At BigGovernment.com:

“Shock Audio: Facing ‘Obligations’ From Leadership, Democrat Congresswoman Leaves Voicemail for Lobbyist Cash”

The “Congresswoman” is actually DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who isn’t one of the 435 members of the House of Representatives, and doesn’t get to vote on final bills.

That clarification aside, the only other thing inaccurate about the headline is the word “Shock.”

Update: Holmes defends –

Her campaign also mentioned that Norton “is a longtime supporter of public financing of campaigns, but barring that, candidates from all parties regularly raise funds in calls by first identifying who they are and what they have done.”

In a voicemail message?

If you have to remind a friendly contributor of who you are what you have done, it may be an indication that you really haven’t done much.

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From LA’s City Controller (small PDF; HT Patterico):

CITY CONTROLLER RELEASES AUDITS OF HOW LOS ANGELES HAS USED FEDERAL STIMULUS MONEY
$111 Million in ARRA Funds Has Only Created 55 Jobs So Far

It’s even worse than that, if you look at the second paragraph of City Controller Wendy Greuel’s press release, and it’s not just a failure to properly round:

DPW has received $70.65 million and created or retained 45.46 jobs, though they are expected to create 238 jobs overall (the fraction of a job created or retained correlates to the number of actual hours works). LADOT has been awarded $40.8 million and created or retained 9 jobs, though they are expected to create 26 jobs overall. Overall, the Departments have received $111 million in federal stimulus funds out of the $594 million the City has been awarded so far and created or retained 54.46 jobs.

What slop. It’s possible that the $111 million has “created” nothing.

Greuel is a Democrat who appears to be doing a decent job of sniffing out waste and inefficiency. Here’s a home-run suggestion that would make her an instant national hero: Demand that the City reject the remaining $483 million in stimulus ($594 promised less $111 million received). They’re obviously incapable of accomplishing anything meaningful with the funds.

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Speaking of rejecting stimulus funds, here’s Warren County (Ohio) Commissioner Mike Kilburn’s take on taking stimulus money:

While some may argue that if the county doesn’t take stimulus money, another jurisdiction will, longtime Republican county commissioner Mike Kilburn said that’s the wrong way of looking at it since the funds are borrowed money and not tangible.

“It’s a big lie and it’s just taken this country down the wrong road,” he said. “I will not participate in driving this train off this track.”

… Kilburn, first elected in 1982, always votes no when it comes to stimulus dollars.

The country needs more Mike Kilburns.

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Within 24 hours of Christine O’Donnell’s win in Delaware’s GOP U.S. Senate primary, Harry Reid greatly improved her chances in the general election — twice:

Reid: Coons, ‘my pet,’ will win

But Reid said (New Castle County executive Mike) Coons would have won even if Rep. Mike Castle (R) had prevailed over O’Donnell.

“I’m going to be very honest with you — Chris Coons, everybody knows him in the Democratic caucus. He’s my pet. He’s my favorite candidate,” Reid said.

“Let me tell you about him: A graduate of Yale Divinity School. Yale Law School. A two-time national debate champion. He represents two-thirds of the state now, in an elected capacity. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him or heard him speak, but he is a dynamic speaker. I don’t mean loud or long; he’s a communicator. So that’s how I feel about Delaware. I’ve always thought Chris Coons is going to win. I told him that and I tried to get him to run. I’m glad he’s running. I just think the world of him. He’s my pet.”

I don’t expect that Mike “I’m a bearded Marxist” Coon would be an independent voice for the people of Delaware in the U.S. Senate.

Update: Then there’s this –

He uses the AAA bond rating of the County as proof of his fiscal conservatism but what he doesn’t tell you is that he raised taxes 3 times since he took the reigns in 2005.

In 2006 Chris proposed a 5% increase in property taxes that his Democrat controlled County Council passed instead of cutting spending.

Just a year later in 2007, Coons again had to initiate a tax increase. This time the bill was blown up by 17.5%. Again, he chose to raise taxes instead of working to reduce the cost of county government.

In 2009, amidst the height of “the worst recession since the Great Depression” Chris Coons brought yet ANOTHER tax increase to his Democratically controlled County Council. The result was a 25% increase in property taxes and not a DIME cut from the budget.

Looks like this is another Democrat who has never met a tax increase he doesn’t like.

Update 2: Statewide turnout in 2008 was 68%. Tuesday’s O’Donnell-Castle primary race drew almost double the turnout expected. If a large portion of the 32% who didn’t show up in 2008 come out this fall, it won’t be to support the Washington status quo.

From Washington:

September 11, 2010

An Army sergeant who exposed himself to intense enemy fire in an effort to save comrades in Afghanistan will be awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration, the White House announced Friday.

Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, 25, will become the first living recipient of the Medal of Honor from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Six medals of honor have been awarded posthumously from those conflicts.

Giunta will receive the award for his actions in response to an ambush in Afghanistan’s dangerous Korengal Valley on Oct. 25, 2007. Two U.S. soldiers were killed in the ambush and several others were wounded.

Giunta of Hiawatha, Iowa, was serving at the time as a team leader in Company B, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment when his squad was ambushed by insurgents, according to an account provided by the Army. His rank was specialist at the time.

Intense enemy fire from insurgents split Giunta’s team from the rest of his squad. Giunta was knocked down when a bullet hit him in his armored chest plate. He immediately charged straight into enemy fire in order to pull a comrade back to cover.

As he attempted to link his team with the rest of the squad, he saw insurgents drag a badly wounded colleague off the battlefield.

Go here for the rest of the story.

… my night (HT Military Times Blog via an e-mailer; short video is at link):

The calls for help came about 9:30 a.m. Wednesday: The crew of the Magellan Star, a German-owned shipping vessel in the Gulf of Aden, needed help after it was boarded by armed Somali pirates about 85 miles off the coast of Yemen.

The resulting operation will likely be a feather in the cap of the Marine Corps and its force reconnaissance community for years to come.

After a day of deliberations that reached senior White House and Pentagon officials, Marines with 2nd Platoon, Force Reconnaissance Company, out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., launched a daring early morning raid known as a VBSS, or visit-board-search-seize. Pushing off from the amphibious transport dock Dubuque at dawn Thursday, they stormed the ship without a shot being fired, taking nine suspected pirates prisoner, Marine officials said.

… The suspected pirates were all likely in their 20s and 30s, and some of them didn’t have shoes or shirts, Marines on board at the time of the raid said. After they gave up, their fear was obvious, said Capt. Alexander Martin, commander of the force recon platoon. They have been detained aboard the guided missile cruiser Princeton, Berger said, but officials would not immediately say where they may be taken next.

“As soon as the first stack of [Marines] made our way into the bridge, their hands were up, their weapons were down, they moved to their knees and they were compliant,” Martin said. “At that point, they were pretty scared. One guy actually defecated himself. … He sh– his pants. I don’t know if that can go on the news or not, but that actually happened.”

No, the video doesn’t show that.

From UCLA’s Anderson School of Management (HT Instapundit):

In its third quarterly report of 2010, the UCLA Anderson Forecast predicts “very sluggish growth” for the foreseeable future as the U.S. economy continues to recover from the recession. As for the California economy, the state is looking at a difficult period ahead as it attempts to regenerate not only the 1.3 million jobs lost during the recession but also create additional jobs needed for new entrants into the job market over the past two-and-a-half years.

(Senior economist David) Shulman also writes that, “the recovery from the balance-sheet recession is being exacerbated by an extraordinary increase in policy uncertainty, which is amplifying the usual economic uncertainties associated with recessions.” Simply put, he believes that the nation’s businesses are unsure of the implications of their investments — whether new hires or new computers — given the uncertainty surrounding tax, environmental, energy, financial, labor and health care policies.

“At present,” Shulman said, “business firms can only make the wildest guesses as to what corporate and individual taxes will be next year, and, for that matter, three years from now what the cost of health care will be, whether or not there will be a revived cap-and-trade policy with respect to carbon emissions or whether the Environmental Protection Agency will step in with regulations of their own absent a statute, and whether it will be easier or more difficult to hedge risks with financial derivatives.”

Given these factors, the Forecast expects very sluggish growth accompanied by high unemployment.

“As time passes,” Shulman said, “the economy will naturally heal and the policy uncertainties will resolve themselves to allow growth to return to a 3 percent path, causing unemployment to begin a long-awaited downward trajectory. We forecast that these more ebullient trends will become noticeable by 2012.”

The Forecast predicts the national unemployment rate will be 9.7 percent by year’s end and 9.5 percent in 2011.

Though I would like to be wrong, I think Shulman is overoptimistic about 2012, on two levels.

First, in terms of growth itself, the uncertainty may not sort itself out as easily as Schulman breezily assumes. As I pointed out in late July (“It’s the Uncertainty, Stupid”):

If you think the uncertainty is bad now, look at what’s coming. How many yet to be discovered daggers to personal and economic freedom lie in the thousands of pages of signed but largely unread legislation? How much more damage will be done when unelected, job security-conscious technocrats add tens of thousands of pages of regulations into the mix?

When you consider what the President’s czars and bureaucrats can do under near or actual cover of darkness to companies in general and targeted companies in particular, it’s not even certain that an earth-shaking “One Nation Under Revolt” election will solve this.

Second, the growth that does occur may continue to be in the government’s portion of GDP. As I noted in late August, since the beginning of the third quarter of 2008, the first full quarter of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy, the federal government’s GDP has grown by over 12%, while private sector GDP has shrunk by over 2% — and it’s only that “low” because Government/General Motors and Chrysler are still considered “private” entities as normal people would define it) in the economic statistics (which, of course, they aren’t). Note that the way “growth” stats are measured is dependent on measurements of “spending,” and presupposes that such spending is done rationally, in the sense of being in the spenders’ perceived best interests and not done wastefully (as perceived by the spender). If the past 20 months have shown us anything, it’s that we cannot assume that government money will be spent as Congress or even the administration intended, or that it is done efficiently.

The obvious solutions would be for the administration and Congress to:

• let the federal tax system we’ve had in place virtually unchanged during the past eight years stay in place indefinitely (this is usually referred to as “making the Bush tax cuts permanent”)
• abandon cap and trade.
• repeal ObamaCare.

This administration won’t even consider any of the three, proving despite all its rhetoric to the contrary that it values the pervasive atmosphere of uncertainty more than it values economic growth and job creation.

Note: Cassy Fiano at David Horowitz’s NewReal Blog “I wanted to spotlight just a few of the incredible heroes of that fateful day.” This is the final (go there for the full story) of five such tributes.

* * * * *

Ronald Bucca, New York Fire Marshal

Ronald Bucca served in the Army for 29 years, serving with the 101st Airborne during active duty. He served in the Special Forces, Green Berets and the Defense Intelligence Agency, and was promoted to Warrant Officer, U.S.A.R, in 2001. After being discharged from active duty, he went on to join the New York Fire Department in 1978, eventually becoming fire marshal. He continued to serve as a reservist in the Army’s Special Forces. He was a firefighter for 23 years, and would become New York’s only fire marshal ever to be killed in the line of duty.

The last I had seen Ron was on August 12, 2001, where I worked with him during a special operations mission exercise, (very similar to the events that were to unfold a month later). And since we were supposed to attend WOBC together in October, we were in constant contact. He was a great man, and someone who I began to mentor off of.

Ron responded to the WTC attacks on 9/11. He was heading towards the 74th floor of the second tower when he was separated from his supervisor, who went to help a woman out of the building. Shortly after that the towers collapsed, he was the only Fire Marshall missing until October 23, 2001. They recovered his body close to one of the stairwells. He is the first Fire Marshall to be killed in the line of duty.

Ron had saved a number of people, by assisting them in escaping from the building. Make no mistake, Ron knew what he was getting into when he entered that hell. Besides being in the MI field in the Army, Ron was also part of the terrorism task force in NYC. He even had plans in his locker of the WTC’s!. And saying all that, the man ran into the building. For those of you who have not had the opportunity to visit my city, or the downtown area, I can only tell you that it is a city onto itself. The man is a hero. …

… I’d say that the same clowns who convinced ORPINO (The Ohio Republican Party In Name Only) that its hideous new logo is cool might be the same guys who convinced the national Democratic Party to put a blue target on its back:

Ready, aim …

The “Leave a comment” form after each post doesn’t work right now. The pop-up comment form still works, so if you would like to leave a comment, please use that method. To do so, click on the “Comments (moderated)” link at the bottom right of any post where you wish to put up a comment. It may appear that your pop-up comment won’t post after you hit “Say it!” — but it will.

We’re still investigating the problem — or I should say that my web guy is.

This post at his blog proves it.

OK, the GOP’s candidate for Congress in OH-01 doesn’t seem to get hyperlinking, so I’ll help him out. I’ll go over the items in print editions of the Cincinnati Enquirer to which he referred, all of which I found online.

First, there’s “Number of Families in Shelters Rises” (published in the New York Times, presumably carried in the Enquirer’s print edition).

Chabot’s comment could have been written by yours truly (but wasn’t):

“It’s interesting that when Republicans are in power, the mainstream press can’t do enough stories about homelessness, and Republicans’ alleged failure to take action to curb it. But now that the Democrats are in charge, it almost never gets mentioned. I wonder why?”

(Aside: Who wants to bet that most of the increase occurred from 2008 to 2009, and that very little was from 2007 to 2008?)

Next, there’s “Record Poverty Increase Expected” (an Associated Press report, again presumably in the Enquirer’s print edition).

Yours truly commented on this AP report on Sunday. Chabot’s reax is that “the story speak(s) for itself.” Indeed. The news is bad, but what’s just as bad is the fact that AP’s reporters don’t focus on the pain. No-no-no. They focus on the political danger the Census Bureau’s poverty report poses for President Obama and the Democratic Party. What a disgrace.

Then Chabot asks, “And how are young people doing in the Pelosi/Reid/Obama economy?” — as he refers to this item (in USA Today, presumably in the September 7 print edition of the Enquirer) about the impact of the current economy on young people:

Only 47.6% of people ages 16 to 24 had jobs in August, the lowest level since the government began keeping track in 1948, according to the Labor Department. By comparison, 62.8% of that age group was employed in August 2000.

I have a Pajamas Media column coming out, hopefully on Thursday, on this very topic. This is a tragedy that threatens to become a permanent part of the landscape.

Finally, Chabot goes to this locally originated item in this past Sunday’s Enquirer. The article cites the impact of impending tax increases (bolds are mine; my excerpt differs from Chabot’s):

The most sweeping tax cuts in decades – for all income levels – are due to expire at year’s end. President Obama wants Congress to extend most of the cuts, except for individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples making more than $250,000.

The fear is for small business owners who include business income with personal income, a common arrangement that would push them over the tax ceiling.

“There’s no incentive for me to grow,” says Loveland restaurateur Howard Shokler, who owns and operates five Penn Station subway shops, including one he took over last December. His five restaurants do less than $2 million in annual revenue, and his income puts him close to the $250,000 ceiling – dampening any urge to open another shop. He employs 112 full- and part-time workers.

“Everybody in the business world is scared about what taxes are going to do,” Shokler says.

Local tax experts say even the smallest businesses could be affected.

Chabot’s reax: “… it makes no sense to be raising taxes on small business owners as Pelosi/Reid intend to do, if you’re serious about trying to create jobs for people.” But they’re not. He knows it, and anybody watching what these people do, and not what they say, knows it.

Chabot’s wrap:

So there you have it. The Party that likes to think of itself as the savior, defender and protector of the “little guy” is actually stepping on the little guy’s neck, and keeping him down. But there are a lot more “little guys” than big guys in this country, and they’re tired of being ignored, exploited, taken for granted, and out-and-out lied to by those who pose as their benefactors.

There’s a pretty good chance that about seven weeks from now (on Tuesday, November 2nd to be exact) a tsunami is coming, unlike anything we’ve seen in a long time. Power’s going to be taken from the arrogant likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and given back to the hard-working, God-fearing, family-loving, patriotic “little guys” who made this country the greatest nation on the face of the earth. And it can’t come soon enough. Remember in November.

I told you. He gets it. With the rarest of exceptions, he always has.

New York’s state of mind:

In New York, conservative Carl Paladino defeated Rick Lazio in the Republican gubernatorial primary to set up a November showdown with Democrat Andrew Cuomo, the son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo. Paladino received Tea Party support in defeating Lazio, who also was supported by some conservative groups.

Verb used at WaPo to describe the extent of Paladino’s win: “Crushed.”

That’s arguably more remarkable than Christine O’Donnell’s win in Delaware.

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Maryland House District 1 –

Club For Growth-backed Andy Harris won the Republican nomination a second time to take on Representative Frank Kratovil. Kratovil narrowly defeated Harris in 2008, but the surge of African American voters that helped carry him to victory that year seems unlikely to materialize, and Harris probably starts with a bit of an edge.

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Massachusetts House District 10 (from which Bill Delahunt is retiring) –

… Norfolk County DA Bill Keating won the Democratic primary by a narrow 51-49 margin – about 800 votes. Oddly enough, the last time this seat was open in 1996 the Democratic primary was close, and was decided by a recount fraught with fights over hanging and dimpled chads. On the Republican side, state Rep. Jeff Perry won the nomination. Perry has some baggage (as did his opponent, former Treasurer Joe Malone), but this district will be competitive. It’s the most heavily Republican district in Massachusetts, and Scott Brown won it handily in January.

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Massachusetts House District 4 — Sean Bielat, THE reason Barney Frank is all of a sudden telling people that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be abolished after cocooning them for decades when it mattered, won his GOP primary race.

Anybody who thinks Barney Frank isn’t concerned hasn’t been reading the tea leaves.

Just sent the following to info@ap.org and to what I believe is Martin Crutsinger’s e-mail address:

Dear AP:

I am requesting that AP follow its “News Values and Principles” statement and correct clear errors present in Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger’s 2:56 p.m. report on Monday, September 13 covering the federal government’s release of its August 2010 Monthly Treasury Statement.

These three statements from Mr. Crutsinger’s report (“Budget deficit on pace to hit $1.3 trillion”) are incorrect:

1. “Deficits of $1 trillion in a single year had never happened until two years ago.”

Deficits of $1 trillion in a single year never happened until one year ago (i.e., fiscal 2009).

2. “Through August, government revenues totaled $1.92 trillion, 1.6 percent higher than a year ago, reflecting small increases in government tax collections compared to 2009.”

While “government revenues” (a better term would be “government receipts,” as “revenues” is a term usually reserved for sales of goods and services) are up, they are not up because of increased tax collections. Tax collections have decreased by about 0.5%. “Government revenues” are up only because of increased deposits from the Federal Reserve of its profits on investments. These investment profits are not “tax collections.”

3. “(Federal) Spending has totaled $3.18 trillion, down 2.5 percent from the same period a year ago.”

“Spending” is defined as “pay(ing) out, disburs(ing), or expend(ing) funds.” Spending as properly defined is not down 2.5 percent; it is up 4.4%.

The only reason why what the government refers to as “outlays” is down is that the government made a $115 billion non-cash accounting entry in March reducing reported “outlays” (Mr. Crutsinger and the AP reported on this entry when it occurred). This entry was a de facto acknowledgment that fiscal 2009′s reported “outlays” were $115 billion too high. After reducing fiscal 2009′s “outlays” by $115 billion and increasing 2010′s by the same amount, fiscal year 2010 “spending” is really up by about 4.4% over fiscal 2009.

In the circumstances, Mr. Crutsinger could have remedied the need for delving into and explaining the details just described by referring to the “government’s reported outlays” instead of using the word “spending.”

For more details concerning the three errors just described, please refer to this post at my blog:
AP, Crutsinger Publish Three Clear Falsehoods in August Report on Deficit

If the AP takes its pledge that “we will not knowingly introduce false information into material intended for publication or broadcast” seriously, it will take appropriate action to correct these three clear and irrefutable errors, in accordance with its stated policies for handling them in “CORRECTIONS/CORRECTIVES.”

If these errors are not addressed, I will have to assume that the Associated Press only follows its “News Values and Principles” when it’s not inconvenient or uncomfortable to do so. If these errors are not addressed, I would request that AP take down its “News Values and Principles” statement, as it will be clear at that point that it is not an operative document.

I also expect AP, as a professional organization, to respond specifically to this request via return e-mail to me as to how it has chosen to address this corrections request.

The opening statement in your organization’s “News Values and Principles” statement says that “When mistakes are made, they must be corrected – fully, quickly and ungrudgingly.” I look forward to AP’s full, quick and ungrudging corrections of Mr. Crutsinger’s three clear mistakes.

Sincerely,

Thomas W. Blumer
BizzyBlog.com

Graphics supporting Item 2 above which appeared at the original post are here and here.

Note: Cassy Fiano at David Horowitz’s NewReal Blog “I wanted to spotlight just a few of the incredible heroes of that fateful day.” This is the fourth (go there for the full story) of five such tributes.

* * * * *

Leonard Hatton, FBI

Special Agent Leonard Hatton was on his way to work that morning when he saw smoke and fire coming from the North Tower of the World Trade Center. He responded immediately, even though he wasn’t even tasked with responding to the emergency. From the roof of the Mariott Hotel, he reported the second plane crashing into the South Tower.

He then entered one of the towers, helping to evacuate victims until the towers fell.

He radioed the F.B.I. and relayed what he was seeing, one of his supervisors recalled, “then tried to pitch in and help as best he could.”

For Mr. Hatton, 45, that meant going into the burning buildings and getting people out. “He didn’t have to do that, but that was my husband,” Mrs. Hatton said. “He joined right in with the fire department to help people and gave his life for it.”

Special Agent Hatton was a veteran of the Marine Corps, a volunteer firefighter, and had a wife and four children. …

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