Couldn’t Help But Notice (092807)

How now Dow 14 thou? The Dow is up over 1000 points since August 16, and is one very good day away from hitting 14000. The NASDAQ and S&P 500 are also very close to their mid-July levels.

Part of the seeming disconnect between the markets and the supposedly “mediocre” economy is that while home sales are declining, home prices are not.

I said, “Home prices are not.” This is the best avaliable evidence of that. The changing regional mix of home sales towards the less-expensive South, noted here a few months ago, remains the reason why the fall in the nationwide median sale price figure released monthly by the Commerce Department is misleading. The markets know that, even if the press can’t or won’t figure it out. I think the current upbeat situation in the markets has little to do with hopes for another Fed rate cut, which I don’t see happening. I believe another rate cut should not take place, because it might stoke inflation.

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Was this ever overdue:

The Bush administration took the gloves off Monday in its fight over immigration enforcement, suing the state of Illinois for banning use of a federal system that checks whether workers are in the United States legally.

The same people who are always screaming that “it’s a federal matter” when it comes to enforcing immigration laws told employers they can’t use the federal employment-verification system. Whether this is a look-good stunt by the administration or the beginning of a consistent effort remains to be seen.

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Like Mike Gallagher said — “What a jerk”:

Filling in for Tucker Carlson, the bow-tied conservative, Shuster’s invited guest was a Republican Congresswoman from Tennessee, Rep. Marsha Blackburn. The announced topic was the ongoing outrage over the Moveon.Org ad in the New York Times that referred to General Petraeus as a traitor.

Shuster, a political reporter (not a talk show host) was evidently agitated by Rep. Blackburn’s measured and responsible condemnation of the vicious ad. In the middle of the interview, he suddenly decided to go for the jugular and attack her by using a brave, dead soldier as his weapon. “You represent a district in western Tennessee”, Shuster snarled. “What was the name of the last soldier from your district who was killed in Iraq?”

….. Shuster knew the congresswoman likely wouldn’t know that name when he triumphantly crowed, “Ok, his name was Jeremy Bohannon. He was killed August the ninth, 2007. How come you didn’t know the name?” he demanded.

The only problem is that David Shuster didn’t know the name, either. It turns out he was flat wrong. Army Private Bohannon didn’t live in Rep. Blackburn’s district, he lived in a neighboring district represented by John Tanner, a Democrat.

….. It must be have been pretty painful for Shuster when he sheepishly appeared on a subsequent MSNBC show to make a public apology for his asinine behavior.

….. I was told that prior to his public apology, Shuster went on a liberal talk radio show and he and the host were chortling and guffawing together over the “gotcha” interview he conducted with Rep. Blackburn. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

I’ll bet David Shuster isn’t giggling now.

I’ll bet the only thing he’s really sorry about is that he picked the wrong soldier.

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The idea that the New York Times may be in Sarbanes Oxley trouble because of the MoveOn ad fiasco is not far-fetched. The ability of a “favored” customer to get a discount that should not have been available is an indication that internal control systems aren’t working properly, and could indicate that there is a “material weakness” as SarBox defines it that should have been reported to shareholders. MoveOn’s subsequent sheepish reimbursement of the difference, only after the Times’s public editor showed that the discount was, according to an employee who should know, “contrary to our policies,” does nothing to change that. Thomas Lifson at American Thinker has much more. The company’s auditors are surely taking notes.

All of this makes the Times’s ongoing and avid editorial support of keeping SarBox as it is, including here last year, all the more ironic. It also makes NYT’s free-falling share price (Thursday’s close: $19.25, down over 12% since shortly before it placed MoveOn’s Petraeus/Betray Us ad) more understandable, even beyond the company’s already-lousy business fundamentals.