An outraged electorate has just handed Japan’s ruling party its hat in elections for half of the seats in the upper house of that country’s parliament in a direct reversal of election results from a year ago. Opposition parties made major gains.

The results constitute a resounding rejection of a massive value-added tax increase proposed by a guy whose immediate predecessor of the same party sounded an awful lot like the U.S. President Barack Obama when he led his party to a historic victory a year ago. But, as will be shown later, you wouldn’t know that from reading the Associated Press’s coverage of Sunday’s returns.

But first, a bit of background: The 2010 version of Naoto Kan (pictured at top right in an AP photo) is round two of an attempt by the country’s Democratic Party (no direct relation that I know of, but philosophically they’re nearly clones) to “remake” the island nation. If that sounds depressingly familiar, it should. The parallels of Kan’s same-party predecessor’s victory to Barack Obama’s 2008 electoral win are eerie, as this August 2009 election night report from Eric Talmadge the Associated Press will demonstrate (bolds are mine):

Japan opposition wins landslide victory
Vote seen as a barometer of frustrations over high unemployment, falling exports

Japan’s opposition swept to a historic victory in elections Sunday, crushing the ruling conservative party that has run the country for most of the postwar era and assuming the daunting task of pulling the economy out of its worst slump since World War II.

A grim-looking Prime Minister Taro Aso conceded defeat just a couple hours after polls had closed, suggesting he would quit as president of the Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled Japan for all but 11 months since 1955.

“The results are very severe,” Aso said. “There has been a deep dissatisfaction with our party.”

Unemployment and deflation – and an aging, shrinking population – have left families fearful of what the future holds.

Fed up with the LDP, voters turned overwhelmingly to the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which ran a populist-leaning platform with plans for cash handouts to families with children and expanding the social safety net.

… The Democrats’ plan to give families 26,000 yen, or $275 (U.S.), a month per child through junior high is meant to ease parenting costs and encourage more women to have babies. Japan’s population of 127.6 million peaked in 2006, and is expected to fall below 100 million by the middle of the century.

The Democrats are also proposing toll-free highways, free high schools, income support for farmers, monthly allowances for job seekers in training, a higher minimum wage and tax cuts. The estimated bill comes to 16.8 trillion yen ($179 billion) if fully implemented starting in fiscal year 2013 – and critics say that will only further bloat Japan’s already massive public debt.

Adjusted for relative population size, the stated $179 billion amount would be the equivalent of about $435 billion in the U.S. That may not seem like much compared to the Obama and the Democrats’ $800 billion-plus “stimulus” of last year, but keep in mind that Japan spent the better part of the 1990s trying to make government stimulus work with little success. Also note that Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), as the author of the Lost Decade’s stimulus, has hardly been deserving of the “conservative” label the AP’s Talmadge applied to it.

Of course, after Japan’s Democrats came to power, they had to deal with the annoying question of how to close the obvious budget deficits they were building. Their answer, as has all too often been the case with U.S. Democrats, was to raise taxes, despite the tax-cut pledge cited in Talmadge’s AP report.

In a Monday story, the AP’s Jay Alabaster gave readers many of the details on how that idea was received by voters, but left out a really, really important one:

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2010/07/13/japanese-voters-reject-ruling-party-and-doubling-vat-tax-ap-calls-it-sal#ixzz0tXSbVs8q

Japan braces for gridlock after ruling party loss

Japan’s ruling party faced the prospect of political gridlock Monday after an election setback that could undermine its attempts to reduce a ballooning budget deficit and revive growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

Half of the 242 seats in the upper house of parliament were up for grabs Sunday. The ruling Democratic Party of Japan won only 44 seats – far below its stated goal of 54 – while opposition parties made major gains.

That leaves the Democrats and their tiny coalition partner with 110 seats, well below their majority of 122 before the vote. The conservative Liberal Democratic Party won 51 seats, bringing its total to 84.

… the results are a dramatic contrast to the Democrats’ landslide victory just a year ago, when they seized control of parliament and ended the rival Liberal Democrats nearly unbroken 55-year rule.

Losing the majority in the upper house will make it more difficult for the Democrats to move ahead on their agenda, which includes cutting wasteful spending, making government more open and creating a solid social security system for a rapidly aging and shrinking population.

… In office just a month, Kan has warned that Japan’s finances could face a Greece-like meltdown if it doesn’t cut back on soaring debt – twice the country’s GDP – and suggested raising the sales tax as a solution.

But voters, already suffering from the economic downturn, rejected that idea.

… Kan acknowledged defeat early Monday morning, saying he failed to fully explain his proposal to raise the sales tax from 5 percent to as much as 10 percent in coming years.

… Kan, a former finance minister with roots in grass-roots activism, enjoyed support ratings of more than 60 percent when he took office in early June.

“Sales tax”? What is this “sales tax”?

It turns out that Alabaster was really referring to a de facto value-added tax, as shown here in this description of Japan’s tax structure:

Japan Consumption Tax

The tax is similar to value added tax and is, in fact, imposed on most sales and services provided in Japan and on imports. A taxpayer may offset the consumption tax paid on expenses against the tax he has to pay on his income. Consumption tax is 5%. Companies whose sales per year are less than 10 million yen are tax exempt.

Imagine that. Yes Virginia, the “consumption tax” is effectively a VAT tax, as it is imposed on “consumption” by both individuals and companies. Every time “consumption” occurs, i.e., at every stage of production and distribution, the tax kicks in. The 10 million yen exemption is the U.S. equivalent of about $114,000, meaning that only very small businesses are exempt.

It seems that the AP and Mr. Alabaster didn’t want to give their U.S. audience the impression that voters elsewhere have rejected a steep increase in VAT taxes. Why, accurate and responsible reporting might have made American readers more resistant to allowing this dangerous idea to get started. Apparently, Alabaster and the AP want to see a VAT tax come to pass in the U.S. so badly that they are willing to blatantly misrepresent events overseas in the name of that cause.

Beyond the self-evident deception just described, if what has just transpired in Japan’s elections had taken place at the expense of a conservative government trying to cut taxes while a conservative or Republican president occupying the Oval Office was trying to do the same thing, we would never have heard the end of it. As it is, you can virtually take it to the bank that the establishment press will fail to identify the obvious comparison between what Japanese voters have rejected to what the Obama administration both is doing (letting the Bush tax cuts expire, an action I like to refer to as “repealing the tax system that grew the economy for almost six years”), and wants to do more of, including the VAT tax.

Raising taxes in a debt-drenched nation during a flat or allegedly recovering economy, in addition to being economically dumb, is an electoral loser. What part of “no” don’t these people understand?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Note: This post originally went up shortly after noon today and has been moved to the top.

From the inbox:

MEMORANDUM

Effective today, Treasurer Kevin Boyce’s Campaign Manager has quit the Boyce campaign. Marquez Brown’s departure comes in the wake of numerous news stories and editorials outlining growing cronyism, pay-to-play and ethics problems in Boyce’s office.

Brown follows in a long line of Boyce staffers who have left Boyce over the past year, including his Chief of Staff, Executive Assistant, Communications Director, Regional Outreach Director and Fundraising Director. Democratic operatives remain consistent in explaining that this mass exodus from Boyce’s operation is due to his poor management skills, inability to understand the office, arrogance and growing ethics problems.

As Boyce’s team continues to fall apart and he continues to be outraised and outworked by Team Mandel, I wanted to take a moment to update you on our campaign and share with you why Josh Mandel will be elected our next State Treasurer.

Further, it appears as if there is yet…

YET ANOTHER GROWING SCANDAL IN THE TREASURER’S OFFICE

Our opponent has already received continuous negative media coverage for his misuse of tax dollars on self-promotion, questionable and unqualified hires, abuse of his role in the Census effort and manipulation of bank contract deadlines for fundraising purposes.

Now, Ohio taxpayers, citizen action groups, and newspaper editorial boards are all questioning the latest ethically questionable practices in the Treasurer’s Office. The Dayton Daily News, The Plain Dealer, The Columbus Dispatch and the Warren Tribune Chronicle have all covered the Treasurer Kevin Boyce / Deputy Treasurer Amer Ahmad scandal of steering contracts to an out-of-state bank under investigation for fraud and hiring friends and politicos rather than qualified financial professionals to handle billions of taxpayer dollars.

Click below for the original articles and for other coverage of Boyce’s growing pattern of corruption…

Pension fund should trouble state officials
June 18, 2010, Warren Tribune Chronicle

Treasurer candidates allege cronyism, corruption
June 17, 2010, The Columbus Dispatch

Ohio Treasurer Boyce plays the old patronage game: editorial
June 12, 2010, The Plain Dealer

Ohio Treasurer picks bank facing fraud allegations to hold billions in Ohio pension funds’ assets
June 6, 2010, The Plain Dealer

Lobbyist’s wife works in office that gave $1M state contract to client
May 25, 2010, Dayton Daily News

Bank hired lobbyist with Boyce aide ties just days before landing state contract
May 23, 2010, Dayton Daily News

Challenger in state treasurer’s race questions whether delay in awarding state contract will boost incumbent’s fundraising efforts
March 16, 2010, The Plain Dealer

Ohio Treasurer gives bank contract, gets political fund-raiser
July 28, 2009, Dayton Daily News

Critics: Ohio Treasurer shouldn’t be spending on self-promotion
June 13, 2009, Dayton Daily News

As Matt Naugle reported last week, Dem Chair Chris Redfern and the other cronies, namely those who benefited from these unethical moves, are crying “racism.”

Oh, go on…please! More and more people are onto the fact that the true nature and strategy of any given liberal is revealed in the accusations they spew at conservatives.

Christmas in July, baby, or should I say November in July, lol…

__________________________________

UDDATE: Right Ohio’s related post on Marquez Brown’s departure is here.

UPDATE 2 (from Tom): The Columbus Dispatch’s Daily Briefing blog notes some interesting timing in an item that might as well be entitled, “Nobody Outworks Team Mandel, Part LXXXII” —

Mandel beats Boyce to his own announcement

It’s probably not a good omen when the opposition tells the world your old campaign manager has resigned before you can announce a new one has started.

That’s what happened to Ohio Treasurer Kevin L. Boyce this morning when he announced that Bryan Clark has been appointed as his campaign manager.

The thing is, his Republican opponent, state Rep. Josh Mandel of Lyndhurst, dashed out a statement about 45 minutes earlier pointing out that the old campaign manager, Marquez Brown, had resigned.

It’s refreshing to see a genuine conservative and Republican (in that order) working hard on his campaign marathon and attacking his opponent when he deserves it, while most of the rest of the ticket seems to be biding its time … to what end?

I know it’s getting tiresome, but I should note that the home page at ORPINO (the Ohio Republican Party In Name Only), with one minor exception that is annoying in its own right (what are Kasich/Taylor running for, guys?), is essentially the same as it was on the day after the May 4 primary, almost nine long weeks ago. Oh yeah, there’s also an anti-Lee Fisher post and video, but it begs the question: Who’s running against him?

One reason to hope that the Big 3 networks continue to muddle through their awful evening news ratings and somehow hang around is that there’s an alternative out there that would be much worse.

If any of the networks ever considered outsourcing their nightly newscasts to the Associated Press, the likely result could be bad enough to make some long for the (relatively) good old days of Brian, Diane, and Katie.

An object example of the AP’s pathetically one-sided, biased and completely not-transparent video reporting came last Tuesday when it covered the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Arizona’s illegal immigration enforcement measure. The 1070 law tells police to verify citizenship status in “contact” situations (e.g., traffic stops and other routine matters) if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that the person or persons involved aren’t here legally.

AP’s go-to “expert” acts as if it’s a given that the United States government has decided that being here illegally (“without documentation”) isn’t a crime. Seriously. During the 104-second report (first go here, then type “Arizona immigration” in the search bar near the bottom, and select “Fed. Suing to Block Ariz. Immigration Law”), AP reporter Brian Thomas interviewed no one who defended the law’s constitutionality.

Here’s the transcript:

Brian Thomas, AP Reporter: The Obama administration is suing the state of Arizona over what the President has called “a misguided law.” Federal officials say the state’s new immigration policy tries to override the government’s authority under the Constitution. The measure requires police to question and possibly arrest illegal immigrants during the enforcement of other laws, like traffic stops.

Steven Vladeck, American Univ. Law Professor: The federal government has long since decided that it’s not a crime to be in the United States without documentation. You can be removed from the United States, you can be deported, but you cannot be put in jail. And so the question is, “Do individual states, Arizona today, Maryland tomorrow, have the authority to decide for themselves to have a harsher regime?”

Thomas: The Justice Department argues the state plan will lead to the harassment of American citizens and others who are authorized to be here.

Tony Bustamante, Attorney in Arizona: Federal priority enforcement of immigration laws is to go after the criminals, the bad people who are causing havoc on society, not the gardeners and the landscapers and the cooks who make the economy go ’round and ’round.

Thomas: Those who support the pending law have said the stringent rules are necessary to fight drug trafficking, murders and other crimes plaguing the border state.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio: Maybe the federal government ought to ask for the help of local and state law enforcement to stop this illegal immigration situation.

Thomas: The federal government is hoping its lawsuit will stop other states looking to follow Arizona’s lead.

Vladeck: If the federal government can show the Arizona laws are inconsistent with federal policies, the federal government can, should, and will win. And I think it’s likely that they will do so.

Thomas: The next step is for the case to be assigned to a judge who will decided temporarily whether to block the law from taking effect at the end of this month.

A two-word, law-based response to Vladeck’s claim that “The federal government has long since decided that it’s not a crime to be in the United States without documentation” — Horse manure:

Search 8 U.S.C. § 1325 : US Code – Section 1325: Improper entry by alien

(a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts
Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
(b) Improper time or place; civil penalties
Any alien who is apprehended while entering (or attempting to enter) the United States at a time or place other than as designated by immigration officers shall be subject to a civil penalty of -
(1) at least $50 and not more than $250 for each such entry (or attempted entry); or
(2) twice the amount specified in paragraph (1) in the case of an alien who has been previously subject to a civil penalty under this subsection.
Civil penalties under this subsection are in addition to, and not in lieu of, any criminal or other civil penalties that may be imposed.

The “without documentation” portion of Vladeck’s statement is at best useless misdirection. If you aren’t here legally, you’re subject to the sanctions just noted. If you’re here legally and happen to be “without documentation” at any given moment, that’s a totally different situation, and I believe he knows it. The federal government (i.e., the executive branch) doesn’t get to “decide” what is and what is not a crime. To make illegal entry not a crime, the law has to be changed by the legislative branch. That hasn’t happened.

Vladeck’s claim that “you cannot be put in jail” for being here illegally is objectively false, as bolded above in the excerpt from the law. Also note the use of the word “shall” (i.e., there is normally not supposed to be any discretion) as opposed to “may.” Arizona’s law is on target with the intent of federal law.

Vladeck’s next bolded claim in the transcript above is tantamount to saying, “Policy becomes the law, no matter what the law says.” No sir. Of course there will always be prosecutorial discretion that will dictate the best and most appropriate use of an attorney general’s or county prosecutor’s resources, but that’s not what’s at play here. What Vladeck is saying it that because immigration enforcement officials have a policy of trying to avoid going after “non-criminals” (an illogical word, because you’re a criminal in this country the minute you cross the border illegally), that policy has in effect become the law, no matter what the law really is.

Brian Thomas could have found dozens of people to make mince meat of Vladeck’s arguments, and chose not to. I wonder why?

This is lazy, statist liberalism at its best: We don’t like a law, so we won’t enforce it, until that tradition of non-enforcement becomes the law. It’s the same bubble-headed logic that underlies the entire liberal mind-set towards the constitution: We don’t like it, so we’re going to decide that it means something other than what it clearly says, instead of going through the constitutionally mandated and deliberately difficult-by-design process of passing a constitutional amendment to change it to its desired meaning. Say what you will about whether or not the prohibition movement was misguided, but you have to acknowledge that they respected the constitution and the country enough to get their work done the right way. Contrast that with what the Clinton administration (and to an extent, the several administrations that preceded it) did to tobacco companies.

From the “This was so predictable” Dept. — Vladeck’s views towards the executive branch powers are selective and arguably partisan, as you will see from the opening paragraph of his American University bio:

Stephen I. Vladeck is a Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law, where his teaching and research focus on federal jurisdiction, national security law, constitutional law (especially the separation of powers), and international criminal law. A nationally recognized expert on the role of the federal courts in the war on terrorism, he was part of the legal team that successfully challenged the Bush Administration’s use of military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba …

Here’s another “This was so predictable” item, this time about “Attorney in Arizona” Tony (Antonio) Bustamante, from the far-left Phoenix New Times:

For our (40th) anniversary, we gathered many — not all — of those who’ve been targets of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas. Some, like politicos Phil Gordon, Mary Rose Wilcox, and Don Stapley, are converts to the struggle. Others, activists, stood up to protect the most vulnerable amongst us: Mexicans seeking to be part of the American Dream; prisoners looking to survive.

… 17) Antonio Bustamante: Phoenix attorney and activist who advises those who monitor Arpaio’s anti-immigrant sweeps and defends demonstrators arrested for protesting the sheriff.

Brian Thomas didn’t think viewers needed to know anything about Vladeck’s or Bustamante’s background. How typically pathetic.

Oh, I almost forgot: The picture at the top right of the Mexican flag appearing to fly above the Arizona flag is what viewers of the AP video get to see during the report’s final seconds. It looks like a childish “in your face” move to me. And I didn’t get to the matter of what other states, including Rhode Island, are doing that is at least as “harsh” as what Arizona is set to do.

As stated earlier, we could do worse than the evening news shows NBC, ABC, and CBS are currently feeding us. If AP’s video reports really are the go-to alternative, we should hope that Brian, Diane, and Katie remain mired in mediocrity instead of disappearing entirely.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

(HT: Drudge)

Playing golf so often may lower Obama’s handicap, but it’s also lowering his approval ratings. Pretty soon, we won’t be able to tell which is which…

What happened to “we will not rest until (insert crisis here)…?”

Now this is the kind of proactive thinking I like to see…

Evidently, State Senator Tom Niehaus (District 14), has been [prematurely] telling folks in his district and around capitol square, that his election to the role of Senate President is a done deal.

Other sources around the state say hmmmm …. well … not so much, and that Tom has some competition for Senate President after the November elections.

Now Tom is a relatively nice guy, but most agree, especially those who have been paying attention, that he is not a strong leader. Hand-picked long ago by outgoing Senate President Bill Harris, Tom is one of the 5 Republican Senators, who among other inconsistencies, most recently voted to retroactively increase our income taxes 4.5% (substantially decreasing the percentage previously claimed by R’s).

Oh yeah, like we need more of that…

The impetus for many is concern, namely that a conservative agenda actually gets implemented after November’s political pendulum shift, and can you blame anyone for that concern given our decades-long leadership void? Additionally, the “I’ve played the establishment’s game, so it’s my turn” card is over. Most understand that we need a strong Senate leader to complement a strong Speaker Batchelder and [hopefully] a strong Governor Kasich.

So who is it already?! Why it’s Majority Whip Steve Buehrer from District 1 of course, and I have two words to say about that: PRAISE GOD!

I know Steve looks like Gary Sinese,…but he is a solid common-sense conservative that would add tremendous value and provide true leadership.

And since ORPINO (the Ohio Republican Party In Name Only) has, by hook or by crook, forced a couple of undesirables down our throats, I don’t think it’s wise or warranted that they continue to dictate, designate and control their token power base in the Senate (more on that later).

So, dare I say that this news is inspiring? A Senate President Buehrer would not only complete the trifecta, but would likely give Republicans some much-needed street cred (and we’ll know if they really want any).

Ya know, regardless of political party the state has suffered from “business as usual” with no boldness or vision. The go along, get along approach has not worked and our state continues to struggle and fall further behind the rest of the country.

2010 is about leadership, and getting stuff done for Ohio and our citizens, at perhaps the most critical time in our state’s history.

(Pssst, and btw State Senators: please don’t make the same mistake that certain, “conservative” House members made when they so negligently supported Matt Dolan over an imperfect but much stronger Bill Batchelder. They’re still hanging their heads in shame over that no-brainer, and rightfully so.)

More to come…

From a longish WSJ article today by E.S. Browning (number tags are mine):

Small investors’ faith in stocks, which surged in the 1990s, has collapsed since the technology-stock debacle and the Enron and WorldCom scandals of 2000-2002. The 2007-2009 financial crisis only made things worse. Now, the pullback among ordinary investors means they are a declining force in a market that is increasingly dominated by professionals (1).

… Investors talk of a growing disillusionment with big institutions, including corporations, government, banks and political parties—as well as fears about the nation’s heavy debt (2).

… Ordinary investors are returning to the cautious mentality they developed during the 1970s (3). That was the last extended period of stock weakness, after which it took many people a decade or more to get comfortable with stocks again.

… History suggests that individuals eventually will return to stocks, as they did in the 1980s and, even more strongly, in the 1990s (4). But rebuilding their confidence could take time, says Brian Reid, chief economist of the Investment Company Institute (5). Historically, it has taken an extended period of stock success to lure individuals back after long periods of disaffection.

Okay, I’ve had enough. Let’s break this down:

(1) – Small investors are pulling out because they can’t handle the FUDGE Economy (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, and Government Excess) engineered by the progenitors of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy they’ve seen during the past two years as it limps into its third. More savvy investors realized what was developing in 2007, when the Dow began its retreat from all-time highs.

(2) – Barack Obama’s administration, Nancy Pelosi’s House of Representatives, and Harry Reid’s Senate are the ones who have piled on the debt in numbers that dwarfed previous Congresses since they took over in early 2007.

(3) – Ah yes, the 1970s, the era of stagflation, Nixon’s resignation, and Carter’s malaise. Unfortunately, we hear echoes today.

(4) – These things don’t just happen. Ronald Reagan employed specific policies that buoyed investor confidence: tax cuts; tax simplification; deregulation; robust defense; a determination to win the Cold War, not merely to remain in perpetual stalemate; and a belief, once again borne out by his administration’s results, in freer markets and American exceptionalism.

(5) – Restoring confidence will require a sea change in philosophy and policy out of Washington. The current crew is congenitally incapable of bringing it about.

From Hollywood:

Jul 11, 2010 / 07:08 pm

A new family movie, “The Jensen Project,” is scheduled to air on NBC TV next Friday, July 16, at 7 p.m. CST as part of an effort to increase appropriate family entertainment.

The Vote With Your Remote movement is bringing the movie to television in response to persistent requests for more family-friendly programming.

The plot of the movie focuses on Claire and Matt Thompson and their teenage son, Brody. The family is involved with a secret community of geniuses known as The Jensen Project, who do research and share it anonymously to help the world. In a suspense-filled storyline, the Thompsons must race against the clock to prevent potentially dangerous technology from falling into the wrong hands. They follow clues and thwart evil schemes, and ultimately grow closer as a family in the process.

Working to publicize “The Jensen Project” is Motive Entertainment, the company that has promoted previous family movies including “Polar Express” and “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

According to Motive, “This is entertainment that the entire family can enjoy; since it’s on television, it’s essentially available for anyone to watch; and it’s something families can plan to do as an evening together.”

High ratings will illustrate to the entertainment industry that there is a significant audience for family movies and programs, Motive noted. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Preconceived notions are dangerous things in journalism. They cause one to assume facts that aren’t in evidence, leading to false or incomplete results.

A classic example has played out in the nearly three months since Arizona passed its “1070 law.” Among other things, it mandates that law enforcement officials verify citizenship status in situations involving police contact if they have a reasonable suspicion that someone is not in the country legally.

It seems that virtually everyone covering the story has been assuming that Arizona’s law is the first of its kind. Well, maybe as a “law” it is. But in Rhode Island, of all places, Boston Globe reporter Maria Sacchetti finally noticed on July 6 (HT Hot Air) that police have been doing what Arizona will start doing on July 29 since 2008 as a result of a gubernatorial executive order:

R.I. troopers embrace firm immigration role
In contrast to Mass., they report all who are present illegally

From Woonsocket to Westerly, the troopers patrolling the nation’s smallest state are reporting all illegal immigrants they encounter, even on routine stops such as speeding, to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE.

“There are police chiefs throughout New England who hide from the issue . . . and I’m not hiding from it,’’ said Colonel Brendan P. Doherty, the towering commander of the Rhode Island State Police. “I would feel that I’m derelict in my duties to look the other way.’’

Rhode Island’s collaboration with federal immigration authorities is controversial; critics say the practice increases racial profiling and makes immigrants afraid to help police solve crimes.

But it is a practice that Governor Deval Patrick’s opponents in the governor’s race are urging Massachusetts to revive. The Patrick administration has staunchly opposed having state troopers enforce immigration laws, and shortly after he took office in 2007, the governor rescinded a pact by his predecessor, Mitt Romney, to assign 30 troopers to the so-called federal 287(g) program, which trains local police to enforce federal immigration law.

… In 2008, Governor Donald L. Carcieri, a Republican, issued an executive order mandating immigration checks on all new state workers and ordering State Police to assist federal immigration officials.

Sitting in his office in an old farmhouse off a country highway, Doherty said the State Police had collaborated with federal immigration officials before, but the relationship has become more formal in recent years. In 2007, he said, he trained all state troopers in how to deal with noncitizens because of widespread confusion and because Congress did not resolve the issue of illegal immigration. Troopers learned to notify consulates when noncitizens are arrested, how to recognize different forms of identification, and how to deal with different cultures.

One can’t help but wonder how well Ms. Sacchetti or whoever came up with the idea of looking into Rhode Island’s posture is being treated in the Globe’s newsroom these days. Her bosses and the rest of the establishment press should be really be asking themselves why they didn’t bother to look into what other states are doing when the Arizona law passed. Or, worse if true, they should be justifying why parallels they did find (how could they have missed California, as noted by the NewsBusters staff on Friday?) were somehow not worthy of coverage.

Did they decide to not look at Rhode Island because “everybody knows” that such a liberal state couldn’t possibly be strictly enforcing immigration laws — when in fact it is?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

What follows is from the Daily Caller’s Jon Ward. He does a  fine job, but like so many others, Ward misses an opportunity to nail down how long what he describes has been happening, and why (internal links are in original):

There is one word being mentioned by business leaders and economists more frequently when the conversation turns to why jobs are not returning more quickly to the U.S. economy: uncertainty.

“By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses,” said Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg at a speech in Washington in late June.

Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh said in a recent speech in Atlanta: “Owing to a less-than-assured economic outlook and broad uncertainty about public policy, employers appear quite reluctant to add to payrolls.”

Roberton Williams, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, said in an interview, “The whole tax situation is very much in flux, very uncertain. It makes it hard to plan.”

“It’s clear that firms are not yet hiring. A lot of them are sitting on big bundles of cash,” Williams said, citing the examples of Google and Apple, which are both hoarding about $30 billion in cash instead of investing it or using it to expand.

Seidenberg’s comments last month were a significant political moment. The Verizon CEO has been one of President Obama’s strongest allies in the business community, and as president of the 170-member Business Roundtable, he had tried to cooperate with the Obama administration on its trademark agenda items – health care, financial reform and energy legislation.

But, Seidenberg said he was “troubled” by Obama’s agenda, so much so that he had “reached a point where the negative effects of these policies are simply too significant to ignore.”

Seidenberg was not the last major business leader and Obama ally to turn on the president in recent days. Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, said in Italy late last week that Obama and the business community did not like one another and are not getting along with each other. Immelt said the U.S. is “a pathetic exporter,” according to the Financial Times.

“We have to become an industrial powerhouse again but you don’t do this when government and entrepreneurs are not in synch,” Immelt was quoted as saying.

The cascading comments have come as the economic recovery has slowed and fears of a double-dip recession have entered the mainstream lexicon.

Of course Obama is to blame, along with the other two makers of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy that began in June of 2008 and has now into its third year.

The point yours truly has been emphasizing since I contemporaneously called the POR Economy’s existence is that Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid caused the uncertainty to reach a tipping just over two years ago. On the jobs front, it’s been all downhill until very recently; improvements in recent months have been fitful at best.

Between May 2008, the best benchmark for measuring the terrible triumvirate’s uncertainy-induced recession and its aftermath (although I’m beginning to believe that further review may move the benchmark back to April) and October 2009, 7.845 million jobs were lost on a seasonally adjusted basis. During that time, the private sector lost 7.89 million jobs, while seasonally adjusted government employment increased — yes, increased — by 45,000. Of the 837,000 jobs added since the October 2009 trough, only 583,000 jobs have been in the private sector, an average of 73,000 per month. In normal recoveries, instead of this “Rebound? What Rebound?” recovery, that monthly number would be in the hundreds of thousands.

If they cared about creating jobs, the President, Pelosi, and Reid would do something to puncture the pervasive uncertainty. They haven’t. There’s no genuine indication that they really want to. Doing so would get in the way of their statist agenda.

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Side note: Inmelt’s comments are so pathetically hypocritical it’s hard to know where to begin. So many members of the Business Roundtable, but especially Inmelt and Jack Welch/GE alums like Bob Nardelli, have made it their life’s work to impose “the China price or else” on American manufacturers who couldn’t hope to match the Chinese Communists’ heavily subsidized bids. If the industrial base has deteriorated, it’s because too many of these multinational “citizens of the world” have been okay with exporting it instead of American-made products.

Far more men than women are out of work as the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy enters its third year. Why? And what can be done?

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Note: This column went up at Pajamas Media and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Friday. I have included two of the graphics in the body of the BizzyBlog version of the column that I merely linked to in the PJM original.

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Analysts didn’t have to scratch very far beneath the surface of the government’s July 2 report on the employment situation to find troubling news.

While the disappearing workforce and “lackluster” private sector job growth got most of the ink and bandwidth, what caught my attention was the renewed spike in the unemployment gender gap.

As recently as 2005, as seen below, the average unemployment rate for 20-and-over men was a bit lower than the rate for women (4.4% vs. 4.6%):

Also note that during the next two years, those rates were virtually identical.

As seen here, after small differences during the first half of 2008, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for men first exceeded that of women by over a half-point in July of that year:

It just so happens that this was the first month of the recession as normal people define it and the first full month of what I have been calling the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy since its inception.

By August 2009, the seasonally adjusted unemployment gender gap had grown to 2.5 points. It basically stayed there for the next three months, and then began to fall slowly. But in June, it widened again to 2.1 points (9.9% for over-20 males vs. 7.8% for over-20 females) from May’s 1.7 points (9.8% vs. 8.1%). Given what happened when the rates first significantly diverged two years ago, the resurgence of the gender gap may foreshadow the double-dip recession so many observers have begun to fear, even on the left.

While the degree of the male-female unemployment divergence is without precedent, it builds on a 30-year marketplace trend.

From 1948-1981, with only rare and tiny exceptions, the unemployment rate for women exceeded that of men, even during economic contractions. That changed during the early-1980s recession. In 1982 and 1983, average 20-and-over male unemployment bumped up against 9%, while female unemployment rose to just above 8%. Male-female differentials of similar size reappeared during the next two downturns in 1991-1993 and 2001-2003 even though they were far less severe. But in each case, the rates returned to rough equality when the economy improved.

At its worst, the “man-cession,” the informal term for the male-female unemployment differential, has often been 2-3 times as big during Obama’s term as any gap previously seen. It seems to be heading in that direction again.

Why did this happen?

In this recession, many of the jobs which were lost and in many cases disappeared forever were in male-dominated sectors like the automotive industry and construction; free but unfair trade and the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac-driven housing bubble have been key contributors to their respective declines. Meanwhile, certain fields which have traditionally had a higher percentage of women, including education and health care, continued to experience job growth or at least didn’t contract.

This job market reality, along with the government’s willingness until very recently to continually extend unemployment benefits to as many as 99 weeks, has likely led a disproportionate number of out-of-work men to avoid reconciling themselves to the need to switch to often lower-paying careers. Instead, while cashing their checks, many are still naively trying to find jobs that aren’t out there.

Now let’s look at root causes of the problem that have taken decades to develop. The overriding theme is that if education is destiny, American males on the whole appear destined not to do as well as females when times are bad:

• In 2006, the high school dropout rate, which was 1.5 points higher for girls in 1970, was 2 points, or almost 20% higher, for boys (10.3% vs. 8.3%).
• A 2007 study led by James Heckman of the University of Chicago asserted that “the pattern of the decline of high school graduation rates by gender helps to explain the recent increase in male-female college attendance gaps.”
• The gender gap in college attendance for at least the past several years has returned. In late April, Uncle Sam’s Department of Labor told us that after three years of almost gender enrollment by high school graduates (2006, 2007, 2008), 202,000 more women than men from the class of 2009 went on to college. Women make up almost 55% of the current year’s freshman class.

The situation with African-Americans, where male and female 20-and-over unemployment in June were 17.4% in 11.8%, respectively, explains almost one-third of the current 2.1-point gender differential, even though African-Americans make up only 12% of our population. Regrettably, that’s not surprising. On top of the overall trends just cited, second-rate urban public schools have had persistently high male dropout rates while poorly equipping those who do graduate for even the jobs they could do. It’s fair to surmise that conditions in these schools, when combined with the tragic peer pressure to avoid “acting white” by achieving good grades or even acting responsibly, have probably hurt African-American males more than their female counterparts. Other negative cultural influences haven’t been helpful either.

Given its size and causes, it’s fair to ask when — or even if — the current “man-cession” is going away.

Achieving that happy result will first require a return to genuine prosperity of the type the nation experienced during the mid- to late-1980s, mid- to late-1990s, and 2004-2007. The Obama administration’s current economic policies are on an often self-admitted path to high unemployment “for possibly years to come.” Many currently unemployed men, particularly the intractably low-skilled, won’t be getting back to work for quite awhile if the economy doesn’t significantly improve.

Other helpful developments would include a “you’ve come a long way baby” acknowledgment that the noble war for female gender equity and equality in the workplace has largely been won; calling off “The War Against Boys” that is still being fought at too many schools; and shrinking the size of the public sector so that private individuals and firms can create new products, services, and jobs instead of living in fear of what their government will do to them next.

The prognosis for all of this occurring soon: Very doubtful.

From the Vatican:

Jul 9, 2010 / 06:10 am

Further challenging claims of papal inaction in the face of Jewish persecution during World War II, a German historian conducting research in the Vatican archives has said that Pope Pius XII may have arranged for the escape of 200,000 Jews from Germany in the weeks after the Kristallnacht Nazi attacks.

Dr. Michael Hesemann based his claim on his research in the Vatican archives for the Pave the Way Foundation, a U.S.-based interfaith group, the Daily Telegraph reports.

He said that in 1938 the future Pope, who was then Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, wrote to Catholic archbishops around the world to urge them to apply for visas for “non-Aryan Catholics” and Jewish converts to Christianity who wanted to leave Germany.

Hesemann reported that additional evidence suggests that the visas would have been given to ordinary Jews to escape persecution.

“The fact that this letter speaks of ‘converted Jews’ and ‘non-Aryan’ Catholics indeed seems to be a cover,” Hesemann told the Telegraph.

“You couldn’t be sure that Nazi agents wouldn’t learn about this initiative,” he continued. “Pacelli had to make sure they didn’t misuse it for their propaganda, that they could not claim that the Church is an ally of the Jews.”

The letter was dated Nov. 30, 1939, 20 days after Kristallnacht, the “night of broken glass” when Jews were attacked in Germany. Cardinal Pacelli could request the visas because the 1933 concordat signed with the Nazi government specifically provided protection for Jews who converted to Christianity.

Dr. Ed Kessler, who is director of the Cambridge-based Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths, told the Telegraph “It is clear that Pius XII facilitated the saving of Roman Jews.”

While the wartime Pope is on the path to possible beatification and canonization, some Jewish groups have wanted the process stopped until the Vatican’s wartime archives are unsealed in 2014. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

In an editorial today, as “King James” moves to Miami:

While LeBron’s departure got extraordinary media attention, it is hardly unique. In the early 1990s, Ohio was the home of 43 Fortune 500 companies. Twenty years later the number is 24. Census Bureau data show that from 2004-2008 Ohio saw a net outmigration of $6 billion of income and some 97,000 taxpayers. Even Ohio’s famously liberal Senator, the late Howard Metzenbaum, moved to Florida late in his life to reduce his estate taxes.

We feel for Cleveland fans, but maybe they should allocate some of their wrath to the state politicians who keep driving high-income individuals and their businesses to financially sunnier climes.

Whether or not you think taxes partially motivated LeBron’s relo decision (I think not, but watch whether he sticks to his stated intention to continue living in Akron), the fact is that Ohio’s taxes and lousy business climate clearly ARE influencing others’ decisions to go elsewhere. Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, a Democrat, has even wistfully mentioned retiring to Florida and selling T-shirts.

Yet the indefensible status quo’s defenders, who have NO credible solutions of their own, continue to ridicule the idea of phasing out the state’s income tax. The questions they can’t and won’t answer are: How do Florida, and Texas, and the several other states that don’t tax income get by? If they do, why can’t Ohio? Given the outmigration and the need to genuinely turn things around, what good reason is there not to give it a shot?

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Separately: How is it that “King James” has a nickname, Kobe Bryant doesn’t, and Michael Jordan’s “Air Jordan” and less-often used “His Airness” faded as his career progressed? My theory: The prominence of a person’s nickname is inversely proportional to one’s ability to deliver NBA championships. Yeah, I think LeBron should have stayed, and his departure act was classless. This is not the same guy who at age 17 handled his team’s defeat at the hands of Cincinnati’s Roger Bacon High School in the 2002 Ohio State Championship game with exemplary sportsmanship:

James made a point of walking over to Roger Bacon’s bench during postgame ceremonies, where he slapped hands with Spartans coaches and players.

How sad that he’s so different.

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Related Fun with Numbers: The net outmigration stats cited work out to over $61,800 per taxpayer — not the people you want to be losing in large numbers.