Two items of good news: At last, WordPress 3 is installed and the pop-up-comment problem is cleared up. You can see your comment in the pop-up window immediately after you make it.

The bad news is that the problem with the comment box below each post is still there . It still doesn’t post, and still forwards you to another post.

So at least for now, commenters need to continue using the pop-up comment window ONLY, which you get to by clicking the “Comments (moderated)” link at the bottom right of each post.

Thanks to all readers for their patience, and thank goodness WP provides two ways to comment.

Your bailout dollars, uh, not at work (“Chrysler Workers Caught Boozing [and Smoking Pot])”; HT Hot Air and Doug Ross).

Here’s a “take it for what it’s worth” comment from a viewer printed in the story:

One viewer wrote, “Drugs and drinking take place at every plant I visited or worked at. Rob’s story (MyFoxDetroit reporter Rob Wolchek) was but the tip of the spear.”

If the workers are fired, they can always apply to serve on California Senator-for-now Barbara Boxer’s staff.

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The Ohio Chamber of Commerce has endorsed John Kasich, the first time the Chamber has endorsed an Ohio gubernatorial candidate in its history (HT Matt at WoMD).

Team Strickland is not pleased:

The Strickland campaign issued a statement saying the Ohio chamber supports free trade with China just as it says Kasich does. Strickland has said such an agreements (sic) cost Ohio jobs.

“Congressman Kasich can fight for Wall Streeters and outsourcers, Ted will fight for Ohio,” said Strickland communications director Lis Smith.

The national Chamber of Commerce definitely supports “free trade” with China.

As to Ohio’s Chamber, Lisa Renee at Glass City Jungle unearthed the following, purportedly from a Columbus Dispatch letter to the editor in August 2008 from the Ohio Chamber’s Vice President of governmental affairs entitled “Trade With China Isn’t taking Jobs, It’s Creating Them”:

… trade is not responsible for the loss of manufacturing jobs in Ohio. Quite the contrary. By participating in trade with foreign nations, Ohio is ensuring that tens of thousands of Ohioans can go to work each and every day to produce the goods the rest of the world demands. Trade is not a job killer; it is a job creator.

That’s really simplistic. Trade does kill certain jobs, particularly ones in manufacturing, and that really isn’t debatable. The questions are whether it ends up creating more overall jobs, and whether it increases income and wealth.

The answers to both questions are, at a minimum, “not always.” Then there’s the question of whether trade ends up creating net jobs in Ohio. It surely isn’t the open-and-shut case the Chamber’s letter-writer says it is.

More basically, trade with China is not free trade. It’s managed trade, because the Chinese government owns a majority stake in almost everything that’s important. As long as that is the case, trade with China serves an agenda beyond that of simple commerce, and carries risks that have long been ignored by the ruling class in both parties in Washington.

As to the claim that “Strickland Testimony Led To Tariffs On Chinese Steel That Have Helped Create (120) Ohio Jobs” let’s be sure everyone knows that the TMK IPSCO Steel Pipe facility had other costs for which taxpayers picked up the tab:

The Ohio Tax Credit Authority approved the Job Creation Tax Credit worth $872,000 over nine years Monday to help encourage the company to locate in Ohio. Ultra Premium will invest $10 million at the plant, including $9 million in equipment and $1 million for the building.

We can argue about whether the tax credits were worth it, but Team Strickland is being ingenuous when it doesn’t cite their existence.

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Well, since the ruling class’s representatives at the National Bureau of Economic Research aren’t satisfied defining the recession as normal people do (and won’t even stick to their own definitional standards), ruling class member Warren Buffett certainly is free to try to come up with his own definition, which is that we’ll be in one “until real per capita GDP gets back to where it was before.”

Under the Buffett definition, we’ve got a long way to go, because U.S. population growth has been about 0.9% per year since we crossed the 300 million threshold in October 2006. As long as this administration is running this economy, we may never get there.

Scheduling all statewide primaries just before or after Labor Day would improve the prospects of insurgents on the left and right. That would be a good thing.

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Note: This column first appeared at Pajamas Media and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Wednesday.

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Convincing victories by Tea Party-supported candidates September 14, especially in the Delaware and New York Republican primaries, have left many sensible conservatives in states which held earlier primaries rightfully jealous. The results of what may someday be known as “DE-NY Day” demonstrate that late primary schedules can enable determined challengers to accomplish the seemingly impossible against the supposedly entrenched. On the flip side, artificially early primaries in states like Ohio and Illinois have been pivotal elements in those states’ preferred-politician protection rackets.

In Delaware’s GOP Senate primary, Christine O’Donnell defeated heavily favored, establishment-sponsored, clearly non-conservative sore loser Mike Castle for many reasons. Surely one of the biggest was that she had time to get her message out. The mid-September primary date worked in her favor both on the ground and through the air, as she garnered critical talk radio and Internet support from influential conservatives Mark Levin, Michelle Malkin, and others. The summer campaign gave O’Donnell the opportunity to convince the party’s sensible conservative base of the importance of stopping Mike Castle, a career politician whose values and votes have clearly been out of touch for years.

As remarkable as O’Donnell’s triumph was over a bitterly hidebound GOP establishment — and over a cacophonous cadre of allegedly conservative political commentators and bloggers who deserve to be challenged as to whose side they’re really on — Carl Paladino’s defeat of Rick Lazio in New York’s Republican gubernatorial primary was in some ways even more impressive. It also probably depended even more on the Empire State’s late primary date. After all, New York is over twenty times the size of Delaware in population and land mass; you can’t just flip a switch and turn on a full-blown campaign operation. Rick Lazio was a reasonably popular former congressman who quixotically (in retrospect) took on Hillary Clinton in the state’s 2000 U.S. Senate race when Rudy Giuliani had to withdraw because of prostate cancer. Though the political differences between Paladino and Lazio weren’t nearly as stark as O’Donnell versus Castle, Paladino carried an astonishing 62% of the vote compared to O’Donnell’s 53% majority.

Delaware and New York voters should thank their lucky stars that their primaries took place after Labor Day instead of before Memorial Day. Insurgent attempts in much earlier primaries in Ohio and Illinois unfortunately had very different results.

In Ohio, primaries during non-presidential election years take place in May; in presidential election years, they are in March. This year, in the state’s U.S. Senate contest, both the Democratic and Republican Party establishments backed “non-controversial” candidates they viewed as “acceptable” in Lee Fisher and Rob Portman, respectively. The candidates and the parties both did everything they could to shut out respective challengers Jennifer Brunner and Tom Ganley almost before either could fire a shot. Fisher’s coronation has angered much of the Democratic base, clearly including Brunner. Though he is probably going to get their votes by default, Portman’s determined and troubling aloofness from the Tea Party has been obvious almost since his campaign began. Voters can be forgiven for feeling that their choice is between Tweedle-D and Tweedle-R. A September primary would have at least caused Fisher and Portman to break an ideological sweat.

Further down the ticket, the Ohio Republican Party, which I prefer to call ORPINO (the Republican Party In Name Only), cleared the field for pretend conservative Mike DeWine to run for Attorney General, while Tea Party-supported candidates for Secretary of State and Auditor got thumped by roughly 2-1 margins. Additionally, most insurgents seeking State Central Committee seats lost to go-along, get-along incumbents who deceptively pretended in their ORPINO-paid campaign literature to have “Tea Party Values.” Given four months’ time and what we all saw with our own eyes on DE-NY Day, it’s not unreasonable to believe that the results of a September Buckeye State primary, especially in those Central Committee races, might have been very different.

In the Illinois U.S. Senate race, the situation is even worse. The state’s primaries this year were in February. The absurdly early date enabled Congressman Mark Kirk, the GOP establishment’s favorite, to get away with voting “yes” for the same cap-and-trade law whose support arguably killed Castle’s Delaware Senate bid. There was simply not enough time for insurgent challengers to build momentum.

On the Democratic side in Barack Obama’s home state, it’s even worse. The self-evidently corrupt Alexi Giannoulias, who it should be noted is one of the few Democrats in the country still willing to be seen in the same zip code with Obama, was similarly able to keep more principled opposition at bay. One indicator that there is plenty of leftist resentment over Giannoulias’s coronation is that the Green Party’s candidate was polling at 9% just after Labor Day.

Primaries should not be taking place six or nine months before a general election. Our Founders would never have agreed with the idea that challengers in early-primary states must take 18-20 months out of their lives in anticipation of campaigning full-time until the general election. Many exceptional people who would make good candidates and might be able to carve out ten months or so simply can’t make a commitment twice as long because of personal and financial considerations. Unfortunately, to career politicians and their state party establishments, that’s a feature of early primaries, not a bug.

It is long past time for states with earlier primaries to schedule them later, preferably just before or just after Labor Day. If we must (it’s a separate debate), let’s leave the presidential primaries where they are, but, as many states already do, keep them separate from the other races. With sufficient grass-roots pressure, perhaps in 2011 — in time for 2012 — this change will come.

It’s also long past time for the we-know-better types in state parties to stop rigging primary campaigns, and, yes, for voters who haven’t yet woken up to pay consistent, closer year-round attention.

From Roanoke, VA (video is at link):

2:18 p.m. EDT, September 18, 2010

Gen. Lloyd Ramsey hadn’t seen the man who saved his life for nearly seventy years

t was a long time coming for two World War two veterans to finally see each other once again. After a Roanoke general missed a national reunion because of pneumonia, other vets came to him, including a Congressional Medal of Honor recepient who saved his life.

When retired army general and Roanoke resident Lloyd Ramsey last saw wire technician Bob Maxwell, he didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

Maxwell and Ramsey served in WWII in the European theater. Back then Ramsey was his colonel. One freezing night in Eastern France, both men came under fire inside a house.

“I was trying to get out of the house when they threw a grenade over the wall,” says Gen. Ramsey. “And Bob just took a blanket and fell on top of the grenade.”

“The only thing I could think about was try to find it and throw it back,” says Maxwell, who now lives in Oregon. “And while I was on the stone floor I realized my time was up and I better do something different.”

Saturday, the 3rd Infantry Division put together this reunion as General Ramsey recovers from pneumonia.

They talked about the war, about the night Maxwell risked his life and what they’re thankful for now.

“I remember the good things that happened,” says Maxwell. “I remember first of all I remember coming to and realizing I wasn’t dead.” …

Go here for the video and the rest of the story.

… so I don’t have to (HT RightOhio):

Original video: Chris Redfern Drops an F-Bomb on ObamaCare Opponents (obviously, there’s an F-bomb at the link)

(Yes, I know the Pledge is a House document. That’s beside the point in this instance.)

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Less than an hour ago, I copied the preamble to the GOP Pledge (full PDF is here) and suggested to its writers and supporting politicians that “Y’all had better mean it.”

If y’all mean it, I would suggest that you do something about this (especially alleged “Young Gun” Eric Cantor):

(the FEC date should presumably really be September 13)

The “something” you should do is return the money. Now. If GM won’t take it, give it to charity and prove that you did so.

Special note to Rob “How to Make a 20-Point Lead Disappear” Portman: Last week, I wrote –

Rob Portman is campaigning as if he’s entitled to our vote instead of having to earn it. He appears to be on his way to getting away with this strategy with an electoral majority. As of this moment, I won’t be among them. You still have to show me something, pal, and you haven’t.

You have no chance at my vote if this money isn’t returned. None. There is no defense for this.

I suggest that any readers who are upset as I am that a supposedly free enterprise-believing politician has accepted a significant political contribution from a state-owned entity run by statists not vote for Portman unless and until he returns its ill-gotten, corrupt money.

Hey Rob — Let us know when you do the right thing — if that wouldn’t be too much of a career risk. OK?

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UPDATE: I called both of Portman’s numbers (Columbus — 614-824-5513; Cincy — 513-444-4568) and spoke to someone at each number, leyting them know about this post and my current intentions. I suggest others do the same, or e-mail the campaign.

UPDATE 2, September 24: I spoke to a representative at Eric Cantor’s office, who informed me that Mr. Cantor plans to make an announcement about what he plans to do about the GM contirbution. Stay tuned.

If Jay Townsend loses to Chuckie Schumer, it will be by less than 10 points.

That’s right, I said “if.”

Nice job (full PDF is here).

Here’s the preamble:

America is more than a country.

America is an idea – an idea that free people can govern themselves, that government’s powers are derived from the consent of the governed, that each of us is endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America is the belief that any man or woman can – given economic, political, and religious liberty – advance themselves, their families, and the common good.

America is an inspiration to those who yearn to be free and have the ability and the dignity to determine their own destiny.

Whenever the agenda of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to institute a new governing agenda and set a different course.

These first principles were proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, enshrined in the Constitution, and have endured through hard sacrifice and commitment by generations of Americans.

In a self-governing society, the only bulwark against the power of the state is the consent of the governed, and regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not consent.

An unchecked executive, a compliant legislature, and an overreaching judiciary have combined to thwart the will of the people and overturn their votes and their values, striking down long- standing laws and institutions and scorning the deepest beliefs of the American people.

An arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites makes decisions, issues mandates, and enacts laws without accepting or requesting the input of the many.

Rising joblessness, crushing debt, and a polarizing political environment are fraying the bonds among our people and blurring our sense of national purpose.

Like free peoples of the past, our citizens refuse to accommodate a government that believes it can replace the will of the people with its own. The American people are speaking out, demanding that we realign our country’s compass with its founding principles and apply those principles to solve our common problems for the common good.

The need for urgent action to repair our economy and reclaim our government for the people cannot be overstated.

With this document, we pledge to dedicate ourselves to the task of reconnecting our highest aspirations to the permanent truths of our founding by keeping faith with the values our nation was founded on, the principles we stand for, and the priorities of our people. This is our Pledge to America.

We pledge to honor the Constitution as constructed by its framers and honor the original intent of those precepts that have been consistently ignored – particularly the Tenth Amendment, which grants that all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

We pledge to advance policies that promote greater liberty, wider opportunity, a robust defense, and national economic prosperity.

We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values.

We pledge to make government more transparent in its actions, careful in its stewardship, and honest in its dealings.

We pledge to uphold the purpose and promise of a better America, knowing that to whom much is given, much is expected and that the blessings of our liberty buoy the hopes of mankind.

We make this pledge bearing true faith and allegiance to the people we represent, and we invite fellow citizens and patriots to join us in forming a new governing agenda for America.

Y’all had better mean it.

Link:

Key quotes:

• Sarah Palin — “I didn’t get into the government to do the safe and easy thing.”
• Michelle Malkin — “And I think it’s that sense of fierceness that American women have has been reawakened.”
• Ann Coulter — “The culture has tried to take everything that makes women so strong away from them.”

Note: This item went up at the Washington Examiner’s OpinionZone blog on Tuesday and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Wednesday.
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In April, House Republican Leader John Boehner raised a few eyebrows when he made this statement:

When pressed for a number, Boehner said he believed the GOP could win as many as 100 seats in this fall’s elections.

“At least 100 seats,” Boehner said when asked how wide the playing field for districts is. “I do,” the top House Republican answered when asked if he thinks there are 100 seats in the U.S. “that could change hands.”

Of course, the operative word was “could,” and it still is. But the playing field for possible seat changes, which is what Boehner was referencing at the time, didn’t seem nearly as wide as Ohio’s 8th District Congressman claimed (to perhaps stretch Boehner’s defense a bit, some seats currently held by Republicans could “change hands” if won by Democrats).

Now it does it seems to be getting pretty close to Boehner’s three-digit figure — or at least closer to 100 than to 50.

Consider:

• In Ohio, it’s pretty much a given that six Democrats are vulnerable, but so is the Toledo area’s Marcy Kaptur. A week ago, Kaptur’s Libertarian challenger Joe Jaffe dropped out of the race and threw his support to Republican Rich Lott because “I feel, and a lot of people feel, he has a chance of winning.” Kaptur is fighting the negative impact of connections with the PMA lobbying group and the appearance of a $3.5 billion (that’s right, with a “b”) payoff in return for her support for cap and trade legislation last year.
• The Associated Press wrote on September 10 that “Dems could lose 8 Empire State seats in US House.”
• In Michigan, Pollster Steve Mitchell writes that “Democrats are in real trouble in Michigan and could lose up to three Congressional seats.” His list does not include John Dingell, who infamously described how difficult it is to “control the people” and get them to comply with ObamaCare, and over whom the Democrats are openly fretting.
• About Pennsylvania, Investors Business Daily’s Jed Graham writes: “Having swung from a 12-7 Republican advantage after the 2004 elections to a 12-7 Democratic advantage after 2008, the Pennsylvania House delegation may do a reverse flip in 2010.” Chalk up at least another five seats clearly in play.

That’s 24 seats in only four states (OH-7, NY-8, MI-4, PA-5) with only about 17% of the nation’s population.

It’s still quite a ways to 100, and from here the math gets shakier, but it’s still quite supportable.

Nine seats in states other than the four just mentioned were held by retiring Republicans and then won by Democrats in 2008. Nine seats were lost by Republican incumbents in states other than the four just mentioned. Clearly, given the changes in the political landscape, most if not all of those Democrats should be vulnerable.

If all of these races identified thus far end up going to Republicans, that’s just above the 40 needed for control of the House to change.

Beyond that, I would suggest that any Democrat who won with a margin of less than 10% last time and has a credible challenger should be sweating — profusely. Those who won by 15% and are in competitive races also shouldn’t be sleeping very well. That’s a lot of Democrats.

A more detailed look would be in order further down the road, but when Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank is acting and campaigning as if he’s worried (because he should be), you know there have to be scores of other Democratic incumbents who are concerned about how big their District’s 2010 Tea Party-driven wave will be.

John Boehner’s optimistic April assertion may turn out to have been much more than wishful thinking.

So what’s more important: The fact that independents are as “upset” as Republicans, or that Americans’ disapproval of how President Obama is handling the economy is at an all-time high?

Here’s another priority-related question: Is it more important that “independents and Republicans were half as likely as Democrats to be inspired and less prone to be hopeful, excited and proud,” or that Republicans are now more trusted than Democrats in handling the economy, representing a 10-point swing (from -5% to +5%) in just three months?

If you’re the Associated Press’s Alan Fram and Jennifer Agiesta reporting on your own poll — an AP-GfK poll found in full at this link (click on “September 8th – September 13th 2010 – AP-GfK Poll Topline” when you get there) — you would apparently say that the first alternatives in each question are more important, even though terms like “upset,” hopeful,” excited,” and “proud” are subjective, and the items that trigger these emotions will vary widely among survey respondents.

Why, if I didn’t know better (I think I do), I’d say that Agiesta and Fram filtered out the worst of the bad news for Democrats in favor of the touchy-feely stuff.

Here are several paragraphs from the AP pair’s report:

AP-GfK Poll: Independents as upset as Republicans

More bad news for Democrats clinging to control of Congress: Independent voters are nearly as grumpy as Republicans about politics this year.

In an Associated Press-GfK Poll this month, 58 percent of independents and 60 percent of Republicans said politics is making them angry, compared with 31 percent of Democrats who said so. About 7 in 10 independents and Republicans were disgusted, compared with 4 in 10 Democrats, and independents and Republicans were likelier than Democrats to be disappointed, depressed and frustrated.

As for positive emotions, independents and Republicans were half as likely as Democrats to be inspired and less prone to be hopeful, excited and proud.

The figures are the latest cautionary note for Democrats, who face a Nov. 2 Election Day in which the sluggish economy and President Barack Obama’s tepid popularity give Republicans a strong chance to capture control of the House and perhaps the Senate. They also help explain why independents, who can be pivotal in many congressional races, prefer their GOP candidate over the Democrat by 52 percent to 36 percent – which grows to 62 percent to 29 percent among independents considered likeliest to vote.

Well, I guess we should give the two reporters credit for finally getting to something substantive at the end of the fourth paragraph — by which time a number of readers will have tired of the focus on emotions.

Now let’s look at some of the meat Fram and Agiesta chose to ignore.

By a margin of 58-42, respondents disapproved of how President Obama is handling the economy:

As you can see, that’s up from a virtual tie just six months ago.

By that same 58-42 margin, respondents disapproved of the president’s handling of unemployment, an 18-point swing from six months ago:

Perhaps most damning, the majority of those polled who say that Obama “understands the problems of ordinary Americans” is the narrowest ever, and miles lower than it was at the beginning of the year:

My guess, based on the timing presented as to when the question has been asked, is that AP-GfK was hoping for a better September result than they got.

After inexplicably narrowing in August, respondents’ net unfavorable impression of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is 23 points:

This would seem to explain why congressional candidates are running away from her. Voters should remember that “Dems Deserve No Distance” from Pelosi, Obama, or Harry Reid if they are up for reelection and voted for one of the following: the failed stimulus plan, cap and trade, or ObamaCare.

Finally, Republicans have gained the upper hand in respondents’ trust on handling the economy for the first time since Obama has been president:

Each one of the five findings I presented is far more important than the deep dive the poll took into nebulous emotions. Readers will surely find several others that would also qualify as more important if they go to the complete poll.

Tellingly in my view, the poll presents no prior information on respondents’ emotions other than for “happy.” I believe that the September poll was the first time most emotion-related questions were asked — which is further evidence that the AP and GfK were looking for any kind of polling “news” that would give them an excuse for not delivering the data readers have a right to expect.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From an Investors Business Daily editorial with which I otherwise mostly agree:

General Motors hopes to attract foreign cash at its IPO, set for November. That’s not surprising, given low interest here in the U.S. — a result of government turning the once-mighty company into a political prop.

As GM readies its first IPO since its $49.5 billion federal bailout, one shudders to see the Chinese perhaps lining up to buy a stake. Not that there’s anything wrong with foreign ownership in a company. But GM isn’t really a company — it’s a semi-government entity run by Washington. And its most important output now isn’t cars, but political influence.

From China’s point of view, letting SAIC, its government-owned partner of GM, buy GM stock makes some sense. From their foreign reserves of more than $2 trillion, they can earn 3% to 4% from Treasury bonds — or a comparable amount from GM, with the added kick of political influence in Washington.

I agree that there’s nothing necessarily wrong with “foreign ownership in a company.”

There’s plenty wrong with a foreign government-controlled entity taking ownership of a company.

The foreign government-controlled entity’s goals are likely to be something other than maximizing shareholder value. No one can say for sure what those interests are, but from a strictly economic point of view, any goals that distract from maximizing shareholder value are counterproductive.

Beyond that, there’s a question of possibly hostile motivations. Does the Chinese company, coming from a land where respect for intellectual property rights is weak, want to take GM’s trade secrets so they can be used by other Chinese state-controlled companies to build better cars and stunt GM’s growth in China? Does GM have technology with military applications? Will the Chinese company sell GM state-subsidized parts — or even bring in whole cars — to undermine the US market and steal market share from its competitors?

We don’t know. As was the case with CNOOC’s attempt to buy Unocal five years ago, we shouldn’t find out.