In alpha order (this may be the only time you see yours truly on the far left of anything :–>):

Engine starter: Cleveland PD Reader Rep wants to charge for content in first 24 hours; calls bloggers “a bunch of pipsqueaks out there talking about what real journalists do” (at 10:00 mark of video at link; HT The Future of Journalism).

More at 11 1 a.m. — Post is here.

In the meantime, enjoy this stirring, somewhat discofied rendition of “Midnight Train to Georgia” by Gladys Knight & the Pips (not Pipsqueaks):

Interim questions: Who did the original work that led to this Plain Dealer story? Who? Who? Who? Who?

In a July 7 New York Times Magazine article (“The Place of Women on the Court”; HT to an e-mailer) apparently scheduled to appear in its July 12 print edition (based on its URL), Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told the Times’s Emily Bazelon that “at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

Who is this “we” Ginsburg refers to?

Alleged reporter Bazelon did not follow up on this astounding admission.

Here, in full context of the Q&A discussion about women’s reproductive rights, is Justice Ginsburg’s statement:

Q: If you were a lawyer again, what would you want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [to make abortion legal] are not going to change back. So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often.

Q: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.

Q: When you say that reproductive rights need to be straightened out, what do you mean?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: The basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman.

Q: Does that mean getting rid of the test the court imposed, in which it allows states to impose restrictions on abortion — like a waiting period — that are not deemed an “undue burden” to a woman’s reproductive freedom?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I’m not a big fan of these tests. I think the court uses them as a label that accommodates the result it wants to reach. It will be, it should be, that this is a woman’s decision. It’s entirely appropriate to say it has to be an informed decision, but that doesn’t mean you can keep a woman overnight who has traveled a great distance to get to the clinic, so that she has to go to some motel and think it over for 24 hours or 48 hours.

I still think, although I was much too optimistic in the early days, that the possibility of stopping a pregnancy very early is significant. The morning-after pill will become more accessible and easier to take. So I think the side that wants to take the choice away from women and give it to the state, they’re fighting a losing battle. Time is on the side of change.

It’s pretty hard not to see Ginsburg’s early perception of Roe as legalizing a convenient means for minimizing the number of poor, who “just happen” to be disproportionately non-white. Also recall that at the time, Medicaid was a program predominantly benefitting only the poor, and not the near middle-class entitlement into which more recent Congresses have morphed it.

Given Ginsburg’s stated “at the time” position, there’s little doubt that she would have declared the Hyde Amendment, which “barred the use of federal Medicaid funds for abortions except where the life of the mother would be endangered or in cases of rape or incest,” unconstitutional. In the related case, Harris v. McRae, the Court upheld the Hyde Amendment by a 5-4 vote.

In its November 30, 2007 Henry Hyde obituary, the Washington Post quoted Dr. Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee, who asserted that, “By conservative estimate, well over one million Americans are alive today because of the Hyde Amendment — more likely two million.”

So 1-2 million babies have been born into financially poor circumstances in the three-plus decades years since the Hyde Amendment became law. This apparently doesn’t please Justice Ginsburg, or perhaps didn’t please her at the time.

Ginsburg gets the wiggle room, in my opinion, because she told Bazelon that she “realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.” The problem is that we can’t tell what “it” is. Is it Roe v. Wade, the Hyde Amendment, or the facts and circumstances of the specific case?

Thanks to the remarkably incurious Bazelon, we don’t know. What we do know is that at least for some time during her legal career, in her early 40s, Ginsburg, as a member of the unidentified “we” referred to earlier, thought that abortion as a means of controlling the population of relative undesirables was okey-dokey.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

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UPDATE, July 11: Ed at Hot Air –

Don’t forget that at the time Ginsburg had already made herself prominent in feminist circles, establishing in 1970 the first law journal exclusively devoted to feminist issues and holding a tenured position at Columbia from 1972-80. In fact, she argued cases before the Supreme Court during that period. And it wasn’t until 1980, which is when the Supreme Court decided McRae, that Ginsburg realized it didn’t have anything to do with allowing the government a mechanism to practice eugenics.

In that seven-year period, did Ginsburg use her considerable clout to argue against Roe, if that’s what she believed, or for that matter, against government funding of abortions? If not, shouldn’t we surmise from that silence that either (a) Ginsburg had few problems with government pushing a eugenics program, or (b) that she was willing to shrug off the eugenics in order to support Roe for the access to abortion?

Exactly.

UPDATE 2: It appears that WorldNetDaily was the first to note the significance of Ginsburg’s NYT Mag comment.

Joe Biden is coming to Cincinnati to tout the stimulus plan. A local TV station is thrilled.

If this is considered a good way to use stimulus money, we’re in $800 billion worth of big trouble:

The entire nation is about to get a look at exactly how federal stimulus money is being spent in the Tri-State. Tomorrow morning, Vice-President Joe Biden will be in Northside to look at how that neighborhood and the city plan to use $1.6 million to help rehab the old American Can plant on Spring Grove Avenue. The huge building, which you can see from I-75, has been largely empty since the fifties, but not for much longer.

If you’ve even been in Northside, you’ve probably seen this building and wondered about it. Back in the days before aluminum cans, American Can made the machinery here that made the old pop cans in the days when cans had seams. Empty for decades, with a little luck, starting late this summer, this building’s next life will get underway.

The first thing you notice about the American Can building is that it’s really cool space… huge open areas, with 12-14 foot high ceilings. This massive entryway will actually be rentable space.

H. Richard Duval, Bloomfield/Schon: “This particular room we’re in is going to be a reception area for weddings and business meetings. That crane will come halfway down and there will be a curtain that will hang from it so you can rent half this room or all this room.”

Look, I’m all for people taking chances on real estate, even on long shots (anyone who knows the Northside area of Cincinnati knows that this project is a long shot; for starters, there are already a few acceptable meeting halls in the area that are very underutilized).

I’m NOT for people taking chances on real estate with the help of $1.6 million of our money. If the deal doesn’t make sense without the money (the overwhelming odds are that it doesn’t), it shouldn’t be done.

I give the government’s funding of this deal 16 probable Obamazebos, named after the worthless gazebo in the middle of a Chicago low-income neighborhood yours truly noted during the presidential election campaign. That gazebo forlornly sits there, while $100,000 in Illinois grant money that funded what was supposed to be the start of a beautification project Barack Obama said he would “work tirelessly” for has disappeared. Thus, the $1.6 million being spent on the American Can Building, divided by $100,000 per Obamazebo, could very well turn out to equal 16 Obamazebos — assuming there isn’t a second stimulus package.

Perhaps a Local 12 reporter will break away from ogling over how cool a building abandoned for 50 years is to ask the Vice President why his partisan pals did what they did to the economy during the past year. When you compare the tax-collection results for the past quarter to the second quarter of 2008 — the last quarter before the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy took effect — you realize that the government’s collections have fallen short by over 2.53 million Obamazebos ($253.2 billion ÷ $100,000 = $2.53 million):

(“Receipts from economic activity” do not include 2008′s stimulus payments, which should have been treated as outlays.)

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

(Image found at BuriedPlanet.com)

In a wildly meandering report on the status of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Alliance’s attempt to enact statist health care this year, Associated Press writers David Espo and Erica Werner:

• Told us that the House wants to slap a surtax on “highly paid” Americans without disclosing the percentage of the proposed surtax or how much it might raise.
• Forgot to tell us that wealthy wage earners already pay a “surtax” designed to fund others’ health care that has failed to solve any long-term financial issues (maybe you’ve forgotten too, so I’ll remind you).
• Acted as if the legislation under consideration will instantly zero out the number of uninsured Americans, which they claimed is currently 50 million.

Here are the relevant paragraphs from the AP report:

An income tax surcharge on highly paid Americans emerged as the leading option Wednesday night as House Democrats sought ways to pay for health care legislation that President Barack Obama favors, several officials said.

As discussed in the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, the surtax would apply to individuals with adjusted gross income of more than $200,000 and couples over $250,000, they added.

In addition, key lawmakers are expected to call for a tax or fee equal to a percentage of a worker’s salary on employers who do not offer health benefits.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., a member of the panel, said the proposed surtax on high-income taxpayers appealed to her and others as a way to avoid a “nickel-and-dime” approach involving numerous smaller tax increases. She added that other earlier options had fallen away, including an increase in the payroll tax.

The developments stood in contrast to the Senate, where Democrats edged away from their goal of passing ambitious health care legislation by early August amid heightening partisan controversy over tax increases and a proposed new government role in providing insurance to consumers.

….. Any failure to meet the goal would be a setback – but not necessarily a fatal one – for Obama’s attempt to win legislation this year that both slows the growth in health care costs and extends coverage to nearly 50 million Americans who now lack it.

Points:

• Espo and Werner watered down the applicability of the surtax, whatever the rate might be under consideration. that’s because there’s a big difference between “highly-paid” and “high-income” individuals and families. By pegging the surtax the adjusted gross income, it’s clear that the House’s surtax targets all income, including investments, capital gains, and any other income that makes it to the first page of the long-form 1040, and not just earnings from “highly paid” work.
• By not telling us how much the House thinks it will raise with a surtax, the AP pair made it impossible for readers to even back into what the surtax rate might be. The guess here is that it would have to be pretty high to make a meaningful dent in the $100 billion or so a year (technically $1 trillion over 10 years) the Obama plan allegedly costs.
• What’s worse, individuals and families who are already “highly paid” because of earnings from work are already paying a surtax. Unlike the Social Security payroll tax of 12.4% (6.2% employer, 6.2% employee), the Medicare payroll tax of 2.9% (1.45% employer, 1.45% employee) has no income threshold. That means a high-earner is forced to throw a surtax amounting to $2,900 of every $100,000 of earnings at the retiree health care system for the right to get the same government-provided health care in retirement that a person who makes very little receives. 15 years of rich-soaking later, Medicare has a mind-numbing $34 trillion unfunded liability.
• Espo and Werner didn’t tell us whether this surtax implements or is meant to be on top of Obama’s long-desired proposal to “repeal the Bush tax cuts” (in normal-speak, that means raise taxes) on high-income Americans.
• By saying that Obamacare supposedly “extends coverage to nearly 50 million Americans who now lack it,” the AP pair implied that — presto! — the problem of the uninsured will be magically solved. Baloney, says the Congressional Budget Office: After 10 years, CBO estimates that the number of uninsured will go from 46 million to 30 million. Of course, 46 million, 50 million, whatever — the tired claim about the number is so obviously overblown that it barely needs explanation — except to AP reporters who want to perpetuate what is for all practical purposes an urban legend.

Espo and Werner didn’t look into one other thing, which is this: By the time the Obamanomics ruins vast sectors of the economy and mires others in endless subsidies, will there be anyone left to hit with a surtax besides Hollywood entertainers and and a few thousand professional athletes?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

…. captured in one article:

Everything wrong with the establishment media will be reflected in the high likelihood that not one of them, other than perhaps Fox News and the Washington Times, will report this.

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UPDATE, July 9: Michelle Malkin — “Confirmed: Deliberative democracy is a joke.”

Noteworthy Net-Worthies:

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Holman Jenkins, in a Wall Street Journal column about the Obama administration’s opposition to U.S. airlines’ attempts to form alliances with international carriers, makes a sad and important observation –

What we’re seeing here and elsewhere from the new administration is not some rebirth of thoughtful liberalism, but a spastic descent into machine liberalism — government for the benefit of government officials and their hangers-on. Mr. Obama, however, may not be so pleased with the result if it means he must soon add the airlines to the collection of failed industries being run out of the White House.

Actually, I don’t think the President ‘Prompter would mind turning the industry into Air Obama, complete with a new set of know-nothing apparatchiks like the car czars, but travelers would.

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You don’t say? Via AP –

An attempt by Hamas police to detain a young woman walking with a man along the Gaza beach has raised alarms that the Islamic militant group is seeking to match its political control of the coastal territory with a strict enforcement of Islamic law….

Imagine that.

What a great place to waste $900 million (HT Mere Rhetoric via LGF).

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Which reminds me — Isn’t it amazing how nearly invisible Hillary Clinton is? Hard-lefty Bonnie Erbe has noticed. We know much more about what Slow Joe Loose Cannon Biden thinks about Israel and Iran than what Hillary has to say.

Especially when relative visibility is taken into account, this administration seems to be more of a boys’ club than Bush 43′s ever was. I count eight women who put in 37 years of service in executive positions during the Bush administration (I added 4 extra for Condi Rice for her time at NSA) at this Wiki link.

Though of course it’s early, Obama has five. But one very conflicted female health care czar for all practical purposes cancels out HHS’s Kathleen Sebelius, and a socialist, government file-trashing female environmental czar effectively cancels out the EPA’s Lisa (who?) Jackson. That’s because the czars are non-executive advisers who effectively strip the cabinet members they usurp of much of their authority while pushing ultimate decisions to power-consolidating, chief executive, “I call female reporters ‘sweetie’” Obama).

Janet “Pro-lifers Are Terrorists” Napolitano is the most visible woman in the administration. No one has the profile Condi Rice had.

Among non-executives, Christina Romer’s presence on the Council of Economic Advisers mocks her tax-cut-effectiveness findings when she was in the private sector.

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David “Cracked” Krikorian is on the warpath again. That would be David Krikorian, Democrat.

As I noted in October, after Krikorian questioned the seriousness of Congresswoman Jean Schmidt’s injuries when she was hit by a car while jogging (she suffered “two broken ribs and two fractured vertebrae”) — “I’ve known about Krikorian’s unhinged nature for some time. …. but I would need permission to reveal (what I know). For now, I’m not inclined to ask for it.”

The summer or fall of 2010 might be a good time to revisit that inclination.

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John Fund, at today’s WSJ – “In helping to convince Sarah Palin that her road forward in national politics would demand even more sacrifices and pain than exacted from most politicians, the media did nothing to encourage women or people of modest means to participate in politics.”

That’s the point, John.

Successful people of relatively modest means, especially if married with children, tend to be conservative and very sensible. The Beltway elite, and especially its media branch, would prefer that these people stay at home, pay their outsized taxes, and mind their own business, while letting their “betters” run things.

From Indianapolis, Indiana; Atlanta, Georgia; and Austin, Texas:

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Eric Shanteau is swimming faster than he ever has, diving into the water every day knowing that he’s cancer-free.

That’s gratifying news to the 25-year-old breaststroker who was diagnosed with testicular cancer just weeks before last year’s U.S. Olympic trials.

He kept the stunning information to himself while competing for a spot on his first Olympic team. Shanteau earned a spot in the 200-meter breaststroke, finishing 10th in Beijing with a personal-best time.

Then he returned home to Atlanta for surgery. After a recovery period, Shanteau resumed training in Austin, Texas, with a goal of making the world championships.

He’s four laps away from a trip to Rome later this month.

Shanteau became the second American to swim under a minute in the 100 breaststroke, clocking 59.89 seconds to make him the leading qualifier going into Tuesday night’s final at the U.S. national championships.

“It gives me a lot of confidence,” he said before adding, “It doesn’t matter what happens this morning if I don’t do it tonight.”

The top two finishers qualify for the world meet.

Since March, Shanteau has posted personal bests in his signature events, the 100 and 200 breaststrokes. His 100 time in the morning preliminaries lowered his previous best of 1:00.09.

….. Just before traveling to Indianapolis, Shanteau went for a final round of blood tests that confirmed he is cancer-free, the 10th month he can celebrate such welcome news.

But memories of his recent past are never far away.

“There’s still that thought in the back of your mind, `What if there’s a recurrence?’” he said. “It’s been a difficult past eight or nine months. I have to live with it the rest of my life.”

The disease had already hit home for Shanteau, whose father Rick battled lung cancer at the same time his son was diagnosed. The elder Shanteau is in Indianapolis this week to cheer on his son, and now needs only occasional chemotherapy treatments.

“He’s doing really well,” the younger Shanteau said smiling.

Happily, Shanteau can say the same about himself.

Go here for the full story.

Aw, poor Ted.  Cleveland.com has a post trying to explain why Ted Mulligan Strickland is so upset about Ohio’s budget crisis.  I wish I had more time to rip this apart, although the post is not long, there’s so much kindling that it’s almost unfair to the poor, overwhelmed caretaker… almost.

OK, so at one point, he whines:

“When someone not only refuses your proposals, but also refuses to put forward any solutions of their own, it’s not a negotiation. It’s game playing,” said Strickland during a Monday morning briefing with reporters. “It saddens me to say that, while I have tried to advance a forward-looking budget agenda, Senate Republican leaders have retreated to partisan game playing.”

Then later we find out that:

Strickland rejected an idea being discussed by Senate Republicans that would include a one-year education budget and putting the racetrack slots issue before voters this November to fund eductaion in the second year of the budget.

Gee…sure sounds like a “negotiation” was trying to take place, or is it only considered a “solution” when they propose something Ted likes?  He also complains that:

“The people of Ohio are being hurt,” Strickland said. “It is disgusting to me that they would play games with Ohio’s future when Ohioans desperately need true leadership.”

Well, we can sure agree on that last part…I suppose then, that Ted will be heading up “Democrats for John Kasich” in 2010?

Oh I really like this next one…

“I will only sign a comprehensive two-year balanced budget,” he said. He said a plan that would base education funding on a ballot issue that may or may not be approved by voters was “not credible.”

Hmmm, but taking a one-time federal handout to balance the budget without addressing the root problems that won’t go away when the stimulus money does, IS “credible?”  Wanting the legislature to give you the authority to override (10th p.) the voters IS “credible?”  Is that like “gambling” on Keno to save the day in the state WAS “credible?”

I think you’ve proven just how “forward-looking” and “credible” your reckless, sophomoric, ineffective policies really are, Guv.

Zheesh.

Update: Like I said, it sure sounds like a negotiation is trying to take place.

Noteworthy Net-Worthies:

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At Life News, from the “It’s Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature” Dept. –

…. one induced abortion raisers the risk of premature birth in a next pregnancy by 20 percent.

Two or more abortions raises the risk by 90 percent and doubles the risk of a very premature birth, at 34 weeks or less.

…. Those numbers present a grave problem given that the repeat abortion rate in some nations, such as the United States and England — is 40 to 50 percent or more.

…. there are now 17 statistically significant studies all confirming the abortion-very premature birth link.

The IOM (Institute of Medicine) reported that premature births before 37 weeks gestation represent 12.5 percent of all U.S. births, a 30% increase since 1981. Abortion became legally accessible in 1973 and the number of abortions peaked in the early 1980s as it became more ingrained in society.

The IOM said premature birth cost U.S. society $26.2 billion in 2005.

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Also at Life News: “(Not Really) Pro-Life Democrats Tell Nancy Pelosi: No Health Care Reform With Abortion” (“not really” added by me) –

A group of 19 pro-life Democrats in the House of Representatives have joined together to craft a letter (dated June 25) to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The letter contained a non-perfunctory request that the House not advance any health care bill that doesn’t specifically prohibit abortion coverage or funding.

Rep. Dan Boren, a pro-life congressman from Oklahoma, organized the letter and is the lead signer of it.

As the debate on health care reform continues and legislation is produced, it is imperative that the issue of abortion not be overlooked,” they write. “Plans to mandate coverage for abortions, either directly or indirectly, are unacceptable.

If health care legislation specifically prohibiting abortion coverage were to pass, the federal legislation, for all its considerable still-remaining faults, would not be as bad as Massachusetts’s CommonwealthCare aka RomneyCare, which provides subsidized abortions for $50 — courtesy of the false prolife epiphany, Ronald Reagan virtually smearing former governor of Massachusetts, the Objectively Unfit Mitt Romney.

The letter is here (PDF).

The signers are Bright (AL), Costello (IL), Melancon (LA), Stupak (MI), Oberstar (MN), Peterson (MN), Childers (MS), Taylor (MS), McIntyre (NC), Shuler (NC), Boren (OK), Driehaus (OH), Kaptur (OH), Dahlkemper (PA), Holden (PA),Murtha (PA), Kanjorski (PA), Davis (TN), Ortiz (TX).

(Aside: My, the establishment media has done a remarkable job of ignoring this.)

There’s only one problem with this “brave” statement: Each of these Democrats, if they voted for and actively supported Barack Obama for President, nullified the validity of their claims to be pro-life. The airtight explanation of why that is the case was covered in late October with Steve Driehaus.

A Cliff’s Notes version is that you can’t support for president someone who is hostile to pre-born life — especially when you know that this President will have strong working majorities in both houses of Congress. The President, by executive order, has already committed life-hostile actions that the aforementioned ladies and gentlemen knew he had promised to take. Yet they did not oppose Barack Obama when it counted.

If the 19 manage to keep abortion out of a nationalized healthcare plan, that’s nice, but then you get to the next prolife hurdle: Denial of care. Any health plan that rations care with the government as the final decisionmaker with no recourse inevitably leads to denying care to elderly and infirm patients who die, thus creating a euthanasia-like situation. If the ObamaCare sausage making its way through the legislative process ultimately does this, and any of the 19 support it anyway, they further bury their already-lost pro-life credibility.

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Revival of hope, via Gallup (HT Instapundit) — “Despite the results of the 2008 presidential election, Americans, by a 2-to-1 margin, say their political views in recent years have become more conservative sensible rather than more liberal, 39% to 18%, with 42% saying they have not changed.” OK, the cross-out was mine. :–>

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Once again, the Obama administration brings out the “gun to the head” strategy first made infamous by Henry Paulson when he forced TARP money on banks that didn’t want it, and then used in various forms repeatedly (here, here, and here) by Obama’s car guys as they forced through the Chrysler bankruptcy and re-emergence.

This time they’re doing it with GM (bold is mine):

Groups representing plaintiffs in car accidents said Monday they would oppose General Motors’ attempt to quickly exit bankruptcy protection, arguing that hundreds of victims could be hurt by the government-led plan.

U.S. Judge Robert Gerber approved a crucial step of the plan late Sunday, allowing the troubled automaker to sell its assets to a new company and saying the deal was in the best interest of both the automaker and its creditors, who would get nothing if the automaker was forced to liquidate.

General Motors and the Obama administration praised the judge’s decision but opponents readied an appeal to the U.S. District Court in New York. A Chicago law firm representing people who have sued GM in several auto accident cases said they objected to parts of the plan that would free the “new GM” from liability for people injured by a defective GM product before June 1.

….. about 1,000 lawsuits could be pending with potential damages in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars.

“It affects … virtually every walk of life in this country,” he (plaintiffs’ attorney Steve Jakubowski) said. The deadline to appeal the case to the District Court is noon Thursday, after which point Gerber’s order takes effect and the sale is free to close.

Steve Rattner, the head of the Obama administration’s auto task force, said the government was “confident that (Gerber’s) decision will stand and the sale of GM’s assets to new GM will proceed expeditiously.”

The bankruptcy judge’s ruling followed a three-day hearing that wrapped up Thursday. GM and government officials had urged a quick approval of the sale, saying it was needed to keep the automaker from selling itself off piece by piece. The Treasury Department, which is expected to provide about $50 billion in aid to the automaker, has vowed to cut off funding to GM if the sale doesn’t go through by July 10.

If a court believes the plaintiffs have a valid case, it should call Treasury’s bluff, and watch Tax Cheat and Proven Liar Tim Geithner squirm.

From Eastern South Dakota:

Published: Monday, July 6, 2009 1:19 AM CDT

Father Leonard Kayser of Yankton has reached special milestone in his life as he celebrates 50 years in the priesthood.

“It’s been quite a journey,” Kayser said. “I’ve been very happy. I don’t think I would ask anything to be different.”

An Emery native, Kayser began going to seminary during his junior year of high school.

However, he said he knew he wanted to join the priesthood for years by that point.

“Already in grade school — fourth grade — I admired so much the pastor we had, and I just kind of thought, ‘I want to do what he does,’” Kayser said.

He went to Onamia, Minn., for two years of high school and two years of college, and then moved on to St. Paul Seminary for two years of philosophy and four years of theology. He was ordained in 1959.

Kayser then began serving numerous parishes in eastern South Dakota — 11 in all.

“I sometimes told people, ‘Either I’m in such demand that I don’t stay any place long, or people can’t put up with me and they get rid of me in a hurry,’” he said.

Kayser said many changes have taken place in the church since he began serving — changes, he feels, that have been for the better.

“Just that loosening up and not being so darn sure of ourselves, giving answers for everything, was quite a breakthrough,” he said.

The parishioners have benefited from this relaxation because they are allowed to be more involved in the running of the church itself, Kayser said.

“At least in the parishes I’ve served, they’re most grateful for being invited to be more participatory,” he said. “When I was first ordained, you just ran the show. Everything. … Now the laypeople are doing all that stuff. And they should be. It’s their church. We’re just there to serve for a while.”

While serving at the Siegel parish in Mayfield, Kayser also worked as the chaplain at the Human Services Center. His 13 years there were spent “just listening, mostly.

“And those people (were) just most grateful, because most of them had never had anybody take them seriously, never had anybody listen to them, and so they were just very grateful,” Kayser said. “Usually, we didn’t have any answer for them, they had to work those out themselves.

“One thing I’ve found that I seem to have had a gift of (is) asking the right questions,” he said. “They’d say something and I’d say, ‘Well, what about this? Why that?’ And that would help them to explore that a little further.” …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

This is a great commentary from Hassett on Bloomberg.com (emphasis mine):

“California’s Nightmare Will Kill Obamanomics”

July 6 (Bloomberg) — Last week, we discovered that the state of California will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.

With California mired in a budget crisis, largely the result of a political impasse that makes spending cuts and tax increases impossible, Controller John Chiang said the state planned to issue $3.3 billion in IOU’s in July alone. Instead of cash, those who do business with California will get slips of paper.

The California morass has Democrats in Washington trembling. The reason is simple. If Obama’s health-care plan passes, then we may well end up paying for it with federal slips of paper worth less than California’s. Obama has bet everything on passing health care this year. The publicity surrounding the California debt fiasco almost assures his resounding defeat.

California has engaged in an orgy of spending, but, compared with our federal government, its legislators should feel chaste. The California deficit this year is now north of $26 billion. The U.S. federal deficit will be, according to the latest numbers, almost 70 times larger.

…The federal picture is so bleak because the Obama administration is the most fiscally irresponsible in the history of the U.S. I would imagine that he would be the intergalactic champion as well, if we could gather the data on deficits on other worlds. Obama has taken George W. Bush’s inattention to deficits and elevated it to an art form.

…Back in the 1980s, Reagan’s own economist, Martin Feldstein, spoke up when he felt that the Reagan administration was pushing the deficit too far. Where are the economists with such character today? Apparently, the job description for economists has transformed from recommending policies that are defensible to defending whatever policies that the political hacks in the West Wing dream up.

As bad as the California legislature has been over the years, it has never entered a fiscal crisis like the one that we face today and then doubled down with a massive spending increase. In the end, when times got tough, patriotic and sensible Californians of both parties stood up and began acting like adults.

Maybe the same thing is starting to happen in our nation’s capital. The key players in Washington are Senator Evan Bayh and 15 Senate Democrats who joined him this year in forming a coalition of moderates. One thing that has distinguished moderate Democrats from the garden variety of the species is heightened concern about fiscal responsibility.

…With the price tag of Obama-care likely to exceed $1 trillion, moderate Democrats face a simple choice. They can jump off the cliff with the president, or they can stay true to the principles that they have espoused throughout their careers.

…Moderates might support Obama’s health-care objectives if the bill also included tax increases to cover the spending increases. But those tax increases would likely be unpopular, making it almost impossible to pass a bill.

From Hassett’s keyboard to God’s inbox.

In the later paragraphs of a story today about the latest hurdle bailed-out General Motors has managed to jump to get out of bankruptcy, the Associated Press’s Bree Fowler almost totally ignored the impact of Ford’s improvement largely at GM’s expense during the first half of 2009, acting as if GM’s decline has almost solely been the result of defections to foreign competitors.

Fowler’s only mention of Ford comes in connection with its new, apparently redesigned Fiesta. Fowler makes it appear to the relatively uninformed reader that the Fiesta is appearing on the market for the first time.

Here are the four paragraphs in question from Fowler’s foul-up:

In June, the automaker captured 20.3 percent of the U.S. market. GM has estimated that it can maintain a market share between 15 and 17 percent, reflecting its plan to sell off three brands and end its Pontiac line.

GM has several new cars coming to market next year, including the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid electric car. The Volt might be a promising vehicle, but with an expected $40,000 price tag it might only be a niche player, said James E. Schrager, clinical professor of entrepreneurship and strategy at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Upcoming small-car models such as the Chevy Cruze and Spark may fare well, but will face heavy competition from foreign automakers already in that segment of the market and from Ford Motor Co.’s new Fiesta, which the company has already started advertising.

Overall, GM’s major challenge will be winning back customers who have migrated to foreign competitors. Some newer GM models have received good reviews for quality and performance, but that hasn’t persuaded enough consumers to buy GM cars.

Please. Acting as if there has been no migration from GM to Ford is flat-out ignorant, as the following chart shows:

(Source Data: Wall Street Journal monthly Auto Sales Chart for June 2009 and June 2008; USA Today for Dec. 2008 and Dec. 2007; Web-Archived WSJ Auto Sales Chart for June 2007)

Since GM started positioning itself for a bailout a year ago, and then began taking bailout money from the government in December:

• Ford has in the past six months gained even more “Big 4″ market share (4.9%) than GM has lost (4.0%). For all of its considerable cost problems, in the 18 months leading up to the bailout, GM’s sales standing compared to its three largest competitors had actually improved.
• Ford is the only “Big 4″ company showing a December-June unit sales increase.
• As seen at this Wall Street Journal detail of June 2009 sales, Ford outsold GM in light trucks for the first in many, many years (93,791 to 91,495). That should be huge news.
• (Not shown) That Wall Street Journal detail also notes that Ford’s overall market share has gone from 14.0% to 17.2% in the past year, an increase of 3.2%. GM’s share has slipped 1.7%. Ford gained more than GM lost, and yet Fowler doesn’t mention Ford as a factor except as it relates to a new model.

There is little doubt that foreign competitors other than Toyota have also nibbled away at GM’s once-commanding lead in the market. Their overall market share has increased by 5 points in the past six months. But for Fowler to pretend in light of what has transpired that Ford barely exists is ignorant at best, and disingenuous at worst.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.