In the mail: And The Good News Is…Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side by Dana Perino. If she writes as well as she talks on The Five, this should be a good read.

One of the stocks I own is American Electric Power, a large electric power utility. They had good first quarter earnings because of the cold winter. The same as last year. In fact, here is an excerpt from their 1st Quarter Earnings Conference Call.

Just as with first quarter 2014, the cold weather and generation performance contributed heavily to these positive results. First quarter 2014 was the coldest in 35 years; first quarter 2015 was the second coldest. But this isn’t the only story for the quarter. With weather year-on-year being about the same and earnings being higher than first quarter last year, the difference is the progress we have made in advancing our growth strategy.

First and second coldest in the last 35 years? How can that be? I thought the planet was warming. It’s like the gummint claiming the planet is warming (I remember NOAA saying last year that January of 2014 was the hottest January on record.) and then blaming the cold weather in the first quarters of 2014 and 2015 for low economic growth. As Insty sez, “Potemkin villages all the way down.”

The gummint just announced that the economy grew .2% in the first quarter. Guess what the gummint economists are blaming for the slow growth? Harsh weather in February, AKA Winter. They did the same thing last year. They blamed Winter for a bad quarter. I’ll bet in another month this number will be revised downward and we will find out that the economy actually contracted. The triumph of Obamanomics.

Actually, if the gummint hadn’t been fudging the numbers for the past six years we would find out that we had never actually recovered from the Great Recession. We know they have been fixing the unemployment numbers. All you have to do is look at the job participation rate which is at an all time low. Of course, the big elephant in the room is Obummercare which has destroyed jobs in this country at an unprecedented pace. Thanks Dimocrats and a big thanks to you John Roberts you fucking traitor for ruling an unconstitutional piece of legislation as Constitutional. What do the Dimocrats have on you I wonder?

Get set for another two years of anemic or no growth in the economy as the Republicans continue to cave to Obungler.