This makes four weeks in a row. The qualifiers and the expressions of gratitude noted here several weeks ago still apply.

________________________________________________________

The Associated Press seems to be growing ever more tired of carrying Barack Obama’s water. This item (“After year, hope turns into disappointment”) is more evidence, beyond that seen on the economic side last week at the hands of Martin Crutsinger (here and here).

________________________________________________________

Third Base Politics detects Ohio governor Ted Strickland having some difficulty finding a running mate for November. Say, isn’t there a filing deadline coming up? Has Alec Baldwin moved to Ohio yet?

________________________________________________________

A fine liberal whine at the Atlantic — “Obama’s Poor Boston Performance” — “Just when he needs to wake up Democrats who’ve mostly slumbered for 50 years putting Ted Kennedy back in office, Obama just kinda… wimped out.” It’s actually pretty painful viewing. I would suggest that the possible absence of a teleprompter might have had something to do with it. Update: I’m told there was a teleprompter. And he was still that bad?

________________________________________________________

The growing authoritarian darkness in Venezuela cited here last week has deepened (bold is mine):

President Hugo Chavez ordered Sunday the seizure of a French-owned retail chain on accusations that it raised prices after Venezuela devalued the currency by half.

“Until when are we going to allow this to happen?” Chavez asked during his Sunday television program in reference to the alleged price hike by Almacenes Exito SA (EXITO.BO), headquartered in Colombia and controlled by French retailer Casino Guichard-Perrachon S.A. (CO.FR).

The Venezuelan leader said that new law may need to be approved to carry out the nationalization. “I’m waiting for the new law to begin the expropriation process,” he said. “There’s no going back,” he added.

…. Separately, Chavez also ordered the nationalization of a large shopping-mall recently built in a downtown district in Caracas. The stores controlled by Exito and the shopping mall will be used to build up Comerso, a new government-run retail chain which seeks to sell its products at “socialist” prices, according to the president.

“Expropriation” is the form of “nationalization” involving “Compulsory seizure or surrender of private party … with little or no compensation.” In other words, it’s theft by government.

The last excerpted paragraph tells us that Chavez will use stolen property to put other retailers out of business. Is Sean Penn available for comment?

From St. Augustine, Florida:

Posted: January 18, 2010 – 12:06am

St. Augustine visit by hero of civil rights sets stage for change

If not for television images of blacks being brutalized in St. Augustine, and one dying U.S. senator casting his last vote, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would not have passed, according to St. Augustine historian David Nolan.

Nolan, who has studied St. Augustine’s black history for more than 30 years, told those gathered at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of St. Augustine on Sunday that the two factors were integral in one of the more important acts of modern justice becoming law.

In 1964, the U.S. Senate was abuzz with the biggest filibuster in its history. Senators, many from Southern states, read from a 60,000 page document — drawn to block the passage of the bill integrating hotels, motels and restaurants — until they were too weary to stand.

To break the filibuster, senators who supported the bill needed a two-thirds majority vote.

Dying from brain cancer, U.S. Sen. Clair Engle, a Democrat from California, was wheeled into Capitol Hill in his hospital bed.

“He couldn’t talk anymore,” Nolan said of Engle. “So he just pointed to his eye to vote yes.”

One month later, Engle was dead at 52.

That the filibuster’s end happened in that Shakespearian-worthy scene would not have occurred, Nolan said, if not for the protests and beatings broadcast to the nation nightly from St. Augustine.

“People were sitting down in front of their televisions across the country, watching unarmed African Americans being bloodied and beaten, and said, ‘This is not the America we want,’” Nolan said.

Nolan has spent years searching out and examining documents on King’s visits to St. Augustine — FBI reports on his activities, and in the Princeton University Library, an “Adverse File” filled with hate letters and death threats similar to those black baseball slugger Hank Aaron would receive 10 years later as he approached Babe Ruth’s all-time major league home run record.

St. Augustine officials were unhappy with the national coverage of rioting in St. Augustine. Record news stories of the time recall that the city was preparing for its 400th anniversary celebration in 1965 as the nation’s oldest city.

The stories said officials were concerned about the impact on the 1965 events.

King came to St. Augustine at the request of Dr. Robert Hayling and others. Hayling is considered by Nolan and others as the father of the civil rights movement in St. Augustine. Hayling frequently visits St. Augustine from his home in South Florida. He was able to convince King to visit.

King’s presence in St. Augustine preceded the U.S. Senate vote by weeks. ….

Go here for the rest of the story.

Campaign energy, as Doug Flutie and others endorse Scott Brown, followed by the Massachusetts Miracle (no, not Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary pass for Boston College again the University of Miami), Scott Brown’s campaign; HT Michelle Malkin):

_________________________________________________

Other links and notes:

• HillBuzz, remembering Henry Gates — “Obama’s Chickens Come Home to Roost in Massachusetts”
• Hot Air: “New Coakley gaffe: Curt Schilling’s a Yankee fan”
• In December, Ann Coulter told the story of sordid Martha Coakley and the Amiraults — “Martha Coakley: Too Immoral Teddy Kennedy’s Seat.” That was pretty “clever” of Coulter to suckerpunch the left and get them to call it Ted Kennedy’s seat (/good dumb luck).
• Mark Steyn: “Mark Steyn: Can Obama hold Teddy’s seat?”
• Red Mass Group: “WOW! Purple Shirted SEIU Members Holding Signs at Standout”
• Washington Times: “Martha Coakley: Devout Catholics ‘Probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.’” Matt at WoMD makes an important tie-in to RomneyCare aka the ObamaCare Prototype.
• Legal Insurrection: “Coakley Takes Slap Shot At Fenway Fans.”
• Michael Graham (“Brown Supporters: The Most Motivated Voters Ever?”; HT Instapundit): “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
• Legal Insurrection (HT Gateway Pundit): “Cambridge Police Reject Retired Member’s Wife’s Candidacy for Senate.”
• Gateway Pundit (HT Hot Air): “Martha’s Coakley’s mission is to skedaddle from Afghanistan because the Taliban are gone… ‘They’re not there anymore.’”
• Howie Carr in the Boston Herald: “It becomes increasingly clear, Scott Brown is winning among the people who work for a living, as opposed to Democrats, who are Martha’s voters.”

__________________________________________

UPDATE, 9:30 p.m.: The new PJM poll is supposedly comforting, but I don’t think so –

A poll taken Sunday afternoon while President Obama was in Massachusetts campaigning for Democrat Martha Coakley against Republican Scott Brown for the open Senate seat in that state showed Brown leading his Democratic opponent by 9.6% (51.9% to 42.3% with 5.7% undecided).

The poll, conducted via telephone for Pajamas Media by CrossTarget, was of 574 Likely Massachusetts Voters and has a margin of error of +/-4.09%. CrossTarget used the exact method – Interactive Voice Technology (IVR) – it used in a similar poll for PJM on Friday. The previous poll showed Brown ahead by approximately 15%.

The problem is that the poll contained 21.6% Republicans and I thought I read somewhere that GOP registration in MA is only 11%. Even given that a lot of people might assume their registered to a party because they vote that way, it seems like that 9.6% lead is soft. The previous PJM poll showing 20.3% GOP was the one with the 15-point lead. I learned of the 11% figure sometime after that first poll.

No one should take anything for granted. Update: I note with some relief that there’s a second poll with the same margin.

_________________________________________

Historical Background: Though the election is primarily a referendum on Obama’s first year in office (hey, HE said so, so he made it so), the moral bankruptcy of Martha Coakley in the Amirault case, as recounted last Thursday (saved here at host for posterity) by the Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz, is a must-read. How do people like Martha Coakley get as far as they do?

Note: This post has been moved up because of its importance.

___________________________________________________

From a Saturday editorial (bolds are mine):

The White House has spent months imploring banks to lend more money, so will President Obama’s new proposal to extract $117 billion from bank capital encourage new bank lending?

Just asking. Welcome to one more installment in Washington’s year-long crusade to revive private business by assailing and soaking it.

Mr. Obama’s new “Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee”—please don’t call it a tax—is being sold as a way to cover expected losses in the Troubled Asset Relief Program. That sounds reasonable, except that the banks designated to pay the fee aren’t those responsible for the losses. With the exception of Citigroup, those banks have repaid their TARP money with interest.

The real TARP losers—General Motors, Chrysler and delinquent mortgage borrowers—are exempt from the new tax. Why the auto companies? An Administration official told the Journal that the banks caused the crisis that doomed the auto companies, which apparently were innocent bystanders to their own bankruptcy. The fact that the auto companies remain wards of Washington no doubt has nothing to do with their free tax pass.

Also exempt are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which operate outside of TARP but also surely did more than any other company to cause the housing boom and bust. The key to understanding their free tax pass is that on Christmas Eve Treasury lifted the $400 billion cap on their potential taxpayer losses expressly so they can rewrite more underwater mortgages at a loss.

…. In other words, the White House wants to tax more capital away from profit-making banks to offset the intentional losses that the politicians have ordered up at Fan and Fred.

The administration has owned up to TARP losses of $30 billion at GM and Chrysler. The total at stake according to the article excerpted at the linked post is $82 billion.

The way the administration is attempting to gin up support among its hopefully dwindling corps of activists has a whiff of attempted mob rule — and no, I’m not going to link to it (click on the pic to open in a new window if necessary):

Who’s this “we”? Do people signing this really think they’re ever going to see any of the money?

Speaking of whiffs, the authoritarian aroma of the President’s statement (“We want our money back. And we’re gonna get it.”) is unmistakable:

UPDATE: Seriously sick irony — The author of one of the “We Want Our Money Back” e-mail missives is Vice President Joe Biden. In 2005, Biden was known as “D-MBNA” for his support of so-called “bankruptcy reform,” which tilted the playing field in favor of banks and at the expense of troubled consumers. All too many people in legitimate trouble with no way out haven’t been able to escape foreclosure because that law made filing bankruptcy a deliberately delayed process.

Byron York at National Review took a closer look at the history of Biden’s relationship with MBNA in 2008. A distinct aroma of clever corruption emerges from that piece.

Jeb Bush revived Florida. Leaders like Ohio’s John Kasich can do the same, but only if Washington’s ghosts are tamed.

____________________

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

____________________

I attended a campaign-related event for GOP gubernatorial candidate John Kasich on Tuesday. I came away both impressed and very concerned.

I was impressed with how well the event was organized, the quality of the discussion, and the passion of those who participated. I am deeply worried that the ghosts haunting these and other events will continue to work against my state’s economic success, even if (or especially if) a strong leader with an “R” by his name takes charge.

Kasich’s Mason, Ohio business forum on the floor of a robotics facility had former Florida governor Jeb Bush as a special guest. Six top executives of Ohio firms and facilities were also on the panel. The meeting’s goal was to help everyone in the room, including an audience of about 300 business and political leaders, understand what can and should be done to end Ohio’s economic doldrums.

Based on results he achieved, there may not be a better person to give a state’s would-be leader and key businesspeople meaningful guidance on how to revive their economies than Jeb Bush. Kasich let the audience know that while Bush presided over the Sunshine State from 1999-2007, it turned in the second-best performance in the country in jobs created, and eighth-best in income growth. Even though Florida has about 6% of the nation’s population, during a five-year period early last decade it alone accounted for one-third of the nation’s job growth.

Later, one of the execs on the panel recited some of the awful elements of Ohio’s record. Since 2001, Ohio has lost 500,000 jobs; 170,000 of them have gone away in the past year. Forbes rates it 48th in terms of economic growth prospects. The state ranks 46th (i.e., fifth-worst) in its personal bankruptcy rate, 49th in foreclosures, 42nd in unemployment, and 47th in business tax climate. Kasich accurately told the audience that to deal with an $850 million shortfall, current governor Ted Strickland and Ohio’s legislature had “just raised taxes again and declared victory.” Oh, and they called it a “tax cut delay.” It seems that almost no one inside Columbus’s I-270 beltway gets it.

Bush pointed to these elements as part of his formula for success:

• “We demanded that personal income …. had to grow faster than government spending.”
• “We crafted workers’ comp for significant savings.” Ohio is one of only a few states nutty enough not to let the private sector handle this critical area.
• He resisted the pleas of “lots of business people (who) put their hands out.”

Bush had three other key observations that led to my concerns. First, he spoke of the importance of transparency and clarity, and how their presence is positive and self-fulfilling. He observed how important minimizing uncertainty is to a healthy and growing business climate. Finally, when asked how he dealt with energy and environmental issues during his eight years in office, he said, “Not well, unfortunately. We couldn’t get past the barriers.”

The ghosts who were haunting the room are fakers at transparency, seem to love uncertainty, and definitely relish those environmental barriers. Even when they weren’t in power, the ghosts’ green sympathizers “successfully” gummed up most attempts at new domestic energy development during the previous decade in Florida and the rest of the nation. Sadly, at least until recently, they have convinced all too many of the relatively disengaged that we can be the only major power in human history not to take advantage of the abundant natural resources we have and suffer no consequences for it.

As to Bush’s points about transparency and reducing uncertainty, the Wall Street Journal had this to say about the Beltway ghosts I am referring to in the wake of last week’s once again disappointing jobs report:

With so much policy uncertainty out of Washington …. no one can be sure what they will pay for energy (rising oil prices, cap and trade) or new regulation (antitrust), how high their taxes will rise, and how much each new employee will cost (health care). In this kind of world, employers will wait as long as possible to add new workers.

Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid were the ghosts whose presence I felt. That trio, assisted by their party, became the architects of what I have been calling the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy since the summer of 2008. That is when they first introduced heavy doses of the very economic uncertainty both Bush and the Journal described. Their irresponsible rhetoric, their punitive policy promises, already profligate spending, and the prospect that they would likely win control of the presidency along with a tighter grip on Congress, sent the economy on a downward path that only accelerated after they achieved the control they desired. While the economy is in the early stages of recovering, their legislative agenda, takeover mentality, and regulatory aggression still prevent most prudent employers from hiring.

Pelosi, Obama and Reid did not control Congress or the presidency when Jeb Bush governed Florida, giving him the flexibility to do what he felt had to be done. But they have been in power during the past year. Look at the economic havoc they have wrought. Has there ever been a time since World War II when businesses have faced more uncertainty and seen less transparency out of Washington? I don’t think so. Give them just a little more time in control, and you’ll see Washington giving independent, unfettered thinkers like Kasich and other current and future governors who share his passion for business and job development fits.

I’m told that John Kasich hasn’t yet embraced the idea of asserting states’ 10th Amendment rights as certain current governors have. You might as well get with the program now, John, because those ghosts will be with you from your first day on the job, and you’ll have to keep them at bay for the state you love to truly turn around.

From Barcelona:

Jan 16, 2010 / 04:30 pm

The Vatican announced on Friday the time and location of the beatification of Fr. Josep Samsó i Elisa, a Spanish priest and martyr. According to the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, the ceremony will take place on Jan. 23 at the parochial basilica of Santa Maria n Mataro in the Archdiocese of Barcelona.

Born in Jan. of 1887 in Castellbisbal, Spain, Fr. Josep eventually studied at Barcelona’s seminary and was sent to the Pontifical University of Tarragona. Upon graduation, Bishop Laguarda of Barcelona assigned him to be his personal secretary, and he was ordained a priest in 1910.

…. His spiritual direction encouraged many people to follow their religious or priestly vocation. Fr. Josep also insisted on punctuality in the Mass schedule, sought perfection in the liturgy, and worked intensely to improve the interior decoration of the local cathedral, which was honored with the title of minor basilica in 1928.

…. Fr. Josep was eventually arrested for being a priest in 1936. While he was in jail, he set up a schedule for reading his breviary, mediating, and praying the Rosary without the guards knowledge. He also heard the confessions of his fellow prisoners. Always friendly in his disposition, he reportedly shared the gifts people brought him with everyone.

On the morning of his execution, he bid the other prisoners farewell with his customary “God above all” and, with his hands tied together, was escorted to the cemetery of Mataró. When he got to the top of the stairs, he asked for the ropes to be taken off his hands so he could embrace those who were about to kill him. He also told his executioners that he forgave them as Christ forgave those who nailed him to the Cross.

Though the executioners tried to cover his eyes, he asked that he be left able to see the city where the people he loved so much lived as he died. After his attempts to embrace the firing squad, Fr. Josep crossed his arms and said, “you may shoot now.”

Fr. Josep’s beatification is the first one to take place in the Archdiocese of Barcelona.

Go here for the full story.

In my previous post about Washington County suspending party rules specifically to endorse Dave Yost, I said that the Clermont County endorsement was likely to be next. I was wrong!

My sincere apologies (and gratitude) go out to Huron County GOP officials who know what everyone knows about Ohio’s Attorney General race: Dave Yost: “The man!”

SPONTANEOUS ENDORSEMENT #2 IN HURON COUNTY — PROSECUTOR YOST NOW 4-0 IN LOCAL PARTY ENDORSEMENTS!

The Huron County Republican Party last night unanimously endorsed Prosecutor Dave Yost for Ohio Attorney General – the second time in a week that a county organization unexpectedly voted to take a position in Ohio’s hottest political race.

“This is a genuine grassroots uprising,” said Huron County Republican Chairman Rob Duncan. “This was not on the agenda, and there was no plan – the membership felt strongly about supporting a true conservative for Attorney General – Prosecutor Dave Yost.”

All four counties that have endorsed in the Attorney General’s race so far have gone for Prosecutor Yost. Huron County joined Yost’s home Delaware County, which also endorsed him last night; Washington County, which suspended its no-endorsement rule earlier this week to take sides, and GOP stronghold Butler County.

“The support Dave is picking up statewide is unprecedented,” said Matt Borges, spokesman for Yost’s campaign. “Spontaneous endorsements just don’t happen in Ohio Republican politics. With polling showing Prosecutor Yost winning a Primary, and every local GOP endorsement going to Dave, it couldn’t be clearer that the candidate Republicans want for AG is Dave Yost.”

Prosecutor Yost said the second surprise endorsement matches the momentum he feels in the streets.

“I’ve traveled more than 45,000 miles in the last year,” Yost said. “Everywhere I go, people are eager for change – for the better, and a hope that does not disappoint.”

Indeed. The graphic at Yost’s blog post celebrating the win says it all.

The Federal Reserve of Minneapolis has posted a series of charts (HT Ed Morrissey at Hot Air) comparing the current recession — as defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research, not as normal people define it, a point I’ll get to later in this post — to previous recessions dating back to the end of World War II.

The charts definitely show how utterly wrong reporters like the Associated Press’s Jeannine Aversa are when they claim that there has been anything resembling a “rebound” since the economy hit bottom from a growth standpoint in the second quarter of 2009 (the economy has yet to see an employment bottom). They also explain why AP reporter Martin Crutsinger seems to have tired of trying to put a “getting better” face on things in the past couple of days (as seen here and here at NewsBusters; here and here at BizzyBlog).

Here, after screen captures by Morrissey are the two mind-numbing creations in question, the first showing changes in output (GDP) and the second showing changes in employment:

Together, they could be shown in a continuous loop and named “Nightmare on Main Street.”

Now imagine if instead of using the NBER’s subjective determination of when this recession began, the chart above had been done using the normally understood definition of two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. In that case, you would shift the “2007″ line (renamed 2008, because the recession as normally defined began in that year’s third quarter) over by two quarters and six months, respectively. The results would arguably be even uglier.

Morrissey’s capsule summary:

The economic policies of the Obama administration have lengthened the recession and delayed what would be the normal recovery process, mainly by signaling to investors and businesses that costs will go up in taxes and energy prices, as well as burdensome mandates on health insurance. As a result, people are not investing their money into job-creating risk but are sheltering their cash instead.

The Obama administration’s “Uncertainty Economy” continues to wreak absolute havoc. Given what the first stimulus hasn’t accomplished, any serious attempt at a second stimulus that based on history going back to the 1930s would be just as ineffective will have to call into question whether our government really wants the economy to recover.

In the meantime, I hope the folks at the Minneapolis Fed aren’t waiting by the phone for calls from establishment media journalists requesting explanations and clarifications. They’ll be pretty lonely if they are.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Today, Roger Alford and Bruce Schreiner of the Associated Press, reporting from Frankfort, KY, are giving leftist bloggers, columnists, journalists who assumed or gave the impression of assuming that the death of Census worker Bill Sparkman was some kind of right-wing hit job another chance to come clean with an unconditional “I was wrong, I amy sorry.” The list of those needing to post apologies and corrections includes the AP itself.

You see, not only is it crystal clear that Sparkman (may he rest in peace) indeed killed himself, Alford and Schreiner tell us that he told a friend of his plans:

Jan 15, 6:09 PM EST

Police: Ky. census worker had told of suicide plan

An eastern Kentucky census worker found naked, bound and hanging from a tree had told a friend he intended to kill himself and that he had chosen the time, place and method to do it, police records show.

Those records about the death of Bill Sparkman were released Friday to The Associated Press by the Kentucky State Police.

Sparkman, 51, was found strangled with a rope around his neck near a rural cemetery in September with the word “fed” scrawled on his chest. It triggered a state and federal investigation that ultimately determined he had committed suicide.

The records show that Sparkman’s friend, Lowell Adams, who had worked for Sparkman as a part-time security guard since 2007, told investigators that the federal employee wanted his suicide to look like a murder.

Adams said Sparkman told him that he had even practiced self-asphyxiation and had been able to cause himself to black out before he staged his death.

Sparkman’s body was found Sept. 12 near Hoskins Cemetery in a heavily wooded area of the Daniel Boone National Forest. Investigators said Sparkman’s wrists were bound so loosely that he could have done the taping himself. He was touching the ground almost to his knees. To survive, “all Mr. Sparkman had to do at any time was stand up,” Capt. Lisa Rudzinksi of the Kentucky State Police said.

Adams, who passed a polygraph test on his statements, told authorities Sparkman paid him $7.50 per hour in cash to travel with him in the remote areas when he canvassed door to door for the census.

“In reality Bill spoke with me several times about killing himself and, on the Saturday before his death he told me he was going to kill himself on the next Wednesday,” Adams said in a written statement included in more than 200 pages of investigative records.

The fact that there were many suicide indicators from the very beginning didn’t stop a number of leftist commentators and reporters from prematurely calling Sparkman’s death a murder with an implication of right-wing extremist involvement, including …. a story from the AP that is still positioned comfortably at CBS.com without any indication whatsoever that it is need of correction. The wire service even used the “T-Word” in describing Sparkman’s death:

Terror in Kentucky: Census Worker’s Murder

It was a bizarre and gruesome discovery in a remote section of eastern Kentucky: Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old teacher and part-time worker for the United States Census, was found two weeks ago hanging from a tree with the word “Fed” scrawled on his chest in felt tip pen.

A man who said he was among those who found the body told tells the Associated Press that Sparkman was naked, bound at the hands and feet with duct tape and gagged – details that have not yet been confirmed by authorities.

Jerry Weaver of Ohio told the Associated Press he was visiting a cemetery in rural Kentucky with family members on Sept. 12 when he, his wife and daughter saw the body.

“The only thing he had on was a pair of socks,” Weaver said. “And they had duct-taped his hands, his wrists. He had duct tape over his eyes, and they gagged him with a red rag or something.

“He was murdered,” Weaver said. “There’s no doubt.”

Oops.

AP isn’t alone in still having plentiful egg on its face.

In late November, faux conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan refused to back down or revise a post entitled “No Suicide” that began by claiming that “That’s (i.e., that it wasn’t a suicide — Ed.) the one thing we know for certain now in the case of the Kentucky lynching.” Despite the obviousness of that opening, Sullivan, in a worse than pathetic response to Michelle Malkin’s call for a retraction, cited wiggly words he wrote later in the post to “prove” that he hadn’t really concluded that Sparkman’s death was a murder.

Sullivan wrapped his desultory defense by writing that “Malkin is a journalist in the sense that I am ‘far-left.’” Well Andrew, on this one you are far left and thus far have chosen to stay there, making Michelle one heck of a journalist by your own logic. Exactly what about your “No Suicide” title did we fail to understand? Today’s AP report gives you a second chance to man up; I would suggest that you take it, but you’re at least six years removed from listening to reason.

Maybe Sullivan and other lefties will resist pouncing on the next unclear situation that seems to favor their narrative until more facts are in, but I somehow doubt it.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

I am pleased to report that Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism site put up the titled post, located here, a couple of hours ago (they’re on Pacific Time).

Intense thanks to:

• Andrew, for listening to the general idea of my proposal.
• Michael Walsh for getting with me so quickly, considering the idea, and promptly reviewing and editing what I hope will be one of many future posts.
• BizzyBlog’s own Rose, who kept the site from going bare while I was thinking up and working through the post.

Okay, who administered the truth serum to the Associated Press’s Martin Crutsinger? And will the person who did this kindly inform us when it will wear off?

On Thursday, for the second day in a row following a mostly fact-based report the previous day on Uncle Sam’s horrid fiscal situation, Crutsinger ran down a troubling economic report. This time it was December’s disappointing retail sales results. The AP writer even took readers on a walk through the historical archives to let them know just how bad December and all of 2009 really were. Pinch me to make sure I’m not dreaming.

Here are key paragraphs from the report:

December retail sales drop 0.3 percent

Retail sales fell in December as demand for autos, clothing and appliances all slipped, a disappointing finish to a year in which sales had the largest drop on record.

The weakness in consumer demand highlighted the formidable hurdles facing the economy as it struggles to recover from the deepest recession in seven decades.

The Commerce Department said Thursday that retail sales declined 0.3 percent in December compared with November, much weaker than the 0.5 percent rise that economists had been expecting. Excluding autos, sales dropped by 0.2 percent, also weaker than the 0.3 percent rise analyst had forecast.

For the year, sales fell 6.2 percent, the biggest decline on records that go back to 1992. The only other year that annual sales fell was in 2008, when they slipped by 0.5 percent.

The December drop in sales was a surprise given that the nation’s big retailers had reported better-than-expected results last week, reflecting a surge of last-minute holiday shopping. But even with the rebound reported by the nation’s biggest chains, these retailers suffered their worst annual performance in more than four decades in 2008, according to data from the International Council of Shopping Centers.

The 6.2 percent fall in the government’s retail sales figure is only the second decline on records that go back to 1992. In all other years, even during previous recessions, retail sales, which are not adjusted for inflation, have managed to increase.

Sales at specialty clothing stores fell by 0.6 percent while sales at general merchandise stores, a category that includes big retailers such as Wal-Mart, were down by 0.8 percent while sales at department stores were flat.

Sales at electronics and appliance stores dropped by 2.6 percent and sales at hardware stores dropped by 0.4 percent.

The weakness over the year reflected the battering that consumers have taken from the worst recession since the Great Depression, a downturn that has cost 7.2 million jobs and left households trying to rebuild savings depleted by losses on Wall Street and a crash in housing prices.

Once again, Crutsinger parted company with AP colleague Jeannine “Rebounding Economy” Aversa as he describes an economy that “struggles to recover.”

So why did the big stores mostly report modest increases while overall retail sales fell? I’m afraid the answer may be that smaller retailers still brave enough to keep the doors open got hammered. It should also not be forgotten that the “Uncertainty Economy” Barack Obama and Congress have created is working to inhibit those who might start up new retail operations that would replace the failed ones.

Maybe the AP’s newsroom has run out of lipstick to put on the economic pig. Whatever is going on, Obama administration apparatchiks and apologists cannot be pleased that Martin Crutsinger for the moment appears to have put a halt to the window-dressing.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Hey, this is Massachusetts we’re talking about. I don’t think so.

But Roger Simon at Pajamas Media reports on a PJM poll that raises the possibility (internal link was in original):

A new poll taken Thursday evening for Pajamas Media by CrossTarget – an Alexandria VA survey research firm – shows Scott Brown, a Republican, leading Martha Coakley, a Democrat, by 15.4% in Tuesday’s special election for the open Massachusetts US Senate seat. The poll of 946 likely voters was conducted by telephone using interactive voice technology (IVR) and has a margin of error of +/- 3.19%.

This is the first poll to show Brown surging to such an extent. A poll from the Suffolk University Political Research Center – published Thursday morning by the Boston Herald, but taken earlier – had Brown moving ahead by 4%.

Unlike others who report on polls, Simon tells us how CrossTarget did theirs, up to and including the script.

We’ll see on Tuesday night, of course, but at a minimum, this offsets the Boston Globe’s poll short time ago showing Coakley up by 15.

And if Simon’s poll ends up resembling the actual result? It will be a major credibility blow to the Globe and its pollster, as well as others who generated similar pre-election results. Their only excuse, which mostly seems lame to me, would be massive last-minute movement to Brown.

________________________________________________

UPDATE: On the other hand, in a state that’s pretty strong in financial services, it’s at least possible that the punitive tax proposal (White House, cough-cough, “Fact Sheet” is here) targeting that industry coming directly from a bitter, spiteful, vindictive president displaying his true aggressively authoritarian, demagogic colors could be seriously swinging the momentum Brown’s way in the final days.

My reax to part of Obama’s screed against the banks yesterday was that I haven’t heard him this enthusiastic about anything since he made fun of Joe the Plumber on the campaign trail a couple of weeks before the 2008 Presidential election. He seems to barely tolerate many aspects of his job, but it seems that any opportunity to engage in anti-capitalistic faux-populist elitism gets him jazzed:

UPDATE 2: Post title of the day — “Coakley Putting Out Bids For Dead Girl, Live Boy.” I don’t think Confederate Yankee’s confidence is justified, but he’s definitely having fun.