From Washington:

Jun 18, 2010 / 03:43 am

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has announced that it will award Princeton University law professor Robert P. George its Canterbury Medal to honor his work on religious freedom.

Over 350 civil rights and religious leaders representing dozens of religions will gather at the Washington, D.C. Four Seasons hotel on Friday for the Canterbury Medal Dinner to honor George’s work.

The Becket Fund described George as a “leading scholar” of legal and political philosophy and as a “preeminent public intellectual.” Its announcement noted his service on the President’s Council on Bioethics and on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He was also a Judicial Fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court.

At present he is a member of the UNESCO World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology.

The Becket Fund did not mention that George was also a key organizer of the Manhattan Declaration, a public commitment to religious liberty, the sanctity of life and traditional marriage.

The Princeton professor, a Catholic, is the co-author of “Embryo: A Defense of Human Life,” which argues that human personhood begins at conception. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

It seems that when they saw today’s today’s disappointing unemployment claims report from Uncle Sam, the Associated Press’s Alan Zibel, perhaps with the help of contributors Jeannine Aversa, Martin Crutsinger, and Tali Arbel, decided to start playing the expectations game with June’s Employment Situation Report, which isn’t due to arrive from the Bureau of Labor Statistics until July 2.

If so, from a propagandist’s perspective, it’s a pretty slick strategy, given that the BLS’s report will probably be the last significant piece of economic news before the July 4 weekend, making it a larger than usual topic of conversation among the American people in the days that follow.

Private sector job growth shrank to a seasonally adjusted 20,000 in May. Maybe if the AP and others make us think that June will go negative and the actual result comes in barely positive, it won’t seem so bad.

The worse possibility is that they’re aware of more information than the rest of us have, and that things really are heading south in this “Rebound? What Rebound?” recovery.

Here are key paragraphs of Zibel’s report (link is probably dynamic and subject to revision; bolds are mine):

The number of people filing new claims for jobless benefits jumped last week after three straight declines, another sign that the pace of layoffs has not slowed.

Initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 472,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. It was the highest level in a month and overshadowed a report that showed consumer prices remain essentially flat.

The rise in jobless claims highlighted concerns about the economic rebound — especially after a report earlier this week said home construction plunged in May after government tax credits expired.

If layoffs persist, there’s a concern that the June employment numbers may show a decline in private-sector jobs after five straight months of gains, said Jennifer Lee, an economist with BMO Capital Markets.

“We’ve definitely seen the economic recovery hit a wall,” Lee said.

… Kevin Logan, an economist with HSBC Securities, said many economists have been expecting claims to fall below 450,000 for several weeks now.

“The wait is getting longer and longer,” said Logan. “As each week goes by, doubts about the underlying strength of the economic expansion grow.”

It seems suspiciously early for the press to be putting out a jobs-will-be-lost vibe fifteen days out from the actual news.

If things really are getting as potentially rough as indicated, the administration’s plan to celebrate a summer of recovery, as detailed today by Politico’s Mike Allen, could turn in to an object of abject ridicule:

Vice President Biden today will kick off “Recovery Summer,” a six-week-long push designed to highlight the jobs accompanying a surge in stimulus-funded projects to improve highways, parks, drinking water and other public works. Biden will present President Obama with a report laying out a spike in stimulus activity this summer, and how it will contribute to a steady climb to a total of 3.5 million Recovery Act jobs by the end of the year. Biden, Obama and other administration officials will travel to more than two dozen Recovery Act project sites in coming weeks. Tomorrow, the president will travel to Columbus, Ohio, to mark the groundbreaking of the 10,000th Recovery Act road project, around Nationwide Children’s Hospital. On Monday, Biden will travel to Midland, Mich., for the groundbreaking of the new Dow Kokam advanced battery manufacturing facility.

–David Axelrod said: “This summer will be the most active Recovery Act season yet, with thousands of highly-visible road, bridge, water and other infrastructure projects breaking ground across the country, giving the American people a first-hand look at the Recovery Act in their own backyards and making it crystal clear what the cost would have been of doing nothing. … In the face of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, Republicans in Congress chose to play politics with economic recovery and declared the Recovery Act a failure before it even began. They made a cynical bet that if the President fails, they win. Democrats chose to act by tackling the crisis head-on. Just over a year later, the Recovery Act is putting millions of Americans to work and helping the economy grow again. But our work is far from over.”

In her perceptive column last week (“The Alien in the White House”), the Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote the following about Barack Obama and his apparatchiks:

The president’s appointees, transmitters of policy, go forth with singular passion week after week, delivering the latest inversion of reality. Their work is not easy …

The drivel Politico’s Allen relays proves that Rabinowitz was clearly not exaggerating.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From this morning:

Yesterday’s “voluntary” deal between BP and the Obama administration was nothing less than a continuation of President Barack Obama’s ongoing assault on the rule of law. Capitalism only succeeds if it is a profit and LOSS system. Well-managed firms should have every right to keep their profits, but mismanaged firms must be allowed to suffer losses. By all accounts of what transpired on the Deepwater Horizon, BP is a terribly mismanaged firm. If the damage they caused is great enough, they should be allowed to fail. Failure is a necessary component of capitalism. But this administration refuses to allow the rule of law to work. From Fannie Mae to Freddie Mac, from GM to Chrysler, from AIG to Citibank, our government continues to subvert the established rule of law. This lawlessness creates uncertainty in the business environment, and it is a huge reason why our economy is not recovering as it should be.

I would only amend what Heritage’s Conn Carroll asserted by noting that “government continues to subvert the established rule of law” — only when it doesn’t like the probable result. Conn also correctly traces the blatant disregard for due process and property rights back to when Henry Paulson in effect held a gun to the heads of big bank CEOs in October 2008.

This is yet another episode of what Michael Barone correctly called Gangster Government last year, carried out by the person I correctly called our Punk President the night he was elected. Each of us has sadly been vindicated many times over.

From Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell, two Democratic pollsters, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed:

In a June Washington Post/ABC News Survey, only 29% of Americans said that they were inclined to support their House representative in November. That’s an even lower percentage than in October 1994 (34%), on the eve of the Republican takeover of Congress when voters swept the Democrats out of power in that chamber after 40 years in the majority. Even more striking were the findings of a recent Gallup poll, where by a margin of nearly two-to-one (60%-32%) voters said they would rather vote for a candidate for Congress with no experience whatsoever than for a candidate who has been in Congress.

This anti-incumbent, anti-Washington mood is pushing voters to support Republicans and widening the enthusiasm gap between the two parties. The disproportionately high turnout of Republican primary voters in New Jersey, California and Iowa—three states with significantly more registered Democrats than Republicans—demonstrates that at the very least Republican voters are more energized and are mobilizing to a greater degree than their Democratic counterparts.

Recent polling shows record levels of mistrust in the president. His approval rating has fallen as low as 45% nationally in recent Gallup polling, and dipped to as low as 40% in a NPR survey of 1,200 likely voters in 70 battleground districts conducted earlier this month.

… Given the general climate of disaffection and mistrust with Democrats and Republicans alike, it’s clear that the Republican Party’s greatest asset right now is that elections are binary choices and voters tend to turn against incumbents. Put simply, the Republicans are winning support because they are not Democrats.

… Frankly, the greatest asset to President Obama and the Democratic leadership is the lack of a clear Republican message. It may be a partisan cliché, but the GOP is increasingly seen as the “Party of No”—its leaders are not offering hope, innovative ideas or any sort of agenda based on free-market policies and economic growth.

Republicans must offer a clear set of core principles, if not a comprehensive set of bold new ideas.

The “party of no” canard is largely false. One look at Paul Ryan’s roadmap proves that. The trouble is that the GOP isn’t moving it or a well-reasoned substitute front and center.

Maybe the Tea Party movement will have to do it for them.

If it can develop a comprehensive manifesto and force candidates to sign off on it return for their support, such a manifesto could turn out to be the 2010 equivalent of 1994′s Contract with America. Yes, it’s important to remember that the Contract didn’t appear until Labor Day in 1994, but who within the Republican will pursue a 2010 “contract,” and even if they do, who can unify the party behind it? The best candidate for doing so is John Boehner, but his will to pursue it is open to question, and the resistance from establishment RINO Republicans who think they can coast to victory appears to be fierce.

Anything short of a winning a convincing majority in the House and gaining at least a draw in the Senate will condemn the country to two more years of the executive branch’s dedicated statism. Saying “We’re not Democrats” will not accomplish that.

From New York City:

2010-06-15 16:40:00

A 3-year-old boy survived miraculously after falling from his family’s fourth-story apartment in The Bronx, thanks to the tree branches that saved his life.

According to witnesses and authorities, the kid, son of two city cops, got cushioning from tree limbs after falling.

“I heard someone crying and saw [the mom] and the baby in the back [yard]. The mom was saying, ‘My baby! My baby! My baby!’” the New York Post quoted a next-door neighbour, as saying.

“The mother was hysterical. The baby was in his diaper, bleeding from his mouth …[But] he was crying nice and strong. He was alive. The ambulance got there in time,” added the neighbour.

Witnesses said the boy fell from one of the apartment’s three rear windows on the top floor of the building at 1062 Huntington Ave. in the Schuylerville section.

Two of the windows have guards on them, but the third one- in the parents’ room- doesn’t, revealed one law-enforcement source.

The room is usually locked, but the child managed to get inside and leaned against the window screen and tumbled out, the source said.

State corrections Officer Jay Mandel, who lives in the rear, first-floor apartment, said he rushed to the baby’s aid as soon as he heard “a loud thud” outside.

“I knew what it was immediately,” he said.

Mandel said he found the baby lying in the tall grass with his eyes open.

And the tot was so stunned that he wasn’t crying at first, said the neighbour.

“I was just trying to get him to laugh, to smile, anything. I was saying, ‘Hey, little man, hey, little man, talk to me,’ anything to get him going,” said Mandel.

Mandel said there is a patch of concrete in the back yard near where the baby fell, but miraculously, the tot avoided it. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Using current presidential language acceptability standards (don’t watch if you don’t like the frequent employment of the word “a**”), here’s Nick Gillespie at Reason.com:

Gillespie should also have pointed out that the only reason oil companies are drilling in deep waters is that enviros have prevented them from more safely drilling in shallower waters until very, very recently.

Here it is, courtesy of ORPINO (the Ohio Republican Party In Name Only):

Here’s the previous version of ORPINO’s front page from about a week ago.

Y’know, I’m not an “expert” at these things, but:

• Don’t you get the impression that Jon Husted and Dave Yost are more important candidates than John Kasich and Mary Taylor?
• Wouldn’t it be nice to know the offices to which Kasich and Taylor aspire?
• Where’s Josh Mandel?
• Though I’d rather not be reminded, where’s Mike DeWine?
• Where’s Rob Portman?

43 days after the primary, this is the best they can do? Is this what we’ll see for the next 43 days?

_____________________________________________________________

UPDATE: Since I mentioned Mandel, I have to note that he is doing something the rest of the ticket seems to be allergic to, which is actually criticizing his opponent’s official conduct (from an e-mail I received; internal links added by me) –

Last year the Dayton Daily News revealed that instead of hiring qualified financial professionals to deal with the serious fiscal issues facing our state and country, my opponent hired into the Treasurer’s office the sister of the former Mayor of Cincinnati, the daughter of the former Mayor of Toledo, and the son of the state’s Budget Director — whose experience prior to working at the Treasurer’s office was working at a zoo and water park.

A story like this would be humorous, if it wasn’t so sad, given Ohio’s dropping bond rating and massive budget deficit.

Disturbingly though, in recent days, matters in Treasurer Kevin Boyce’s office grew even worse. Rather than changing his ways, the following was revealed in a series of new stories by the Dayton Daily News and Cleveland Plain Dealer:

A person Boyce recently hired into the Treasurer’s office just happens to be the wife of a bank lobbyist who recently secured lucrative contracts with the office and who’s a personal friend and business associate of Boyce’s top aide, Amer Ahmad.

What was her experience prior to being hired at the Treasurer’s office? Working at a gym.

Where was this job posted? Per Boyce’s top aide, Amer Ahmad, it was posted at only one place — “his Mosque”.

Are you disturbed yet?

… sadly it gets worse…

These articles also revealed that Boyce recently passed over several qualified banks and handed lucrative contracts to a controversial out-of-state bank that’s under investigation for fraud, and that even Democratic California Treasurer Bill Lockyer referred to as “crooks”.

Why would Boyce risk billions of Ohio funds on such a bank? These articles suggest that the answer lay in the bank’s agreeing to hire Columbus immigration attorney Noure Alo as their “lobbyist” just days before receiving these contracts.

What was Noure Alo’s experience in banking and lobbying prior to being hired as a lobbyist for one of the largest banks in the world? None. He had no experience and is an immigration attorney.

Then why was he hired and how did he secure these lucrative contracts to handle $32 billion of Ohio funds? The Dayton Daily News and Plain Dealer revealed that it just might have something to do with the fact that Noure Alo is a donor to Boyce, is a personal friend and fellow Mosque member of Boyce’s top aide Amer Ahmad, and that Alo’s wife actually works as Boyce’s assistant!

… We deserve public officials who have integrity — not who give out lucrative contracts based on campaign donations and unethical business relationships.

We deserve public officials who have good judgment — not who hand over billions of dollars to banks that are under investigation for fraud.

We deserve public officials who use tax dollars to hire people because they are qualified — not because they belong to their comrade’s Mosque.

As a husband, State Representative, and United States Marine, integrity, character, judgment and hard work are the principles by which I have lived my life. Today I am writing to humbly ask for your help in bringing these principles to the Ohio Treasurer’s office.

The Plain Dealer has also weighed in (“Ohio Treasurer Boyce plays the old patronage game”) with an editorial that is highly critical of Boyce’s “Meet the FOKers” (Friends Of Kevin) cronyism.

Gee, it would be nice to see other candidates on the GOP ticket besides Mandel hit their opponents with legitimate criticism, i.e., engage in some real campaigning. It’s not like there isn’t a lot to work with.

Note: This post went up at the Washington Examiner’s Opinion Zone blog early Monday afternoon, and was teased here at BizzyBlog early Tuesday morning.

_______________________________________

The federal budget deficit in May 2010 wasn’t as bad as May 2009.

As seen in the most recent Monthly Treasury Statement, the May 2010 deficit of $135.9 billion came in about 28% lower than the $189.7 billion shortfall that occurred during the preceding May.

In his report on the results Thursday afternoon, the Associated Press’s Martin Crutsinger made a good point when he wrote: “Much of that improvement reflected calendar differences which boosted receipts and lowered government benefit payments for the month.”

On the outlays side, May 2010 had only four Fridays, when Uncle Sam cuts a large portion of his checks, while May 2009 had five. On the receipts side, May 2009 had four high-collection first business days of the week (Mondays, except for the Tuesday after Memorial Day), while May 2010 had five.

Even with that built-in advantage, a side-by-side comparison of current month and year-to-date collections is troubling. When one goes back two years to May 2008, which also had only four high-collection days), it’s even more disturbing (figures presented are from the final Daily Treasury Statements in May 2010, May 2009, and May 2008):

While it’s nice that monthly receipts during May 2010 were about 25% higher than May 2009 ($146.7 billion vs. $117.2 billion), they were still a 14% lower than May 2008 (after subtracting 2008 stimulus payments, which should have been treated as disbursements) — six months after when the National Bureau of Economic Research ruled that the recession as they define it began.

Year-to-date results through the first eight months of the government’s fiscal year are even more disturbing. Collections from October 2009 through May 2010 are still lower than the previous year’s disastrous eight months, and are 22% lower than October 2007 through May 2008. This has occurred despite the fact that the economy has been growing since the third quarter of last year, when the recession as normal people define it ended.

June and September are the two remaining critical months for receipts, as those are the months during which the second and third installments of estimated taxes are due from those who don’t have their taxes withheld, i.e., many entrepreneurs, businesspeople, and investors. If those two months seriously trail 2009, the Obama administration will have overseen the seemingly impossible: a growing economy that somehow collected less money.

Here they are:

Hints:

• Though true, the answer your humble servant seeks is not, “Only one photo has an assassinated president in it.”
• Though true, the answer is not, “Only one photo has an impeached president who deserved harsher punishment in it.”
• Though true, the answer is not, “Only one photo clearly has Dan Rather in it.”
• And though true, the answer is not, “Only one photo has two clearly visible teleprompters.”

The answer follows (click “more” if you’re on the home page):
(more…)

Of all the tired arguments that I’ve seen, the one that “the minimum wage doesn’t affect employment” is among the ones that induces the most weariness.

Its proponents might as well try to claim that the law of supply-and-demand doesn’t exist.

Here’s a well-argued video on the topic:

Teen unemployment is where it is because many of them aren’t worth employing for $7.25 an hour. As the vid says, “Businesses are not charities.”

I’ve never understood how keeping someone from getting a job, thereby reinforcing idleness, sloth, and potential mental inertia, is more “compassionate” than allowing someone to get a job at an admittedly low wage rate that they have the potential to move away from — often quickly — as they improve themselves.

From Chatham, New Jersey:

Jun 16, 2010 / 07:04 am

Last October, the parishioners at St. Patrick’s Church in Chatham, N.J., were horrified when their pastor, Father Edward Hinds, was found murdered in the rectory. Tuesday, in an article appearing in The Wall Street Journal, former presidential speech writer William McGurn described his experiences “as a guest” in the St. Patrick’s community, where he has seen firsthand over the past months the love and compassion of a community struck by tragedy.

The community of Chatham, where St. Patrick’s is located, houses about 10,000 residents and is generally a peaceful area. Parishioners were shocked when Father Edward, pastor at St. Partick’s since 2003, was found dead on Oct. 23. He had been stabbed 32 times with a kitchen knife.

The murder made national headlines as the church janitor, Jose Feliciano, was arrested. Feliciano, known in the parish as “Mr. Jose,” had worked at the church for 17 years, where he and his family were also parishioners.

Feliciano had recently been dismissed due to parish finances.

According to authorities, Father Edward had called 911 from his cell phone on the evening of Oct. 22 and reported that he was being attacked. When the call cut off, the dispatch operator called back, and Feliciano allegedly answered and said “everything’s fine.”

Unable to trace the location of the cell phone, the operator could not send police.

Authorities said that investigators later found the priest’s cell phone, bloody clothing and bloody towels at Feliciano’s home.

Most newspapers had ended their coverage of the story with parishioners grieving and hissing at the mention of forgiveness, McGurn said. “But if that’s all you know about St. Pat’s, you would have a most incomplete picture.”

McGurn described how his eldest daughter attended St. Patrick’s when other plans fell through at the last minute. His daughter was in the same eighth-grade class as Feliciano’s youngest daughter, and the two girls played on the same basketball team.

He told how he had watched Mr. Jose’s daughter graduate from St. Patrick’s School the previous Friday night. “When this young lady walked across the gym floor to collect her diploma, she did so secure in the knowledge that at St. Pat’s she is more than a student,” he said. “At St. Pat’s she is loved.”

McGurn spoke of how Fr. Edward “would have wanted his blood to bring forth the best in his flock, to bear witness to the redemptive love symbolized by his collar.”

“This doesn’t mean Mr. Jose should not answer for his crimes, if indeed he is found guilty,” he explained. “It does mean St. Pat’s could never allow this to be the end of the story.”

“This is a community, you see, defined by the belief that whatever he may have done, Mr. Jose still has a soul, and that love, if it is to be worthy of the name, imposes special claims on behalf of the innocent and the inconvenient.”

“And so the people of St. Pat’s rallied,” McGurn continued, speaking of the staff, teachers, coaches and parents who tried to keep things normal for Mr. Jose’s daughter as she worked her way towards graduation. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

The referenced Wall Street Journal column by McGurn (“In the Name of the Father”) is here. Here are its final two paragraphs:

It sounds incredible, yet I saw it happen. Nor is it so mysterious. The people of St. Pat’s hold, as an article of faith, that Father Ed’s love remains operative in this world, and ours in his. With that in mind, they took a crime that bound two of their men in tragedy—one murdered, the other the alleged murderer—and handled it with the grace and good sense that America’s little platoons so often rise to when we most need them.

Someday the beautiful young lady who collected her diploma Friday night will go out into the world. When she does, we hope her heart forever tells her: St. Pat’s will always be your home. As for this guest and father, let’s just say how grateful he is that his own eighth-grader could come of age in a place where the commandment to love was deemed most precious when it was most difficult.

If the folks at the New York Times had any sense of shame, they would feel foolish today.

A review of the Times’s June 15 print edition index and review of the related articles indicates that the paper’s editors:

• Gave reporter Jeff Zeleny about 330 words on Page A21 to recycle a Caucus Blog post softly covering the video-recorded arguable assault North Carolina Congressman Bob Etheridge committed against a questioner on a public street “last week,” and which came to public light early Monday morning. The vague print edition headline (per the index): “Congressman Apologizes After Tussle.”
• Devoted almost 1,000 words on Page A15 to a story about a three year-old alleged shoving incident involving California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman that “no one else appears to have witnessed.” Yet the headline gives the impression that the facts are not in dispute: “Settlement Was Paid in Whitman Shoving Incident.”

What explains the disparate treatment?

I suppose one could argue that the actions of a sitting congressman aren’t as important as those of someone who wants to be (but isn’t yet) chief executive of the nation’s most populous state.

Nice try, but I’m not sold.

Etheridge is a Democrat. It is still an open question as to whether the incident with which he was involved will become a criminal matter. There’s certainly no lack of evidence. All of this makes it a still-breaking and still-developing story worthy of far more attention than the Times gave it.

Whitman is a Republican. In addition to noting that the incident involved has no identified witnesses, The Times report specifically tells us that the matter was settled through mediation, and that “the authorities were not involved.” Former eBay CEO Whitman has no criminal exposure. The report is a gratuitous, politically-motivated dredge-up of a long-forgotten matter.

The Times’s Brad Stone and likely other reporters clearly put many hours of work into the Whitman report. In the process, he or they encouraged and ultimately convinced eBay employees to breach ethics and to violate confidentiality agreements..

The incident’s alleged victim still works at eBay and has clearly moved on:

In June 2007, an eBay employee claimed that Ms. Whitman became angry and forcefully pushed her in an executive conference room at eBay’s headquarters, according to multiple former eBay employees with knowledge of the incident. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter was delicate and was deemed to be strictly confidential.

The employee, Young Mi Kim, was preparing Ms. Whitman for a news media interview that day. Ms. Kim, who was not injured in the incident, hired a lawyer and threatened a lawsuit, but the dispute was resolved under the supervision of a private mediator.

Two of the former employees said the company paid a six-figure financial settlement to Ms. Kim, which one of them characterized as “around $200,000.”

An agreement to keep the matter confidential was also part of the settlement, and the authorities were not involved.

Ms. Whitman was counseled in the matter, the former eBay employees said, by the company’s human resources lawyers and by Henry Gomez, then president of the Skype unit at eBay and now a senior adviser to Ms. Whitman’s campaign.

Ms. Kim still works at eBay and is now a senior manager for corporate and executive communications.

… When reached by telephone on Monday, Ms. Kim said the issue was a “private matter” and declined to comment. Later, in an e-mail message, Ms. Kim said she and Ms. Whitman had overcome their differences.

“Yes, we had an unfortunate incident, but we resolved it in a way that speaks well for her and for eBay,” Ms. Kim said. “And ultimately, I came back to the company, which is not something I had to do.”

The Whitman campaign issued a statement signed by Ms. Whitman that described Ms. Kim as a “respected colleague and valuable asset to the company.”

The Etheridge incident could yet result in criminal charges, and could affect the Congressman’s ability to continue in office. Absent criminal charges, it could at least subject him to some form of discipline from House leadership (well, let’s say it should, but given who’s in charge, whether anything negative will occur is highly doubtful).

By contrast, exactly how is the years-old alleged Whitman incident relevant to the California governor’s race?

The wildly different treatment of the two incidents — one drop-dead obvious, the other a “she said, she said” matter that has long since been resolved — reveals the Times’s primary motivation. It isn’t “journalism”; instead, it’s to discredit Republicans while protecting Democrats.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.