Just look at this ruthless, heartless, critique of our dear President:

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle.

Who is the ignorant, conservative, RAAAAAcist Tea-Partying pundit who wrote this trash?

Well, it’s … uh … uh … Mark Halperin at Time Magazine (“Why Obama Is Losing the Political War”; HT To Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters, where the headline is “Time Magazine Shocker: Obama In Way Over His Head”).

I told ya, 2-1/2 years ago. The third- and fourth-last letters of yours truly’s acronym (Mr. “BOOHOO-OUCH”) stood for, and still stand for, “Objectively Unfit.” He remains so. Halperin is merely confirming the obvious.

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Jihadi child abuse and deliberate child endangerment — From Jerusalem (HT Atlas Shrugs):

The children’s role was to provoke Be’eri (an Israeli archaeologist) into killing or injuring them by attacking him with rocks (and having him retaliate). The photographers’ role was to photograph the children getting killed or hurt.

Read the whole thing.

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Promises, schmomises (HT Hot Air):

Representatives Steve Driehaus of Ohio, Suzanne Kosmas of Florida and Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania were among the Democrats who learned that they would no longer receive the same infusion of television advertising that party leaders had promised. Party strategists conceded that these races and several others were slipping out of reach…

Cue up the band to play “Good-bye, Stevie” at about 11 p.m. on November 2.

I’d like to see an encore in the OH-31 State Rep race. It’s a tough district for anyone with an “R” by his name to win, but if it’s possible in any year, this would be the one. Mike Robison is a far superior candidate on the issues –especially compared to the incumbent, Steve Driehaus’s sister Denise.

Denise will say that she’s pro-life, and she’ll wave around her answers to this pro-life questionnaire as “proof.”

But as I explained two years ago in the case of her brother (“Steve Driehaus is NOT Prolife”), a politician cannot legitimately claim to be pro-life if he or she voted for and actively supported Barack Obama in 2008 as long as they were aware of his positions and record on life-related matters. On the assumption that Ms. Driehaus’s Wiki entry is correct about her being a Roman Catholic, and that she was aware of Obama’s stridently anti-life positions, Church doctrine, as expressed in layman’s terms here, could not be more clear:

4. If I have strong feelings or opinions in favor of a particular candidate, even if he is pro-abortion, why may I not vote for him?

… neither your feelings nor your opinions are identical with your conscience. Neither your feelings nor your opinions can take the place of your conscience. Your feelings and opinions should be governed by your conscience. If the candidate about whom you have strong feelings or opinions is pro-abortion, then your feelings and opinions need to be corrected by your correctly informed conscience, which would tell you that it is wrong for you to allow your feelings and opinions to give lesser weight to the fact that the candidate supports a moral evil.

14. Is it a mortal sin to vote for a pro-abortion candidate? (the answer which follows clearly also applies to active public support — Ed.)

Except in the case in which a voter is faced with all pro-abortion candidates (in which case … he or she strives to determine which of them would cause the let damage in this regard), a candidate that is pro-abortion disqualifies himself from receiving a Catholic’s vote. This is because being pro-abortion cannot simply be placed alongside the candidate’s other positions on Medicare and unemployment, for example; and this is because abortion is intrinsically evil and cannot be morally justified for any reason or set of circumstances. To vote for such a candidate even with the knowledge that the candidate is pro-abortion is to become an accomplice in the moral evil of abortion. If the voter also knows this, then the voter sins mortally.

Update: From Rothenberg Political Report (HT to a COAST e-mail) —

Media sources in the Cincinnati media market confirmed to the Rothenberg Political Report this morning that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has cancelled its media buys after this week.

… The DCCC has cancelled all of its reserved time at WKRC, the CBS affiliate in the market, for the weeks of October 19 and October 26. The Committee pulled over $200,000 worth of reserved time. The Committee also cancelled its time (over $75,000 worth of time) for those two weeks at WLWT, the NBC affiliate.

… Other Democrats could face the same fate in the next 24 hours, since the deadline for cancelling reserved time is fast approaching.

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Pamela Geller at BigGovernment.com — “Foreign Contributions: Investigating Obama.”

As I noted in November 2008 (Pajamas Media; BizzyBlog), based largely on work Geller originally did, “The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been and may still be accepting credit-card and prepaid-card contributions from overseas. … it is likely that the total dollar amounts involved run in millions, if not tens of millions, of dollars.”

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Remember this the next time a leftist spouts crap about opening up the voting process and making it easier:

More Disgrace: … DOJ’s complete failure to ensure that military voters get their 2010 ballots on time.

There’s only one reason for this: Military members tend to vote Republican. DOJ is deliberately standing by why many states are failing to carry out their lawful duties, or is granting bogus requirement waivers based on non-excuses, or both. That Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is a rogue agency is no longer a debatable matter.

Update: There’s a reason Chuck Schumer is the guy being quoted in this story about failures by New York electoral boards to get military ballots sent overseas on time. This is the reason.

From San Jose Mine, Chile:

Jeff Hart was drilling water wells for the U.S. Army’s forward operating bases in Afghanistan when he got the call to fly to Chile.

He spent the next 33 days on his feet, operating the drill that finally provided a way out Saturday for 33 trapped miners.

“You have to feel through your feet what the drill is doing; it’s a vibration you get so that you know what’s happening,” explained Hart, a contractor from Denver, Colorado.

A muscular, taciturn man with callused hands and a sunburned face, Hart normally pounds rock for oil or water.

He’s used to extreme conditions while he works the hydraulic levers that guide the drills’ hammers.

But this was something different — 33 lives were depending on him.

“I was nervous today,” said Hart, 40.

He joked that he thought it was his heart stopping when he felt an unexplained “pop” just before the drill broke through into a chamber far underground. “I didn’t want anything to go wrong.”

Within hours after the gold and copper mine collapsed Aug. 5, Chile’s government realized the mine’s owners were ill-equipped to handle the rescue and asked the state-owned Codelco mining company to take the lead.
Codelco turned to Geotec Boyles Bros., a U.S.-Chilean company, to handle the “Plan B” escape shaft, one of three simultaneous drilling efforts that raced to reach the miners.

Geotec operations manager James Stefanic said he quickly assembled “a top of the line team” of drillers who are intimately familiar with the key equipment, including engineers from two Pennsylvania companies — Schramm Inc., which makes the T130 drill, and Center Rock Inc., which makes the drill bits.

Hart was called in from Afghanistan, “simply because he’s the best” at drilling larger holes with the T130′s wide-diameter drill bits, Stefanic said. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

This post originally appeared on March 24.

What John Dingell says in the audio clip below proves that this election really is about liberty v. tyranny.

John Dingell does not deserve reelection by the people in his district. In fact, by his statement, he disqualifies himself, because his stated goal is not to represent them, but to control them.

Voter in Michigan’s 15th District need to reject Dingell once and for all and turn to Rob Steele. That would be Doctor Rob Steele.

++++++++++++++++++

Well, There It Is: It’s All About Control

Of course, it’s about “control(ling) the people.” Anyone who has studied and followed the far left has known this for decades.

But John Dingell just said so. Anyone who hears this clip can no longer claim ignorance.

Answering a brilliant left-imitating rhetorical question from Paul W. Smith (more info here) at Detroit’s WJR, Dingell explains why many ObamaCare items don’t take effect until 2014 (HTs to Michelle Malkin and Hot Air):

Partial Transcript:

Paul W. Smith: Are we readly to let 72,000 more people die in our country, if 18,000 died, or whatever the number is, a figure that anyone comes up with, per year because of a lack of health insurance or health care, when this bill doesn’t basically take effect until 2014?

John Dingell: Paul W, we’re not ready to be _____ (can’t recognize the word–Ed.). But let me remind you that this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.”

The rest of what Dingell says has to do with the GOP’s supposed lack of alternatives. Horse manure.

House Republican Leader and Ohio 8th District Congressman John Boehner, in his speech on Friday (via Matt at Weapons of Mass Discussion; full vid is here; full transcript is here):

Text:

Ladies and gentlemen, your government hasn’t been listening.

Your government is disrespecting you, your family, your job, your children.

Your government is out of control.

Do you have to accept it? Do you have to take it?

HELL NO YOU DON’T!

Following up on yesterday’s post (“Government/General Motors, UAW Hose Long-Time Members Twice in Two Weeks”; at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) — What a “revolting” development this is, as reported in the Detroit News:

GM Orion assembly workers to picket UAW over two-tier wage structure

In an unprecedented move, Government/General Motors and the UAW are imposing a two-tiered wage structure involving pay cuts approaching 50% on union members with as many as 10-12 years of seniority. That’s right; the Democratic Obama administration and the alleged champions of workers’ interests are acting in concert to gut the earnings of hundreds of the union’s longtime, dues-paying members.

Does anyone expect any press coverage of this outside of Detroit?

Here’s more from the story by Louis Aguilar and Christina Rogers:

GM Orion assembly workers to picket UAW over two-tier wage structure

Some unhappy hourly workers at General Motors Co.’s Orion Assembly Plant plan to demonstrate outside the United Auto Workers international headquarters next weekend against a two-tier wage deal they contend could impose lower starting wages on some veteran workers. (“Could” should at least read ” probably will.” It seems that the only way it wouldn’t happen is if all Tier 2 workers refuse to return. — Ed.)

… Local 5960 member Juan Gonzales confirmed plans for a demonstration seeking repeal of the two-tier wage agreement, under which about 60 percent of the workers will be paid $28 an hour, while others with less experience could earn $14. The bulletin asks participants to bring picket signs and petitions.

The rally reflects divisions in the labor movement. UAW leaders want to save as many jobs as they can and insist they are protecting workers’ wages.

Some workers fear the UAW is creating a loophole that will eventually force lower pay on veteran workers and want to protect the higher-paying positions.

… “There is a better way to go about doing this than forcing people to go to Tier 2,” (UAW member Nick) Waun said. “This sets a new precedent; we’re afraid this will be (repeated) at other plants around the country in the next contract.”

A labor analyst agrees.

“Orion looks to be a big moment that can cause major problems for the company and the union further down the line,” said Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

I will suggest that if the UAW through its health plant weren’t a partial owner of GM, it would never have considered this move.

I will also suggest that the UAW would never have negotiated this kind of deal with a company not controlled by the government. Let’s be clear: President Obama and his car czars are perfectly fine with the idea of cutting the pay of less-senior but more than likely equally capable workers at the plant in the name of more senior members keeping their gold-plated package of wages and benefits. What in the heck ever happened to “equal pay for equal work”?

I will also suggest that if Ford or another major UAW shop had even proposed something like this, politicians would have been running to microphones in droves to denounce management greed and worker oppression, and that the news coverage would be national in scope.

As it is, I expect stone silence from the alleged champions of labor and a virtual media blackout as the a labor union and the government engage in practices which I contend most private employers would never even consider attempting, or even attempt to consider.

Prove me wrong, guys and gals.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

At the UK Telegraph (HT Moonbattery) — “Professor Emiritus Hal Lewis Resigns from American Physical Society”:

… the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare.

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PJM Blogger Zombie, in a comment at the “This Week in Eugenics” post last week:

Eugenics is the gateway drug for totalitarianism.

Statist health care is the gateway to eugenics.

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The second round of quantitative easing, i.e., QE2, is for all practical purposes a done deal (“Fed Undaunted by Uncertain Prospects for Money Printing”).

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When You’ve Lost Bob Schieffer … “Schieffer Mocks Axelrod: Is Complaining About GOP Ad Dollars ‘The Best You Can Do?’”

Regarding foreign campaign contributions that have actually occurred, here’s a reminder from November 2008 (Pajamas Media; BizzyBlog):

The Obama Campaign’s Credit-Card Crack-up

A breakdown of controls has enabled foreign and other unaccountable funds to pour into the Obama campaign — and it’s not an accident.

The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been and may still be accepting credit-card and prepaid-card contributions from overseas. It has done so in a way that may very likely prevent it from refunding the contributions to “donors,” many of whom may have had their credit cards used without their consent. It’s virtually impossible that the system for accepting card contributions was inadvertently set up without adequate controls, and almost certain that existing controls were instead deliberately disabled to create untraceability. Finally, it is likely that the total dollar amounts involved run in millions, if not tens of millions, of dollars.

Pamela Geller and commenters at Atlas Shrugs (examples here and here) did most of the heavy lifting.

Michael Barone: “The Obama campaign was happy to encourage mass illegal donations from foreign nationals. Now it’s making baseless charges that its opposition is doing the same thing. Hope and change!”

From Newton, NC:

Oct 10, 2010 / 01:14 pm (CNA).- Every Saturday a small clinic, tucked away inside the parish hall of St. Joseph Church in Newton, N.C., opens its doors to uninsured people who can’t get medical care anywhere else. The waiting room – once not much more than a storage closet – quickly fills up with people hoping to see the doctor, Dr. Douglas Miller.

St. Joseph’s Good Samaritan Clinic has served more than 4,000 people since it opened 15 years ago. That’s about 20-24 people each Saturday, Miller estimates. The clinic doesn’t
ask for payment; patients may give a $5 donation, if they like.

Miller and Miguel Caraballo, both parishioners at St. Aloysius Church in Hickory, worked together to open the indigent clinic after Caraballo prayed to Jesus, asking for help for the Hispanic community. Caraballo was seeing Hispanics neglect their health because they had no means to pay a doctor or because they could not speak adequate English.

The only place they could turn to was the local hospital’s emergency room.

One day while praying in church, Caraballo says, he heard the word “sacrifice” come from the altar, although no one else was present. His mother-in-law, who worked for Miller, urged him to talk with the doctor.

Miller says he was initially hesitant about the idea of an indigent clinic. He already worked long hours at the local hospital, and he and his wife had 12 children. Volunteer work wasn’t on his agenda. But in prayer, he realized how the Lord had blessed him and his family, and it was time to give back in thanks to God.

Now, he says, his medical profession is rewarding, but nothing compares to his appreciative Hispanic patients, who offer up prayers for him and his family. He cherishes their prayers. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Indy and Orion Twp., Mich. Situations Make Mockery of “Solidarity”

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Solidarity, schmolidarity.

It was one thing when the United Auto Workers agreed many years ago to temporary “two-tiered” wage structures at the plants of Detroit’s Big Three automakers. After all, it was argued, they’ll be brought up to a level of full pay and benefits in several years, and new employees aren’t as productive as the veterans.

It was another thing when the UAW agreed, as noted several months ago (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), that new hourly employees would start out at lower levels of pay and stay there. After all, it was argued, the newbies are coming in of their own free will, and know the score going in.

But in two separate instances in the past several months, the UAW has crossed lines once believed unthinkable. In one case in Indianapolis that was clearly pre-planned at the time of the company’s bankruptcy filing, it told members at at Government/General Motors plant that it would shut down unless everyone accepted a 46% pay cut to accommodate a company that wished to buy it (the members said no, and the plant is slated to close). Then, in an even more blatant betrayal, it agreed with GM that about 60% of veteran workers at a reopening plant in Orion Township, Michigan, for the purpose of making small cars will get paid about 48% less than the rest, purely based on seniority.

Why, if you didn’t know better, you’d think that the UAW is starting to act like the false stereotype of a greedy, selfish capitalist instead of as an entity that is supposed to be looking out for the well-being of all of its members.

Oh, wait a minute: The UAW is an owner, through its health care plan, of a 17.5% stake in GM. I guess that’s enough to justify throwing its decades-old tradition of “solidarity” out the window. It must be, because that is what has happened.

Press treatment of these two situations has been predictably kid-glove. Very few outside outside of Indianapolis are aware of the first situation described above (though Rush Limbaugh did mention it when it was at an earlier stage a couple of months ago). Here are a few paragraphs from the Associated Press’s coverage of the situation.

The potential buyer for a General Motors stamping plant in Indianapolis has dropped its bid after workers overwhelmingly rejected pay cuts it sought.

The 457-96 vote against the concessions also was a repudiation of a deal national United Auto Workers officials had backed in hopes of keeping the factory open after GM announced last year it planned to shut it down in 2011.

But local union leaders opposed the offer from Addison, Ill.-based JD Norman Industries, which would have cut base pay at the plant from $29 an hour to $15.50.

“The contract they offered us wasn’t a contract,” UAW Local 23 bargaining chairman Gregory Clark told The Indianapolis Star after the vote was announced Monday. “It just gutted everything we had come to know as a contract between employers and employees.”

GM has been planning to close or sell the 2 million-square-foot plant west of downtown Indianapolis for three years. The plant now has about 640 hourly workers and state officials had offered Norman Industries $2 million in tax incentives if that grew to a promised 1,900 jobs.

… The plant is owned by Motors Liquidation Co., which GM set up during its 2009 bankruptcy to take over discarded property.

By keeping the plant inside “Old GM” during bankruptcy, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, in concert with the government, threw the Indy workers under the bus. (Yes, I understand that there’s something to be said for the members being foolish for allowing the plant to close, but that’s a discussion for other posts.)

As to the Orion Township plant, in a blatant oversight that doesn’t look accidental from here, the AP’s Tom Krisher “somehow” forgot to tell readers in his October 7 story about the plant’s reopening that seniority was the basis for determining who got the 48% pay cut:

General Motors and the United Auto Workers have reached a cost-cutting deal that could help accomplish what once seemed impossible: Making a profit on small cars built in the United States.

The deal, announced Thursday, could cut in half the hourly wage of some longtime UAW workers at a factory in Orion Township, Mich. It’s the first time the union has agreed to a pay cut for workers who are not new hires.

A revamped subcompact, the Chevrolet Aveo, will be built at the plant starting next year. The plant is currently closed.

Most other automakers, including GM’s main rival Ford Motor Co., build subcompacts in Mexico or other countries with far lower labor costs. U.S.-based automakers have struggled for years to make money on small cars.

Subcompacts generally start around $14,000, so they don’t generate enough cash to cover the traditional UAW labor costs.

The plant, which was closed in November 2009, will employ 1,550 blue-collar and salaried employees. Under the wage deal, 40 percent of the line workers will be paid $15 an hour. The remaining 60 percent will make traditional UAW wages of around $29 an hour.

GM has about 3,500 laid-off workers who have yet to be recalled to factory jobs. Once 60 percent of Orion’s workers are recalled, UAW members who are still on layoff will get the option of working for $15 an hour or staying on layoff.

If GM doesn’t get enough laid-off workers to fill the lower-paying jobs, the automaker can hire new people for $15 an hour.

For the record, Christina Rogers at the Detroit News told her readers on Tuesday who gets to keep making the big bucks, and who gets the shaft:

The United Auto Workers and General Motors Co. have agreed to a two-tier wage structure for recalled workers at the Orion Township plant, a move that will help the automaker make a profit on the new Chevrolet Aveo going into production next year.

The agreement is specific to the Orion assembly plant, where the Aveo will be built. The UAW and GM agreed a year ago that there would be separate labor agreements for small-car plants. Details of the Orion contract were just made public to workers.

The deal affects UAW Local 5960 members and calls for paying about 60 percent of the 1,300 workers recalled to the plant the traditional tier-one wage of $28 an hour with benefits. The remaining 40 percent will get a tier-two wage of about $15 an hour; the split will be based on seniority.

… When it announced it would restore jobs at the plant last year, GM said the move was possible because of a recently modified agreement making it now “possible for GM to produce these size vehicles in the U.S. in a cost competitive and profitable way.”

… (Plant worker Jose) Facundo said he and other workers were infuriated by the deal because GM workers with 11 years or less seniority have been suddenly told they are going to be paid the tier-two or $15 wage.

“It’s outrageous, and we never voted on this,” said Facundo, who has 10 years of seniority.

Again, as noted earlier, I understand the argument that people in this economy should be grateful for having any job, and $15 an hour isn’t too shabby. But this deal is coming from a union and a government that would be raising an endless stink if a truly private-sector company tried to pull off the same maneuvers with separate classes of existing workers.

More to the media point: Why didn’t Tom Krisher tell the rest of the nation this inconvenient and important fact? Could it be that doing so would make the UAW and GM’s government owners look every bit as heartless and soulless as the “giant corporations” they routinely criticize? Actually, I can’t imagine the union allowing an entity it doesn’t partially own to get away with what is being done in Orion Township.

Meanwhile, I wonder if the same ability to cut less-senior workers’ pay is built into the modified contract agreement between the UAW and Ford that was signed a year ago? Tom Krisher should have told us that too.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Update: I’m happy to report that a later report by Ohlemacher this morning mostly got it right, but still hasn’t recognized that recipients have benefitted during the past two years by receiving payments that are higher than underlying inflation would justify — and remain slightly so. Update 2: The 3:06 p.m. report notes that “As a result, Social Security recipients got an increase in 2009 that was far larger than actual inflation.” That will do fine.

It would also appear that Ohlemacher’s extended coverage is designed to create an appetite for repeating the one-time $250 payment that occurred without underlying justification in 2009, and which is still not justified.

(original post follows)

In a report this morning (since updated — Ed.), the Associated Press’s Stephen Ohlemacher reported something that anyone watching the numbers has known for months: For the second consecutive year, unless the politicians unwisely intervene, there will be no cost of living adjustment (COLA) for recipients of Social Security.

It would have been nice if Ohlemacher had correctly told his audience why. Instead, his flawed explanation might lead readers to believe that an increase should have occurred when, based on the formula legislated deades ago, none is justified.

Briefly stated, the Social Security Administration annually compares the average of the Consumer Price Index values for July, August and September of the current year to the same average during the previous year. Normally, if there has been an increase, benefits paid go up by the percentage of that increase; if there has been a decrease, benefits don’t change. There is also no change if a further-back year had a higher average than the current year.

The calculation done in 2008 coincided with the summer of $4-a-gallon gas prices. The Social Security COLA increase that year increased 2009 benefits by 5.8%. As seen in the following table, overall prices have not since returned to their summer 2008 level, which is why there was no increase in this year’s benefits (2009 calculation applied to 2010), and why there will no increase next year (2008 and 2009 data is at this Social Security link; 2007 and 2010 data to date wer obtained from various CPI-W reports at the Bureau of Labor Statistics):

Nobody seems to want to acknowledge that Social Security recipients caught a nice break in 2008 (but not so nice for taxpayers, or for the long-term solvency of a system that has an actuarial liability of over $7.6 trillion), or that they have benefitted from this break during 2009 and 2010, as prices still haven’t returned to their summer 2008 level.

The AP’s Ohlemacher is either among the non-acknowledgers, or simply doesn’t understand what’s going on at all, as illustrated in this excerpt:

The cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, are automatically set each year by an inflation measure that was adopted by Congress back in the 1970s. Based on inflation so far this year, the trustees who oversee Social Security project there will be no COLA for 2011.

The projection will be made official on Friday, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases inflation estimates for September. The timing couldn’t be worse for Democrats as they approach an election in which they are in danger of losing their House majority, and possibly their Senate majority as well.

As seen in the chart above, what Ohlemacher wrote is not even in the neighborhood of the truth.

Here’s how you can improve on the bolded sentence, Steve:

“Because overall prices in June through September of this year are still lower than they were at the same time in 2008, there will be no COLA for 2011 — unless politicians intervene as they did in 2009, when the Democratic Congress and President Obama gave recipients a one-time $250 payment that wasn’t warranted by changes in consumer prices.”

I’d be okay if you omit what follows the dashes.

From Madrid:

Oct 7, 2010 / 02:02 pm

During a visit to Spain this week, the postulator of Pope John Paul II’s cause for beatification noted that the process is currently at a crucial moment as miracles attributed to the late pontiff’s intercession are being investigated.

In an interview with the newspaper La Razon, Father Slawomir Oder said the process “has not been blocked” as some media reports have indicated. “The only thing I can say is that the canonical process must continue,” he said.

“We have reached the end of the first phase which deals with his heroism and virtues, and now we must initiate the process dealing with miracles. When it is finished, the Church will be able to lay out the process for his beatification,” the priest said.

Fr. Oder was visiting Spain to promote his new book, “Why He is a Saint.” The priest has been John Paul II’s postulator since 2005 and was a personal friend of the revered Pontiff.

“There are two paths to sainthood,” the priest explained. “One is through martyrdom,” and the other – the path John Paul II followed – is through “heroism of virtues, how that person lived. There must be the conviction that the person was a man of God and that opinion must be shared by most, expressed by the voice of the people that he lived in holiness.

“From there, a study on his life is carried out and his virtues are identified: faith, hope, charity, obedience, purity, humility.”

Fr. Oder recalled that he was always impressed by the pastoral dimension of John Paul II more than by his role in the politics of his time. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Go listen here, and participate in the live blog.

Go read Mark’s latest take on Strickland-Kasich here.

Connecticut Democrat Dick Blumenthal doesn’t know (Update: Following up on a commenter’s suggestion, in the second clip [HT Ace via Dan Riehl], Blumenthal tells us that his Eliot Spitzer-like lawsuits create jobs):

As seen in her response in the first vid, Linda McMahon gets it.

Dick Blumenthal doesn’t.