Related:
- January 19, 2009 — “Martin Luther King Was Outspokenly Prolife.” He also fully understood natural law.

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From Atlanta, via the Catholic News Agency:

Jan 17, 2011 / 02:12 pm

On the observance of Martin Luther King Day, African-American leaders noted the slain civil rights figure’s Christian position on cultural issues like abortion and sexual ethics. Illinois religious and political leaders also organized to challenge the “hijacking” of the civil rights movement by homosexual political activists.

Dr. Alveda King, full-time director of African-American Outreach for Priests for Life and King’s niece, cited her uncle’s advice columns written for Ebony magazine in 1957 and 1958.

“In advising men and women on questions of personal behavior 50 years ago, Uncle Martin sounded no different than a conservative Christian preacher does now,” she commented. “He was pro-life, pro-abstinence before marriage, and based his views on the unchanging Word of the Bible. Today, Planned Parenthood would condemn Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as part of the ‘religious right’.”

King reported that one of her uncle’s columns concerned a young man who had impregnated his girlfriend and refused to marry her, resulting in a “crime,” a euphemism for abortion. Martin Luther King, Jr. advised the man that he had made a “mistake.”

He also urged another reader to abstain from premarital sex, saying that such activity was contributing to “the present breakdown of the family.”

“Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man of peace, justice, and most of all a man of God,” Alveda King continued, suggesting that he would be working today to secure justice for those in the womb endangered by abortion.

In Hillside, Illinois more than 40 African-American religious and political leaders gathered on Jan. 17 at Freedom Baptist Church to lament the misrepresentation of King’s legacy. During the Illinois House debate on the issue of civil unions for homosexuals, two backers of the proposal compared same-sex “marriage” to interracial marriage.

Comparisons between homosexual rights and civil rights have become increasingly common in recent decades. In its own Martin Luther King Day message, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s executive director Rea Carey also invoked the leader.

“We believe that were he alive today, Dr. King would be standing with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community as we too reach for equality,” she said.

However, the press conference of African-American leaders in Illinois challenged this view. Its announcement denied that opposition to discrimination based on “immutable, non-behavioral, morally neutral condition like race” was equivalent to an effort to “normalize and institutionalize deviant sexual relations.”

David Smith, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, was of a similar view.

“Skin color is not analogous to behavior,” he said.

Go here for the rest of the story.

Some will accuse me of having too much fun with this.

Too bad, so sad.

In honor of the Toledo Blade’s getting bent out of shape and taken to school by the Toledo Free Press over WSPD talker Brian Wilson’s criticism of how kids are taught as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act (wait a minute — didn’t the hated George W. Bush pass this with the help of Saint Not Exactly Saintly Ted Kennedy?), yours truly brings you the Rolling Stones, featuring Mick Jagger in his usual non-singing role, with a live version of “The Monkey Man” (here are the, ahem, lyrics, if you want to call them that):

Please don’t tell the folks at the Blade about this post. They might go bananas.

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Addendum: By the way, I don’t agree with the “teach to the test” criticism of No Child Left Behind. What those who end up teaching to the test are really showing is that they don’t have the self-confidence — in themselves or their kids — to develop a comprehensive curriculum that will impart a sufficient level of functional and cultural literacy which would enable kids to pass proficiency tests as an afterthought, with no cramming or tying up class time with test preparation required.

UPDATE, 11:30 p.m.: “Blade-Brian Wilson-WSPD Follow-up; Who’s the ‘Monkey Man’ Now?”

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Especially on Martin Luther King Day, it seems worth asking whether or not the assassinated civil rights leaders would have cared more about:

• Whether a talk radio host told his audience, in reference to the No Child Left Behind Act causing many school districts, including the Toledo Public Schools (TPS), to believe they must “teach to the test” to avoid serious sanctions: “teaching little monkeys to peel bananas and so on and then doing it correctly on cue, does not mean that they’ve learned everything except a funny parlor trick.”
• The fact that TPS is rated dead-last in its metro area, and failed to meet state test-result requirements in 21 of 24 testing categories in the 2009-2010 academic year. The worst examples: In the eighth grade, only 39.0% and 34.3% of TPS students tested as proficient in math and science, respectively. According to Toledo-area blogger and sometime WSPD host Maggie Thurber, the District is also “facing a $38 million deficit and … 58% of voters said no to their last levy request.”

I think it’s safe to say that King would have preferred that attention stay focused on dealing with Toledo’s schools, and for that matter Ohio’s schools in general, as according to the just referenced Ohio Department of Education (ODE) report card, TPS actually outperformed (actually, “less underperformed”) “similar districts” in the Buckeye State in 15 of those 24 categories.

But that must not be how the Toledo Blade sees it. The far left Blade, which in distant-past editorials regaled readers with its indispensable importance as a Glass City civic institution and has been in a figurative war with local talk station WSPD for years, clearly thought it saw an opening when host Brian Wilson said the following on January 7:

Then you’ve got as far as solving the problems of education in Toledo, you also have to look at the curriculum, which pretty much sucks, dictated by the federal government especially under the No Child Left Behind business, which now has teachers teaching answers to the tests, not concept, not individuality, not entrepreneurialism, not anything like that, of course some of that hasn’t been taught for years. But certainly, teaching little monkeys to peel bananas and so on and then doing it correctly on cue, does not mean that they’ve learned everything except a funny parlor trick.”

“Similarly with children, just because you can teach them the answers to what are the capitals of the 50 States in America, that’s a fun exercise but it doesn’t teach them how to think, doesn’t teach them how to be objective, doesn’t teach them to be entrepreneurs and individuals and things along that order.”

“So the curriculum then becomes an issue and while there are great teachers throughout every school system, there are some losers in TPS and they need to be extracted one way or the other, of course that brings us back around to the teachers unions.”

The link above is to the Toledo Free Press, an alternative area newspaper that has been a thorn in the Blade’s journalistically weak backside for years. As you will see in this instance, the Free Press successfully outflanked the Blade and ultimately forced it into an embarrassing mea culpa.

Blade “reporter” Terry Troy only included the following segment of what Wilson said in the paper’s first stir-up of the controversy (it’s a stir-up because there appears to have been no controversy or complaint about Wilson’s statement until the Blade decided to create one):

WSPD host compares TPS students, monkeys; Wilson denies racism

A radio talk show host’s reference to “little monkeys” while talking about students at Toledo Public Schools on Friday generated outrage that the language was insensitive to African-American students, and all students.

The host of WSPD-AM, 1370′s Brian Wilson and the Afternoon Drive, said the city’s school system fails to teach students to think or be entrepreneurs.

“But certainly, teaching little monkeys to peel bananas and so on and them learning to do it correctly on cue does not mean that they’ve learned everything except a funny parlor trick,” Mr. Wilson told his audience.

Mr. Wilson, who was broadcasting the show from Virginia where he now lives, said he had no racial intent.

Seriously, Tom, how could Wilson have had racial intent? TPS’s ethnic make-up, from the same ODE report, isn’t even majority African-American (45% African-American, 41% white, 8% Hispanic, and 6% other).

That didn’t stop Troy or various outraged parties he quoted (“Two members of the Toledo Board of Education and the new president of the Toledo chapter of the NAACP”) from assuming that it was all about African-American students. It also didn’t stop the Blade from pushing three more stories by other staff reporters on the topic (here, here, and here) during the next few days.

The following graphic makes it pretty darned clear that those who are railing at Brian Wilson and WSPD should instead take a hard look in the mirror at themselves. That’s because the people failing TPS’s African-American students are the people who run TPS, and, to an indeterminate but likely significant extent, their parents and others occupying influential positions in the African-American community:

As bad as the school district is, children from every other identified ethnic group managed to get acceptable results on the latest ODE report card last year (not that ODE is setting the bar particularly high). Why not African-Americans? What would MLK say?

After pushback by Wilson and others, most notably the Free Press, the Blade, in a January 12 editorial, backed away from Troy’s core contention of racism, but couldn’t resist playing the “civility” card:

Free, responsible speech

No, Brian Wilson did not call Toledo Public Schools students “little monkeys.” But the talk-radio host and his defenders ought not complain that this newspaper yanked his recent observations about public education out of context, and at the same time try to ignore or deny the broader context of local leaders’ criticism of his remarks.

… Comparing humans with lesser primates is, of course, a standard racial insult. Although there is no evidence that that was Mr. Wilson’s intent, an experienced broadcaster should have anticipated that his words would give offense.

He conceded this week that his comparison had been “unfortunate.” The radio station’s general manager called it “inappropriate.” At the very least, it was irresponsible.

The episode again reflects the potential and real risks of speaking carelessly or impulsively. Our constitutional right to free speech does not absolve us — media provocateur, politician, private citizen, or anyone else — of the consequences of our words.

The next day, the Free Press’s Michael Miller posted a column that would be in the running for the NewsBusters Hall of Fame if it had gone up there. Miller recounted his efforts to obtain the relevant five minutes of audio and, once obtained, the results of his running a full transcript by those to whom the Blade had only provided 14 seconds. Many, despite having the full audio with full context rubbed in their faces, still chose to bitterly cling to the their racist intent narrative.

The key, though, was when Miller found someone who acknowledged that the entire controversy was driven by the Blade:

The first crack in The Blade’s mission to sink Wilson came from (Toledo Mayor Mike) Bell, when Jennifer Sorgenfrei, public information officer for the City of Toledo, said, “[The mayor’s] statement was in direct response to the portion of audio he was provided by The Blade,” the first public indicator that this mess originated with the daily paper of record.

Miller notes that things things then began to unravel for the Blade:

On Jan. 10, the Urban League’s (John C.) Jones called into Wilson’s show, and while he stopped short of agreeing with Wilson that The Blade had “duped” him, honorably made it clear that he no longer believed Wilson’s comments were directed at TPS students. During his broadcast, Wilson said he was sorry if anyone was offended by his remarks — which isn’t the same thing as being sorry for making the remarks.

But Miller reminds readers that another person, apparently with all kinds of spare time despite the failures occurring on his watch, was holding out:

(TPS Superintendent Jerome) Pecko told Kirkpatrick late Jan. 10, “he had not heard the entire Friday broadcast,” even though Toledo Free Press had provided it to his office mid-Sunday afternoon. Even after he listened to it and commented to Toledo Free Press on Jan. 11, Pecko insisted that Wilson’s comments were racial in nature and aimed at TPS students; he renewed his nonsensical and censorship-leaning call for the FCC to review WSPD. He was joined in his racial context belief by Blade Managing Editor Dave Murray, who told 13abc that “the paper stands behind the story and felt it was put in proper context.”

Thus it was that the Blade had to backtrack kicking and screaming, while of course trying to change the subject.

Miller gives credit to his paper, and deservedly so:

None of the myriad people hoodwinked by The Blade on this story are going to publicly admit to being played for fools, but they were. Twice. First when they knee-jerk commented in their rush to criticize Wilson, and again when The Blade left them standing all alone after it changed its mind.

… hey, city leaders, the next time The Blade calls, shopping around an inflammatory quote, how about doing some research before you open your mouths and condemn someone? If you jump anyway and then discover you were wrong, how about being a man and apologizing as loudly as you criticized?

Kudos to Miller and all those involved at the Free Press for their persistence. As to the Blade, it must really be a drag to know that those old, reliable tricks that used to work like a charm have lost their power to deceive.

Heaven help Toledo if people like those who run the Blade ever regain control over what “responsible” speech is in that city. If the Blade’s bludgeoners get their their way, parents might not even be able to deliver a “monkey see, monkey do” scolding to their children when their little ones do something dumb in imitation of their friends who have done something dumb.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

At the New York Times: Jared Laughner’s “anger would well up at the sight of President George W. Bush.”

Gateway Pundit: “And, yet the horrible leftists in the media plotted to blame this slaughter on the tea party and Sarah Palin? What awful people.”

That would include lots and lots of people at the New York Times.

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Keith Olbermann hearts Eric Fuller, the far-lefty arrested at an ABC “This Week” taping in Tucson:

Clarification: As noted in a few weekend posts (here, here, and here), Eric Fuller’s Democracy Now appearance endorsed by Olbermann included this name-naming rant:

It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target. Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled—senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even nine-year-old girls.

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From Doug Ross: “White House: we were shocked that Tucson memorial crowd hooted and hollered throughout because our APPLAUSE signs were actually quite discrete.”

From the “Give Me a Break” Dept. — Leftists are claiming this was just closed captioning for the hearing impaired.

Sure. People ALWAYS close caption applause lines at live events.

Update: Others commenting — Gateway Pundit, Ed Driscoll.

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“Busted: Unsealed Docs Show The Fed Was Fully Warned Of A Housing Crisis.”

They were warned, but not fully warned, because no one besides a few people inside Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and presumably a number of higher-ups in the Democratic Party (but I repeat myself) knew about this:

… from the time Fannie and Freddie began buying risky loans as early as 1993, they routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime or Alt-A.

Thus, by 2005, when Business Insider writes that the Fed was “fully warned” (this would appear to mean that the White House wasn’t, since the docs were just recently unsealed), the aforementioned parties were already about 12 years into their campaign to systematically deceive the ratings agencies and capital markets about hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars in mortgage-backed securities.

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From Jack Coleman at NewsBusters (“Liberal Radio Host/Lawyer Perpetuates Slander That Dallas Schoolchildren Cheered News of JFK’s Death”) — Dan Rather built his career on having delivered this lie, which he knew to be a lie at the time he delivered it. Read the whole thing.

From Vatican City:

Jan 16, 2011 / 10:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In their own words, two old friends of John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Rabbi Elio Toaff of Rome, are both happy for the recognition of his life through his coming beatification.

On Jan. 14, Benedict XVI signed an official decree recognizing the holiness of his predecessor, a major step on the late-Pope’s path to sainthood. On the same day, the Vatican announced that the beatification would be celebrated the Sunday after Easter, which is observed as Divine Mercy Sunday in the Catholic Church.

Since the announcement, excitement has been building and people from all over the globe such as his former personal secretary Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz and Knights of Columbus chief Carl Anderson have expressed their happiness.

Two especially important figures in the life of Venerable John Paul II have now added their voices to the chorus of praise being offered for their friend.

At the Angelus on Jan. 16, Pope Benedict XVI announced the news to people gathered in St. Peter’s Square. “Dear brothers and sisters, as you know, next May 1 I will have the joy of proclaiming Venerable John Paul II, my loved predecessor, “Blessed.”

The date, Divine Mercy Sunday, is “very significant” because it is at once a day proclaimed by John Paul II himself and also “the eve on which he finished his earthly life.”

“All who knew him, all who esteemed and loved him,” said the Pope, “cannot but rejoice with the Church for this event.”

Speaking moments later in Polish, he told Poles that he shares in their joy over the chance to recognize their countryman. “This news was much awaited by all and, particularly, by you, for whom my venerable predecessor was a guide in faith, truth and liberty.”

Benedict XVI hoped that they would undertake a “profound spiritual preparation” for the spring beatification.

Joining the Pope in expressing his happiness for the announcement was the retired Chief Rabbi of Rome, Elio Toaff.

According to Italy’s La Stampa, the rabbi reacted to the news with joy. “Clearly the beatification is a fact internal to the Catholic Church,” he said. “In any case, it is a recognition of a great Pope and a great man who I knew very well. And this cannot give me anything but pleasure.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Yesterday (covered here at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), in his report on the arrest of Eric Fuller at an ABC “This Week” taping in Tucson, Arizona, the Associated Press’s Bob Christie either failed to perform a basic web search that would have revealed Fuller’s Friday “Democracy Now!” rant, or failed to report what he found.

This evening’s AP report from Christie and Amanda Lee Myers at least recognizes Fuller’s appearance on the far-left program. But that acknowledgment appears at Paragraph 14 of a report that is primarily about Gabrielle Giffords’s recovery (headlined “Rep. Gabrielle Giffords condition improves”), instead of in a different AP dispatch this evening (“With shock subsiding, pain sets in for AZ victims”) where addressing Fuller’s outburst would have made more sense (what would have made the most sense is a separate report on Fuller alone).

The submission by Christie and Myers also fails to go into much of the substance of Fuller’s “Democracy Now!” appearance. Readers get the impression that Fuller was fulminating against conservatives in general, when in fact he called out several by name — including, bizarrely, new House Majority Leader John Boehner.

Here are the relevant paragraphs from Christie’s and Myers’s mishmash:

Meanwhile, a week after the Tucson supermarket massacre, more details emerged about one of shooting victims who police said became distraught and was arrested during a televised town hall meeting.

James Eric Fuller, a self-described liberal and military veteran, started ranting at the end of the program Saturday. He took a picture of a local tea party leader and yelled “you’re dead” before calling others in the church a bunch of “whores,” authorities said.

Deputies called a doctor and decided he should be taken to a hospital for a mental evaluation, said Pima County sheriff’s spokesman Jason Ogan said.

No one answered the door Sunday at Fuller’s home.

In media interviews and on the Internet, Fuller, a former limousine driver and Census worker, has said he worked hard to get Giffords re-elected in her conservative-leaning district. He was going over questions he had prepared for the congresswoman, when the shooting began, he said in an interview with the television show “Democracy Now.”

He was shot in the knee and back and drove himself to the hospital, where he spent two days.

“I didn’t know how to calm myself down,” he said on the TV show, “so I wrote down the Declaration of Independence, which I memorized some time ago. And that did help to organize my thoughts.”

He also lashed out at conservative Republicans for “Second Amendment activism,” arguing it set the stage for the shooting.

“More details emerged”? Guys, the details had long since emerged. You either didn’t find them, or chose to ignore them.

For the record, “Democracy Now!” is a TV and radio show, with, according to the program, over 800 radio and 300 TV outlets. I indicated that it was a “radio show” in yesterday’s post, and have revised it to remove that impression. AP’s description of “Democracy Now!” as a “TV show” is incomplete.

Also for the record, Fuller told “Democracy Now!” in the early portion of his taped interview Friday that “I was taken to the hospital.” In claiming that he “drove himself to the hospital,” the AP’s Christie and Myers are relaying what Fuller told the CBS Early Show on Tuesday morning. Which claim of Fuller’s is correct is anyone’s guess.

Here are key elements of the “Democracy Now!” interview the AP reporters glossed over:

And the first thing that I wrote down and what my reaction was to it was: “How many other people? How many other demented people are out there? It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target. Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled—senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even nine-year-old girls.” There was a little girl named Christina Green, nine years old, who is one of the deceased.

Another thing I wrote down was, “Can we have another fundraiser at the target range, Jesse Kelly?” Jesse Kelly ran against her in the election. And I’ve heard him speak several—a couple of times, and I couldn’t believe he was a real candidate. I thought he was just like a fake candidate. It didn’t seem like anybody would consider him seriously. He came within 4,000 votes of winning the election. One of his slogans was: “Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.” Kind of a very marginal personality and a low mentality.

I should also note that since the “Democracy Now!” folks interviewed Fuller earlier in the day (i.e., in past tense, “We spoke with him at his home in Tucson”), they had every opportunity to decide whether Fuller’s rant was worthy of airing. Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, and the rest of the crew there, who spent the introduction to the interview calling out Palin, Kelly, and Angle by name themselves, clearly didn’t have a problem with the incivility quotient of what Fuller said. Mirroring Fuller’s words, the “Democracy Now!” folks seem like kind of marginal personalities and low mentalities in the circumstances, doncha think? At the very least, there’s a lot of really poor judgment in operation.

As to the Associated Press, you can pretty much guarantee if a right-wing ranter had called out favored liberals by name, a) the AP would have been named them, and b) those named would have been consulted for offended rebuttals.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

And does it well, as would be expected:

Obama in 2011 has a rendezvous with $4 a gallon gas and $100 a barrel oil. For two years, the administration has shut down new leasing of fossil fuels in the West; curtailed them in and around the Gulf; pontificated about, but not acted much on, nuclear power; and more or less unleashed everyone from Van Jones to Steven Chu to talk up global warming and talk down finding a necessary window of security in new sources of oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power until technology and the market transition us to next-generation fuels.

The worldwide recession gave Obama two years of relatively cheap oil and gas, a breathing space which unfortunately he used to fantasize about wind and solar, rather than rush to create expanded sources of tried energy. That tab is coming due. “Drill, baby, drill” was not Sarah Palin’s mythmaking. We forget that what sunk the McCain campaign was the September 2008 meltdown that not only raised specters of a 1929 crash, but soon crashed oil prices as the world went into deeper recession — and gave Obama between 2009-10 relatively cheap gas at the pump and thus a buffer to his otherwise disastrous Keynesian policies.

How easily we forget that the stage was set for an incipient recovery in December 2008 … until Barack Obama and Congress began “stimulating,” thereby extending the recession and creating a virtually jobless post-recession period that doesn’t deserve the term “recovery.”

From Buffalo, NY:

Jan 15, 2011 / 06:38 pm

Pope Benedict officially recognized the heroic virtues of 20th century American priest Fr. Nelson Baker, which moves the beloved champion for the poor further along in the process towards sainthood.

Fr. Baker – who was born in Buffalo, New York in 1842 – lived to be 95 years old and is heralded for building what’s been called a “city of charity” in Lackawana, New York. By the time of his death in 1936, his initiatives for the poor included a minor basilica, an infant home, a home for unwed mothers, a boys’ orphanage, a hospital, a nurses’ home, and an elementary and high school.

On Jan. 14, Pope Benedict recognized the heroic virtues of Fr. Baker, which is the second step in the priest’s cause for canonization. After a candidate is initially listed as a Servant of God, the promoter of the cause must prove that the candidate lived heroic virtues. When documents and testimonies are presented to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome, and the candidate is approved, he or she earns the title of “Venerable.” Two documented and medically authenticated miracles are then needed, one for beatification and one for canonization.

“Father Baker was known for his tremendous works of charity during his 60 years of priesthood,” Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York said on Jan. 14. Archbishop Dolan expressed delight in the Pope’s action on his blog, “The Gospel in the Digital Age.”

The Diocese of Buffalo said on Friday that they “rejoice” at the news , adding that the latest move “is the next step in what we hope and pray will be the eventual beatification and canonization of Father Baker.”

After his upbringing in Buffalo in the late 19th century and a period of enlistment as a solider in the Civil War, Fr. Baker enjoyed economic success running a feed and grain business with his good friend Joe Meyer. He often spent much of his time and money, however, contributing to the local Catholic orphanage. Despite the apprehension of his father, brother and business partner – yet to the delight of his mother – he eventually discerned that he wanted to join the priesthood. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Let’s see if this lasts. I’m guessing it will.

Here’s the opening paragraph of the Associated Press’s 8:16 p.m. ET report on the arrest of Eric Fuller:

One of the Arizona shooting victims was arrested Saturday and then taken for a psychiatric evaluation after authorities said he took a picture of a tea party leader at televised town hall meeting and yelled: “you’re dead.”

The rest of Bob Christie’s dispatch reflects either a failure by “The Essential Global News Network” to do a simple Google search on the guy, or, if such a search was attempted, a failure to report what was found.

Three of the results appearing on the first page of a Google Web Search on ["Eric Fuller" Tucson] (typed as indicated between brackets) are Friday items about an interview Fuller did on the far-left “Democracy Now!” program on that same day. One is at the Politico, which would seem to eliminate lack of knowledge as an AP excuse.

Another reference is directly to the interview. Here is all of what Fuller had to say from a transcript found at that “Democracy Now!” link (bolds are mine):

Once she walked up to me, she said, “I’ll answer your questions, but you have to wait.” And there was a line forming up there, so I went over and I sat down and looked over my questions, only two of them, kind of long ones, and was trying to figure out which one and whether I should, you know, ask those questions, when I heard the sound of gunshots. And I looked over only about 10 or 15 feet away, where Gabrielle Giffords had been standing, and in her place was a very excited gunman who was athletically pumping out the rounds and pointing the gun at anybody that he could get a bead on.

People around me were being hit. I just dove for the ground. And while I was diving for the ground, a round hit me in the knee. I was conscious of that. And while I was on the ground, I guess another one, another round, hit me in the back. A fragment did; it hit me in the back. A woman went over and knocked the clip out of his hand. He was reloading. He had a Glock 9mm with a 30-round clip in it. And my thought on the ground was that he’s going to come and finish us off. But this woman knocked the other clip out of his hand. Then a couple of guys came along, bystanders, and they tackled him, knocked him to the ground.

I was in shock, and I just wandered out into the parking lot. And a woman was pushing a cart full of groceries out there. And I said to her, “I’ve been shot.” And she just looked at me like I was crazy. I was taken to the hospital. And even though I was sedated and everything, I stayed up—I was staying up, stayed most of the night. And I didn’t know how to calm myself down, so I wrote down the Declaration of Independence, which I memorized some time ago. And that did help to organize my thoughts. And the first thing that I wrote down and what my reaction was to it was: “How many other people? How many other demented people are out there? It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target. Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled—senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even nine-year-old girls.” There was a little girl named Christina Green, nine years old, who is one of the deceased.

Another thing I wrote down was, “Can we have another fundraiser at the target range, Jesse Kelly?” Jesse Kelly ran against her in the election. And I’ve heard him speak several—a couple of times, and I couldn’t believe he was a real candidate. I thought he was just like a fake candidate. It didn’t seem like anybody would consider him seriously. He came within 4,000 votes of winning the election. One of his slogans was: “Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.” Kind of a very marginal personality and a low mentality.

I worked hard to elect Gabrielle Giffords. I would rather she was busy doing her job today than lying in a hospital with a gunshot wound in the head.

For what it’s worth, Fuller’s claim above that “I was taken to the hospital” contradicts what CBS’s Early Show reported, presumably based on what Fuller told the program, on Tuesday: “He drove himself to the hospital and was released Monday.”

Also, as an aside, if you listen to the end of the audio at the “Democracy Now!” link, you’ll hear host Amy Goodman tell her audience that her next guest will be Frances Fox Piven (of Cloward-Piven Strategy fame). Other persons of not described as “frequent guests” at Democracy Now’s Wikipedia entry include Noam Chomsky, Danny Glover, and Robert Fisk.

Back on point: Since when is the previous day’s unhinged rant of a guy arrested for making a very public “you’re dead” threat to someone with whom he happens not to agree not news? It would appear that the answer is: “It’s not news if it came from a hateful leftist whose exposure would ruin the ‘right-wing vitriol’ meme which we’re still trying to milk.”

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Noel Sheppard posted the news about J. Eric Fuller’s arrest at NewsBusters earlier this evening:

According to the website of ABC-TV affiliate KGUN, J. Eric Fuller was arrested and charged with threats, intimidation, and disorderly conduct.

Demonstrating impressive prescience, John Hayward at Human Events predicted on Friday that Fuller would attempt to capitalize on his being among the injured in last Saturday’s Tucson murders. Here’s a sampling of Fuller’s full feelings from Hayward:

You might be seeing a lot of Eric Fuller over the weekend. He’s one of the people injured in Jared Loughner’s shooting rampage, taking rounds in the knee and back. He’s also a vicious bigot, and because he’s elderly and a military veteran, the Left is going to fall in love with him.

Fuller gave an interview with the Democracy NOW radio show, in which he said of the Tucson shootings: “It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle, and the rest got their first target.” Presumably he’s not talking about Judge John Roll.

“Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled,” Fuller ranted on, “senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even 9-year-old girls.” I didn’t realize the Second Amendment called for all those things. They must be lurking in one of the penumbras or emanations.

And John Boehner’s part of Murder, Incorporated now? Even by the frothy standards of liberal hatemongering, that’s quite a stretch. At least the fevered minds of the Left can say that Palin, Beck, and Angle are feisty and confrontational. Boehner apparently inspired a murderous rampage by gently taking that gavel from Nancy Pelosi’s hands.

Fuller’s emergence as a beeping smoke detector amid the right-wing haze of the “Climate of Hate” has already drawn praise from Soros operative Eric Bohlert, who issued a Twitter taunt to Michelle Malkin and Andrew Breitbart: “Countdown to smearing wounded veteran from Tucson massacre begins… now.”

Looks like Fuller smeared himself quite effectively, per KGUN:

On the front row was Kenneth Dorushka, who was shot shielding his wife from Loughner’s gunfire; and J. Eric Fuller, who was shot in the knee.

… When Tucson Tea Party founder Trent Humphries rose to suggest that any conversation about gun control should be put off until after the funerals for all the victims, witnesses say Fuller became agitated. Two told KGUN9 News that finally, Fuller took a picture of Humphries, and said, “You’re dead.”

When State Rep. Terri Proud (R-Tucson) rose to explain and clarify current and proposed gun legislation in the state, several people groaned or booed her. One of those booing, according to several witnesses, was Fuller. Witnesses sitting near Fuller told KGUN9 News that Fuller was making them feel very uncomfortable.

The event wrapped up a short time later. Deputies then escorted Fuller from the room. As he was being led off, Fuller shouted loudly to the room at large. Several witnesses said that what they thought they heard him shout was, “You’re all whores!”

A Pima County Sheriff’s spokesman told KGUN9 News that they charged Fuller with one count of threats and intimidation, and said they plan to charge him with at least one count of disorderly conduct. Humphries told KGUN9 News that he does plan to press those charges.

… Afterwards, several participants told KGUN9 News that they hoped the outburst would not overshadow what they saw as the true message of the meeting: that Tucson is filled with good and decent people, and the community will get through this.

There would appear to be a better chance of “getting through this” if Mr. Fuller can be kept away from attempts to do so.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Twice the economic growth, and over 10 times more job growth.

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Note: This item went up at Pajamas Media and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Thursday.

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Much of the economic news immediately after the New Year was decent, even hopeful. The Institute for Supply Management’s Manufacturing and Non Manufacturing indices moved more solidly into expansion. Payroll and benefits giant ADP told us that the economy added 297,000 seasonally adjusted private-sector jobs in December, that report’s best monthly number in years.

Then came Friday’s Employment Situation Summary from Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At first glance, that news also seemed acceptable. Seasonally adjusted, the national unemployment rate dropped from 9.8% to 9.4% in December, while employers added 103,000 jobs. The latter number trailed both expectations and ADP’s earlier report, but given the vagaries involved in seasonal adjustments, maybe it wasn’t all that bad.

Unfortunately, it was pretty bad. December’s BLS report capped off a year during which the post-recession consequences of Obama administration policies became all too clear. 2-1/2 years in, what I have been calling the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy since the middle of 2008 has created a workforce which is disengaged and underemployed at levels not seen since the 1930s — which, not coincidentally, is the last time a Democratic administration’s supposedly stimulative policies created a long-term, high-unemployment economy.

Almost half of December’s unemployment rate drop occurred because on a seasonally adjusted basis, 260,000 people left the workforce. During 2010 (not seasonally adjusted, because it’s a year-over-year comparison), the civilian 16-and-over population increased by almost 2 million, but the ranks of those either working or looking for work only grew by 500,000. A primary reason for this is that a record number of those who could applied for Social Security retirement and disability benefits. Many surely would not have done so in a more favorable job market.

December’s seasonally adjusted workforce participation rate was 64.3%. The last time this rate was so low was in 1984, when many more families were intact and had one parent staying at home. The teenage workplace disengagement epidemic I addressed in September has become even more awful. In 2010, the 16-19 age group’s participation rate and employment-population ratio averaged under 35% and under 26%, respectively. Both were all-time lows by far. If the current rate of decline in the latter measurement continues, there may not be a single teenager employed anywhere in a dozen years.

It’s also hard to find much consolation in the number of jobs added during December, or even during 2010.

December’s not seasonally adjusted job results were worse than every December from 2003 to 2007. That indicates deterioration, as November 2010′s analogous figure was in the lower-middle end of the November 2003-2007 range. In a real recovery from a deep recession, this should not be happening. Well over 20% of the 1.35 million private-sector jobs added in 2010 came from temporary help services, even though that sector is less than 2% of total employment.

Well, at least the numbers are positive, and that’s good enough, right? Wrong. The real benchmark for evaluating this recovery’s employment and economic growth should be the post-recession, tax cut-driven Reagan recovery. In that contest, it’s Reagan in a rout.

Here’s how employment growth compares, without even taking into account our currently much larger potential workforce (source data: total; private):

This should be a complete embarrassment to the Keynesian (left) wing of economic thought. During the first six post-recession quarters under Reagan, the economy added over 4.1 million private-sector jobs. During Obama’s comparable six quarters, that number, subject to future revisions, has been less than 400,000. Even if ADP is right and the economy really added almost 200,000 more jobs than the government estimated in December, Reagan still prevails in a complete wipeout.

Further, Reagan’s figures above are somewhat handicapped. Those who believe that the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) deserves to have the last word on when recessions begin and end (I don’t; I prefer the traditional definition) should note that Reagan’s first quarter included two months during which the NBER said we were still in a recession.

What about economic growth? As seen here, growth during Reagan’s first five post-recession quarters averaged an annualized 6.2%. Obama’s first five quarters? Try 2.9%.

Yes, from 1982 to 1988, the government ran up budget deficits of $1.2 trillion. Putting aside that these deficits occurred largely because Tip O’Neil’s Democratic Congresses serially broke promises to rein in spending and partially because of a defense buildup that helped defeat the Evil Empire, at least Reaganomics gave us millions of jobs and robust economic growth in return. In just two years of Obamanomics, we have $3 trillion more in debt, projected budget deficits as far as the eye can see, mediocre growth, and a still-weak job market.

Sadly, it’s not just the failed Keynesian stimulus that has held back the economy and employment. Despite the President’s positive rhetoric, his administration demonstrates its resistance to steps that would improve the economy and create jobs on a nearly daily basis. A small sample: EPA v. Texas, which The Wall Street Journal has described as a “carbon regulation putsch“; an energy policy deliberately designed “to raise prices by making fossil fuels harder to produce and use”; ObamaCare provisions that have already scuttled plans to build 45 physician-owned hospitals; and an FCC Internet power grab that has “the potential to kill a new industry as well as stifle free speech.”

Under Reagan, America was open for business, and the economy boomed. Under Obama, our government is hostile to business — except, for course, for businesses associated with favored cronies. Our economy seems destined to meander along at a rate barely above stagnation until that changes.

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UPDATE: The rout will be even greater than indicated in the column once the results of the latest comprehensive revision to previously released figures get incorporated into the monthly tables. Here are the preliminary number the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced in October –

The revision, which will by finalized and announced January’s Employment Situation Report to be released on February 4, will affect previously published data from April 2009 forward. Thus, all but three months impacted by the revision (April through June 2009) will be after the official June 2009 end of the recession (by both definitions: the one normal people use and the one decreed by the National Bureau of Economic Research).

If the downward revision holds, and if as would be expected the vast majority of it affects July 2009 and later months, overall job growth through 18 post-recession months under Obama will go negative, and the private-sector growth indicated above will be reduced to something in the neighborhood of 150,000. Stay tuned.

From around the world:

Jan 14, 2011 / 08:02 pm (CNA).- Polish Catholic leaders reacted to the announcement of John Paul II’s beatification with enthusiasm and gratitude, praising the late Pope’s example to Poland and to the Church. The Archbishop of New York also reacted with “great joy” as he recalled memories of the Pope’s visits.

In a Jan. 14 audience Pope Benedict XVI approved the decree for the beatification of his predecessor. Doctors studied the miraculous healing of Sr. Marie Simon Pierre Normand and ruled it was “scientifically unexplainable.” Following approval from theologians and church officials, Pope Benedict promulgated the decree.

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, John Paul II’s longtime personal secretary, expressed the “great pleasure” of the entire Archdiocese of Krakow and of the entire Polish people. He expressed “a huge thank you” to Pope Benedict XVI for the decree confirming the miracle.

He invoked the Italian phrase “santo subito,” which roughly means “saint now.” It was a phrase on the lips of many of John Paul II’s mourners who wanted him declared a saint immediately after his death. This phrase has been “fulfilled,” the cardinal said in a statement from the archdiocese.

“For us, John Paul II is a patron and protector. The life of the Holy Father was our guide to the direction of the sovereignty and independence of our country.”

“Today we need such a guide, because in today’s world it is not easy,” he commented. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

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- April 1, 2005 — Pope John Paul: Champion of Freedom, Human Life, and Democracy