Leave it to the Associated Press, with the assistance of the “magic” of seasonal adjustments, to make the November housing market appear as if it was a bit better than the two months that preceded it. It wasn’t.

Thursday, the wire service grabbed the single crumb that was available, namely the Census Bureau’s report earlier that day that annualized, seasonally adjusted housing starts had increased by about 4% and turned it into a decidedly positive headline: “Home construction up after 2 months of declines.”

AP Economics Writer Jeannine Aversa watered down the headline in her very first sentence, describing the “up” part of the headline as a “nudge.”

That’s nowhere near enough. The available evidence indicates that November may have been the worst month the homebuilding industry has had in 4-5 decades of related recordkeeping.

One number that rarely gets press attention is the Bureau’s “New Privately Owned Housing Units Completed” report (PDF here). Its November total of 44,600 is the lowest ever for any month in any year since the Bureau began reporting the figure in 1968. That result, combined with the lowest-ever November for both housing starts and building permits, would indicate that new home “construction” — correctly defined as what happens between when a job starts and gets finished — was at an all-time low, and certainly not “up” as the AP headline claims.

In another egregious error that has become an AP habit of late, Aversa followed previous AP writers in setting a benchmark for a “healthy housing market” that is far lower than truly healthy markets have historically been.

Here are the first five paragraphs of Aversa’s report, plus a later one on building permits:

Home construction nudged up in November after two months of declines.

Builders broke ground last month on a seasonally adjusted 555,000 units, a 3.9 percent rise from October, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Even with the gain, housing starts are just 16 percent above the 477,000 unit pace from April 2009 – the lowest point on records dating back to 1959.

And they are down 76 percent from their peak in January 2006, and 45 percent below the 1 million annual rate that analysts say is consistent with a healthy housing market.

All the activity last month came from building single-family homes. They increased to a pace of 465,000 units, a 6.9 percent rise from October. Apartment construction fell 9.1 percent to a unit pace of 90,000.

… Housing permits, a barometer of future demand, fell 4 percent to an annualized rate of 530,000, reflecting weakness in apartment construction. It marked the lowest level in permits since April 2009.

Beyond what was noted earlier, the de facto AP communication asserting a bit of improvement doesn’t hold up upon review of the data.

Let’s begin by looking at the last two years of NSA housing starts info (Census Bureau PDF here):

• The 41,200 total is the lowest for any November since such recordkeeping began in 1959.
• (Red boxes) After some signs of life in August, where starts were about 6.5% ahead of August 2009, the bottom started dropping out. November’s starts are 27% below August 2010; the previous year’s August-November decline was 20%.
• (Green box) I believe Aversa meant to write that “All of the increase in activity came from building single-family homes.” The 33,700 November figure for single-family starts is lower than last November, and 35% lower than April. I can see how November’s relatively small decline from October can turn into a seasonally adjusted positive, but it’s certainly not a cause for being impressed, and certainly not a reason to cause readers to believe that things are legitimately getting better, even minimally.

Now let’s look at building permits (PDF here):

• (Blue boxes) The NSA also came in with the lowest November on record.
• (Orange box) The October-November decline in single-family permits compared to the same months in 2009 of about 13% is way larger than the 7% decline in starts in the same comparative periods, signaling that an already slow market is heading even further downward.

Combine these two reports with the “Completions” report noted earlier, and you have the picture of a new home market that barely has a pulse, and is heading towards a flatline.

Finally, Aversa’s claim that 1,000,000 units a year represents a “healthy market” is completely false in historic context. 1.2 million is more like it.

Aversa and the AP have again clearly failed to present housing market reality.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

It’s here, with this sub-headline: “Congress’s attempt at a last-ditch spending spree is just the latest example of a dangerous Democratic Party habit.”

It reviews two groups of previous heinous lame-duck offenses: Former Ohio Governor Dick Celeste’s 1991 leniency spree and Bill Clinton’s 2001 pardons and commutations.

It will go up here at BizzyBlog on Sunday morning (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires.

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UPDATE: Harry Reid has withdrawn the omnibus bill whose Tuesday introduction motivated the column. Notice the AP’s purely partisan dig about troop funding –

Senate Dem leader drops nearly $1.3T spending bill

Democrats controlling the Senate have abandoned a 1,924-page catchall spending measure that’s laced with homestate pet projects known as earmarks and that would have provided another $158 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nevada Democrat Harry Reid gave up on the nearly $1.3 trillion bill after several Republicans who had been thinking of voting for the bill pulled back their support.

GOP leader Mitch McConnell threw his weight against the bill in recent days, saying it was in his words “unbelievable” that Democrats would try to muscle through in just a few days legislation that usually takes months to debate.

Reid said he would work with McConnell to produce a short-term funding bill to keep the government running into early next year.

Of course, when a Dem is humiliated, the AP doesn’t name him in the headline.

Meanwhile, now that it’s passed, the AP has renamed the measure dealing with what tax rates will be next year. For weeks, it has been a “tax cut bill” or “tax cut deal.”

Now that it’s passed, and federal income tax rates aren’t going to change next year, hosannas on high, it’s a “prevention of tax hikes,” and a model of bipartisanship representing some kind of defining bipartisan moment:

Bill preventing big tax hikes heads to Obama Fri.

A massive bipartisan tax package preventing a big New Year’s Day tax hike for millions of Americans is on its way to President Barack Obama for his signature Friday.

The measure would extend tax cuts for families at every income level, renew jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and enact a new one-year cut in Social Security taxes that would benefit nearly every worker who earns a wage.

The president is expected to sign the bill Friday afternoon.

In a remarkable show of bipartisanship, the House gave final approval to the measure just before midnight Thursday, overcoming an attempt by rebellious Democrats who wanted to impose a higher estate tax than the one Obama agreed to.

Richard Pollock at Pajamas Media frames it properly (bolds are mine):

It took six weeks for the tremors of the November election to finally be felt in the nation’s capital. On Thursday, lame-duck Democrats were in retreat, confusion and turmoil while they still tenuously held majorities in both houses of Congress. Election Day, November 2, may have been the paper electoral defeat for Democrats. But Thursday, December 16, the rout was the real thing as it dramatically played out in both congressional chambers. And it all happened on the 237th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

By any political standards, Thursday was a wild day. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was disgraced as he was forced to pull his ridiculous 2,000-page $1.2 trillion spending bill from the floor. On the other side of the Capitol, meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced to pull the president’s own tax bill from the House floor as she met behind closed doors with frantic and angry fellow Democrats. A few minutes before midnight the White House prevailed and got the tax bill passed. But at what cost? What deals did they make? And what comes next from angry left-wing Democrats is anybody’s guess.

The real winners may be a number of out-of-favor fiscal conservatives who have lived in the political wilderness for many years. In the Senate, it may mean new prestige and influence for Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Jim DeMint (R-SC). In the House it will mean more sway for Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), and perhaps Tea Party caucus chair Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). They have the momentum after Washington outdid itself in trying to ram through a federal spending bill that was obscene even by Washington standards.

This could be the start of something big. It needs to be.

From Dodge City, Kansas:

Dec 15, 2010 / 01:51 pm

Fr. John Brungardt, 52, will become the new bishop of Dodge City in Kansas, succeeding Bishop Ronald M. Gilmore as he retires at age 68.

The bishop-elect is a Kansas native, currently serving as chancellor of the Diocese of Wichita and the pastor of St. Mark the Evangelist parish in the town of St. Mark, Kansas. He received ordination as a priest at age 40, a significant change from his previous career as a science teacher at a Catholic high school.

In a recent interview, the bishop-elect described his rural upbringing and faith formation in a strongly Catholic family, as well as the “spiritual re-awakening” he later experienced after his mother’s death in 1990.

That loss led the professional educator into a life of intensified faith, with “more devotion to the Blessed Mother and the Rosary, prayer and daily Mass” – all of which eventually led him to discuss his future plans and possible calling with local clergy.

After studying at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Ohio, Fr. Brungardt became a priest in 1998. Once ordained, he continued his long-running involvement in pro-life work, which had initially helped him to discover his vocation while still a layman. He also learned Spanish, the first language of many of the faithful he will be leading in the diocese of Dodge City.

Bishop-elect Brungardt described his new calling as an “extraordinary and overwhelming” one, but said he was “happy to serve the Lord and the Holy Father and the good people of the Diocese of Dodge City as their bishop.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

It seems to be almost required by now that any indictment of Kwame Kilpatrick must be accompanied by two or more establishment media outlets reports that fail to inform readers that the former Detroit Mayor is a Democrat — in fact, a Democrat who was singled out for copious praise during the early stages of Barack Obama’s campaign for president.

In unbylined reports, CBS News in Detroit and the Associated Press took the “Hide That Party” helm this time around. Here are a few paragraphs from the CBS report:

Indictment Alleges City Corruption, Bribery, Fraud

The U.S. Attorney in Detroit Wednesday unloaded a laundry list of federal charges against former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his father and three other city officials in an indictment the FBI says has been a long time coming.

“I think that these charges will bring forth and show to the citizens of this area the abuse of power by certain individuals, and certainly shed light on some of the activity that has been going on here for far too long,” Detroit FBI Agent in Charge Andrew Arena said.

The 38-count indictment alleges corruption regarding city contracts totaling at least $100 million, involving racketeering conspiracy, extortion, fraud and bribery.

In addition to Kwame Kilpatrick and Bernard Kilpatrick, named in the indictment are Kilpatrick’s good friend and city contractor, Bobby Ferguson;Victor Mercado, former head of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department; and Derrick Miller who is a former chief administrative officer for the city of Detroit.

In announcing the charges, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said the accused turned the mayor’s office into a criminal enterprise.

No one in the CBS story is tagged as a Democrat.

Here are a few paragraphs from the AP’s story, where the same condition is the case:

US files new charges against ex-Detroit mayor, dad

Imprisoned ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was indicted Wednesday on new corruption charges, and his father, Bernard Kilpatrick, also was implicated in what a federal prosecutor called a “pattern of extortion, bribery and fraud” among some of the city’s most prominent officials.

U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade announced the 38-count indictment during a news conference. The indictment also lists longtime Kwame Kilpatrick associate Bobby Ferguson, ex-city water director Victor Mercado, and ex-mayoral aide and Kwame Kilpatrick’s close friend Derrick Miller.

“This indictment alleges an audacious and far-reaching abuse of the public trust by a group of high-level city officials and their close associates,” McQuade said.

Federal officials refer to the defendants under the racketeering conspiracy count in the 89-page indictment as the “Kilpatrick Enterprise, whose objective was “financially enriching Enterprise members, associates and their families. They did that, the indictment alleges, by using the power and authority of Kwame Kilpatrick’s position” as a member of the Michigan House of Representatives and Detroit mayor “to commit extortion, bribery and fraud.”

… (Kilpatrick) resigned as mayor in 2008 after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice in state court. He’s now in prison for violating probation in that case and is awaiting trial in federal court on tax and fraud charges related to how he spent money from a nonprofit fund.

… Bernard Kilpatrick and Miller helped hold up a $50 million sewer lining contract until the winning bidder agreed to bring Ferguson’s business into the deal, the indictment said. It said Ferguson ended up receiving $24.7 million in business.

The indictment lists 13 alleged fraudulent schemes in the awarding of contracts in the city’s Department of Water and Sewerage.

“At the heart of the scheme … was corruption in municipal contracting,” McQuade said.

As yours truly has pointed out several times in the past (one is here), the Associated Press, which is running the story on its national wire, is violating its own Stylebook guidelines, namely that a reporter should “include party affiliation if readers need it for understanding or are likely to be curious about what it is,” in failing to tag Kilpatrick as a Democrat. Though it probably seems obvious to readers of this blog, many readers outside the Midwest will not instinctively know that most urban mayors in the large cities of the Midwest are Democrats. They need to see or that this is the case in Kilpatrick’s instance.

At the moment, the AP’s response to its own rules appears to be: “Guidelines, schmidelines.” I guess they’re only meant to come into play when Republicans and/or conservatives, even obscure ones whose offenses go back almost two decades, are involved in illegal or unethical activity.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Worst housing industry and market update (HT Instapundit):

You might not know it from reading the news, but the nation’s housing prices are in free fall again.

For the many Americans who have (or had) most of their wealth tied up in their homes, the consequences of this will be profound. The effect on nationwide consumption will inevitably be severe. In fact, there are some not inconceivable scenarios in which the housing market could just take the economy down with it again.

I blame Obama. His administration wouldn’t let the housing market recover on its own, is a large reason why foreclosed homeowners have been able to stay in homes for a year or more cost-free, and has created a level of economic uncertainty so pervasive that even 4% mortgage rates aren’t enough to motivate enough buyers to take the plunge.

_______________________________________________

Economic suicide watch — “Calif. set to adopt sweeping cap-and-trade rules.” All in the name of “”the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

_______________________________________________

Related, from Mark Tapscott at the Washington Examiner (“Oh the horror! Fox bureau chief told reporters to be ‘skeptical’”):

You think the most essential purpose of journalism and the reason the Founders included freedom of the press in the First Amendment was to insure independent reporting about government, politicians, and public policy issues, right?

Well, you must be wrong because Fox News Washington Bureau Chief Bill Sammon is getting a raft of garbage from liberal activists masquerading as journalists at Media Matters, some liberal bloggers and a scattering of real journalists who ought to know better.

Why? Politico’s headline captures the controversy perfectly: “Fox editor urged climate skepticism.”

A journalist being skeptical? Who would ever have thought such a thing could be. I don’t know, maybe anybody who has heard this (attributed long ago to a crusty desk editor at the illustrious City News Bureau in Chicago): “If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.”

In other words, we journalists are paid to BE SKEPTICAL.

___________________________________________

Rand Simberg is mostly right, when he writes that “It’s nonsensical to describe avoiding further damage to the economy as a ‘stimulus.’”

True enough, but an extension of the current tax system for five or more years would at least establish some certainty, a necessary ingredient for consistent meaningful growth. The problem is, they’re only talking about two years in Washington right now. Any improvements achieved will be far less than the could have been.

__________________________________________

As of yesterday afternoon, it looked like the lame-duck Democratic Congress was threatening to shut down the government if it can’t pass yet another bill that no one will have time to read. This time it’s 2000-page omnibus spending legislation. They seem to be calculating that they always win the PR battle when the government shuts down (see 1995, Clinton v. Gingrich). There’s good reason to believe it’s different this time.

Bob Feller, who at his best was arguably baseball’s greatest pitcher, has died. His career stats are here.

We’ve lost far more than a once-a-century athlete, as Bill Livingston at the Cleveland Plain Dealer explains:

Published: Thursday, December 16, 2010, 1:45 AM
Updated: Thursday, December 16, 2010, 1:53 AM

The Greatest Indian of Them All, Bob Feller, grew up in Van Meter on the Iowa prairie, among legends both real and make-believe.

… Ted Williams, the consensus choice as baseball’s all-time greatest hitter, closely studied pitchers, but he never obsessed about them — except for one.

Feller captivated Williams. While Williams would focus on someone like Allie Reynolds of the Yankees, a terrific pitcher, for two hours before a game, he started psyching up three days before facing Feller. The difference between Feller’s stuff and “good” stuff was always exponential.

Feller had a “field of dreams,” in Iowa, just like in the movie. After clearing the land with his own hands, his father planted more wheat than corn on the rest of the farm. Wheat was easier to harvest, which left more time for baseball.

That’s a synthesis of fathers, sons, baseball, and amber waves of grain. Feller, who passed away Wednesday at age 92 of complications from leukemia, was born, bred and whole grain-fed to be an American icon.

To protect his amateur eligibility, he signed with the Indians for $1 and a baseball autographed by the members of the team. Feller struck out 17 Philadelphia A’s, breaking the American League record, when he was only 17 years old. Then, he went home to finish high school. He would have been a global sensation in today’s world of 24/7 news cycles on cable TV and the Internet. It is not overstating it to say that Feller might have been the greatest prodigy in any field since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

… Blunt and outspoken, he was also one of the most admirable men of an admirable generation. In the prime of his career, he gave up 3-1/2 years to serve in the Navy. He enlisted two days after Pearl Harbor, although he could have gotten a deferment since he was the sole support of his family, and his father was dying. In contrast to how teams schemed to arrange reserve-unit berths for players during the Vietnam war, Feller told told Cy Slapnicka, the scout who had signed him: “I’m going to enlist.”

Slapnicka replied: “I think you should.” As chief of an anti-aircraft battery on the battleship USS Alabama, Feller steamed 175,000 miles, crossed the Arctic Circle six times and the Equator 24 times, won eight battle stars, and, for his pains, saw a bunch of know-littles exclude him from the list of the 20th century’s greatest players because he didn’t win 300 games. Why, without World War II, he’d have won close to 400!

… On 9/11, one of the darkest days since Pearl Harbor, a reporter seeking reaction from a player who was a veteran of military service called Feller. It was an easy choice. He was the greatest American I ever knew.

Go here for the entire column.

Also at the Plain Dealer: “Baseball in Cleveland Will Never Be the Same”

More at MLB.com:

Feller’s election to the Hall of Fame was all but automatic. He was elected in 1962, his first year of eligibility, his name checked on 93.8 percent of the ballots cast by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, the fourth highest percentage at the time. Only three position players — Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner, members of the first class in 1936 — had received higher percentages.

… Feller would say his time in the Navy was more rewarding than his baseball career. He did say this: “Baseball in the Navy always was much more fun than it had been in the Major Leagues.” And he insisted that he regretted no part of putting his baseball career on hold to serve his country. “Anything else would be selfish,” he said.

Moreover, he didn’t consider himself a war hero. After his return to baseball in 1945, he said “I’m no hero. Heroes don’t come back. Survivors return home. Heroes never come home. If anyone thinks I’m a hero, I’m not.”

But a baseball hero? Feller couldn’t deny that. And he didn’t.

What in the world were the 6.2% of Hall of Fame voters who didn’t cast their ballots for Feller thinking?

Mind-boggling stat: In 1946, Feller threw 36 complete games, a live-ball era record. The legendary Warren Spahn never had more than 26 in any season.

Maybe we need to add the word “Palinography” to the dictionary. Its definition would be: “The process of preparing news photographs and accompanying captions about Sarah Palin in a deliberately negative light.”

One example many will likely remember involved the amateurish wire service shoes-and-calves-only photos frequently seen during Palin’s vice-presidential run.

Lori Ziganto at the Daily Caller’s DC Trawler flagged the latest outrage, which is shown below (direct link):

The caption reads:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, center, has her hair done during a visit to a cholera treatment center set up by the NGO Samaritan’s Purse in Cabaret, Haiti, Saturday, Dec. 11, 2010. Palin arrived Saturday in Haiti as part of a brief humanitarian mission in an impoverished nation struggling to overcome post-election violence and a cholera epidemic. At right, Palin’s husband, Todd Palin.

Do you mean that this woman, in the midst of all the disease and misery, is worrying about her hair? How could she?

Ziganto exposes the Palinography (internal link is in original; bolds are mine):

What the photographer purposely neglects to mention is that the woman fixing Palin’s hair is her daughter, Bristol. She is clearly seen in the following photograph, as also noted by Free Republic, (where poster Kristinn wrote): “In other photos from Saturday, Todd and Sarah Palin’s white, brunette, eldest daughter Bristol, who accompanied her parents on the trip to Haiti, is wearing the exact same clothing and ponytail as the “hair stylist” in the AP photo. That’s right, what the Palin-hating AP and others fail to report is that the “hair stylist” is Bristol Palin.

Bristol Palin was fixing a loose clip or an errant strand of hair for her mother. The photographer quite clearly knew that, having taken the picture and having actually looked through the lens at the people whose photo he was taking. He managed to identify Todd Palin, yet purposely did not identify Bristol.

… There are a couple of things clearly on display here. Firstly, the oh-so-tolerant and loving Left is anything but. It’s far easier to mock and bash Sarah Palin than to actually, you know, do anything to help. Secondly, their blatant sexism, particularly against conservative women (femininity with smarts and strength is icky), has once again been exposed for all to see.

Ziganto adds another salient point near the end of her post:

Sarah Palin is the one with the spine; Bill Clinton, in fact, canceled his planned trip to Haiti because it was too scary.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

In full, from Yuval Levin at the Corner:

The proposed Senate omnibus bill makes for truly amazing reading. It’s like the Democrats have decided to wear proudly the mantle forced on them by Republicans in the last election—the mantle of pork, waste, and Obamacare. It makes it perfectly clear that the chatter surrounding the deficit commission and the sudden interest in fiscal restraint among some Democrats in Congress since November has been just idle talk, and that what the Democrats really want is more reckless spending.

This 2,000 page monstrosity stuffed down the country’s throat in the last moment of the 111th Congress would be the epitome of everything the voters rejected. Is this the first major piece of legislation President Obama wants to sign after the election? Is this how the Senate Democrats who are up in 2012 want to start their reelection cycles? Republicans must staunchly oppose it, and if it still passes they need to make it very clear to those Senate Democrats that this vote will not be forgotten: it will serve as a symbol of the old way, and together with the 2009 stimulus bill and the health-care bill will hang around the neck of every member of Congress who supports it.

There’s also this, from the Corner’s Robert Costa:

Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) is ready to battle over the omnibus spending bill.

… He will point out that the Senate could easily pass a continuing resolution sans pork-laden projects.

“This 2,000-page bill is so packed with pork and objectionable legislative items it could take weeks until we know the policy implications, but Reid wants to ram it through in a few days,” (DeMint spokesman Wesley) Denton says. “This stampede of spending and bad policy is exactly what voters rejected in November. Senator DeMint will continue working with Republican colleagues to expose the bill’s waste and he’ll fight to stop the rush to pass it on the Senate floor.”

As he should.

At this link, the Associated Press reports on its dispute with iCopyright, which is good news for First Amendment believers:

The AP partnered with iCopyright in 2008, hoping to use the company’s technology to harness the Web as a bigger source of revenue and to keep websites from using AP stories, photos and other content without permission.

ICopyright acted as a middleman, supplying AP material from the news cooperative’s online database of stories and collecting licensing fees from Web publishers that used it. The company then turned over a portion of the revenue to the AP.

ICopyright attached a toolbar to every AP story. The toolbar included copyright information and options for licensing content for a fee. The company’s software could also help track where AP stories turn up on the Web and whether they’ve been properly licensed.

As I wrote in April 2009:

The AP seems to be signaling that it will use legal intimidation to curb fair use of its content for discussion purposes when it has no legal leg to stand on. … part of fair use, properly applied, is analyzing wire service reports as they evolve for evidence of story slanting after initial raw reports. That means saving them. … Also: The public discussion of media bias requires comparing AP reporters’ varying interpretations of similar events depending on who is involved. That’s another reason to excerpt and save articles, and another reason AP should back off.

Fortunately, the AP, which has been a shameless lifter of others’ content without attribution, let alone any form of compensation, is having logistical problems getting their scheme to work. Too bad, so sad.

________________________________________________

At the Chicago Sun-Times (HT TaxProf via Instapundit), concerning Rahm Emanuel’s attempt to get around residency rules that clearly should prevent him from running for Mayor of Chicago:

When Rahm Emanuel originally filed his 2009 Illinois tax return, he indicated he was only a “part-year resident’’ of the state that year, since he had moved to Washington D.C. to serve as President Obama’s chief of staff.

But after he decided to return to Chicago to run for mayor this fall — and after several people challenged whether he was eligible to run based on the fact that he hadn’t lived in the city for a full-year prior to the Feb. 2 election — he filed an amended return.

On the original Illinois return, in response to the question, “Were you, or your spouse … a full-year resident of Illinois during the tax year?’’ Emanuel checked “No.’’ He said he lived in the state only until June 30, 2010.

“The original return’s statements regarding part-year residency were not accurate,” Emanuel and his wife wrote in a return filed Nov. 24. “The amended returns make clear that we were full-year residents of Illinois in 2009. … We are also full-year residents of Illinois in 2010.”

… But in the amended return, the couple said the original return was incorrect and “inconsistent with our continued payments of Illinois estimated tax, both in the original 2009 return and subsequently. … (We are also full-year residents in 2010 and have therefore been paying estimated Illinois taxes for 2010).”

What horse manure. A TaxProf blog commenter (near the end currently) succinctly summarizes:

So our choices are:
1. Rahm really meant to change his residency at the time, and changed his mind later.
2. Rahm really didn’t mean to change his residency. He just signed a tax return under penalties of perjury claiming he did. Oh, and by the way, paid his taxes based on terminating his residence.
In the first case, he’s a liar. In the second case, he’s a tax cheat.

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The FCC’s attempts to impose “net neutrality” are all about control and circumventing the will of the electorate:

The left is trying to strike a blow against the free-market system itself, as the leading proponent of these regulations, Robert W. McChesney, founder of the lobbying group Free Press, made clear when he said:

“You will never, ever, in any circumstance, win any struggle at any time. That being said, we have a long way to go. At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s press secretary, Jen Howard, came to the FCC from Mr. McChesney’s Free Press, where she served in the same capacity. The FCC’s chief diversity officer, Mark Lloyd, co-authored a Free Press report calling for severe regulation of political talk radio. Mr. McChesney’s big-picture strategy looms large at the commission, and the new network-neutrality regulations will move us toward his goal by chilling innovation in network practices and business arrangements by adding unnecessary regulatory interference.

… These Obama-FCC regulations have been rejected already by Congress and the American people. More than 300 members of Congress signed letters of opposition to FCC Internet regulation … During the recent election, the issue proved an embarrassment for Democrats. A group called the Progressive Change Campaign Committee touted a net-neutrality pledge signed by 95 candidates. All 95 lost.

If you’re keeping score, the 300 House letter-signers represents a veto-proof majority of the House. The only way net neutrality can become a reality is by bureaucratic. It must be stopped.

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Heritage reacts to Harry Reid’s attempt to impose the election losers’ will on the next Congress (bold is mine):

For the first time in the history of the modern budget process, this Congress failed to even vote on a budget for next year. This Congress has forfeited their right to spend. The next Congress should be as free as possible to set spending priorities. The 111th must pass something to keep the government running, but it should do so with as short-term a continuing resolution as possible.

They had a chance to do this before the elections — and in an unprecedented move, they deliberately punted in an attempt to avoid accountability and minimize the electoral damage.

I’ve always said that the most dangerous politicians in the world are liberals/Democrats with consequence-free power (e.g., Bill Clinton’s January 2001 pardons and commutations, Ohio Governor Dick Celeste’s January 1991 death sentence commutations).

Given the history, there should be serious concern about what Ohio’s outgoing Governor Ted Strickland might do in his final days. Now imagine the damage an embittered Punk President might perpetrate in January 2013.

From Cincinnati:

Local Man Survives Interstate 275 Crash
POSTED: 10:09 pm EST December 14, 2010
UPDATED: 10:17 pm EST December 14, 2010

After a horrific crash, a local Good Samaritan is calling a driver’s survival a miracle.

Scott Chasteen said he had no doubt that he had just witnessed a fatal car crash as he was heading into work on Interstate 275 on Monday night.

“There’s nobody alive down there. Nobody. Nobody is going to live through that. Nobody,” Chasteen said.

He said the truck ricocheted off of an overpass, plummeted to the street below and flipped before landing.
“He was out of control and hit the Lunken Airport sign. That sign launched him into the trees. The last I saw of his truck, it was actually taking out the tops of trees and sailed down to Sutton Road,” Chasteen said.

Chasteen said he stopped his SUV, grabbed his flashlight and went down to the woods below to check out the crash.

He said the truck crashed nose-first into the ground and sank almost two feet.

Chasteen said the driver, Jerold Brookbank, somehow survived.

“It’s unbelievable that the young man walked away. I’m just so thankful he’s here with his family for Christmas,” Chasteen said.

Go here for the rest of the story.

For some reason, the BizzyBlog theme suddenly decided that it was incompatible with WordPress 3.0.3 at about 9 this morning.

So I’ve reverted to the marginal default theme you’re now seeing until web guy Charles can work out the kinks. The timeline on when that happens is uncertain.

UPDATE, 6 p.m.: The theme is back.

At Zero Hedge:

Retail Renaissance Revolt: Best Buy Plunges As Top Line Misses, Cuts Forecast, Comp Stores Down And Sees Pervasive Weakness

Best Buy, which was seen by many as the best indicator of retail hunger for all sorts of irrelevant Made in China Gizmos is plunging in pre-market trading, now down over 10%, after the company announces a massive top line miss of $11.89 billion in Q3 revenue on expectations of $12.45 billion. We can’t remember when a retailer had a nearly 5% miss in top line, and is certainly a major cause of concern for not only the retail renaissance but for… Apple, for whom the store is the second biggest seller.

This is even worse than it seems. Comp USA is gone. Circuit City is gone. If there’s another major nationwide competitor out there with anything resembling Best Buy’s stature, I can’t name it (Wal-Mart’s trying, but it won’t work as long as they try to do it without putting people in the stores who actually know something about what they’re selling). Best Buy should be ruling the roost.

If you look at the past four quarterly financials, you see that the $11.89 bil just noted is down about 1% from a year ago. Yikes.

This really shouldn’t be a total surprise. Last year, Windows 7, the first decent Microsoft OS release in almost three years, drove computer sales through the roof. This year, there’s the iPad, which is very helpful, but nowhere near as impactful, especially in terms of add-on sales like printers, software, and service plans. Beyond that, what is there?

If the Christmas shopping season is to be as good as the apparatchik press says it’s going to be, the sales are going to have to come from more traditional toys and soft goods like clothing, because you can forget about it coming from electronics.