President Barack Obama’s statement just before he signed the Freedom of the Press Act on Monday painfully avoided reality to the point of giving offense. If it became widely known, it would likely become very problematic.

Here is what the President said that was particularly offensive (bolds are mine):

And obviously the loss of Daniel Pearl was one of those moments that captured the world’s imagination because it reminded us of how valuable a free press is, and it reminded us that there are those who would go to any length in order to silence journalists around the world.

Two key administration-protecting original news disseminators picked up on the need to keep the bolded words out of their news coverage of the event. The Associated Press, which usually (i.e., almost always) quotes the president in related stories, provided no quotes in its terse five-paragraph report, the first four of which follow (for fair use and discussion purposes, of course):

Obama signs Freedom of Press Act

President Barack Obama has signed a law intended to provide more protections for a free press around the world.

The law, the Daniel Pearl Freedom of Press Act, expands efforts to identify countries where press freedom is being violated. The law is named after Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was beheaded by militants in Pakistan in 2002.

The law expands an annual report on human rights practices to include information about media treatment, and identify countries where the media is being repressed.

Obama said the law would be a signal to governments around the world that their actions, including treatment of the media, are being watched.

The New York Times’s five-paragraph story quoted other portions of Obama’s statement:

U.S. to Promote Press Freedom

President Obama signed legislation on Monday intended to promote a free press around the world, a bipartisan measure inspired by the murder in Pakistan of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter, shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

… The new law “puts us clearly on the side of journalistic freedom,” Mr. Obama said, praising Mr. Pearl’s family for being “outspoken and so courageous” in pursuing the cause. With the law, the president added, “his legacy lives on.”

The less influential wire service AFP must not have gotten the memo, as carried it the statement quoted above. Its 10-paragraph story also provided historical context AP and the Times avoided, as well as a clearly superior headline:

Obama signs law honoring slain reporter Daniel Pearl

…”The loss of Daniel Pearl was one of those moments that captured the world’s imagination because it reminded us how valuable a free press is,” Obama said.

… Pearl, 38, was the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal when he was abducted in Karachi on January 23, 2002 while researching a story about Islamist militants.

A graphic video showing his decapitation was delivered to the US consulate in the city nearly a month later.

Mariane Pearl was pregnant with their son when her husband was murdered.

In 2007, she filed a lawsuit Wednesday against 23 individuals and organizations over the abduction and murder of Pearl, naming Al-Qaeda, the group’s alleged mastermind kingpin Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — who claimed responsibility for beheading Pearl and is now in US custody — and Pakistan’s Habib Bank among the defendants.

In his column today, Mark Steyn finishes the job AFP only began. As usual with Steyn, read the whole thing. Here are selected paragraphs:

… its clumsiness and insipidness is most revealing. First of all, note the passivity: “The loss of Daniel Pearl.” He wasn’t “lost.” He was kidnapped and beheaded. He was murdered on a snuff video. He was specifically targeted, seized as a trophy, a high-value scalp. And the circumstances of his “loss” merit some vigor in the prose. Yet Obama can muster none.

Even if Americans don’t get the message, the rest of the world does. This week’s pictures of the leaders of Brazil and Turkey clasping hands with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are also monuments to American passivity.

But what did the “loss” of Daniel Pearl mean? Well, says the president, it was “one of those moments that captured the world’s imagination.” Really? Evidently it never captured Obama’s imagination because, if it had, he could never have uttered anything so fatuous. He seems literally unable to imagine Pearl’s fate, and so, cruising on autopilot, he reaches for the all-purpose bromides of therapeutic sedation: “one of those moments” – you know, like Princess Di’s wedding, Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction, whatever – “that captured the world’s imagination.”

Notice how reflexively Obama lapses into sentimental one-worldism: Despite our many zip codes, we are one people, with a single imagination. In fact, the murder of Daniel Pearl teaches just the opposite – that we are many worlds, and worlds within worlds. Some of them don’t even need an “imagination.” Across the planet, the video of an American getting his head sawed off did brisk business in the bazaars and madrassahs and Internet downloads. Excited young men e-mailed it to friends, from cell phone to cell phone, from Karachi to Jakarta to Khartoum to London to Toronto to Falls Church, Virginia. In the old days, you needed an “imagination” to conjure the juicy bits of a distant victory over the Great Satan. But in an age of high-tech barbarism the sight of Pearl’s severed head is a mere click away.

And the rest of “the world”? Most gave a shrug of indifference. And far too many found the reality of Pearl’s death too uncomfortable, and chose to take refuge in the same kind of delusional pap as Obama.

I daresay that if a Republican or conservative president had suggested that the “loss” of Dr. Martin Luther King had “captured the world’s imagination,” the AP and the Times would not have so deliberately avoided such a statement, and would instead have eagerly sought out others to criticize it.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

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UPDATE, 10:15 p.m.: Many NewsBusters commenters have made a great point that I overlooked in my write-up, which is that Daniel Pearl was not killed primarily because he was a journalist, but because he was a Jew. That is indeed correct.

As badly as our economy has been damaged by our Punk President and his gangster government, this administration’s foreign policy performance has probably been worse.

Charles Krauthammer, in effect building on what the Wall Street Journal pointed to earlier this week, elaborated on this yesterday (as usual with Krauthammer, read the whole thing; bolds are mine):

… the deeper meaning of the uranium-export stunt is the brazenness with which Brazil and Turkey gave cover to the mullahs’ nuclear ambitions and deliberately undermined U.S. efforts to curb Iran’s program.

The real news is that already notorious photo: the president of Brazil, our largest ally in Latin America, and the prime minister of Turkey, for more than half a century the Muslim anchor of NATO, raising hands together with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the most virulently anti-American leader in the world.

That picture — a defiant, triumphant take-that-Uncle-Sam — is a crushing verdict on the Obama foreign policy. It demonstrates how rising powers, traditional American allies, having watched this administration in action, have decided that there’s no cost in lining up with America’s enemies and no profit in lining up with a U.S. president given to apologies and appeasement.

They’ve watched President Obama’s humiliating attempts to appease Iran, as every rejected overture is met with abjectly renewed U.S. negotiating offers. American acquiescence reached such a point that the president was late, hesitant and flaccid in expressing even rhetorical support for democracy demonstrators who were being brutally suppressed and whose call for regime change offered the potential for the most significant U.S. strategic advance in the region in 30 years.

… They’ve watched our appeasement of Syria, Iran’s agent in the Arab Levant — sending our ambassador back to Syria even as it tightens its grip on Lebanon, supplies Hezbollah with Scuds and intensifies its role as the pivot of the Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas alliance. The price for this ostentatious flouting of the United States and its interests? Ever more eager U.S. “engagement.”

They’ve observed the administration’s gratuitous slap at Britain over the Falklands, its contemptuous treatment of Israel, its undercutting of the Czech Republic and Poland, and its indifference to Lebanon and Georgia. And in Latin America, they see not just U.S. passivity as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez organizes his anti-American “Bolivarian” coalition while deepening military and commercial ties with Iran and Russia. They saw active U.S. support in Honduras for a pro-Chavez would-be dictator seeking unconstitutional powers in defiance of the democratic institutions of that country.

This is not just an America in decline. This is an America in retreat — accepting, ratifying and declaring its decline, and inviting rising powers to fill the vacuum.

Nor is this retreat by inadvertence. This is retreat by design and, indeed, on principle. It’s the perfect fulfillment of Obama’s adopted Third World narrative of American misdeeds, disrespect and domination from which he has come to redeem us and the world.

The only question is whether the “retreat by design” is based in naivete or is more sinister.

If it were based in naivete, one would think, given the disastrous results, that there would be an attempt to right the ship, as occurred during the Carter administration after the Soviets’ 1979 invasion of Afghanistan tore off the President’s thick blinders. If it’s not based in that, all that would remain as a motivating explanation would be a grim determination to tear this country down and deliberately leave it vulnerable. Evidence continues to mount that this is the case.

Memo to Kevin DeWine: It’s been almost three weeks since the primary, and all you can think of is continuing to Trash Ted (an important enterprise, to be sure) while promoting Golden Boy and Mike DeWine’s savior?

Why, if we didn’t know better, we’d think that y’all really aren’t that interested in helping John Kasich become this state’s governor.

What the heck is wrong with you people?

From Brasilia, Brazil:

May 21, 2010 / 02:07 pm

Brazilian Congresswoman Fatima Pelaes shared her personal testimony on the floor of the Brazilian House of Representatives during a vote on a measure that would protect the unborn from abortion. She told lawmakers that her mother was a victim of rape and decided to let her live rather than kill her through abortion. “I was born after a rape, I cannot support abortion!” she exclaimed.

On Wednesday, Brazil’s House of Representatives passed the measure that grants legal protection to the unborn. It now will go before the Senate.

The Defense of Life Movement (DLM) in Porto Alegre said that during the vote on the measure, Pelaes took the podium and told her story. Her mother was the victim of rape while she was in a co-ed prison. At first she wanted to get an abortion, but she ended up deciding to keep her baby.

When she finished her remarks, DLM reported that “Everyone was moved and in tears. Representative Arnaldo Faria took the podium and asked for a response that would match the testimony by Fatima Pelaes. ‘My colleagues, after this testimony, how can we not support the life of the unborn?’”

Go here for the rest of the story.

It would not surprise me if the Associated Press’s April Castro has spent the last 10 weeks gritting her teeth non-stop.

In March (covered at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), she was clearly peeved at the Texas State Board of Education. In a supposedly objective news story entitled “Texas ed board vote reflects far-right influences,” she decried a “faction” (actually a nearly two-thirds majority) of Board members for “injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history and economics lessons.”

I will take that as an admission that such ideals have previously been absent or barely present.

Friday, non-appreciative April was tasked with covering the Board’s final adoption vote that ratified proposed curriculum changes. If we are to believe her (I know, that’s dangerous), improvements (my word, certainly not hers) in the meantime appear to have been strengthened the reality basis, if you will, of the curriculum.

Here are the first five paragraphs of Ms. Castro’s report (link is dynamic and subject to change). There are lots of errors in those paragraphs alone, but readers are invited to see if they can catch the big cahuna:

So many errors, so little time. I’ll hit the three biggest.

First, Ms. Castro is clever in saying that the curriculum “amends or waters down” the teaching of religious freedoms, but that shouldn’t fool anyone here. She’s distressed about alleged “watering down.” The fact is, if the curriculum really does go back to the constitutional basis for religious freedoms, it will make it clear that public expressions of religious belief are not forbidden, or even unwelcome, as they clearly are today (that is, if they are conservative or prolife; religious pronouncements from the likes of Nancy Pelosi on the religious basis for having an open-borders policy on immigration are of course more than welcome).

Second, Castro states the degree of influence the Texas Board’s guidelines will have on textbooks elsewhere as if it’s an established fact. Sadly, it’s not (sadly, because they’re badly in need of improvement in so many other states). As Brian Thevenot at the Texas Tribune explained at post entitled “The Textbook Myth” in late March:

… liberal-to-moderate contemporaries in other states need not fret, textbook industry experts say. Though Texas has been painted in scores of media reports as the big dog that wags the textbook industry tail, that’s simply no longer true — and will become even less true in the future, as technological advances and political shifts transform the marketplace, said Jay Diskey, executive director of the Association of American Publishers. Diskey calls the persistent reports of Texas dominating the market an “urban myth.” Yet the myth persists.

“I’ve been in this job about three and a half years, and I see it reported all the time,” Diskey said. “I give my explanation to reporters, and about half of them believe me and half of them don’t.”

On the other hand, the easier ability to self-publish could lead to greater selection of available textbooks from nontraditional publishers who, if they pursue the historical truth, would tend to put on works that are more accurate and constitutionally based than the offerings so many students must currently endure. The biggest hurdle for all of them would be getting approved by left-dominated boards of education in other states.

That’s two major errors, but by no means the biggest, which is this statement:

… the board dilutes the rationale for the separation of church and state in a high school government class, noting that the words were not in the Constitution …

I hope Ms. Castro is being “clever” and not ignorant. The words involved ARE NOT in the Constitution, and never have been. Either April is “cleverly” implying that they used to not be there but are now (wrong), or she just doesn’t have her grammar down.

Other examples of things that bother Ms. Castro about the Lone Star State’s newly adopted curriculum:

• “… (it) strengthened requirements on teaching the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation’s Founding Fathers and required that the U.S. government be referred to as a ‘constitutional republic,’ rather than ‘democratic.’” Facts are stubborn things, dear.
• “Students will be required to study the decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.” Oh the humanity.
• “They also required students to evaluate efforts by global organizations such as the United Nations to undermine U.S. sovereignty.” Can you say “Copenhagen,” April?

As I noted in March, the real question should be why items such as these haven’t been taught all along. The answer is that school curricula have been politicized by commission and omission for decades. The Texas Board appears, finally, to be injecting a whiff of sanity into things.

Especially as it concerns religious freedom, it’s time for Ms. Castro to consider going back to school to catch up on her history. In Texas.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

The Associated Press’s Sophia Tareen has apparently had a lot of time on her hands the past couple of days, and her wire service bosses couldn’t find much for her to do. How else to explain Tareen’s devotion of almost 1,000 words to the burning question of whether cartoon character Dora the Explorer is an illegal immigrant?

You read that right, but it’s worse than that. Tareen claims that images of Dora “are being used by those who oppose and support Arizona’s law,” but could only cite actual instances of usage by leftists at the Huffington Post and at a a Facebook page whose category is “Just for Fun – Outlandish Statements.”

Along the way, Tareen oh-so-predictably resurrects the late-1990s “Teletubbies are Gay” kerfuffle (incompletely, of course); waits until the 27th paragraph to tell us that the image at the top right, which “is circulating widely in the aftermath of Arizona’s controversial new immigration law,” has really been around since last year (originating at freakingnews.com); and quotes a “gender studies” professor at the University of Arizona who — undisclosed to readers, naturally — is virulently anti-capitalism.

Having appropriately forewarned everyone, here are samplings of Sophia’s choice chestnuts:

In her police mug shot, the doe-eyed cartoon heroine with the bowl haircut has a black eye, battered lip and bloody nose.

Dora the Explorer’s alleged crime? “Illegal Border Crossing Resisting Arrest.”

The doctored picture, one of several circulating widely in the aftermath of Arizona’s controversial new immigration law, may seem harmless, ridiculous or even tasteless.

But experts say the pictures and the rhetoric surrounding them online, in newspapers and at public rallies, reveal some Americans’ attitudes about race, immigrants and where some of immigration reform debate may be headed.

… It’s not the first time a children’s character has been dragged into a serious debate.

In the late 1990s, Tinky Winky the Teletubby, a purple children’s TV character with a triangle antenna — was called out by Christian leaders for being gay. Sesame Street roommates Bert and Ernie are often involved in statements on same-sex marriage.

Both shows’ producers say the characters aren’t gay.

… since the passage of the Arizona law — which requires authorities to question people about their immigration status if there’s reason to suspect they’re in the country illegally — Dora’s life and immigration status have been scrutinized and mocked.

Several websites, including The Huffington Post, have narrated Dora’s mock capture by immigration authorities. One picture circulating on Facebook shows an ad for a TV show called “Dora the Illegal Immigrant.” On the Facebook page “Dora the Explorer is soo an Illegal Immigrant,” there are several images showing her sailing through the air over the U.S.-Mexican border.

Tareen conveniently “forgets” that “A 1998 Salon.com article previously had noted (Teletubby) Tinky Winky’s status as a gay icon.” That’s like “forgetting” that Al Gore used the Willie Horton incident as a campaign weapon during the 1988 Democratic presidential primary long before Bush 41′s people referred to it.

As has been almost universally the case in the establishment press, Sophia’s sophistry mischaracterizes Arizona’s law by conveniently leaving out the fact that law enforcement officials (not “authorities,” ma’am — read the law) first have to be involved in a “lawful contact” before they can question a person’s immigration status — and only then if “reasonable suspicion exists.”

The AP writer spends eight excruciating paragraphs trying to glean clues about Dora’s origins from her appearance, background scenery, music, and characters’ voices, deciding that none “provide insight.” It seems like it might be a bit more useful if Tareen would explore the writings, backgrounds, and associations of, say, Elena Kagan, but I obviously don’t have my priorities straight.

Later, she goes to Nicole Guidotti-Hernandez, describing her as someone “who teaches gender studies at the University of Arizona.” While true, there’s much more to Ms. G-H, whose main focus really appears to be “Latinidad,” described here as “a shared sense of a ‘Latino’ identity.” Cutting through the excessive verbiage, Latinidad (or Latinidades) appears to be directed toward ensuring political groupthink instead of individuality or specific home-country identity among America’s legal and illegal-immigrant Hispanics.

Ms. G-H’s take on certain aspects of Dora the Explorer’s success is expressed in a 21-page 2007 paper (downloadable at the link, if you can bear it). At bottom, she is intensely hostile to capitalism, still carries a 500-year grudge, and assumes the worst in others, as these snippets will demonstrate:

• (Page 6) “capitalist-style individualism is not consistent with the cultural values embedded in Latina feminist liberation strategies”
• (Page 18) “Dora as explorer (because of her knowledge of geography and cartography) and global citizen is a radical departure from the ‘original’ script of colonizer of the New World.”
• (Page 8) “While … (having Dora as a universal Latina subject) is a useful way to understand the contradictory position of Dora the Explorer in this moment of global capitalism, it is politically dangerous because the dominant viewing group can assume that all Latino/as are like Dora and thus are all the same.”

But as noted at the beginning, Ms. Tareen’s most important error is that she claimed that some Arizona law supporters are exploiting Dora and provided no specific evidence. Without it, what remains is leftists exploiting one of the more interesting examples of creative, capitalistic success in the past decade to further a cause that would work to destroy the system that made her.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Here’s the YouTube (HT Breitbart):

While it’s pretty safe to assume that every Democrat in attendance stood and cheered Mexico’s Prime Minister when he expressed his strong disagreement with Arizona’s recent immigration law-enforcement measure, specific identifiable individual pictures would be extremely welcome.

This blog would be particularly interested in full-throated, standing-O blow-ups of:

• Steve Driehaus (D, OH-01)
• Charlie Wilson (D, OH-06)
• Marcy Kaptur (D, OH-09)
• Marcia Fudge (D, OH-11)
• Betty Sutton (D, OH-13)
• Mary Jo Kilroy (D, OH-15)
• John Boccieri (D, OH-16)
• Tim Ryan (D, OH-17)
• Zack Space (D, OH-18)
• Dennis Kucinich (D, Outer Space)

These will be employed at appropriate times during the upcoming campaign for maximum effect. Send all pics or links here.

After last night, no congressional Democrat has anywhere they can run and hide on illegal immigration.

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UPDATE, 4 PM: On April 28, Amnesty International sounded an alarm about Mexico’s treatment of “migrants” (this includes “immigrants” passing through Mexico on the way to attempting to get into the US) at a page entitled “Widespread abuse of migrants in Mexico is ‘human rights crisis’” –

The Mexican authorities must act to halt the continuing abuse of migrants who are preyed on by criminal gangs while public officials turn a blind eye or even play an active part in kidnappings, rapes and murders, Amnesty International said in a new report released on Tuesday.

Invisible Victims: Migrants on the Move in Mexico, documents the alarming levels of abuse faced by the tens of thousands of Central American irregular migrants that every year attempt to reach the US by crossing Mexico.

Here’s an interesting finding: The link cited above, which comes from the U.S. site, does NOT contain a link to the underlying report. I couldn’t find a link to migrant-focused after several key word searches. To be fair, there is a link to the group’s 2009 report on human rights in Mexico that includes a reference to the migrant/immigrant situation.

This page at amnesty.org, presumably the group’s main international site, does have a link to the report, Invisible Victims: Migrants on the Move in Mexico. (scroll to the bottom to get to it). So if you want to see the full 48-pager, go there.

From Minneapolis:

Updated: Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 6:12 PM CDT
Published : Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 6:12 PM CDT

MINNEAPOLIS – A woman, who almost lost her life at the Target Field, thanked her rescuers on Wednesday.

Pat Hall was at the Twins game against Cleveland on April 21, when she suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed.

Hennepin County Medical Center EMS and Target Field first responders were able to quickly intervene to save her life.

Hall and her family went to Hennepin County Medical Center on Wednesday to thank those who saved her life.

This week is National EMS Week. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Note: This post went up at the Washington Examiner’s OpinionZone and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Monday evening.

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GOP nominee Rob Portman has been in philosophical cruise control since he declared his candidacy for the Buckeye State’s open U.S. Senate seat over a year ago.

The former six-term Southwestern Ohio congressman, who followed that service with successive one-year stints as Bush administration Trade Representative and as head of its Office of Management and Budget, seems as bound and determined as anyone I’ve seen in a long time to stay in cruise control until Election Day.

Last year, when Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination was before the august body he wishes to join, he said nothing. Meanwhile, Tom Ganley, Portman’s sole GOP primary opponent, had plenty to say in opposition to Sotomayor. When Ohio’s retiring alleged Republican Senator George Voinovich voted to confirm her, Portman was again silent.

Earlier this year, the Ohio Republican Party, which I have taken to calling ORPINO (the Ohio Republican Party In Name Only), “persuaded” Ganley that his political fortunes would be best served if he chose instead to run for Congress against incumbent Democrat Betty Sutton. In the context of what happened statewide on May 4, it’s quite easy to believe that ORPINO “persuaded” Ganley thusly: “Look pal, you can empty your substantial bank account, and it won’t matter. We’re determined to empty our treasury and throw all available party resources at any and all insurgent/Tea Party candidates. And we’ll win.”

That is indeed what ORPINO did to Auditor candidate Seth Morgan, who challenged ORPINO favorite Dave Yost, and Sandy O’Brien, who went up against party golden boy Jon Husted for Secretary of State. In twin unprecedented moves in competitive primary races — moves that I have never seen directed at even Democrats in the 35 years I’ve been voting in Ohio — the party pushed out as many as eight slate card mailings spotlighting Yost and Husted, and on Election Day placed operatives handing out slate cards at dozens and perhaps hundreds of key polling locations throughout the state. Ganley, whose candidacy against Portman was going to be a long shot even without ORPINO’s heavyhanded intervention, opted for self-preservation and set his sights lower. If only the state party was as intent on winning general elections.

From Portman’s perspective, Ganley’s withdrawal avoided the possibility of a pre-primary election debate and enabled him to remain in cruise control. It is becoming painfully clear that Portman will stay right there if he, ORPINO, and his handlers think he can get away with it. Recent polls showing him slightly trailing Lieutenant Governor and Democratic nominee Lee Fisher, a dreadful candidate who hasn’t won a statewide general election on his own since 1994, should be disabusing Team Portman of that notion — if they’re not already asleep at the wheel.

Rob Portman has several serious problems with center-right Ohioans, and if he doesn’t conquer them in the coming months, the people he still thinks are “his,” many of them already embittered at ORPINO’s primary tactics, will either stay home or skip his name on the ballot. Here are just a few of those concerns.

On fiscal matters, Portman’s congressional voting record deteriorated over time, to the point where by the end of his service, he could accurately be described, as another Beltway journalist recently did, as a “big spender.”

On immigration, as a congressman Portman received an average grade of D+ from Numbers USA. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) gave him a grade of 0% in December 2003.

Portman is a consummate Washington insider, and has been for years. Sadly, available information tells us he considers that to be a feature, not a bug. This is self-evidently out of sync with center-right Ohioans.

Finally, when the chips are down, will Portman choose country first, or Rob first? This quote from a 2005 Cleveland Plain Dealer profile provides little comfort or solace:

“I probably am a little risk-averse compared to some members [of Congress],” he concedes, “but I think a lot of that is a deliberate decision on my part that some things are worth it for my career and some things aren’t.”

Gosh, don’t do us any favors, big guy.

Portman seems every bit like the kind of politician who always wants to have the “escape hatch” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie referred to last week.

Rob Portman had better define himself as a genuine, constitution-based, sensible conservative (assuming he is one) with the courage of his convictions (if he has them) in the coming months. Cruise control won’t work, not even against Lee Fisher.

Lucid Links:

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That these three Cincinnati-area news items have appeared at roughly the same time is instructive, and not in a good way –

1. 20 Lockland High School students have been arrested in a school-based prank that appears to have involved no property or other financial damage (if I’m wrong, someone should let me know). 10 12 of them who are 18 or older are awaiting possible felony charges that may be handed down by a (!) grand jury.
2. Meanwhile, Miami University sorority Alpha Xi Delta has been suspended for two years, because of “drunken behavior and destruction at a spring formal at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.” Specifically, “sorority members and their dates urinated all over the building, defaced restrooms, intentionally crashed drinks on the dance floor, vomited all over restrooms and at the dinner table, swore at the staff and tried to steal bottles of booze from the bar.”
3. A week earlier, another Miami sorority, Pi Beta Phi, was suspended for “drinking heavily, behaving crudely and destroying property during the sorority’s spring formal at Lake Lyndsay Lodge in Butler County.” Specifically, “Students took drinks onto the dance floor, broke a toilet in the women’s restroom and continued to use it, urinated in sinks, toppled a table of food onto the carpet and vomited several times … they hurled crystal vases off a porch to watch them shatter below on a concrete patio. A large concrete lion also was knocked over and broken.”

Though the people involved in Items 2 or 3 are presumably mostly 21 years of age or older, no one was arrested for damaging and destroying things. A full reading of the story at Item 2 also indicates disturbing racist overtones. So unless I’m missing something, no one involved in either affair is going to suffer any negative ongoing individual consequences. It’s a shame that neither party venue called the cops as things went down; they should have.

Which brings me to Item 1. If-if-if the Lockland prank was truly damage-free (having spoken to a relative of one of those involved, my understanding is that this is the case), it would be intensely unfair to throw the book at those involved. There has to be a way to “send a message” that isn’t permanently damaging, especially when dozens of maliciously destructive alleged Miami “adults” in Items 2 and 3 get to move on with their mostly financially prosperous and relatively privileged lives as if nothing happened.

Update, 9:30 a.m.: From the Cincinnati Enquirer —

A Hamilton County grand jury has recommended that felony charges be dropped against a dozen 18-year-old Lockland High School students accused of breaking into the school last week during a prank gone awry, Prosecutor Joe Deters announced Tuesday morning. Instead, prosecutors are recommending Lockland police charge the 12 students as adults with misdemeanor criminal trespassing, he said.

I have a one-word suggestion for prospective employers of Miami grads who put Pi Beta Phi or Alpha Xi Delta on their resumes in the next couple of years: Avoid.

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In Columbus, against all odds, Mayor Michael Coleman is very busy trying to lead his city into decline.

Last year, rather than control costs, he pushed a 25% income tax increase (from 2% to 2.5%), which passed. Well of course it did. Coleman had it go on the ballot in August, guaranteeing low turnout. Also, probably one-third of the people who have to pay the city’s income tax only commute to the city, and thus couldn’t vote on the increase. Didn’t somebody fight a war over taxation without representation?

Now the city’s situation is soooo under control that Coleman is focusing on the really important stuff, like banning city-funded travel to Arizona over that state’s recently passed immigration law-enforcement measure. The linked Columbus Dispatch article has over 2,900 overwhelmingly negative comments as of 8 a.m. this morning.

Actually, Coleman and his city are probably lucking out from what Arizona is doing, though they’ll never admit it. The city will be getting a likely windfall in the coming year, because so many more people from all over Ohio who are pleased with what Arizona has done will hop onto those non-stop flights from Port Columbus Airport to Phoenix to visit the Grand Canyon State.

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Maggie Thurber tipped me in an e-mail to this pretty weak Toledo Blade report by the paper’s Larry Vellequette, wherein the reporter quotes “an analyst” and “a Cleveland-area economic researcher” named George Zeller.

Matt Naugle at Right Ohio did a bit of research on Mr. Zeller in June of last year:

Zeller also advertises his heavy involvement with the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies, which are government-supported non-profit leftovers of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 and the failed “war on poverty.” After looking at his website, can there be any doubt that Zeller is a political liberal with an agenda to “end poverty” through government intervention?

It is unreasonable to expect economists to not hold personal opinions. But a responsible reporter would find a way to include an expert’s political activities, instead of expecting readers to deduce them.

The link to “his (Zeller’s) web site” Matt cited no longer works, and its home page forwards to a Cleveland-area (based on the phone numbers provided) VOIP/web hosting provider. Either Zeller didn’t like the spotlight coming from Matt, or it’s a sheer coincidence (you can tell us if you’d like, George).

Here is Zeller’s (new?) home page, and his “Poverty and Economic Research” page, in which he plugs the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies. His status at the very least as a left-leaning economist is pretty evident.

Matt’s point about not “including an expert’s political activities” also applies to Vellequette’s recent piece at the Blade. It’s an all too typical establishment media failure, and is yet another reason why papers like the Blade continue to lose readers.

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Lickety-Split Links:

In another item from Toledo, there’s this from Maggie Thurber (“Trash tax and broken promises: we told you so!”). As usual, city fathers in that hard-pressed city have figured out how to put in a tax they said they wouldn’t, and have forced no meaningful concessions from its public-employee unions.

As the Blade loses readers (see related “Lucid Link” item above), Toledo continues to lose people. Census information obtainable here shows that the Glass City’s population declined by almost 20,000 from 2000 to 2008 to its current 293,201, and that the city lost residents every year during that period.

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While we’re on the topic, here’s info for other Ohio cities’ population changes from 2000 to 2008, continuing a nearly five-decade trend:

• Columbus: Up 39,000 to 754,000 (state government growing like a weed will cause that)
• Cleveland: Down 43,000 to 434,000 (far-lefties in Ohio still want to attribute this to racism or lack of jobs, when it’s crime, awful schools, high taxes, and city-county corruption, not necessarily in that order; the city’s population in 1960 was 876,000, or over double what it is now)
• Cincinnati: Up 2,000 to 333,000 (the city has seemed to acquire a few whiffs of sanity in the past few years, especially in doing something, but still nowhere near enough, about crime; 1960 population — 503,000)
• Akron: Down 9,000 to 207,000 (1960 — 290,000)
• Dayton: Down 12,000 to 154,000 (1960 — 262,000)

People will keep voting with their feet as long as these cities continue to govern as they have for so long.

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Lightning Links:

• Erick Ericksen — In California’s GOP Senate primary, “It is Not Chuck DeVore Who Must Drop Out. Carly Fiorina Must Go.” Amen, brother. And yeah, Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Fiorina looks like a mistake.
• Even I have more fashion sense than this.
• At Catholic News Agency — “Cuban government harasses mother of deceased political prisoner.” At long last, have they no decency?

From Santiago, Chile:

May 20, 2010 / 03:07 am

The Latin American Democratic Bridge Network recently announced the creation of the “Prize for Democratic Openness in Cuba” and has decided to grant the first award to the Varela Project.

The network explained on its website that the prize highlights “the work of Cubans who, despite great obstacles, encourage their fellow countrymen to begin the path towards the transition to democracy.”

“The Cuban government has set up a one-party regime that represses the exercise of democratic freedom and prevents any type of peaceful political transformation. Any call for openness in Cuba implies having great courage and assuming enormous risks.”

The Varela Project calls for democratic changes in country’s laws through a referendum.

The panel charged with selecting the recipient of the prize includes former Chilean President Patricio Aylwin, Senator Soledad Alvear, Representative Patricio Walker and Peruvian Lourdes Flores Nano. The judges said the Varela Project has obtained “unprecedented citizen support within Cuba and has had enormous repercussions internationally.” They called the Varela Project “one of the peaceful initiatives within Cuba that has suffered the most in terms of the number of members imprisoned and given extended sentences during the wave of repression of March 2003.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Earlier this morning, I was minding my own business, reading this unbylined Associated Press roundup of yesterday’s elections, when I got to the report’s final few paragraphs.

They involved “other concerns” the two major parties have. After noting yesterday’s resignation by Republican congressman Mark Souder, the report’s final paragraph read as follows:

Well, that’s rich. I wonder how the folks at the New York Times, which prepared the 2,100-word article (“Candidate’s Words on Vietnam Service Differ From History”) to which the AP refers, feel about their august publication being called merely “a newspaper”? Or about the Blumenthal campaign press release disguised as a news report the wire service’s Susan Haigh put forth yesterday? Or is there more going on?

As to Blumenthal’s “dispute,” here’s a clue for both the AP and the Nutmeg State’s AG: There is no “dispute.” There are only these facts and direct quotes:

“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said to the group (veterans and senior citizens) gathered in Norwalk (CT) in March 2008.”

… In 2003, he addressed a rally in Bridgeport, where about 100 military families gathered to express support for American troops overseas. “When we returned, we saw nothing like this,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “Let us do better by this generation of men and women.” (Returned from where? The PX? — Ed.)

… In at least eight newspaper articles published in Connecticut from 2003 to 2009, he is described as having served in Vietnam.

… And the idea that he served in Vietnam has become such an accepted part of his public biography that when a national outlet, Slate magazine, produced a profile of Mr. Blumenthal in 2000, it said he had “enlisted in the Marines rather than duck the Vietnam draft.”

It does not appear that Mr. Blumenthal ever sought to correct those mistakes.

These Times-delivered facts and quotes are not subject to “dispute.” They are part of the historical record.

But before anyone goes overboard handing out props to the Old Gray Lady, one can’t help but notice that the report’s timing “just so happens” to be quite helpful to Blumenthal. That’s because, as the AP’s Haigh notes, “(Connecticut) Democrats (will) meet this weekend to endorse a candidate for the seat.” With only four days to think about it, will party bigwigs dare to withhold or deny an endorsement to its highest state officeholder? That doesn’t seem likely.

Once endorsed, Blumenthal’s false claims about Vietnam will instantly turn into “old news” that can’t be brought up again without the establishment press characterizing any such effort as an “unfair attack.” Blumenthal’s road to victory in November, while of course not assured, nonetheless looks pretty comfortable, in no small part because of the pathetic-looking crop of potential GOP opponents.

Brilliant. It’s almost as if the whole thing’s coordinated. Nah — the AP and the Times wouldn’t do that … would they?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.