Couldn’t Help But Comment (080608, Morning)

Bob at One Bob’s Opinion picked up on a Wall Street Journal story (may require subscription) about Wal-Mart’s fears that an Obama presidency would lead to the enactment of the fraudulently named Employee Free Choice Act.

The proposed law has nothing to do with “free choice.” Instead, it’s a union-led ploy to subvert the will of workers through coercion, to get around the process of free and fair elections, and to repudiate one of the most important and hard-won legacies of FDR.

Previous related BizzyBlog posts are here, here, here, here, and here.

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Following up on my July BizzyBlog/Pajamas Media column on the chronic overestimation of the number of homeless in the US — Warren Todd Huston at NewsBusters (mirrored here; HT E-mailer Dan Scott) answered a question I’ve been wondering about, namely, “Why hasn’t the press been writing the usual ‘homelessness growing’ stories that multiply like rabbits during Republican administrations?”

Answer: Homelessness is way down. Oh, and the number of chronically homeless, or the total number of homeless regardless of how defined, isn’t anywhere near the 1.5 million – 3 million claimed by “advocates”:

The number of chronically homeless people living in the nation’s streets and shelters has dropped by about 30 percent — from 175,914 to 123,833 — from 2005 to 2007, Bush administration officials said on Tuesday.

….. officials ….. attribute much of the decline to a policy shift promoted by Congress and the administration that has focused federal and local resources on finding stable housing for homeless people suffering from drug addiction, mental illness or physical disabilities, long deemed the hardest to help in the homeless population.

….. Nationally, chronically homeless people account for about 18 percent of the homeless population.

Do the math: 123,833 is 18% of ….. 688,000, NOT 1.5 million to 3 million.

Even that stat stretches the definition of “homeless” to the breaking point, as seen in this paragraph:

Some advocates for the homeless criticized the administration’s focus on the chronically homeless, saying that homeless families and those who live on the margins — in motels or doubled up with friends and family — are falling behind.

Oh for cryin’ out loud. A divorcee with a child or two who has just moved back in with mom and dad is “homeless” under this definition. So are immigrant families, many of whom stay together in motels or doubled up (or more) in apartments or single-family homes for an extended time period voluntarily (i.e., they’re not looking for alternative living arrangements, even though they could afford them).

As I said in the column, the number of truly “homeless” — before the “advocates” play their word games — is no more than a few hundred thousand. Advocates need to focus on getting those who truly need it all the necessary help, and stop inflating the problem.

Huston also properly notes that media credit given to the Bush Administration has been relatively sparse, though the initiatives clearly were put into place under initiatives passed by a previous GOP Congress and aggressively carried out by the Bush bureaucracy.

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This excerpt is just one small example of why, in a fair and balanced media world, Michelle Malkin would long since have won a Pulitzer for commentary:

What America’s daughters need to know about Nancy Pelosi

While Madame Speaker advises America’s daughters to “never draw a line in the sand,” she refuses to return to Washington and allow up-or-down votes on Republican energy proposals.

While Madame Speaker advises America’s daughters “to defend your position with facts,” she has demonstrated blinking ignorance about the price of gas in her own district and the laws of supply and demand.

While Madame Speaker advises America’s daughters to “treat one another in a civil way,” she has resorted to business-as-usual demagoguery against her ideological opponents. Over the weekend, Pelosi jeered at the conservative revolt on the House floor last week to object to the Democrats’ five-week recess as “a war dance of the handmaidens of the oil companies.”

….. Nancy Pelosi’s real lesson for America’s daughters: Women in power are just as capable of mastering Washington double talk, blame avoidance, and partisan hackery as men.

Imagine that.

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Mickey Kaus makes a lot of great points (HT Allah at Hot Air, who excerpts an additional one) about the media near-silence on the John Edwards possible/probable love child situation. Among them:

It’s silly to say “he’s just a private citizen”–he’s much less of a “private citizen” than, say, William Bennett was in 2003 when Jonathan Alter and Joshua Green torpedoed (Bill) Bennett’s (potential government) career by revealing his gambling habits.

If a politician whose chief appeal is his self-advertised loyalty to his brave, ill wife cheats on his brave ill wife, what’s he good for again? And if Edwards’ crucial talent as a public official is his ability to move people with tearjerky anecdotes, and those anecdotes (like the tale of his spousal loyalty, or the girl with no coat, or the anecdote that reportedly made John Kerry queasy about him)–turn out to be BS or half BS, that’s more than random hypocrisy, It goes to the core of what he does and what he claims to offer. …..

I think Old Media wants to preserve Edwards’s potential political viability for possible near-term Cabinet positions or another presidential run, and hopes that all of this will somehow fade into oblivion. They’re holding out for the idea that an extended JFK-like coverup can work. I doubt it.