If you haven’t figured it out yet, the fact that lawmakers in Washington who voted for the mislabeled “stimulus” bill championed by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid did so without reading it, let alone understanding it, means that in the coming weeks (or months?) we’ll be learning about all manner of items in the legislation that “nobody” knew about. But that didn’t stop House and Senate majorities from passing the legislation. My educated guess is that you won’t hear much about these buried provisions from Old Media, because they’re largely designed as stealth advances of longtime liberal agenda items.

Remember “net neutrality”? It’s back, after probably a year or so of neglect.

Declan McCullagh at CNet explains that whoever wrote the legislation (will we ever know?) is attempting to force anyone who receives government money for broadband expansion to comply with something that isn’t law, or even a regulation (links were in original):

Democrats sneak Net neutrality rules into ‘stimulus’ bill

….. Democrats are using the 258-page legislation to sneak Net neutrality rules in through the back door.

The so-called stimulus package hands out billions of dollars in grants for broadband and wireless development, primarily in what are called “unserved” and “underserved” areas. The U.S. Department of Commerce is charged with writing checks-with-many-zeros-on-them to eligible recipients, including telecommunications companies, local and state governments, and even construction companies and other businesses that might be interested.

The catch is that the federal largesse comes with Net neutrality strings attached. The Commerce Department must ensure that the recipients “adhere to” the Federal Communications Commission’s 2005 broadband policy statement (PDF)–which the FCC said at the time was advisory and “not enforceable,” and has become the subject of a lawsuit before a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.

One interpretation of the “adhere to” requirement is that a company like AT&T, Verizon, or Comcast that takes “stimulus” dollars to deploy broadband in, say, Nebraska must abide by these rules nationwide.

….. In addition, recipients must operate broadband and high-speed wireless networks on an “open access basis.” The FCC, soon to be under Democratic control, is charged with deciding what that means. Congress didn’t see fit to include a definition.

The Bush administration has taken a dim view of Internet regulations in the form of Net neutrality rules, warning last year that they could “inefficiently skew investment, delay innovation, and diminish consumer welfare, and there is reason to believe that the kinds of broad marketplace restrictions proposed in the name of ‘neutrality’ would do just that, with respect to the Internet.” A report from the Federal Trade Commission reached the same conclusion in 2007.

In addition, a recent study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says that the absence of Net neutrality laws or similar federally mandated regulations has spurred telecommunications companies to invest heavily in infrastructure, and changing the rules “would have a devastating effect on the U.S. economy, investment, and innovation.”

Now, perhaps extensive Net neutrality regulations are wise. But enough people seem to have honest, deep-seated reservations about them to justify a sincere discussion of costs and benefits–rather than having the requirements stealthily injected into what supposed to be an emergency save-the-economy bill scheduled for a floor vote within a week or so.

Well, Declan, welcome to Obamaworld. Why have a real debate about an important issue when you can “settle” it by burying what you want in a law that no one read?

Now the debate will change from supporters of Net Neutrality having to justify imposing it to those same supporters shrieking that their opponents want to “roll back gains,” or some other similar nonsense. The press will all too willingly oblige in assisting them in presenting those arguments.

Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Arlen Specter must be so proud. (/sarcasm)

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

The esteemed George Mason University economist and occasional Rush Limbaugh guest host recites a quick history of the Depression Era of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the Executive Branch intimidation that sustained its wrong-headed policies (bolds are mine):

….. In 1929 came an economic downturn, most notably featured by the stock market collapse, after which came massive government intervention — you might call it the nation’s first stimulus package.

President Hoover and Congress responded to what might have been a two- or three-year sharp downturn with many of the policies President Obama and Congress are urging today. They raised tariffs, propped up wage rates, bailed out farmers, banks and other businesses, and financed state relief efforts.

When Franklin Roosevelt came to office, he became even more interventionist than Hoover and presided over protracted depression where the economy didn’t fully recover until 1946.

Roosevelt didn’t have an easy time with his agenda; he had to first emasculate the U.S. Supreme Court.

Higgs points out that federal courts had respect for the Constitution as late as the 1930s. They issued some 1,600 injunctions to restrain officials from carrying out acts of Congress.

The Supreme Court overturned as unconstitutional the New Deal’s centerpieces such as the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act and other parts of Roosevelt’s “stimulus package.”

An outraged Roosevelt threatened to pack the court, and the court capitulated to where it is today giving Congress virtually unlimited powers to tax, spend and regulate.

My question to my fellow Americans is: Do we want a repeat of measures that failed dismally during the 1930s?

A more fundamental question is: Should Washington be guided by the Constitution?

In explaining the Constitution, James Madison, the document’s acknowledged father, wrote in Federalist Paper 45:

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce.”

Has the Constitution been amended to permit Congress to tax, spend and regulate as it pleases or have Americans said, “To hell with the Constitution”?

Answer: Usually not directly, but quite effectively, an all too large percentage of the time.

From Radio France Internationale: (audio tribute is also at link; HT Expatica):

Article published on the 2009-02-15 Latest update 2009-02-15 15:11 TU

Joseph Brocard, the last remaining member of the French Agir resistance network died on Saturday, aged 88. The network made an essential contribution to allied forces against the Germans during World War II.

Brocard was involved in a resistance movement that identified and mapped launching sites of the German V1 cruise missile so that allied bombers could destroy them.

The Agir movement, created by French Colonel Michel Hollard at the start of the war, was a self-contained intelligence network involving around 100 agents.

Its members were volunteers recruited from all walks of life, and it used minimal communications in order to protect the identity of those involved.

Brocard helped map over 100 launching sites of the V1 warhead, constructed around the Pas de Calais area. Most of the missiles were aimed at London.

“Monsieur Brocard, who has just died, will have been on a very sensitive mission, locating and giving a lot of information about launching sites,” says Roger Thorn of the Royal British Legion.

The V1 flying bomb, also known as the Buzz bomb, was an early cruise missile fired from special “ski” platforms.

It was designed to have devastating effect on densely populated areas and was propelled by a simple pulse jet engine.

“Local reconnaissance was vital,” Thorn told RFI. “It was critical, you can’t put a figure, you can’t put a percentage of gain on it, but Churchill and de Gaulle at the end of the war did not hesitate to show the contribution of the resistance movement.”

….. It is estimated that the group’s work helped reduce the threat from the warheads by some 90 per cent, and Hollard, its founder, was dubbed “the man who saved London”.

Go here for the rest of the story

A 1993 Heritage Foundation Executive Memorandum made points (HT to Jay Ott at Maggie Thurber’s blog) that have seldom been made in media discussions, like this really weak front-page article a week ago at the Toledo Blade, about reinstating the so-called Fairness Doctrine. The Blade’s Kirk Baird and Rod Lockwood seem to act as if radio is the only communications medium in existence.

Heritage’s points are even more valid today than they were 16 years ago.

At the time, which “so happened” to be the first year of the last Democratic administration, there was legislation in Congress called the “Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1993″ that would have restored the doctrine, which had been overturned by the Federal Communications Commission in 1987.

Here are the three faulty premises highlighted by Heritage’s Adam Thierer, followed by why they are even more faulty now:

Faulty Premise #1: The “scarce” amount of spectrum space requires oversight by federal regulators.

Reality: Although the spectrum is limited, the number of broadcasters in America has continuously increased.

There are exponentially more outlets now. Anyone can start a blog or an Internet radio station, spout off at MySpace or Facebook, or tweet away on Twitter. Whether that person’s opinions are worth heeding depends on the content of what they have to say, how hard they work (sorry, libs) to get it out there, and a bit of luck.

Faulty Premise #2: “Fairness” or “fair access” is best determined by FCC authorities.

Reality: FCC bureaucrats can neither determine what is “fair” nor enforce it.

They’re even less capable of determining fairness now than they were before blogs, Internet broadcasting, satellite radio, and other media came along. Will eveyone who expresses a conservative thought on Twitter have to allot 140 characters to a liberal, and vice-versa?

Faulty Premise #3: The fairness doctrine guarantees that more opinions will be aired.

Reality: Arbitrary enforcement of the fairness doctrine will diminish vigorous debate.

No, it would lead to relentless harassment of those who express controversial views. It would go in both directions. Radio stations would abandon talk because it’s too much hassle. If the Fairness Doctrine were extended to blogs (which has been mentioned from time to time), bloggers would avoid political opinion rather than hand their bandwidth over to the opposite view.

Beyond that, all of this assumes that there are somehow only two sides to every issue, which is clearly naive.

Again, note that it’s all about radio, and only about radio. Heaven forbid that Fairness Doctrine standards get applied to say, the TV networks, or newspapers, or that the AP be forced to publish offsets of the opinions they disguise as reporting.

Anyway, if you haven’t heard these points raised in media coverage of those attempting to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine, it’s largely because most of the press doesn’t want you to hear them.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

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UPDATE, Feb. 17: For those who ridicule the idea that there are those in the Speech Police who want to extend to the Fairness Doctrine to blogs and the Internet, consider this item at American Spectator’s Prowler (HT Kerry Pickel at NewsBusters) –

Senior FCC staff working for acting Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps held meetings last week with policy and legislative advisers to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to discuss ways the committee can create openings for the FCC to put in place a form of the “Fairness Doctrine” without actually calling it such.

Waxman is also interested, say sources, in looking at how the Internet is being used for content and free speech purposes. “It’s all about diversity in media,” says a House Energy staffer, familiar with the meetings.

I don’t think I need to elaborate.

Fire the publicist! (oops, that’s me)

Gregg Jackson interviewed yours truly for about an hour on Thursday morning. That interview will be broadcast on KDAR in California tonight from 11 p.m. until midnight.

The “Listen Live” link is at the top of the station’s home page. Topics are the economy and other things.

It will also be posted soon at Gregg’s radio archives.

The battle between New London, Connecticut and the residents of its Fort Trumbull neighborhood began in 1998 when the City decided that it would redevelop the area for ultimate ownership by others and, if necessary, take the residents’ properties for that “public purpose” — not for “public use” (i.e., roads, bridges, schools, etc.), as the Fifth Amendment clearly intended.

Susette Kelo and other Fort Trumbull residents pushed back and sued to try to stop the city’s plans. Ultimately, the Supreme Court rendered its 6-3 decision in Kelo v. New London in June 2005, erroneously (as the Founders would almost certainly have seen it) siding with the City.

In July 2006, after intervention by Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell prevented the City from carrying out its declared intent to forcibly remove final holdouts Kelo and the Cristofaros if necessary, the city and the holdouts settled.

Over 2-1/2 years after the settlement, over 3-1/2 years after the Supremes’ decision, and 11 years after the city’s initial plans, oh boy — a new tenant has finally moved into the Fort Trumbull Neighborhood. It’s a government tenant (link at New London Day will be available for about a week), and the move is into an existing building:

Three Coast Guard units moved into a renovated office building in Fort Trumbull Friday, becoming the first tenants since the peninsula was cleared for economic development.

The move is “going to bring some life” to the peninsula and hopefully attract other tenants, said John Brooks, executive director of the New London Development Corp.

”There already has been some interest by other entities that would like to be at Fort Trumbull or be close to the Research & Development Center,” he said.

….. The development plan for the Fort Trumbull area, drafted in 1998, calls for a mixed-use village that would include a hotel and housing. But the original master developer, Corcoran Jennison, couldn’t obtain financing and the NLDC is now looking for another developer.

It’s pretty bad when a public official tries to treat as spin a non-taxpaying entity’s move into an existing office building in an otherwise abandoned area that used to contain perfectly functional taxpayers’ homes as a significant, positive development.

Here is roughly how the area looks today, as you can see here from a Google Earth image:

The Coast Guard has moved into the building at the top (1 Chelsea Street).

The building that is just southwest of 1 Chelsea Street is that of the high-powered, politically-connected Italian Dramatic Club, which was disgracefully spared from the wrecking ball while whole city blocks of homes were obliterated.

As usual, the Day’s coverage avoids mentioning what has apparently become a four-letter word in New London: Kelo.

As usual, the national press continues to ignore the ongoing non-developments in the wake of what some have called the worst Supreme Court decision since Roe v. Wade.

One of the commenters at the story had this to say in reaction:

The public should never forget what was permitted to happen there and any reference now to a positive outcome is a foolish mistake. New London will never be the same since officials allowed the push forward of such outrageous destruction of peoples homes and businesses. Furthermore, the glaring fact that our high court did not hold to the already existing determination that eminent domain was to only be used for the benefit of the public regarding large public projects (i.e. new major rail or road expansions, building of public schools, etc.) was horrible.

I don’t think the commenter has to worry about a “positive outcome” for some time, except perhaps in one sense: The longer Fort Trumbull goes undeveloped, the more obvious the foolishness of the city’s government and its officials becomes, and the more likely it is that someone in the national press will notice the travesty representing the real-world result of the Supreme Court’s odious decision.

Author and investigative reporter Jeff Benedict has written a book, Little Pink House (HT Selfish Reasons), about the Kelo saga. The portion of his web site related to the book is here. Don’t miss the must-see video promoting the book (also at YouTube) in the left frame. Part of the video includes a drive-through of what’s left of the neighborhood. Warning: It might make you ill.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

UPDATE, Feb. 20 — Thanks to the Anchoress for the link. The BizzyBlog backroom comment reviewer (i.e., me) inadvertently hit the delete button (twice! the help these days). That’s probably just as well, in that her posts have been on fire during the past week, and deserve special notice for that.

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Note: This post originally appeared at Pajamas Media early Thursday morning.

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Their actions and rhetoric brought it down just as it was emerging from what was, at worst, a mild downturn.

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January’s Employment Situation Report from Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was even worse than expected. Seasonally adjusted employment fell by 598,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rose to 7.6%.

In his Saturday address that followed this news, President Barack Obama was correct in pointing out that 3.6 million jobs have been lost since the recession, at least as “defined” by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), began. The recession, as normal people define it (“a decline in Gross Domestic Product [GDP] for two or more consecutive quarters”), began in the third quarter of 2008, and became official late last month when the fourth quarter came in negative.

What Mr. Obama “somehow” forgot to tell us is that almost 1.8 million of those seasonally adjusted job losses have occurred since his election, when his non-stop economic no-confidence game went into high gear, and that 2.8 million jobs have gone away during the seven months that began in July 2008, the first full month of the the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy:

Beyond that, in comparing the raw month-to-month figures, i.e., before seasonal adjustment, it’s clear that conditions on the ground in the real economy are in a worse state of decay than the seaonally adjusted data would indicate. The November 2008 – January 2009 economy underperformed the same months of the previous year by over 2.2 million jobs:

In the same report, the BLS did something else that virtually everyone ignored: It issued its annual comprehensive revision to previously released jobs numbers.

Let’s compare the last two-plus years before and after the revision:

The blue boxes show that BLS’s revision added 259,000 seasonally adjusted jobs to the fourth quarter of 2007 (500,000 vs. 241,000).

Yet the NBER claims that the recession started in December 2007, in a month when the economy added 120,000 jobs.

The BLS revision also shows that seasonally adjusted employment fell by 335,000 more jobs in the first half of 2008 than were previously reported. You would think that this might make NBER’s case that the recession was in progress during early 2008 stronger. To an extent, yes; but their case is nowhere near strong enough — at least not yet.

Comparing the first half of 2008 to previous recessionary and non-recessionary periods gives plenty of justification to doubt NBER’s call.

Here is how NBER defined a “recession” in its December 2008 announcement:

A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in production, employment, real income, and other indicators.

….. Because a recession is a broad contraction of the economy, not confined to one sector, the committee emphasizes economy-wide measures of economic activity. The committee believes that domestic production and employment are the primary conceptual measures of economic activity.

….. The committee believes that the two most reliable comprehensive estimates of aggregate domestic production are normally the quarterly estimate of real Gross Domestic Product and the quarterly estimate of real Gross Domestic Income, both produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Looking at GDP and employment (space prevents reviewing the others), here is how the four most recent six-month periods contained within NBER-defined recessions compare:

The first half of 2008 sticks out for three reasons:

1. It’s the only period of the four showing positive annualized GDP growth in both quarters. In fact, the first half of 2008 is the only recessionary period NBER has ever identified beginning with two consecutive quarters of positive growth.
2. It’s the only period showing positive six-month GDP growth — and at a well beyond trifling level to boot.
3. Even after BLS’s revisions, it has the lowest seasonally adjusted labor force percentage shrinkage of the four. The second half of 1990, the second-lowest period, came in with GDP growth over 3% lower.

Now let’s look at a couple of quarters where job growth contracted that NBER decided were not recessionary:

Each of the two non-recession quarters in this table has lower GDP growth than the second quarter of 2008, while job losses during the first quarter of 2002 were almost as bad as 2008′s first six months.

Keep in mind that the 1990-1991 and 2001 recessions are considered “among the …. mildest on record.” So it’s safe to say that even if NBER’s recession call is somehow ultimately correct, the first half of 2008 in isolation would likely have been, even by their stretched definition, even milder.

But sadly, things got worse. They didn’t have to.

It’s revealing that NBER’s own report acknowledges in at least three different places that the economy was improving during 2008′s second quarter (bolds are mine), but got stopped in its tracks after that:

The income-side estimates (of Gross Domestic Income) reached their peak in 2007Q3, fell slightly in 2007Q4 and 2008Q1, rose slightly in 2008Q2 to a level below its peak in 2007Q3, and fell again in 2008Q3.

Our measure of real personal income less transfers peaked in December 2007, displayed a zig-zag pattern from then until June 2008 at levels slightly below the December 2007 peak, and has generally declined since June.

The Federal Reserve Board’s index of industrial production …. peaked in January 2008, fell through May 2008, rose slightly in June and July, and then fell substantially from July to September.

Thus, it’s reasonable to believe that if the architects of the POR Economy and their party hadn’t done their confidence-shattering “magic” during the second half of 2008, the economy may very well have recovered.

But the Terrible Triumviate of Nancy Pelosi, Obama, and Harry Reid insisted on starving the economy of energy, and persisted with proposals for jaw-dropping tax increases on the most productive. Finally, their party’s decades-long romance with lending mortgage money to unqualified borrowers came to a head at the “worst” possible time (for the nation, not for them) with the multibillion-dollar implosions at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, followed by the spread of the wreckage to other financial institutions.

Now the president and his party are rushing a “stimulus” package through Congress, and trash-talking the economy on a daily basis in an attempt to hold back a rising tide of public opposition. There’s one big problem, as Idaho Democratic Congressman Walt Minnick has pointed out: 80% of the $800-$900 billion or more in spending “doesn’t create jobs in this year and next.”

The mislabeled “stimulus” will, if it passes, almost certainly extend the conditions we saw during the last half of 2008. Much more of this, and regardless of what NBER says, we’ll soon be thinking of 2008′s first half as “the good old days.”
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UPDATE, Feb. 15 — The following would add a bit to NBER’s argument, if they wanted to use it.

The graph shows “comprehensive unemployment” (U6). It differs from traditionally reported unemployment as follows, per BLS as documented at Wiki:

• U3: Official unemployment rate per ILO definition.
• U4: U3 + “discouraged workers”, or those who have stopped looking for work because current economic conditions make them believe that no work is available for them.
• U5: U4 + other “marginally attached workers”, or those who “would like” and are able to work, but have not looked for work recently.
• U6: U5 + Part time workers who want to work full time, but can not due to economic reasons.

I’m not a big fan of paying too much heed to U4 and U5. The U4 claim that “no work is available” is usually not true (it’s available, it just doesn’t pay enough to suit their desires; too bad, so sad; the unemployment comp system, regardless of its desirable benefits, also encourages this attitude; also, there’s this thing called “moving”). It’s tough to have a pity party for those in U5 who haven’t been looking for work. I think the component added in U6 is pretty valid, because the legal and regulatory climate makes many employers reluctant to take on fulltime employees — even ones who want to be full-time.

Obviously, U6 has taken off, but given the media-assisted drumbeat of discouragement during the Democratic presidential primaries it’s almost a miracle that it didn’t go up faster (recall how the AP described workers as being thrown out on the streets based on seasonally adjusted job losses month after month when it wasn’t really happening on the ground in the not seasonally adjusted numbers.

Direct comparison is also not completely accurate because repeated extensions of unemployment benefits during this decade have made 2008 stickier than 2001, i.e., people have stayed “discouraged” and “not looking” longer because the benefit extensions have enabled them to be pickier about when and where they go back to work, and in some cases less motivated to go out and find it.

So while this helps NBER’s case, they shouldn’t get too excited about it. Anyway, the group has specifically said it pays attention to the official unemployment rate, in effect saying that the extended measurements deserve little heed.

This “Name That Party” situation has many of the usual elements. There are several stories about two Democratic judges involved in criminal behavior in Pennsylvania, and, with one exception, they “somehow” don’t get around to identifying their party.

But this saga is different for two reasons:

• The crimes to which the judges have pleaded guilty involve “thousands” of juveniles.
• In one lonely exception, the Associated Press’s coverage prominently identified the judges’ party. But in what was apparently a subsequent longer revision, their party identification disappeared.

What follows is a side-by-side picture of the first four paragraphs of a February 11 AP story carried at topix.com (also saved at my host for future reference), and of the five paragraphs of the story as it now appears at MSNBC (also saved at host; red and green boxes are mine; portions of the Topix link were moved from their original locations on the page for demonstration purposes; MSNBC graphic is of the printer-friendly version):

Looking at the green boxes, you can see that at the bottom left, MSNBC is the site to which Topix linked when it posted the story. The nine-digit page ID number at Topix is the same as the ID at the top of the MSNBC page on the right.

But my oh my, how the MSNBC page has changed:

• The “Both are Democrats” sentence is gone.
• The quote from the Juvenile Law Center attorney has been added.
• (not visible in the picture) There are no other differences between the first eight paragraphs excerpted at Topix and the first nine paragraphs at MSNBC.
• The full 856-word article at MSNBC does not identify the party of either of the two judges involved.

It is virtually inconceivable that Topix would have gratuitously added “Both are Democrats” on its own. Those words were almost definitely present at MSNBC when Topix did its excerpt.

Topix is the one and only place I was able to find the “Both are Democrats” sentence. Just a few of the other sites where the party affiliation-free AP story mirrors what is at MSNBC include NJherald.com, DCexaminer.com, Google, Yahoo! News, Fox News, the Salt Lake Tribune, and AOL.com. Even attempts to find cached versions of the story that might have been published earlier with the party affiliation failed (some examples are here, here, here, and here).

I contacted the Luzerne County Courts on Friday afternoon, and confirmed that Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan are indeed Democrats.

Subsequent stories about the two judges have also failed to identify their party. A few examples are:

• A February 12 New York Times story by Ian Urbina and Sean D. Hamill (“Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit”)
• A February 13 AP story carried at the Times (“2 Pa. Judges Sued in $2.6M Kickback Scheme”).
• A separate story on the lawsuit written by the Times’s Urbina (“Suit Names 2 Judges Accused in a Kickbacks Case”)
• An unbylined BBC story (“US judges admit taking kickbacks”).

In a Google Web Search on ["both are Democrats" Pennsylvania] (typed as indicated within the brackets), the Topix article came back as the only result related to the judges. A Google News search on the same string came back with nothing.

It would appear that the person or persons at AP who released the earlier unbylined story picked up at Topix actually paid attention to the wire service’s Stylebook (from 2000), which says that:

party affiliation Let relevance be the guide in determining whether to include a political figure’s party affiliation in a story. Party affiliation is pointless in some stories, such as an account of a governor accepting a button from a poster child. It will occur naturally in many political stories. For stories between these extremes, include party affiliation if readers need it for understanding or are likely to be curious about what it is.

Since this is clearly a national story involving a horrible, orchestrated, large-scale betrayal of the public trust, there is little doubt that the rest of the nation is quite “likely to be curious” about Ciavarella’s and Conahan’s party membership. But the AP’s Michael Rubinkam and MaryClaire Dale, who are bylined here in the party-purged version of the story carried at DCexaminer.com, apparently didn’t think readers were entitled to know.

Short of an open admission, the pulled party-affiliation sentence following a brief appearance is probably as convincing a piece of evidence as we’ll ever see that the press is deliberately playing “Don’t Name That Democrat” whenever it can.

Do we even need to ask what would have been reported if Ciavarella and Conahan had been Republicans?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

• To Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and his family, on the death of his mother.
• To the American people, and especially future generations of the American people, who will pay dearly as no generations in America ever have, for the profligacy of its parents and grandparents, when Sherrod Brown rushes back to Washington casts the 60th and deciding vote in the Senate for the mislabeled and unread “stimulus” bill with the over $3 trillion long-term price tag later tonight.

At least there will be no doubt as to who did the damnable deed.

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UPDATE: It has passed –

In a major victory for President Barack Obama, Democrats muscled a huge, $787 billion stimulus bill through Congress late Friday night …..

….. Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio cast the decisive vote after flying aboard a government plane from Ohio, where he was mourning his mother’s death.

UPDATE 2: At IBDeditorials.com (“No Way To Make Public Policy”) — “never in our history has a more important vote been cast on legislation with so little scrutiny.”

Just go there, and click on “A Tribute to Cornell.”

….. But I Don’t Have Any Time For:

• You have to get to the last paragraph of this report from Bloomberg (HT NewsAlert via Instapundit) to get to the most important quote from Rogers Holdings Chairman Jim Rogers about Tax Cheat Tim Geithner — “‘He caused the problem all last year. He came up with TARP, and he came up with all these absurd bailouts. Mr. Geithner has never known what he is doing. He doesn’t know what he is doing now and pretty soon everybody is going to find out, including Mr. Obama.” Ruh-roh.
• The job numbers in the mislabeled “stimulus” package don’t add up. Looks like Tim Geithner isn’t the only one who “doesn’t like math.” Hot Air has more.
• Speaking of math, the true cost of the mislabeled “stimulus” package is $3.27 billion (HT Michelle Malkin), primarily because, as Heritage says, “No one believes that the increased funding for programs the left loves like Head Start, Medicaid, COBRA, and the Earned Income Tax Credit is in any way temporary.” For those on the left who object to going out multiple years, my response is, “You did that with the Bush tax cuts. Fair is fair.” And why did a congressman have to separately ask the Congressional Budget Office for this info? That alleged Trio of Transparency — Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid — should have had this at the ready.
• Rasmussen says that Americans “Oppose Any More Government Help For Banks” by almost 3-1 (56% – 20%). Any more “help” like that coming from Tim Geithner and we’ll be at Dow 7000 in no time.
• The five most recent editions of the Carnival of Ohio Politics are here (#154), here (#153), here (#152), here (#151), and here (#150). Credits for astute assemblage go to “Jack Daniels” Williamson of Buckeye RINO, Lisa Renee at Glass City Jungle, Boring Made Dull, Ben Keeler at Keeler Political Report, and Jill at Writes Like She Talks, respectively.
• Among the benefits of Judd Gregg’s principled withdrawal as Commerce Secretary nominee is the fact that it mostly forced the issue of the Obama administration’s plan to control the 2010 census from the White House into the open. Publications and broadcasters who had ignored the intended power grab when it was first exposed mostly cited it as a reason for Gregg’s change of heart. Perhaps a few readers and viewers will wonder why Gregg’s withdrawal is the first time they heard about it. Although Brent Baker at NewsBusters reports that the TV networks gave the census issue short shrift, they did not avoid mentioning it, (update/correction) with the exception of CBS, which really isn’t a news organization any more anyway. Update: At NewsBusters, Scott Whitlock reports that the nets’ morning shows didn’t mention the Census at all, proving that they’re not in the news business any more either.

It’s here.

It will go up Saturday here at BizzyBlog (link won’t work until then) when the blackout expires.

It is proving provocative over in PJ-Land.