Pres. Obama “Fast-Tracked”?

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is concerned that permitting for the southern segment of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline could be insufficient and has asked for a more extensive review.”

Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. Seriously, Sierra Club?

With the shale gas boom in full swing, gas prices are at 10-year lows. We have the realistic prospect of abundant domestic supplies of a clean-burning fuel for the foreseeable future, who doesn’t like natural gas?

Ask the Sierra Club. This week, the venerable environmental organization announced its “Beyond Natural Gas” initiative, to go along with their “Beyond Coal” and “Beyond Oil” campaigns. Of course, they hate nuclear energy too.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. Aww. Barack Obama *misses* the nice, civilized 2008 election cycle!

I was going to get awesomely cranky about how suddenly Barack Obama is nostalgic about campaigning against that nice John McCain, but then I realized: feeding a man’s narcissism by writing, long involved posts about him helps neither you, nor the narcissist. So in the interests of Obama’s own mental hygiene, let me be brief:

In 2008 the Obama campaign released an ad that mocked John McCain for his inability to send an email – which infuriated people, because the reason why he can’t send an email is because his arms have never really worked properly after the North Vietnamese got done torturing him. When Obama’s Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden dared mildly apologize for it, the Obama campaign humiliated Biden by having their lackey Bill Burton come out and retract Biden’s apology.

This is what passed for ‘civility’ in the 2008 election cycle.

Please click here for the rest of the post.