The run-up:

• ADP reported 42,000 private sector jobs added on Wednesday morning.
• Bloomberg — “U.S. employers cut 65,000 jobs last month, adding to a decline of 125,000 in June, according to the median prediction of 84 economists surveyed by Bloomberg before today’s release.” The report doesn’t say how much of that represents the remainder of the Census wind-down, or what the estimate is for the private sector.
• Reuters does have a breakdown — “Economists polled by Reuters expected the U.S. Labor Department report … to show a drop of 65,000 in non-farm payrolls in July as temporary U.S. Census Bureau jobs evaporated. Private employers are expected to have added 90,000 jobs.”
• In a brief report included in a collection of unrelated items, the Associated Press only deals with the private jobs number — “Companies are forecast to have added a net total of 90,000 private-sector jobs in July, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters. That’s not nearly enough to bring down the unemployment rate, which is expected to rise to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent.”

The real number needed:

Here’s where things on the ground stood in the private sector through June –

Last month, I suggested that the acceptability threshold for jobs added on the ground was 950,000 jobs added. The 863,000 added (pending revision today and in August) fell a bit short of that.

Based on what really happened in July 2004-2007 (average loss of 75,000 jobs), today’s acceptability benchmark is 100,000 jobs lost on the ground. I have a feeling that today’s number will be better than that, partially on a hunch, but also partially because General Motors kept its people working through all of July (meaning that many of its suppliers might have done the same). Auto plants often shut down during the summer for a couple of weeks.

Today’s seasonally adjusted private sector number may be a bit suspect because it has two bad years in the calculation, because July 2008 and 2009 were both parts of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy. This may cause a mediocre performance in the real, not seasonally adjusted world to look artificially good when seasonally adjusted (Update: It went the other way; the NSA number is really good, and the SA number masks it; see below).

The report will be here at 8:30. … Here is the first paragraph:

Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 131,000 in July, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Federal government employment fell, as 143,000 temporary workers hired for the decennial census completed their work. Private-sector payroll employment edged up by 71,000.

That’s somewhat short of expectations on the jobs side, while the unemployment rate didn’t get worse.

As noted above, the proof will be in the actual number.

And that number is … pretty darned good — so good that I wonder if the press is all of a sudden going to discover the virtues of looking at actual results instead of the ones that are seasoned:

June was revised down by 69K. May went up by 14K. The +91K seen on the ground in July is 191,000 jobs better than the acceptability benchmark set before the report came out. That’s impressive. The Birth/Death model isn’t skewing things either. The GM factor I cited earlier can’t be more than a small part of the improvement. Never mind what the seasonally adjusted number is — If the not seasonally adjusted +91K holds in subsequent revisions, or even stays above zero, it will be the first legitimately strong monthly private sector performance since the POR Economy began. It will take a long, long time to gain back what was lost, but perhaps the worst of our long national nightmare is finally beginning to end.

UPDATE: This Wall Street Journal report is downbeat –

The U.S. economy shed more jobs than expected in July while the unemployment rate held steady at 9.5%, a further sign the economic recovery may be losing momentum.

After the worst recession in decades, the recovery that began in July 2009 has recently been losing momentum, but it’s hard to say if it’s just a temporary slowdown or if the economy could start to contract again. The Federal Reserve may consider taking steps to support the economy when officials meet next Tuesday. Some worry that with unemployment still so high and consumer prices recently dropping, the U.S. economy runs the risk of falling into a Japan-like deflationary trap of very slow growth and falling prices.

The report, as press reports usually do, assumes that the seasonally adjusted data represeny what really happened on the ground. Readers here know that isn’t so.

Look, I’m not averse to being negative when it’s called for, but this isn’t one of those times. Looking back, the +91K actual private sector performance is the best for any July since 1999. One month doesn’t make or break the economy, but the Establishment Survey’s July news was very good, and got seasonalized away.

UPDATE 2: On the Household Survey side (the basis for the unemployment rate), the improvement isn’t as clear, but the trend towards improvement is:

BLS doesn’t break out the private sector in its Household Survey reports, so this look-see is a bit more difficult. The +252K performance in July 2010 clearly trails the average of July 2004-2007, but if the actual Census let-gos were factored in, it would come pretty close.

It is still troubling that the number of people entering the labor force didn’t go up as much as it did during 2004-2007 (+503,000 vs. a 701,000 average; after seasonalization, BLS shows a contraction of 181,000). But if the Establishment Survey results hold, that will probably change for the better in short order.

From Afghanistan:

Last updated at 8:01 AM on 3rd August 2010

A soldier who stood on a landmine and was shot in the chest in Afghanistan is convinced a rosary saved his life in exactly the same way as his great-grandfather towards the end of the Second World War.

Glenn Hockton, 19, who is now home from a seven-month tour of duty with the Coldstream Guards in Helmand Province, was on patrol when his rosary suddenly fell from his neck.

His mother Sheri Jones said today: ‘He felt like he had a slap on the back. He bent down to pick up his rosary to see if it was broken. As he bent down he realised he was on a landmine.’

Glenn had to stand there for 45 terrifying minutes while his colleagues successfully managed to get to him.
Mrs Jones, from Tye Green, Essex, said she was physically sick when her son rang to tell her of his ordeal.

His great-grandfather Joseph ‘Sunny’ Truman also credited a rosary with saving his life in a World War II blast that killed six members of his platoon.

He was with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and after being captured towards the end of the war, he and other prisoners were forced to march away from the advancing Allied armies.

Mrs Jones, 41, recalled: ‘He was walking across a field with half a dozen of his platoon. He bent down to pick something up and was the only one to survive a sudden bomb blast. He had picked up a rosary.’

Before Glenn was deployed to Afghanistan, she said he asked for a rosary to take with him.

His mother and stepfather Danyal Jones have also kept a bullet which embedded itself in Glenn’s body armour when he was shot on a separate occasion. He was winded, but otherwise he was unhurt. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

I missed this a couple of weeks ago, but it deserves exposure.

Ohio’s Queen of Pork has earned CAGW’s coveted award for being so, well, porkulent (Direct YouTube):

CAGW is Citizens Against Government Waste, and I was referring to Kaptur’s proclivity for and hypocrisy in regards to earmarks. What did y’all think I was referring to?

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UPDATE, 8 P.M.: From David Freddoso at the Washington Examiner — “PMA lobbying group founder indicted — which members of Congress will suffer?”

Kaptur was cleared by the House Ethics Committee regarding her involvement with PMA in February. It will be interesting to see if any evidence comes out indicating that the Ethics Committee’s conclusion was a whitewash.

UPDATE 2, 11:30 P.M.: In an e-mail, Maggie Thurber has pointed to this report about how “The House Ethics Committee released a report in February clearing all seven members of any wrongdoing. But the Office of Congressional Ethics did not agree and referred its investigation to the Justice Department.”

Well, there’s good news and bad news for you. The good news is that people with principles realize there’s something rotten. The bad news is that the Obama DOJ is probably using the Office of Congressional Ethics referral documents as wallpaper.

Has there ever been a more obvious enabler of the pervasive culture of corruption than Attorney General Eric Holder?

This post appeared at the Washington Examiner’s OpinionZone blog and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Tuesday.

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Readers who saw my original Examiner post about Shirley Sherrod know that she and husband Charles received $150,000 each for “pain and suffering” as part of “a thirteen million dollar settlement in the minority farmers law suit Pigford vs Vilsack.” Based on history presented by Ron Wilkins Monday at Counterpunch, it’s appropriate to ask: “Whose pain and suffering?”

It now seems that Mr. and Mrs. Sherrod inflicted quite a bit of pain and suffering on their own — and on some of the very people Mr. Sherrod described as “our own” in a speech earlier this year — at New Communities, Inc. NCI is described at the Rural Development Leadership Network’s web site as “the land trust that Shirley and Charles Sherrod established, with other black farm families in the 1960s.”

Wilkins, who says he is “a former organizer in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee” and is currently a professor at California State University in the Africana Studies Department, writes: “I know this story well, for I was one of those workers at NCI.”

Here is some of what Wilkins describes (internal link added by me):

Imagine farm workers doing back breaking labor in the sweltering sun, sprayed with pesticides and paid less than minimum wage. Imagine the United Farm Workers called in to defend these laborers against such exploitation by management. Now imagine that the farm workers are black children and adults and that the managers are Shirley Sherrod, her husband Rev. Charles Sherrod, and a host of others. But it’s no illusion; this is fact.

… What most of Mrs. Sherrod’s supporters are not aware of is the elitist and anti-black-labor role that she and fellow managers of New Communities Inc. (NCI) played. These individuals under-paid, mistreated and fired black laborers–many of them less than 16 years of age–in the same fields of southwest Georgia where their ancestors suffered under chattel slavery.

… (Shirley Sherrod) claimed that she “devoted her entire life to economic justice”. The mistreatment of black workers at NCI under the Sherrods is a matter of record that contradicts this claim.

… Shirley Sherrod was New Communities Inc. store manager during the 1970s. As such, Mrs. Sherrod was a key member of the NCI administrative team, which exploited and abused the workforce in the field. The 6,000 acre New Communities Inc. in Lee County promoted itself during the latter part of the 1960s and throughout the 70s as a land trust committed to improving the lives of the rural black poor. Underneath this facade, the young and old worked long hours with few breaks, the pay averaged sixty-seven cents an hour, fieldwork behind equipment spraying pesticides was commonplace and workers expressing dissatisfaction were fired without recourse.

… Worker protest at New Communities eventually garnered some assistance from the United Farm Workers Union in nearby Florida in the person of one of its most formidable organizers, black State Director, the late Mack Lyons.

At Riehl World View, Dan Riehl has posted a graphic of a 1974 El Malcriado article about a strike by children farm workers at NCI. That article reveals that “Wages vary from 67¢ – $1.63 per hour, and management pays each worker whatever they please, according to personal preference.”

The last two paragraphs of that article read as follows:

Though several of the cooperative’s funding organization’s are pressuring Charles Sherrod, the farm’s manager, to reach a settlement with the strikers, he remains unwilling to negotiate.

With so few scabs left in New Community’s (sic) fields, the UFW first strike in the southeast area (outside of Florida) may bring the first of many UFW contracts to these fields that were once harvested by slave labor.

“Scabs”? Oh my.

If Charles and Shirley Sherrod are the civil-rights crusaders they now claim to be and not still the brutal managers they appear to have been, they would be tracking down those who used to work at NCI and distributing their $13 million USDA settlement to them. After all, it was arguably won on the backs of exploited labor.

Larry Elder, whose latest column appeared last week before Wilkins’s revelations appeared, had no idea how right he was when he wrote: “Shirley Sherrod, Quit While You’re Ahead.”

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UPDATE, August 5: Context — the minimum wage in 1971 was $1.60 an hour. In 1972, it was $1.80. I know because that’s what I was paid at my summer jobs.

From the first paragraph of the introductory “Highlights” in the Trustees’ report (large PDF; HT Philip Klein at AmSpec) released today:

… During the year, an estimated 156 million people had earnings covered by Social Security and paid payroll taxes. Total expenditures in 2009 were $686 billion. Total income was $807 billion ($689 billion in tax revenue and $118 billion in interest earnings), and assets held in special issue U.S. Treasury securities grew to $2.5 trillion.

The bolded figures are the ones that matter. They show that taxes collected exceeded costs by only $3 billion. The “interest earnings” cited are in essence merely added to the balance the rest of the government owes the Social Security Trust fund.

The trustees say that this year and next, Social Security will pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes. It will supposedly run a surplus for a few years, and will then have a negative cash flow as far as the eye can see as long as it remains structured as it is.

Of course, those who hang around here knew those deficits were brewing 10 months ago (”Social Security: The Train Wreck Is at the Station”). Most months since then have shown cash deficits.

As long as those in charge of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy stay in charge, and don’t change their course, any projections in the Trustees’ report, which is dependent on economic growth assumptions that likely won’t materialize, are overly optimistic. Even if they do, assumptions made during the past 18-1/2 months that haven’t materialized because of this administration’s choice of alleged “stimulus” over meaningful tax cuts have permanently penalized the future, and nothing will ever change that.

Team Portman hasn’t done very much to address the issues raised here.

Maybe they’ll pay attention to this from Rasmussen:

Ohio’s U.S. Senate race is a little tighter for now but remains generally where it’s been for months.

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Republican Rob Portman picking up 44% support, while his Democratic opponent, Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher, earns the vote from 40%. Five percent (5%) prefer a different candidate, and 11% are undecided.

Last month, Portman held his biggest lead in the race to date, 45% to 39%. But his support has remained in the narrow range of 42% to 45% since regular tracking of the race began in February. Fisher’s support in that same period has ranged from 38% to 43%. The two men were tied in surveys conducted in May and early June following victories in their respective party primaries.

With this latest survey, Ohio shifts from Leans Republican to Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power summary.

Portman, a former congressman and George W. Bush administration official, has support from 85% of Republicans, while Fisher is backed by 69% of Democrats. Portman leads by 20 points among voters not affiliated with either major political party.

As the anti-Obama, anti-Ruling Class wave relentlessly builds, Rob Portman is regressing. I would suggest that this is occurring because Portman has done nothing to disabuse the electorate of the self-inflicted notions that he’s a me-first political climber (”some things are worth it for my career and some things aren’t”) and a Washington insider whose sympathies remain with the Ruling Class.

Based on Rasmussen’s breakdown, if Lugubrious and Awful Lee Fisher can shore up his Democratic base (and if they turn out), he can win. Moving from 69% Dem support to 85% would give Fisher about 5 more points overall, and would erase Portman’s current presumed lead.

That’s why this race really is a toss-up.

I’m not the only sensible, Constitution-based conservative voter asserting that Rob Portman has not earned my vote. Time is getting short, pal.

Okay, it’s been 18-1/2 months, and with I believe only one exception (and that was primarily a media critique), I’ve gritted my teeth long enough about the First Family’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous routine.

To a point, what they do on their personal time is their business, and even if they overspend on the taxpayers’ dime, the amount of money involved isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things. I’ll even allow that giving your kids an opportunity to see a lot of the world is a permissible presidential perk.

But the elitist act of the Obamas has long since become insufferable, and the hypocritical example they’re setting — demanding “sacrifice” while ostentatiously livin’ large — has crossed into the outrageous.

Michelle Obama has just taken the royalty act to new heights. Andrea Tantaros at the New York Daily News delivers a concise critique:

Material girl Michelle Obama is a modern-day Marie Antoinette on a glitzy Spanish vacation

Sacrifice is something that many Americans are becoming all too familiar with during this economic downturn. It was a key theme in President Obama’s inaugural address to the nation, and he’s referenced it numerous times when lecturing the country on how to get back on its feet.

But while most of the country is pinching pennies and downsizing summer sojourns – or forgoing them altogether – the Obamas don’t seem to be heeding their own advice. While many of us are struggling, the First Lady is spending the next few days in a five-star hotel on the chic Costa del Sol in southern Spain with 40 of her “closest friends.” According to CNN, the group is expected to occupy 60 to 70 rooms, more than a third of the lodgings at the 160-room resort. Not exactly what one would call cutting back in troubled times.

… Estimated room rate per night? Up to a staggering $2,500.

… The Obama modus operandi is becoming clear. … their idea of austerity is really just the lap of luxury, at least for ordinary folks.

Incredibly, the Obamas have long portrayed themselves as precisely such commoners.

… Instead, Michelle Obama seems more like a modern-day Marie Antoinette – the French queen who spent extravagantly on clothes and jewels without a thought for her subjects’ plight – than an average mother of two.

… I don’t begrudge anyone rest and relaxation when they work hard. We all need downtime – the First Family included. It’s the extravagance of Michelle Obama’s trip and glitzy destination contrasted with President Obama’s demonization of the rich that smacks of hypocrisy and perpetuates a disconnect between the country and its leaders.

… In January, President Obama insisted that “everybody in the country is going to have to sacrifice something, accept change for the greater good. Everybody is going to have to give. Everybody is going to have to have some skin in the game.”

If sacrifice is the precursor to change, what will the family that ran on change offer up? Elitist doublespeak won’t cut it.

Read the whole thing.

I’m trying to recall any even remotely equivalent or extravagant vacation instance involving Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford, Pat Nixon, Lady Bird Johnson, or even Jackie Kennedy. I can’t. Can anyone else? Several of those first families also were raising a child or children while their father was the nation’s commander in chief.

I also worry that what we are really witnessing is how people who can get away with it act when they know a collapse is coming (another example relating to Nancy Pelosi is here). That is, have fun and spend wildly while you can, because a few years from now all of this will be a distant memory. I hope I’m wrong.

From Dover, England:

The cause was a heart attack, his daughter Linda Lipschitz said.

Sabena Flight 571 from Brussels to Tel Aviv was 20 minutes out of Vienna on May 8, 1972, when four Arabs waving pistols rushed the cockpit. “As you can see,” Captain Levy calmly told the 90 passengers, “we have friends aboard.”

The “friends” were members of Black September, a terrorist organization that grew out of the Palestinian defeat in the 1970 Jordanian civil war and was responsible for the killing of 11 members of the Israeli team at the Munich Olympics four months after the hijacking.

The hijackers — two men and two women — ordered Captain Levy to land at Lydda Airport (later Ben-Gurion International Airport), where they threatened to blow up the plane unless 317 Palestinian guerrillas were released from Israeli prisons.

Within an hour of the radio message from Captain Levy reporting the hijacking, Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Dayan, was at the airport to deal with the crisis. After dark, Israeli saboteurs crept under the parked plane, deflated the tires and disconnected hydraulic equipment.

At the hijackers’ request, International Red Cross teams were summoned to carry messages between the plane and Mr. Dayan. After presenting their demands, the hijackers were alarmed to discover that they could not take off again. Captain Levy started a conversation to calm them down, and kept on chatting through the night. “I talked about everything under the sun,” he said later, “from navigation to sex.”

The next morning, to demonstrate their intentions, the hijackers sent Captain Levy to the terminal with a sample of the explosives they had on board. He told the Israelis much more, describing the hijackers, their positions and the black bags in which they were carrying explosives. He also told them, significantly, that there were no seats blocking the emergency doors.

Mr. Dayan promised to repair the plane and bring the Palestinian prisoners to the airport. Bogus prisoners were shown to the hijackers from a distance, and another plane was taken out to a runway, supposedly to fly them to Cairo.

Twenty-one hours after Captain Levy’s plane had been hijacked, two trucks carrying 18 men in the white overalls of mechanics drove up to the jetliner. They milled about the plane, supposedly checking the tires and other equipment. Suddenly they tore open the emergency exits above the wings and opened fire inside the cabin.

The fusillade from the men in overalls — in reality members of the elite commando unit Sayeret Matkal — ended within 90 seconds. The commandos were led by Ehud Barak, now Israel’s defense minister, and among them was Benjamin Netanyahu, now the prime minister.

The two male hijackers, who had returned fire, were killed. Another hijacker, a Jordanian woman, was not injured. The fourth, also a woman, was seriously wounded, as were several passengers. Tearful passengers and crew members slid off the wings and were bused to a terminal into the arms of ecstatic relatives.

Several days later, Prime Minister Golda Meir held a dinner for those involved in the rescue. She kissed Captain Levy and cried, “We love you.”

To criticism that the operation had endangered innocent people, she said, “When blackmail like this succeeds, it only leads to more blackmail.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

They supported Barack Obama in 2008, and voted for his agenda. They’re stuck with him — and that agenda — in 2010.

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Note: This column went up at Pajamas Media and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Tuesday.

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On July 22, Joe Biden said the following at a North Carolina fundraiser: “Now that the heavy lifting is over, we can go out and make our case.” In other words, it’s time to campaign.

He didn’t get off to a good start when he also told that same group: “There are 3 million [more] Americans working today than there were before we took office.”

What? Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that no matter which of four possible ways you look at the numbers, he’s laughably wrong by at least five years.

Numbers are stubborn things, aren’t they, Joe? Of course, you shouldn’t expect much from a guy who says “J-O-B-S” is a three-letter word.

In declaring the campaign war on, Biden immediately demonstrated that its first casualty is and will continue to be the truth.

Before I learned of Biden’s howler, I was going to establish three ground rules for this year’s election campaign. Now I’m down to two:

1. If you supported Barack Obama in 2008 and are seeking election or reelection, it’s too late to distance yourself from him if you haven’t already. You own him, and his administration’s agenda.
2. If you voted for the Obama’s administration’s key initiatives — stimulus, cap and trade, ObamaCare, or financial “reform,” you can’t credibly claim to have beliefs that run contrary to their specific provisions.

Rule Number 3 was going to be: “Tell the truth.” That’s clearly out the window on the Democratic side.

Let’s look at three concrete applications of the ground rules.

Ohio’s Democratic Governor Ted Strickland is running for reelection. He claims to be a staunch supporter of the right to keep and bear arms. He can correctly claim to have a strong record in this area when he was a congressman, and to have taken several actions as governor that are consistent with that alleged belief. But under Rule Number 1, that’s irrelevant, because Ted Strickland supported Barack Obama for president in 2008, and has not backed away.

While Obama remains president and Democrats retain control of the Senate, we are one deadly Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia, or Kennedy heart attack away from losing the Second Amendment. Any conceivable doubt that this is the case disappeared when Obama-nominated Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, contradicting her confirmation hearing testimony, voted with the minority in the recent 5-4 McDonald decision. Thus, no one, including Ted Strickland, can claim to be pro-Second Amendment and continue to support Barack Obama. Sadly, organizations like the NRA and Ohio’s Buckeye Firearms Association, who have both endorsed Strickland over Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich, don’t understand that.

Staying in Ohio, First District Congressman Steve Driehaus claims to be prolife, and was one of the phony-baloney “Stupak Six” holdouts during the final days before ObamaCare became law in March. Shortly after Obama signed the legislation, Driehaus infamously told a friendly audience that his holdout had been a convenient show: “I was fully confident we would get to ‘yes.’ … I knew I would get there.”

Stupak, Driehaus, and the others ended their charade when Obama issued an Executive Order that supposedly prohibited the use of federal funds for abortions. The most obvious flaw in accepting this fig leaf was that Obama, who based on his record and statements is the most pro-abort president in our history, can unilaterally reverse his order at any time. But beyond that, it has already been shown to be irrelevant in Pennsylvania:

The Obama administration has officially approved the first instance of taxpayer funded abortions under the new national government-run health care program. This is the kind of abortion funding the pro-life movement warned about when Congress considered the bill.

… It has quietly approved a plan submitted by an appointee of pro-abortion Governor Edward Rendell under which the new program will cover any abortion that is legal in Pennsylvania.

… “The Obama Administration will give Pennsylvania $160 million in federal tax funds, which we’ve discovered will pay for insurance plans that cover any legal abortion,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee.

If Steve Driehaus has a problem with any of this, I haven’t heard about it. If he continues to claim to be prolife, he violates both Ground Rules 1 and 2 — Rule 1 because he continues to support the President, and Rule 2 because he voted for legislation that has already been shown to be anti-life in effect. Driehaus has also been remarkably quiet about Donald Berwick, the recess-appointed Director of Medicare and Medicaid Services, who believes that “About 8% of GDP is plenty for ‘best known’ care” (health care is currently about 17% of GDP), and Zeke the Bleak Emanuel, whose “complete lives system … explicitly defends discrimination against older patients” and would be used to deny them needed care.

Finally, there’s the instructive example of Virginia Senator James Webb. Though he’s not up for reelection, Mr. Webb, with an eye on 2012, is clearly attempting to separate himself from the Obama administration’s race-based obsessions. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Webb passionately argued that “white privilege” is a myth, and that our nation must ensure that “artificial distinctions such as race do not determine outcomes.”

If the Senator really believes this, he has a funny way of showing it. ObamaCare has plenty of artificial racial distinctions, while the financial services “reform” legislation “creates … Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion in at least 20 federal financial services agencies.” Mr. Webb voted for each bill (here and here).

Mr. Webb can talk the talk about opposing and eliminating race-based distinctions all he wants, but he hasn’t walked the walk when it has mattered most. Ground Rule 2 says that anyone who supported these measures and is currently up for reelection can’t credibly claim to be against racial preferences.

Similar arguments can and should be made about those who voted for cap and trade but who suddenly discover the need to drill for oil; those who speak of controlling spending while allowing party leadership to deliberately avoid passing a budget; and those who voted for the stimulus plan who will now try to make us believe that they support meaningful tax cuts.

Those who have supported Barack Obama and have voted for his legislation deserve no distance — and that is the truth.

From Gay Patriot:

According to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office, 71.1% of primary voters “approved Proposition C, a ballot initiative that says Missouri residents do not have to purchase health insurance or pay an annual fine to the federal government, as the new law states.“

It even won in counties that Obama carried, losing only in the City of St. Louis and Kansas City. In Boone County, which Obama carried with 55.20% of the vote 60.3% of voters rejected the mandate. Obama may have carried Buchanan County by 54 votes (0.13%), but Prop C passed by 5,965 (a margin of 43.2%). Obama edged McCain in Iron and Washington County, but more than 70% of voters in each backed the Proposition.

Obama enjoyed a 14-point victory in St. Genevieve County, but Prop C won by more than 22 points. In Jefferson County, just south of St. Louis, Obama won by 2,663 votes; Prop C passed by 13,490. In St. Louis County, where Obama trounced McCain by margin of 3 to 2, Prop C passed with a similar margin.

Captain Ed at Hot Air notes that many people who voted on Prop C didn’t vote in many of the races involving actual candidates, meaning they turned out for the sole purpose of rejecting ObamaCare.

I mentioned at the end of this post last week that “Something funny may be going on in manufacturing reporting.” Well, not ha-ha funny, unusual funny.

What seems quite unusual is that the Institute for Supply Management’s Manufacturing indices for both June (56.2%) and July (55.5%) are firmly in expansion while a wave of information from elsewhere is telling us that it’s not. Captain Ed at Hot Air cited one example yesterday via the Commerce Department — ” Manufacturing fell 1.2%, which followed a 1.8% decrease in May.” These are pretty steep drops in the wake of firmly positive ISM reports, and few think July was much if any better.

It’s also true but possibly less odd, because the contrary info from elsewhere isn’t as strong, that the Non Manufacturing indices for June (53.8%) and July (54.3%) also show pretty good expansion.

So rather than speculate, I decided to address the following e-mail to ISM:

SUBJECT: Information Request

Ms. Goupil:

I’ve been following the ISM Manufacturing and Non Manufacturing Indices (and the NMI’s predecessor) for about five years, and am concerned how they currently diverge from government and other data.

I realize that both indices are of sentiment and that because of that factor alone they won’t necessarily mirror data published elsewhere.

That said, here are my questions:

1. Has the design of the monthly surveys purchasing managers complete for either of these indices changed at all during the past two years? If so, how?

2. How would you characterize the make-up of the companies who report? Would you say they are predominantly large firms, a fairly representative sample of firms, or predominantly small firms?

3. Is there a publicly available list of firms participating in each survey?

4. (I believe this is an uncomfortable but necessary question) What assurance can you give the public that your organization’s chairman, Shelley Stewart, Jr., who donated $7,100 to various campaign committees supporting Democratic candidates in 2008, including $3,300 to funds supporting Barack Obama’s campaign, has had no influence on survey design, or the methods ISM is employing to obtain, compile, calculate, or present its indices?

5. If it is indeed the case, why was the ISM not concerned about Mr. Stewart’s political contributions when it named him chairman in February 2009?

6. What is the ISM’s explanation for the current difference between its expansionary indices, especially in manufacturing, and data from the government and other sources indicating that economic activity is at best recovering weakly and at worst contracting?

I am publishing this list of questions today, and will create a follow-up post with or without your answers. I will publish that follow-up post either shortly after I receive your e-mailed response, or on Monday, August 9 if I have not received an e-mail response from you by then. Please do not call me, as I expect an on-the-record response.

Regards,
Tom Blumer
BizzyBlog.com

I’ll let everyone know when I get an answer, or on Monday if I don’t.

I had read that Andy Griffith was flakking for ObamaCare, but I didn’t actually see the vid until this morning.

Oh my, this is embarrassing propaganda (HT Matt Drudge on Saturday and a recent Hot Air post; direct YouTube):

Script:

1965. A lot of good things came out that year, like Medicare.

This year, as always, we’ll have our guaranteed benefits, and with the new healthcare law, more good things are coming: free check-ups, lower prescription costs, and better ways to protect us and Medicare from fraud.

See what else is new. I think you’re going to like it.

This is only incidentally intended to inform; its primary goal is to politicize. Its political purpose is to form the foundation for the biennial Democratic scare-the-seniors campaign, this time as “conservatives are going to take away your health care.” No, trillion-dollar deficits, the system’s current $38 trillion unfunded liability, the continuation of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy, and the implementation of the statist ObamaCare regime Griffith is to his shame promoting are what will compromise the quality of seniors’ health care.

Update: The cost — $700,000. Charles Hurt’s lament: “Griffith shatters his credibility, promising all roses with a health-care law that even Barney Fife could tell you is a disaster in the making.”

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Barack Obama on Iraq:

“Make no mistake: Our commitment in Iraq is changing — from a military effort led by our troops to a civilian effort led by our diplomats,” Obama told a group of disabled veterans in Atlanta.

This is occurring thanks to the victory in Iraq achieved in the fall of 2008 — a victory that was even recognized by the Washington Post, which declared that “The War, in a Sense, Is Over.” in January 2009. “In a sense” in grudging establishment media parlance meant that “there isn’t a war going on any more, but we can’t just admit that.”

Ralph Peters at the New York Post is not impressed with the President’s apparent mindset:

Ignoring his own opposition to the liberation of Iraq, supporting our troops and the surge, Obama spoke as if all’s well in Baghdad — thanks to him.

… While that country has passed its military crisis, it’s now in political turmoil — from which our government has utterly disengaged. We won that war, but we still can lose the peace. Obama shunned the fact that, almost half a year after its last national election, Iraq doesn’t have a new government. Determined to abandon “Bush’s war,” Obama’s been AWOL in Baghdad.

His neglect may prove disastrous. And the saddest aspect is that the Iraqis wanted us to step in and act as referees, to press them to get past their political differences.

… Even a sloppy, kinda-sorta, not-downright-awful outcome in Iraq improves the Middle East enormously. But all this administration cares about is getting out. We’re in danger of throwing away seven years of sacrifices — many made by those disabled veterans to whom Obama pandered — because our president won’t tell our diplomats to step up.

… He just doesn’t understand the stakes in Baghdad — and doesn’t want to.

But, then, he never has.

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An e-mailer pointed out something interesting yesterday after P&G announced its latest quarterly and annual results:

• P&G’s $12.7 billion net for the year ended June 30 of this year on $78.9 billion in sales was about 16% of sales.
• The company’s net income as a percentage of sales has been in the 13%-16% range for the past four years.
• Meanwhile, Big Oil Epitome of All That Is Evil Exxon Mobil’s earnings from continuing operations as a percentage of sales has ranged from about 8% to 11% during the past four years.

So why don’t leftist politicians and pundits go after companies like P&G the way they go after Big Oil?

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The Big Three networks’ evening news shows drew 19.17 million viewers last week, down 950,000 from the 20.12 million result during the same week last year.

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Verbatim: ADP’s Employment Report overview for July (bold is mine) –

Nonfarm private employment increased 42,000 from June to July 2010 on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the ADP National Employment Report®. The estimated change of employment from May to June was revised up slightly, from the previously reported increase of 13,000 to an increase of 19,000.

July’s rise in private employment was the sixth consecutive monthly gain. However, over those six months increases have averaged a modest 37,000, with no evidence of acceleration.

The result beat reported expectations I located of 23,000 (MarketWatch), 30,000 (Bloomberg), and 40,000 (Reuters). A similar number for the private sector this Friday isn’t going to impress anyone.

From Buffalo:

Aug 4, 2010 / 02:52 am

In honor of the 100th birthday of Bl. Mother Teresa, on Aug. 26 the Peace Bridge spanning the Niagara River will be illuminated with blue and white, the colors of the Missionaries of Charity. The lighting of the bridge, which connects Buffalo and Fort Erie, will be a “beautiful tribute” to the missionary, a local bishop said.

Bishop of Buffalo Edward U. Kmiec and Msgr. Wayne Kirkpatrick, administrator of the Canadian Diocese of St. Catharines, jointly requested the action from the Peace Bridge Authority.

“Blessed Mother Teresa was truly a child of the light whose life was a shining example of Christ our Light reaching out to people everywhere promoting love and peace in our world,” commented Msgr. Kirkpatrick. “The lighting of this bridge which spans two dioceses and two countries, symbolizes her light reaching out across the great chasm to all people.”

Bishop Kmiec said the action is a “beautiful tribute” to Mother Teresa.

“Her missionary spirit lives on through the countless lives she touched, and I am grateful that this unique structure will pay tribute to her on this special occasion,” the bishop commented. “This is symbolic in that Blessed Mother Teresa’s light continues to shine around the world.”

Mother Teresa’s service to the poor in India won worldwide admiration. The sisters of her order, the Missionaries of Charity, serve in Canada, the U.S. and around the world in homes for the dying, in orphanages and in hospitals.

At present the Vatican is considering Mother Teresa’s cause for sainthood. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

The revelations about their tenure at New Communities Inc. that originated elsewhere (go to my Washington Examiner OpinionZone post to find out where) are so stunning that you think they must be made up.

But they’re not. They’re credible, supported by a contemporaneous publication, and have been brought to light by someone who, considering his current position, has demonstrated more than a little courage by doing so.

Just go there, and put one hand firmly underneath your jaw; otherwise, it might hit the floor.

Now here’s a question: What are the chances any of Sherrod’s defenders in the media will report any of this?

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UPDATE, 12:40 a.m., August 4: The Examiner post (”Former Shirley Sherrod employee accuses her of exploiting black farm laborers”) is based primarily on a Counterpunch item (”The Other Side of Shirley Sherrod”) by Ron Wilkins. Dan Riehl at Real World View provides a graphic assist, showing us a story in a United Farm Workers publication in 1974 about New Communities Inc.’s oppressive and unfair labor practices.

UPDATE 2: Other reax –

• Legal Insurrection: “The other day, in assessing Sherrod’s claims against Breitbart for releasing the original clip of her comments to the NAACP, I noted that any lawsuit by Sherrod against Breitbart would open Sherrod’s entire life up to scrutiny, and that Breitbart might relish such opportunity.” Really. Bring it on, Shirley.
• At Conservative Zone, Project 21 member Joe R. Hicks says, “If Wilkins claims are proven to be true, Sherrod owes an explanation and an apology — not only to Wilkins but the other black farm workers she misused.” The heck with the apology; she and her husband owe exploited workers a piece of their $13 million USDA settlement.
• Confederate Yankee: “Far from being an advocate for black farmers, Charles and Shirley Sherrod abused them mercilessly, treating them in ways that the most ardent racists would have found appalling.”

Lefty blogs that are so pathetically out of touch that they deserve no linkage are pretending that there’s a legitimate recovery going on, and whining about how folks like yours truly are talking down the economy.

They might want to explain how this represents a recovering economy, but they really can’t:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: Unemployment Could Go Up Before It Comes Down
Unemployment Could Rise ‘Temporarily’ As More People Enter Labor Force

While the concept has some legitimacy that might explain a rise of a couple of tenths of a point in the unemployment rate over 2-3 months, it all depends on what you mean by “temporarily.”

The transcript shows that Geither does refer to a possible rise for “a couple of months” but he never specifically predicts when the unemployment rate will come down, or how quickly — or, actually, if it even will.

Geithner’s is nonetheless a de facto admission that the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy, the two-year, two-tiered monster that has been almost tolerable for big, crony-connected businesses and brutal on small ones, won’t have the jobs available for a while when those who have despaired of finding work for quite a while try to get back in. Rebound? What Rebound?

Either this is a case of expectations management ahead of Friday’s Employment Situation Report (i.e., say things are getting worse so that if they hold steady or slightly improve people will be satisfied), or things are falling apart faster than Geithner & Co. originally imagined. Despite the deceptiveness of the former, I’d prefer that result over the latter — but I fear it’s the latter.

It’s here. The sub-headline:

They supported Barack Obama in 2008, and voted for his agenda. They’re stuck with him — and that agenda — in 2010.

It will go up here at BizzyBlog on Thursday morning (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires.

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UPDATE: One of the points made in the column is that President Obama’s Executive Order supposedly prohibiting any federal funding of abortions in any government-sponsored or subsidized health plan in ObamaCare was proven to be toothless when the state of Pennsylvania “quietly approved a plan submitted by an appointee of pro-abortion Governor Edward Rendell under which the new program will cover any abortion that is legal in Pennsylvania” in “high-risk pools.”

Unbeknownst to me at the time I wrote the column, similar situations had also arisen in New Mexico and Maryland.

After the column draft went to PJM, the administration’s Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation to stop it:

Obama Admin Bows to Pressure, Appears to Limit Abortion Funding in Health Care
July 29, 2010

The Obama administration appears to have bowed to pressure from pro-life groups that discovered it had authorized abortion funding in three states under the new high risk health insurance programs created under the new government-run health care bill, President Barack Obama signed into law.

The Department of Health and Human Services issued a new regulation today that it says prohibits the high risk health insurance pools from covering elective abortions with federal taxpayer funds.

However, pro-life groups informed LifeNews.com that the limits do not apply to all aspects of the health care law, just the high risk insurance pools.

The new regulation says the subject of taxpayer funding of abortion under the new health care bill was addressed in the executive order Obama released that pro-life groups said was not sufficient to prevent abortion funding.

It also said the health care bill did not overturn current limits on abortion funding such as the Hyde Amendment, although the amendment does not apply to the health care law.

“These restrictions currently apply to certain Federal programs that are similar to the PCIP program,” the regulation says — though it does not say they cover the high risk pools created under the ObamaCare law.

Steve Ertelt at Life News is absolutely correct in including the tentative language I have bolded.

That’s because what’s involved is a regulation, not a law.

It can be rescinded at any time that HHS thinks the political climate is right or when it thinks no one is paying attention.

If that occurs, based on the fact that three states had already permitted it (because in their reading of the legislation, they were allowed to), abortion goes back in, and nothing short of lengthy and problematic litigation will stop it.

I believe that litigation to stop it would fail. Taking a step that I predicted last year will eventually occur given enough time, the courts would head over into the land of “equal protection” and employ the following illogical “logic” (the fourth, fifth, and sixth points have been revised to reflect current developments):

• Health care is now a mandatory consumer purchase.
• Reproductive health care is part of health care.
• Abortion is part of reproductive health care.
• Once individuals and families are in a high-risk pool, it’s very difficult if not impossible to affordably leave it.
• The “high-risk pool,” by not paying for abortions for a large, permanently captive audience, prevents women who MUST have coverage from equal access to a health care service that the courts have long since decided is a fundamental right of women.
• The Hyde Amendment was only intended to prevent government funding from specific programs from going towards abortion. It was never intended to permanently close off abortion funding, and thus equal access to abortion, from women now effectively forced into participating in the high-risk pool because no other realistic option is available.
• Thus on “equal protection” grounds, the form of “health care” known as abortion must be available.

Mere months after ObamaCare’s passage, the President’s Executive Order has already been shown to be a toothless ruse designed to give pretend pro-lifers like Bart Stupak and Steve Driehaus false cover for supporting statist health care. Abortion IS in ObamaCare; a mere regulation that can be revoked at any time or which faces near-certain nullification if legally challenged is all that prevents it from becoming a reality.

This sad saga proves that what I contended in connection with Driehaus in October 2008 is indisputably true across the board: You cannot support Barack Obama and claim to be prolife. Because, as seen, in the real world, you’re not.

From Durham, NC:

Published Tue, Aug 03, 2010 05:23 AM
Modified Mon, Aug 02, 2010 11:27 PM

A Georgia girl who received the world’s first combination transplant of lungs and bone marrow at Duke University Medical Center has returned home – healthy enough to start her junior year of high school next week.

Laura Margaret Burbach, 16, who was born with a rare immune system deficiency, endured the two-phase procedure against long odds, first to find a matching donor and then to survive the operations.

Last week, she returned to Madison, Ga., after a full year of hospitalizations and outpatient care at Duke.

“It is great to be home,” she said.

Laura Margaret was greeted by crowds of well-wishers, who lined the route to her house and festooned trees, signs and mailboxes with pink ribbons in her honor.

On Sunday, her first day home, she went out to dinner with friends and then played “Dance Party” on Wii.

“I had never done that before,” she said. “They don’t have too many dance parties at the hospital.”

Laura Margaret arrived in Durham in July 2009, hoping for a bone marrow transplant. Bone marrow is where the body generates its infection-fighting cells, so a transplant would replace her faulty immune system with a healthy one.

But her lungs were in terrible shape, ravaged by years of infections her body could not fight off.

Doctors at Duke proposed doing a double transplant using the lungs and bone marrow of a deceased donor. Such a procedure had not been done, or at least not reported in the medical literature, and doctors needed institutional and federal approval to proceed.

Meanwhile, Laura Margaret needed to get in shape. A 4-foot, 5-inch dynamo, she had been a cheerleader, singer, dancer and school leader before growing so sick she was tethered to oxygen tanks.

In November, she was well enough to be placed on the lung transplant list, and doctors anticipated a long wait for a suitable match. Less than a week later, a donor was found.

Doctors performed the lung transplant immediately and stored the bone marrow for later. In April, after Laura Margaret went through chemotherapy and radiation to destroy her own bone marrow, the donor’s cells were transplanted.

Then began the wait to see whether the marrow would take off and grow. As each day passed, the cells multiplied. After three weeks, Laura Margaret was well enough to be discharged from the hospital. Last Sunday, she was sent home – cured. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

UPDATE, 6:20 p.m. ET: AP now has a 5:28 p.m. item on the bounty. It’s enough to make you wonder if the item below shamed the wire service into covering it.

(original post)

A look at the Associated Press’s raw national feed (saved and stored here at about 1:30 p.m. ET for future reference) informs us that the wire service considers the following items worthy of at least some countrywide attention:

• We’re No. 1! UGA tops party schools ranking
• Lindsay Lohan released from jail, goes to rehab
• (Football Player Albert) Haynesworth again doesn’t pass conditioning test
• Vuvuzelas silenced for basketball worlds

The fact that the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona has had a $1 million bounty placed on his head by a Mexican drug cartel, an offer that is being treated as a credible threat? Sorry, that doesn’t make the cut. An AP search on Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s last name confirms it:

Here is most of the brief story at Fox News’s Fox Nation (TV report is also at link):

$1 Million Hit Put out on Joe Arpaio

The so called “America’s toughest sheriff” has never been secretive about the many death threats he continuously receives. He also has said that is not afraid. It just comes with the territory – we might think, but now he may be forced to take some extra precautions as a supposed Mexican drug cartel –the Juarez cartel- has offered to pay $1 million to whoever does the favor.

It’s offering a million dollars for Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s head and offering a [ten] thousand dollars for anyone who wants to join the Mexican cartel,” said a young man who chose to remain anonymous.

The frightened male said his wife received the offer in a text and a voice message -both in Spanish, Tuesday evening, which also included an international phone number and instructions to be forwarded.

… The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office believes the message originated in Mexico and said investigators are trying to trace exactly where the text message came from. What really concerns investigators is how quickly the message may have been spread as the monetary incentive is a factor to take this threat a little bit more seriously.

The FBI is already involved in the investigation.

The older AP story that appeared in the search has to do with how law enforcement officials like Sheriff Joe “already have a significant amount of authority to enforce immigration laws and help remove illegal immigrants from the country.” I guess that’s no longer the case after Thursday’s ruling on AZ 1070. The more recent one has to do with arrests at “protests,” at least one of which was a near riot (”Protesters beat on the metal door and forced sheriff’s deputies to call for backup. Officers in riot gear opened the doors, waded out into the crowd and hauled off those who didn’t move”).

Matt Drudge has linked to the $1 million bounty story since yesterday, but he somehow missed those crucial “party school” and vuvuzela items. Drudge thinks the nation might be interested in tangible evidence that a culture of lawlessness continues to gain ground in Arizona, with dire long-term implications. AP, still acting as if it’s the consummate gatekeeper (in some ways, sadly, it still is) apparently doesn’t think Americans need to know that.

Once again, Drudge demonstrates that he has more news sense than everyone else combined at “the Essential Global News Network.” His traffic continues to grow. I wonder if that’s the case at AP?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.