Welfare-related enrollment and spending is out of control — and the recession has very little to do with it.

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

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While writing up my column on Oklahoma’s relatively strong economy earlier this month, I came across many sets of troubling statistics about the growing dependency culture.

It started when I noticed at this USDA table that average monthly enrollment in “SNAP,” which the rest of us still know as Food Stamps, had risen by almost 13% in the Sooner State during the most recent federal fiscal year after going down the previous two years. I noticed that this increase was much lower than the national average of 19%. Then I remembered seeing a headline telling me that Food Stamp enrollment had almost reached 40 million as of February. It turns out that this is an increase of 25% over the number enrolled in December 2008, just 13 months earlier.

After further research, I’ve learned that welfare-related “entitlement” program enrollment and spending are up in virtually every major federal program. Eligibility rules are looser. Individual and family benefit amounts provided have shot up. Costs are going through the roof. The menu of available benefits continues to expand.

It would be one thing if we had individuals and families starving in the streets by the millions before this wanton expansion began. But of course we didn’t. Welfare rolls were continuing 12 years of decline until about a year ago. Food Stamp enrollment was growing, but in current context not by much. In August 2007, about a year before the floodgates opened, Robert Rector described the status of those deemed as being “in poverty” in the US as follows:

Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrig­erator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry, and he had suf­ficient funds in the past year to meet his family’s essential needs. While this individual’s life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.

What happened?

In the case of Food Stamps, it has become easier to qualify for them. As I noted in March of last year, a Warren County, Ohio couple was able to qualify for benefits even though they had $80,000 in the bank, a paid-off $300,000 home, and two fairly up-to-date vehicles (one a Mercedes). Matt Hurley at Weapons of Mass Discussion, the blogger who originally exposed this situation, also “received additional emails … (from people) who provided two other (similar) case stories.”

You can even be a college kid with rich parents and qualify for Food Stamps, as long as you strike an impoverished pose:

… the USDA has made it easy for them, regardless of their socioeconomic background, to qualify. Many college kids are “poor” on paper even if they’re from well-to-do homes.

And if they live at home with Mom and Dad, they still may qualify — so long as they can show that Mom and Dad prepare only half of their meals.

And how about those benefits? Well, what’s known as the Maximum Monthly Allotment, or the amount you or your family will receive if you have no available income or resources with which to buy food under the program’s rules, went up by 9% and 13.5% in fiscal 2009 and 2010, respectively. If you don’t recall food prices increasing by 23% or so during the past two years, you’re not alone. “Food and Beverages” as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics went up 3.3% during the 12 months that ended in April 2009; the new category “Food at Home” has not gone up at all in the past twelve months. Until two years ago, benefit levels closely resembled USDA’s estimated budget for what it called its “Thrifty Meal Plan.” Now I guess it’s just too much to expect eligible Food Stamp recipients to be frugal with taxpayers’ money.

Not that proving eligibility is particularly important. The Daily Caller carried a story in mid-February entitled, “Record numbers receive food stamps as USDA turns blind eye to recipients’ finances.” It quoted a letter from SNAP Associate Administrator Jessica Shahin to the program’s regional administrators, telling them that “Applicants will not need to provide documentation verifying their resources.” This makes Food Stamps the no-doc loans — er, make that grants — of the entitlement world.

Beyond that, there’s a built-in rules dodge that from all appearances is a recent “innovation” of the federal bureaucracy. Known as “categorial eligibility” (again, per the Daily Caller, supported by the letter from Ms. Shahin), it specifies that, “Anybody who receives other federal aid, such as Medicaid, automatically qualifies for food stamps in most states.”

More than a few recipients realize, especially considering the myriad other government bennies they are already receiving (and I can cite a specific personally relayed example of this) that their Food Stamp allotment is far higher than what they really spend on food each month. So they let relatives or friends share in the redistributed wealth. There’s also rampant fraud and abuse that the government never seems to be able to stop, to the point that one has to wonder if it really wants to stop it.

It should not surprise anyone that SNAP/Food Stamp program costs rose 45% from $37.7 billion in fiscal 2008 to $53.6 billion in fiscal 2009. Costs are now running in excess of $5 billion a month, and are on track to reach at least $63 billion by fiscal year-end.

Similar narratives could be written about “traditional” welfare (total caseload went up about 10% during the year ended September 30, 2009 to about 4.25 million recipients, after adding estimates for Michigan and Guam that are not at the link), Medicaid (enrollment was 46.9 million on June 30, 2009, up by 3.3 million during the previous 12 months), school lunches and breakfasts (a combined 7 billion meals served, obviously duplicating Food Stamp benefits in many cases), subsidized Section 8 housing, college aid that includes “living costs,” and even cell phones.

That’s right, cell phones. The SafeLink program, which provides free phones and a set number of minutes per month to over 2 million people, is so embarrassing that its sponsor tries to pretend that taxpayers aren’t paying for it. The site that supposedly “debunks” the claim admits that the money for the program comes from the Universal Service Fund, and that phone companies “often charge customers to fund their contributions in the form of a universal service fee you might see on your monthly phone bill.” Those of us who pay phone bills know that “often” really means “almost always.” Sorry, factcheck.org; that “fee” is a tax.

But wait. I thought that the economy was recovering, that unemployment may have peaked, and that more people are finding jobs. Shouldn’t that bring the dependency numbers down?

Don’t be silly. If that were the case, they should have started declining several months ago. This isn’t about solving poverty. The loosened requirements and look-the-other-way attitude betray the sad truth that this is all about expanding dependency as quickly as possible and buying votes. Sensible conservatives who believe that their fortunes will go positive in November are going to have to deal with the fact that the statists have already locked in roughly 25%, and counting, of the vote.

Meanwhile, government receipts, especially from those who pay quarterly estimated taxes, continued to plummet during the first month of what is allegedly the fourth quarter of our “recovery.” As the productive people in society peruse the landscape, is it any wonder that “going Galt” has yet to come to a halt?

From New York City:

May 25, 2010 / 10:49 am

The Vatican issued a communique on Tuesday announcing a joint initiative with an international bio-pharmaceutical company to raise awareness and expand research of adult stem cell therapy.

Neostem Inc. and the Pontifical Council for Culture will combine the efforts of their respective foundations, the Stem for Life Foundation and STOQ (Science Theology and the Ontological Quest) Foundation, to advance research and explore the use of adult stem cells in regenerative medicine.

Fr. Tomasz Trafny from the Council for Culture remarked in a May 19 press release, “Considering the potential implication of scientific investigation, medical applicability and the cultural impact of research on adult stem cells, we view the collaboration with NeoStem as a critical effort.”

“Through educational initiatives with NeoStem and sponsorship of scientific research programs involving cutting edge adult stem cell science which does not hurt human life, we come one step closer to a breakthrough that can relieve needless human suffering,” he said.

The pontifical council is particularly excited about the company’s VSEL technology, which utilizes adult stem cells that behave like embryonic stem cells in their ability to regenerate and repair. Fr. Trafny said the technology could receive a significant financial investment from the Church.

“For over 40 years, physicians have been using adult stem cells to treat various blood cancers, but only recently has the promise of using adult stem cells to treat a significant number of other diseases begun to be realized. There are tremendous clinical and economic advantages to autologous stem cell transplantation (receiving your own stem cells) as there are no issues with immune rejection. Engraftment with your own stem cells is faster, safer and much less costly than receiving someone else’s stem cells (allogeneic),” said Dr. Robin L. Smith, Chairman and CEO of NeoStem.

The initiative will also explore the cultural relevance and theological impact of adult stem cell therapy.

Go here for the rest of the story.

Doesn’t everyone remember in 2005 when George W. Bush’s Press Secretary Scott McClellan (bless his back-stabbing heart) called reporters into the West Wing of the White House and scolded them for asking too many questions about Hurricane Katrina? That following a similar admonishment earlier in the year about the press’s obsession with anything and everything to do with the Iraq War.

You don’t remember those things? That’s because they didn’t happen. Oh sure, someone will be able to find examples of McClellan, as well as successors Tony Snow (RIP) and Dana Perino occasionally expressing irritation with reporters for their silly and/or repeat questions on these and other subjects. But summoning them to the West Wing for a beatdown? Hardly.

That’s what Obama administration Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is said to have done last Friday with White House reporters. Here’s the full text of audio that can be heard at Breitbart; a somewhat expanded text report, along with a the continually updated original graphic screen-grabbed and incorporated into the image at the top right, are at Capitol News Connection:

Press secretary Robert Gibbs disputes the notion that the White House is behind the curve on the BP catastrophe – he appeared yesterday on the CBS program “Face the Nation”:

“I don’t think anybody could credibly say even as frustrated as they are, and as frustrated as we are, that the government has stood around, done nothing and hoped for the best.”

But in a sign of defensiveness, Gibbs called White House reporters into the West Wing Friday and criticized them for asking too many BP questions.

Don’t even think about how intense the firestorm would have been if any Republican or conservative administration ever tried to intimidate reporters like this. And yes, it’s intimidation, as in, “If you as an individual reporter keep on asking questions about BP, I’m going to lose interest in taking questions from you on any subject. It will get mighty lonely in here for you.”

Anyone who minimizes the power play behind what Gibbs should be asking themselves why someone from a non-establisment media outlet had to be the one to tell the public about this.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Investors Business Daily called attention to an alarming story that goes back to Sunday, May 16 in a Monday evening editorial.

A protest noticed by the target’s next-door neighbor who happened to be home at the time, namely journalist Nina Easton (who also took the photo at right), occurred in a Metro DC suburb in Maryland marked the next round of a national labor union’s attempt at persuasion through intimidation.

IBD concisely describes what happens, and why it should cause so much concern:

Mob Rule From SEIU

On May 16, Washington, D.C., police escorted 14 busloads full of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) members at least part of the way to storm the Chevy Chase, Md., home of Bank of America’s deputy legal counsel, Greg Baer.

Some 500 protestors affiliated with SEIU and their allies in the community organizing group National Political Action (NPA) trampled his lawn, blocked his doorway to his home and screamed “greed.” Legally, it was burglary, trespassing and, possibly, assault.

But Maryland cops didn’t enforce the law. And Baer had to brave the insult-hurling mob alone to rescue his 14-year old son who, home alone, had locked himself in the bathroom in fear.

But there was one thing these thugs didn’t count on — a credible journalist next door who reported what happened.

Fortune Magazine’s Nina Easton wrote about what happened and asked SEIU spokesman Stephen Lerner to explain.

His response was chilling: “People in powerful corporations seem to think they can insulate themselves from the damage they are doing,” Lerner said, implying that physical intimidation was indeed the intent.

… What’s important here is that these mobs act with near impunity and lash out at critics like Easton. What Stern calls “the persuasion of power” is identical to the violent means of maintaining political order in Cuba and Venezuela.

It’s going full blast in the U.S. now as the party in power loses popularity. That’s a bad sign that democracy itself is under attack.

Other reports at BigJournalism.com and BigGovernment.com indicate that a Huffington Post blogger was on hand to chronicle the goings-on and that a police escort was provided by Metro DC Police (there is dispute as to whether the escort stopped at the DC-Maryland border or was also present at Baer’s home).

Establishment media silence has been, to use a word employed by Archy Cary at BigJournalism.com, “deafening”:

• Searches on “Baer” and “Easton” at the Associated Press’s main site return nothing relevant and nothing relevant, respectively.
• Searches on “Baer” and “Easton” at the New York Times return nothing relevant and nothing relevant, respectively.
• Cary at BigJournalism.com used “deafening” to describe the Washington Post’s silence on the mob just before 7 PM Pacific Time. That’s an appropriate descriptor, given that there is also nothing relevant at the post in searches on “Baer” and “Easton.”

Mob rule and tyranny advance when the people who supposedly pride themselves on speaking truth to power stay silent. In effect even if not by intent, this makes them co-conspirators.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

The order of just desserts that many of us hoped was on its way to Detroit serendipitously arrived today, in the form of a stiffer-than expected sentence of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for violating the terms of his probation — so severe that, for perhaps the first time in his life, Kwame and his clan are, to borrow from Elvis, all shook up.

It’s too bad that readers of Associated Press dispatches can’t hand out sentences dictating that certain journalists be prevented from accessing a computer keyboard or other data entry device to publish anything for public consumption for as least as long (5 years) as Kilpatrick’s maximum potential time in jail. If they had that power, the AP’s Corey Williams would be guilty as charged for “waiting 8 paragraphs to identify the party affiliation of a major political figure involved in crime and/or corruption.” If the sentence seems too harsh, recall that Williams is an at least one-time repeat offender, having co-authored an AP dispatch in April (noted by yours truly at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) that avoided mentioning Kilpatrick’s Democratic Party pedigree at all.

Here are the first seven paragraphs of Williams’s wimp-out (HT to an e-mailer, who also helpfully points out that Kilpatrick’s mom, Carolyn Kilpatrick, is a Michigan congressperson, a relationship that has almost never been mentioned in any story about Kwame’s calamities). Note the arrival — finally — of the aforementioned just desserts in the final excerpted paragraph:

Hats off to Judge Groner. Team Kilpatrick’s arguments that the former mayor was in effect “too important to jail” have long since become totally intolerable to those of us who would rather see Detroit and Southeastern Michigan get cleaned up and turned around than descend further into corruption and decay.

Brickbats go to Williams, the Associated Press, and so many other establishment media outlets that have almost always refused to tag Kilpatrick as the Democrat that he is.

Previous NewsBusters and BizzyBlog posts on Kilpatrick show more of Kilpatrick’s sordid history, as well as multiple examples of shameless Hide That Party journalism.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

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UPDATE, 2PM: An updated and longer Corey Williams AP story (saved here at web host for future reference purposes) waits 21 paragraphs to flag Kilpatrick as a Democrat. My original tipster believes that earlier versions of AP’s report included no party reference for Kilpatrick.

UPDATE 2, 2:10 p.m.: A version earlier than the one used in the original post above (saved here at web host for future reference purposes) did NOT tag Kilpatrick as a Dem.

Lightning Links:

• Michael Barone at the Washington Examiner — “The gathering revolt against government spending”
• Bob Owens at Pajamas Media — “He (Calderon) Didn’t Just Lie About Arizona: Calderon Fibbed About Assault Weapons, Too; His claim that 80% of the guns seized in Mexico came from the U.S. is widely debunked nonsense.”
• Deb Saunders — “Mexico City, Washington Gang up on Phoenix”
• Doug Ross — “The Obama Campaign to Strip Israel of its Last Line of Defense Continues”
• Mark Tapscott at Washinton Examiner’s OpinionZone — “Ag Department shuts down embarrassing subsidies database”
• At the Politico on May 5, largely ignored since — “Obama biggest recipient of BP cash”
• Jeff Poor at NewsBusters — “ABC News Attempts to Align Climate Change Skeptics with White Supremacists.” Zheesh.

Lengthy (But Worth It) Links:

• At New York Magazine — “Obama Is From Mars, Wall Street Is From Venus; Psychoanalyzing one of America’s most dysfunctional relationships.” This is classic overanalysis of a pretty simple situation. Wall Street was fooled by the Obama’s slickness, and thought Obama and his peeps were lefties who would moderate once in office. They didn’t do their due diligence. Now they find themselves faced with a Punk President and a Gangster Government.
• Steven Camarota at the Center for Immigration Studies — “Immigrants in the United States, 2007: A profile of America’s Foreign-Born Population.” Sobering.

From Cannes, France:

May 25, 2010 / 01:12 am

At the end the prestigious 12-day Cannes Film Festival on Sunday, a film on a group of French monks who were martyred in Africa during the 1990s won the event’s second highest honor.

“Of Gods and Men,” a film by the French director Xavier Beauvois, centers around the true story of seven Cistercian monks who were taken hostage and murdered by Islamic fundamentalists in 1996. Though the monks were told to return to their native France, the group refused and chose to remain in the conflict-torn region of the Algerian mountains, knowing that they would be martyred.

On Sunday, the movie was awarded the “Grand Prix” honor, which is the festival’s second highest prize.

Kate Muir, a film critic for the London-based Times Online, called the film the “most intensely passionate” one of the Cannes event, and according to her, during the movie’s premier the “audience wept.”

In her May 19 review, Muir discussed Beauvois’ depiction of the monks, who lived contemplative lives in the service of the poor in the Atlas Mountains. In the film, the seven men build strong friendships with their surrounding community and live in relative peace until conflict arises between the local government and extremist groups. Though the monks are advised by everyone involved to leave, each one decides to stay and is eventually held hostage and murdered by the fundamentalists. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

It’s here.

I will go up here at BizzyBlog on Wednesday morning (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires.

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Related: Following up on the Ohio-based “traditional” welfare post a week ago, let’s get to the reckless expansion of the SNAP/Food Stamp program in the Buckeye State.

Here are the stats on average monthly participation in SNAP/Food Stamps during the past five fiscal years ended September 30 in Ohio:

2005 — 1,007,172
2006 — 1,063,920
2007 — 1,076,764
2008 — 1,150,928
2009 — 1,357,412

Note that this is “average monthly participation.” For the 2009 average result to have occurred, actual enrollment at year-end (September 30, 2009) had to be close to or possibly above 1.5 million.

Is this expansion occurring because of need? Partially, but by no means entirely. As the New York Times reported late last year (and as an e-mailer has helpfully confirmed with specific examples), the state is trolling for participants:

Like many states, Ohio has campaigned hard to raise the share of eligible people collecting benefits, which are financed entirely by the federal government and brought the state about $2.2 billion last year.

By contrast, in the federal cash welfare program, states until recently bore the entire cost of caseload growth, and nationally the rolls have stayed virtually flat.

By the way, I don’t believe the contention by the Times that the feds cover the entire cost of the program is true. Matt Hurley at Weapons of Mass Discussion reported this correspondence from a county official familiar with the workings of the program last year:

When [the] County runs out of State money to give people Food Stamps, we will have to supplement the Food Stamp Account from the [County's] General Fund. The same fund that pays for the people issuing the Food Stamps. When the General Fund runs out of money, [the county] will have to lay off the people issuing the Food Stamps.

The occasion for that correspondence was a case reported by that same county official of a family approved to receive Food Stamps “where the family have over $80,000 in bank, own a 2001 Toyota and 2006 Mercedes Benz, and a $311,000 home that is paid for.”

Perhaps, as the Times notes, Food Stamp aid represents “the only aid many people can get.” But I don’t believe that kind of recipient is what’s driving the growth in enrollment. That kind of recipient was more than likely already receiving benefits before enrollment exploded.

I believe that two other factors, both relatively recent and described in the column, are driving enrollment:

• An official directive from Washington that “applicants will not need to provide documentation verifying their resources.” In other words, if the applicants say they have no other “resources” (a loose word that refers to complicated definitions of income and assets), the bureaucracy just takes their word for it.
• The idea of “categorical eligibility” which specifies that “anybody who receives other federal aid, such as Medicaid, automatically qualifies for food stamps in most states.” In other words, it’s totally irrelevant whether the applicants really need Food Stamps; they just get ‘em.

Ohio appears to have been especially aggressive in “outreach” (i.e., finding people who are “somehow” getting by without federal handouts and telling them about free bennies they’re missing out on) and in waving as many people through as quickly as possible.

Last year, in reaction to the Warren County story noted earlier, I expressed concern that “the Buckeye State’s Democratic administration has turned the Food Stamp Program into an entitlement for anyone experiencing a temporary loss of income, regardless of how financially well-off they are.”

That’s not supposed to be the idea — unless the goal is to sign up as many potential voters as possible and get them to the polls to support Democrats in the fall by telling them that their freebies might be going away if those eeeeevile conservatives and Tea Partiers win election. What else explains throwing so much money at people regardless of whether they really need it?

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UPDATE: Make that 1.58 million as of February 2010, with a healthy dose of obfuscation –

(Ohio Department of Job and Family Services Director of External Affairs Benjamin) Johnson provided a chart of the most recent food stamp program statistics for February 2010, showing that 1,580,704 persons (13.7% of Ohio’s population) sought public help to feed themselves and their families. In February of 2008 that figure was 1,125,988, which represents a 40.3 percent jump in just two years.

That’s a clever lookback to 2008 by Mr. Johnson. Looking back to about a year ago, this Cleveland news story said there were “about 1.2 million” recipients. This means that the vast majority of the enrollment increase has happened since Dear Leader took office — which makes sense, because it was his stimulus package that increased benefits by a double-digit percentage for no reason related to food costs, and because it’s his bureaucrats who are loosening the rules to the point where there barely are any.

UPDATE 2: I didn’t even get to the fact that college kids, even those from well-to-do families, can easily qualify for Food Stamps.

From Vatican City:

May 23, 2010 / 11:18 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Holy Father thanked God for Blessed Teresa Manganiello, a “luminous witness to the Gospel,” after the Regina Coeli prayer on Sunday. The recently beatified saint is remembered for her humility and penitential spirit.

Blessed Manganiello was beatified in a ceremony presided over by Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, in Benevento, Italy on Saturday with 10,000 people on hand for the celebration.

She was the 11th child of a farming family in the southern Italian city of Montefusco. The Holy Father remembered the simple and humble life she spent between working in the home and praying at the local Church of St. Egidio, where she became a lay member of the Franciscans’ Third Order.

In an article published in L’Osservatore Romano this week, the postulator for her cause, Luigi Porsi, spoke of her deeply spiritual life which was “imbued above all with a poor spirit” and was shared between these two “poles of attraction,” Church and home.

Living always with a penitential spirit, all the way up to her death of tuberculosis in 1876, Blessed Manganiello said that she was asked by God to offer up her sufferings for the reparation of sins. For her, Porsi said, “that meant wanting to be like Christ crucified and demonstrate all of her love to him.”

He recounted the young girl’s friendly demeanor, the love she held for not just her family and neighbors, but for all people, and the way she took in and nursed those who needed assistance.

The Holy Father said on Sunday after praying the Regina Coeli, “As St. Francis, she sought to imitate Jesus Christ offering sufferings and penances for the reparation of sins, she was full of love for neighbor, and she did everything she could for everyone, especially for the poor and sick.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

When I saw the Associated Press’s headline (“Disgraced former Ohio congressman dies at 79″), I started thinking about whom the wire service might be referring to.

Of course I knew he would be a Republican, because the establishment media never treats Democrats, even those who leave women who aren’t their wives to drown in a submerged car, as “disgraced.”

But even I never thought that the AP would reach back 20 years and attempt to give the national spotlight (raw feed proof as of 6:30 p.m. ET is here) to a former Ohio politician whom even most Ohioans — even most Southwestern Ohioans — don’t remember. I clearly underestimated AP’s cravenness. I guess “The Essential Global News Network” needed to find something to offset the hurt coursing through liberal circles today from seeing the GOP gain a seat, however temporarily, in Hawaii.

No “Name That Party” post would be complete without referring to how Democratic politicians in somewhat analogous situations were handled by AP upon their death. That’s coming up.

But first, here is most of the wire service’s story (for fair use and discussion purposes, of course) about the former congressman’s death, complete with multiple party and political philosophy references, as well as guilt by association:

Let’s go through a Name That Party media bias checklist for this story:

• Status as a conservative mentioned in first paragraph? Check.
• Party affiliation (a gimme thanks to the previous item) mentioned within the first four paragraphs? Check.
• “Forgetting” which party had controlled Congress for decades was responsible for the operations of the House Bank, a scandal which snagged far more Democrats than Repuplicans? Check (NSF, naturally).
• Bringing out the names of GOP icons for a guilt by association effect? Check. (Who would one expect a conservative to have supported? LBJ or Carter?)

Now for comparison’s sake, let’s look at how the AP handled the relatively recent death of a Democratic congressman, namely Gary Studds of Massachusetts in 2006, and one from the more distant past, that of former House Speaker Wilbur Mills in 1992. Other readers may be aware of other examples, and are welcome to note them.

The Studds story is similar to that of Lukens in that involves sex with an underage person. But being a Democrat, the Massachusetts congressman’s transgressions were of little consequence, and were even accompanied by in-your-face defiance.

The AP story covering his death (“Former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds Dies at 69″) never directly noted that Studds was a Democrat, never tagged him as a liberal, and did not insert the names of any other more prominent Democrats of his era. Studds’ party affiliation was only something that could be inferred (but not definitively) from the text of the story’s eighth paragraph (excerpt is of Paragraphs 7-10):

In 1983, Studds acknowledged his homosexuality after the page revealed he’d had a relationship with Studds a decade earlier, when the page was 17. Studds was censured for sexual misconduct by the House, then went home to his constituents to answer questions in a series of public meetings and interviews with the press.

Studds defended the relationship as a consensual relationship with a young adult. The page later appeared publicly with Studds in support of him. The scandal recently resurfaced when former Republican Rep. Mark Foley resigned after exchanging sexually explicit instant messages with a page. Republicans accused Democrats of hypocrisy for savaging Foley, but saying little about Studds at that time.

Hara said Studds was never ashamed of the relationship with the page.

“This young man knew what he was doing,” (Studds’ gay “spouse” Dean) Hara said. “He was at (Studds’) side.”

As you can see, the AP also made sure to complete another checklist item for Democrats involved in scandals: “Always refer to Republican scandals in any story involving troubled Democrats (dead or alive).” As far as is known, Foley never had a physical relationship with a House page, let alone tried to describe any such relationship, which by law is considered non-consensual, as consensual and without shame.

AP’s relatively well done May 3, 1992 Wilbur Mills story carried at the Hendersonville (NC) Times-News illustrates how far away from its own Stylebook standards the wire service has moved in the intervening years. The no-holds-barred first paragraph describes Mills as a “powerful congressman whose career was destroyed by a stripper’s plunge into Washington’s Tidal Basin.” The fifth paragraph plainly says that Mills was “a Democrat.” The story appropriately describes the circumstances of the Mills-”Fanne Foxe” incident in 1974 and its fallout. There is no reference to a Republican scandal, though Buz Lukens’s transgressions occurred only three years before Mill’s death.

Geez, at least the AP used to try to be fair. Now the bias is so obvious, to the point of even dancing on the grave of a long-forgotten dead man to make a political point, that it should be embarrassing. But it obviously isn’t.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Why is Oklahoma’s economy more than OK these days?

The latest piece of evidence supporting that truth arrived on Friday, when Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released April’s Regional and State Unemployment Summary.

The report tells us that Oklahoma had a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 6.6% last month. That’s far lower than the 9.9% reported for the entire USA two weeks ago. No state with a larger population has a lower unemployment rate than the Sooner State (states with lower April unemployment rates were KS – 6.5%; NE at 5.0%; ND – 3.8%; SD – 4.7%; and VT – 6.4%).

As seen in the chart below, Oklahoma’s unemployment rate has been significantly lower than the national rate for well over two years, and on average in 2009 was that way across all major ethnic groups (source data for 2006 to 2009 can be accessed here; scroll down to “Annual Average Statewide Data”):

Especially note that:

• The average unemployment rate for Hispanics in Oklahoma, which had been higher than the national average, went down significantly in 2009, coming in 4.7 points lower than the national average.
• The black unemployment rate in Oklahoma went from higher than its national average to significantly lower between 2007 and 2009.

Unemployment isn’t the only good-looking economic indicator. The state’s gross domestic product grew by 2.7% in 2008, the most recent year available, while national GDP that year grew by only 0.4%. “Traditional” welfare enrollment (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) is about 0.6% of the population, well below the national average. Per-capita personal income is higher than it was two years ago (+2.8%); nationwide, it’s lower (-0.7%).

So why has this happened?

The first of two too-easy explanations posited by commenters at my Pajamas Media column last week was that the Sooner State, as an economy dominated by the oil industry, has disproportionately benefitted from high prices. The trouble is, contrary to the stereotype, the state is not dominated by oil, as this industry-specific itemization of the state’s workforce several years ago shows. The second explanation attempt, to pin the state’s good fortune on agriculture, was even worse than the first; that same link shows that only 2% of the state’s workers are in that sector.

Oklahoma did one thing in 2007 that broke with the rest of the nation. In May of that year, it passed a significant immigration law-enforcement measure that took effect six months later. House Bill 1804 was designed to do four things: deal with identity theft; terminate public assistance benefits to illegals; empower state and local police to enforce federal immigration laws; and punish employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens.

The establishment press barely covered Oklahoma’s law when it was passed. As the manufactured controversy over Arizona’ immigration-law enforcement measure has gained currency, that avoidance has continued, accompanied by occasional doses of disinformation. The worst example I have seen of the latter came in late April from Sally Kohn at the Christian Science Monitor. Kohn cited an unnamed “study” claiming that “the bill led to an estimated 50,000 people fleeing Oklahoma and a 1.3 percent drop in economic output statewide.” As shown earlier, the economy grew in 2008 (and probably will do so again in 2009). Additionally, Census Bureau data shows that the state’s population is rising in tandem with the rest of the nation.

Kohn, a “Chief Agitation Officer of the Movement Vision Lab, a grassroots think tank,” also compounded error with insult, asserting that the state is “littered with crumbling farms and factories and aging populations who feel that any prospect of prosperity is passing them by.” A few states, including California (unemployment rate – 12.6%), Florida (12.0%), Michigan (14.0%), and my native Ohio (10.9%), would dearly love to endure the so-called “crumbling” Oklahoma is experiencing.

None of the above constitutes courtroom-level proof that “1804″ has caused the Sooner State to weather the economic storm so much better than the rest of the nation. But what other explanation remains?

I did find one interesting reference to Oklahoma in a May 18 Associated Press story (“Immigrant crossings into Arizona on the rise”):

Gonzalo Altamirano, a 19-year-old mechanic from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, jumped over a fence into Arizona from Agua Prieta. He surrendered to authorities after waiting two days for a van that never arrived.

It was Altamirano’s second time crossing illegally into the United States – he lived and worked in Oklahoma for nine months in 2007 before getting so homesick he returned to Mexico. He intends to try again.

Does anyone besides me question whether Mr. Altamirano was really “homesick”? Further, does anyone think he’ll be heading back to Oklahoma if he is successful in getting past ICE next time?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Via the Catholic News Agency (HT the Anchoress):

May 21, 2010 / 08:00 pm

Lourdes, France is this weekend’s destination for thousands of military personnel and their families who will participate in the 2010 International Military Pilgrimage. Since 1958, the Shrine has seen soldiers from all over the world come in peace to venerate Mary.

The tradition of the International Military Pilgrimage (IMP) to the French Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes began in 1958, after what was initially a regional pilgrimage and later national pilgrimage was made international to officially recognize the many NATO soldiers that had been arriving.

This year’s 52nd pilgrimage takes place from May 21-23 and, according to organizers, will see nearly 12,000 pilgrims. An American outfit is represented in addition to 36 other delegations from as far away as Australia and Kenya and one formed of UN-mandated troops based in Kosovo.

Pilgrimage organizer and French military ordinary, Bishop Luc Ravel, spoke of the event saying that “the encounter brings with it the will of every military man of the world to work together for peace, the final good that we all seek. Also for a soldier, the use of weapons isn’t the only way to promote peace between nations or within a people.”

“It’s the conjugation of the force of weapons and the support of prayer that give the militaryman the dynamism and the openness to aim one day to achieve the good of peace,” he added, “without which the other ‘goods’ are reduced and eventually disappear.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.