I like the idea of a “Repeal Amendment” to the Constitution:

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, has introduced into Congress a very simple and clear amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Called the Repeal Amendment, it reads:

“Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.”

In short, the legislatures of two-thirds of the states can repeal any federal law or regulation.

I’d consider lowering the threshold to 60%, and add a two-year restraining order on enforcing a law or reg once 50% of the state legislatures vote for repeal. The law or reg would go back into place if the 60% threshold isn’t reached in that two-year time frame.

Randy Barnett notes that leftists fiercely oppose it, and correctly observes that their opposition is a sign that he’s on to something.

_______________________________________________

Department of “Just-Us Democrats and Leftists” Updates:

• J. Christian Adams — “Eric Holder’s Made-up Defense”
• Bryan Preston — “Obama’s Shocking Recess Appointment”

_______________________________________________

While on the subject of loony-left appointees, I’d say that any one of the Duke “Group of 88″ professors who preemptively judged the school’s lacrosse players guilty and have never apologized, as is the case with Obama appointee Cathy Davidson at the National Council on the Humanities, has DQ’d themselves from future federal service. Sans apology, nothing Davidson has to say deserves to carry any weight.

Bigger picture, Davidson ridicules American exceptionalism and instead subscribes to the historically laughable notion that the “colonialist” America and other nations only got rich by exploiting poor nations.

If Duke wants to pay her to spout this garbage in the classroom, that’s between the university, its brainwashed students, and ignorant parents who are at least partially sending their money down the toilet. Taxpayers? No way. If she stays, Congress should cut off the Endowment’s funding until she leaves.

_______________________________________________

Zero Hedge — “GM Continues To Stuff Dealers With Its Cars” — Dealer inventories dropped 25,000 in December, but ended the year 33% higher than last December (511,000 vs. 385,000).

That’s the case, even though GM’s sales for the year per the Wall Street Journal’s detailed report were, contrary to its press release, only up by 7.2%. If GM dealers somehow beat 2010′s first quarter by 10%, they still have a supply of 88 days’ sales on hand. If they just match last year, it’s 97.

I should remind readers that yours truly was as far as I can tell the first to make the over-stuffing assertion just before GM’s IPO.

From Creston, British Columbia:

Wednesday, December 29th, 2010

A 53-year-old man can count his lucky stars or may want to think of this as his Christmas Miracle after surviving an 80-feet plunge into a mine shaft while snowmobiling with friends.

The Creston man suffered only a broken wrist and a broken ankle.

Police and Nelson search and rescue were called to the scene of the accident on Tuesday. The distress call came from snowmobilers who were with him and observed the man go into the deep hole.

“Creston RCMP and Nelson Search and Rescue attended an area 30 km up the Bayonne Creek Forest Service Rd, which is between Creston and Salmo off of Highway #3. It is believed that the mine shaft opening was covered by snow at the time of the fall,” said Cpl. Dan Moskaluk.

“The search and rescue helicopter was used to remove the man once he was out of the mine shaft. He was flown to Creston Valley Hospital and as of yesterday he was in stable condition, suffering from a broken ankle and wrist.”

Go here for the rest of the story.

The Journal lays it out in stark detail (direct link; Google search link on the article title for non-subscriber access):

The EPA’s War on Texas
The agency punishes the state for challenging its anticarbon rules.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon regulation putsch continues, but apparently abusing the clean-air laws of the 1970s to achieve goals Congress rejected isn’t enough. Late last week, the EPA made an unprecedented move to punish Texas for being the one state with the temerity to challenge its methods.

To wit, the EPA violated every tenet of administrative procedure to strip Texas of its authority to issue the air permits that are necessary for large power and industrial projects. This is the first time in the history of the Clean Air Act that the EPA has abrogated state control, and the decision will create gale-force headwinds for growth in a state that is the U.S. energy capital. Anyone who claims that carbon regulation is no big deal and that the EPA is merely following the law will need to defend this takeover.

Since December 2009, the EPA has issued four major greenhouse gas rule-makings, and 13 states have tried to resist the rush. The Clean Air Act stipulates that pollution control is “the primary responsibility of states and local government,” and while the national office sets overall priorities, states have considerable leeway in their “implementation plans.” When EPA’s instructions change, states typically have three years to revise these plans before sending them to Washington for approval.

This summer, the 13 states requested the full three years for the costly and time-consuming revision process, until the EPA threatened economic retaliation with a de facto construction moratorium. If these states didn’t immediately submit new implementation plans to specification, the agency warned, starting in 2011 projects “will be unable to receive a federally approved permit authorizing construction or modification.” All states but Texas stood down, even as Texas continued to file lawsuits challenging the carbon power grab.

Two weeks ago, EPA air regulation chief Gina McCarthy sent the Texas environmental department a letter asserting that the agency had “no choice” but to seize control of permitting. She noted “statements in the media” by Texas officials and their “legal challenges to EPA’s greenhouse gas rules,” but she cited no legal basis.

And no wonder. The best the EPA could offer up as a legal excuse for voiding Texas’s permitting authority last Thursday was that EPA had erred in originally approving the state’s implementation plan—in 1992, or three Presidents ago.

… The takeover was sufficiently egregious that the D.C. circuit court of appeals issued an emergency stay on Thursday suspending the rules pending judicial review. One particular item in need of legal scrutiny is that the permitting takeover is an “interim final rule” that is not open to the normal—and Clean Air Act-mandated—process of public notice and comment. So much for transparency in government.

The EPA claims its takeover is a matter of great urgency, but Texas is being pre-emptively punished for not obeying rules that don’t exist today because the EPA hasn’t finalized them.

… The EPA concedes that some 167 current projects will be affected, and many more in the future. Our guess is that all of them will be delayed for years and many will simply die. This is precisely the goal of a politically driven bureaucracy that wants to impose by illegal diktat the anticarbon, anti-fossil fuel agenda that the Obama Administration has been unable to pass by democratic consent.

There is no legal basis for what the EPA is doing. All they have is brute force, intimidation, and an unlimited supply of legal resources. Once again, the administration is engaged in actions that perfectly fit the definition of tyranny (“arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority”).

And the Journal is right in asserting that it’s all about stopping development — and growth, and wealth creation, and ultimately, whether the President or his apparatchiks admit it or not, human progress.

It all gets back to the question of how a bunch of supposedly bright people can get so swept up in causes — stimulus, the environment, “green” energy — that they end up inarguably harming the economy, employment, and real people. Do they really believe in the causes, or are they just using them a shield to cover up their true intent to harm the economy for the purpose of getting some kind of twisted revenge for all the alleged evils U.S.-based capitalism has perpetrated? For some current and past administration members (e.g., Van Jones), it’s clearly the latter.

As to those who haven’t owned up to it, including our president, even if you wish to still give them the benefit of the doubt, the thought expressed by Glenn Reynolds yesterday applies: “I don’t think so (that he’s trying to wreck the economy), but I’m scratching my head trying to figure out what he’d do differently if he were. . . .”

Good news (seriously) — Dollar General will hire 6,000 for new stores. There’s nothing wrong with Wal-Mart feeling a little pressure from an outfit which, though selective, sometimes has even deeper discounts.

________________________________________________

In New York City, it’s garbagemen not in, lots of garbage still out.

________________________________________________

Steve Driehaus needs to figure out that when the ACLU feels it has to cover its hind end (HT 3BP) and defend a prolife group to avoid being accused of hypocrisy, he’s on the losing side of the argument.

________________________________________________

Readers here should be able to see the problem with the bolded statement in a missive over at Buckeye Firearms (BF) in reaction to lame-duck House Speaker Armond Budish’s bottle-up of a bill that would have allowed Concealed Carry permit holders “to let people with concealed-weapon permits carry their handguns inside businesses that have state liquor permits”:

As Speaker Budish has retained his leadership position in the caucus (as Minority Leader, given the new Republican majority — Ed.), it seems fair to wonder if there are any pro-gun Democrats. One thing is clear, there are certainly not enough – and that is reason enough for gun owners to be glad the Republicans now control the entire state legislature.

Geez, that’s a statement BF could make about the vast, vast majority of Democrats nationwide. Yet somehow BF saw fit to endorse Ted Strickland for reelection as Ohio’s Governor — even though Democrat Strickland avidly supports President Barack Obama, whose is as hostile to gun rights as any President ever elected, and who nominated two gun-hostile Supreme Court justices, both of whom violated their oath to uphold the Constitution in the McDonald case.

________________________________________________

A Zombietime must-read: “The Five Best Arguments Against Sharia in the United States”

________________________________________________

Outrage of the young in Europe – “youth protests (are really) … against a general situation in which the older generations have eaten the future of the younger ones.”

Indeed. Barring a major course change, this will be coming to America soon.

________________________________________________

Speaking of which, this had better not be coming to America soon, but don’t bet against it:

European nations begin seizing private pensions
Hungary, Poland, and three other nations take over citizens’ pension money to make up government budget shortfalls.

I wonder what the “we should be just like Europe” crowd thinks of this?

If attempted here, mattresses will be bulging as they never have.

________________________________________________

Zero Hedge-based non-cheerful passage of the day, courtesy of retail expert Howard Davidowitz (bolds are mine):

I am not surprised by the strength of retail sales, because I knew that 30% of consumers are responsible for retail sales, and these 30% did much better because of the performance of capital markets. I don’t think it is indicative of anything going forward.

I don’t think the economy is going to get any better. If you look at our fiscal and monetary policy, we went two trillion in the hole last year. Two trillion… to produce this… and unemployment went up to 9.8%! We’ve spent two trillion we’re printing money we’re going bananas. Our balance sheet, we’ve got $2.6 trillion on there, and what’s on there government securities, and MBS (mortgage-backed securities — Ed.).

If interest rates go up a point Bernanke’s bankrupt. Everything he’s bought is underwater. All the MBS are underwater, the whole country is underwater.

If there’s a credible counterargument, I’d like to hear it.

From Tooele County, Utah:

Dec 30, 2010

New father becomes Tooele County’s first casualty in Afghanistan war

A little over a week after his first child was born, Pfc. Jordan Byrd kissed his young wife and son goodbye and went off to war. Less than a month later, on Oct. 13, the 19-year-old Army medic became the first soldier from Tooele County killed in action in Afghanistan when he was struck by enemy fire as he rushed to help a wounded fellow soldier.

Byrd died in the Paktika Province of Afghanistan, but his death echoed loudest in Tooele County, prompting an unprecedented surge of grief, patriotism and community solidarity.

A true citizen of the county, Byrd’s parents lived in Grantsville and he attended schools in Tooele before graduating from Dugway High School in 2009. He dreamed of becoming a doctor, and joined the Army to help fund that goal.

“He just loved helping people and he loved this country,” said Jodi Steinfeldt, Byrd’s aunt, following the news of Byrd’s death. “He was so positive about what he was doing.”

The same day the Army released the news of Byrd’s death, a former classmate, 21-year-old Marcus Medina, organized a small candlelight vigil for friends to gather and comfort one another. Although he planned for a crowd of only a few dozen, Medina said well over 100 people came to honor Byrd.

“I didn’t know everyone but I felt like I did because we were all connected through Jordan,” Medina said after the vigil. “And that was only a fraction [of those who knew Byrd] who came. It just shows how many lives he touched.”

When Byrd’s body was returned to his family on Oct. 19, much of SR-36 from Stansbury Park to downtown Tooele was lined with flags, and those flying on flagpoles were lowered to half-staff. People, many of whom had not heard of Jordan Byrd until the news of his death, stood in patriotic solemnity along Main Street in Tooele as a motorcade-led processional brought his body back home.

“It’s not much for what he’s done. It’s just a teeny bit of respect,” said Tooele resident Doug Kinsman, an Iraq War veteran who saluted the gray hearse carrying Byrd’s body as it passed. “When I came home from Iraq, the city put me on a fire truck and took me down Main Street. I wish that could have happened for this one.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

In his report on the escalating dispute between the State of Texas and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one thing you cannot accuse Ramit Plushnick-Masti of the Associated Press of being is a master of understatement. He claims that “Both sides and conservation groups agree the battle has put the health of Texas residents and the environment at risk.”

Really? The only problem is that the AP reporter never found anyone who is currently on the Texas side of the dispute who is saying anything remotely resembling that.

Here are the opening paragraphs of Plushnick-Masti’s prose, followed by a much later paragraph representing the closest the writer gets to naming someone on the Texas side to worry about the alleged “risk” (bold is mine):

A longstanding tit-for-tat between Texas and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over how to regulate pollution has grown fierce in recent months, leaving industry frustrated and allowing some plants and refineries to spew more toxic waste into the air, streams and lakes than what is federally acceptable.

Both sides and conservation groups agree the battle has put the health of Texas residents and the environment at risk. But the back-and-forth over everything from who should issue permits to whether state agencies are properly cracking down on polluters shows no signs of slowing down.

The fight has gotten so ugly that the EPA took the unprecedented step this month of announcing it will directly issue greenhouse gas permits to Texas industries beginning in January after the state openly refused to comply with new federal regulations.

… “It’s a soup of toxic chemicals,” said Neil Carman, a Sierra Club scientist and former Texas environmental regulator.

Seriously, a “former Texas environmental regulator” who is now a Sierra Club “scientist” is the AP reporter’s “example” of someone associated with Team Texas. No one else in his report on the Texas side comes anywhere close to agreeing that Texans’ health or its environment are at risk.

I call Mr. Carman a “scientist,” in quotes, simply because the Sierra Club still believes in human-caused global warming (which it now refers to as “reversing climate change”), despite:

• The damning Climategate e-mails.
• The dog-ate-my data excuses why no one can recreate what these so-called geniuses allege.
• The admissions by “luminaries” including Phil Jones that there has been no warming since 1995.
• Revised guidance from the Royal Society, the “UK’s leading scientific body,” that has backed away from formerly aggressive “settled science” posture.
• The frank assertion by German economist and U.N. climate official Ottmar Edenhofer that “climate policy is redistributing the world’s wealth.”

Mr. Carman’s characterization of Texas as “a soup of toxic chemicals” is a really good soundbite for a PR person to spit out, but clearly disqualifies him from any reasonable claim to being a scientist interested in legitimate inquiry.

The dispute seems to boil down to one based on results (the Texas position) vs. one based on following every minute regulatory detail (Uncle Sam’s predictable position):

About 200 Texas facilities continue to operate with air and water permits that are either out of date or have been disapproved by the EPA. The agency believes they are releasing a variety of metals and chemicals into the air and water that would, under the new regulations, no longer be permitted.

A main point of contention has been the state’s flexible permit program, which sets a general limit on how much air pollution an entire facility can release. (“General” really means “specific overall.” — Ed.)

… Texas says it has wed environmental law so successfully with an industry-friendly economy that the EPA and other states could learn from it.

“The existing permits in Texas have helped our state achieve dramatic improvements in air quality and we believe they will ultimately be upheld in the courts,” Perry’s office said in a statement. “In their latest crusade, the EPA has created massive job-crushing uncertainty for Texas companies.”

If Gov. Perry’s office isn’t blowing smoke, so to speak, about the results achieved and can back it up, this fight really is about an over-intrusive federal bureuacracy imposing its will on the states, and not at all about clean air and water. The idea that it really is about the former and not the latter is given away in this paragraph from the AP-reporter’s dispatch:

Some industries in Texas have chosen to deal directly with the EPA, which says it’s working with about two-thirds of the largest facilities to get them new flexible permits.

That tells me that it’s really about whose flexible permits rule, not the idea of flexible permits.

For his part, the AP’s Plushnick-Masti seems to be fairly salivating over the potential gains by the statists in Washington, as seen in these two paragraphs about halfway through his report:

The EPA, meanwhile, by flexing its muscles in Texas, may be able to send a message to other states that the days when the agency allowed contentious issues to languish unresolved have ended. Other states have had their differences with the EPA, and at least a dozen have come together in a lawsuit – along with Texas – challenging new greenhouse gas regulations.

All are taking steps in the meantime to comply. Except Texas.

Implication: Texas needs to be squashed like a bug.

Expect future AP and other dispatches about this growing dispute to characterize Texas as some kind of outlaw cesspool of polluters. It continues an Obama administration tradition of using environmental regulation to dump on red states (see: Louisiana, BP oil spill).

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

The establishment press can and will try to minimize the significance of the ugliness we saw from New York City’s sanitation workers’ union this past week.

But the undeniable bottom line of what happened is in the final paragraph of an editorial at Investors Business Daily:

Beyond union bosses getting to vent spleen, and union members picking up unwarranted extra pay courtesy of city taxpayers, the slowdown led to two deaths, because emergency workers couldn’t get through snowbound streets.

One was a baby born in the lobby of a Brooklyn building. Snowbound airport workers led to 29 international flights being stuck on the Kennedy Airport tarmac for over three hours.

Mayor Bloomberg’s attitude in not so many words was that “snow happens.” He scolded city residents for driving in the bad weather conditions, told them they were calling 911 too much, and the day after the storm even advised that they just “go see a Broadway show.”

The condescending, out-of-touch Bloomberg — who broke a promise to honor the city’s mayoral term limit law — now says he will probe whether there was a union-orchestrated slowdown.

Hopefully, New Yorkers will remind him that what he is investigating is homicide.

The scary thing is that what we saw could happen anywhere when fiscal reality hits home.

Victor Davis Hanson cuts through the “it’s always someone else’s fault” leftist lament:

What strikes me is not that leftism does not work, but that when it is indulged and doesn’t work, its beneficiaries scream at the unfairness of it all—in the fashion that a theorist who claimed 2 plus 2 equals 5 blames the construct of mathematics because his equation is not true.

… In short, there is no “them” who wrecked Greece, ruined California, subverted the climate change movement, sidetracked a half century of liberalism to come, or discredited mega-deficit spending.

“Them” you see is simply a shorthand for “I got what I wanted, and I am mad at someone or something for not allowing the world to become what I think it should have been.”

_______________________________________

Hmm — Fewer movie tickets were sold in 2010 than in any year since 1995 The drop-off from 2009 was over 8%. Can’t wait to see the people who seem bound and determined to produce crap that is either spectacularly untrue, not what people want to see, or both explain this away (“It’s all because of NetFlix” — sure).

_______________________________________

Busted: Kirsten Powers swallowed an Obama administration talking point (i.e., falsehood) about how end-of-life legislation first appeared “under” George W. Bush, conveniently overlooking the fact that Bush vetoed the related legislation. Congress overrode the veto, and it went into law without Bush’s signature. News outlets which relayed the Dem spin have thus far been reluctant to retract.

Bottom line: You can’t pin this one on Bush. Note the irony of cowardly Dems trying to hide behind W when they unilaterally impose something clearly unpopular and particularly odious.

_______________________________________

From the “World Turned Upside Down” Dept. — “Mexican cartel announces 1-month truce.” They get to decide this? I hope not. If they’re as weakened as indicated, put ‘em out for good.

_______________________________________

The White House’s Winston Smiths were busy New Year’s Day shading the truth about the New Year’s Eve bombing of a Coptic Christian church in Egypt:

The attack on a church in Alexandria, Egypt caused 21 reported deaths and dozens of injured from both the Christian and Muslim communities.

“Clever” parsing — technically silent on who died, and specific on who was injured. But it will be read by many as if both Christians and Muslims died.

But as Gateway Pundit notes (HT Cold Fury), the fact is that all 21 dead were Christians. It’s conceivable that some of the 79 injured were Muslim (“All but eight of the injured and all the fatalities were Christians from Saints Church”), but does that even include those who committed the bombing?

The point is that this administration won’t call out Islamist-related terror attacks when they occur, which only emboldens them to carry out more of them.

_______________________________________

Its seems certain that George W. Bush’s memoir will outsell Bill Clinton’s.

The publisher’s observation:

A spokesman for Crown called the performance remarkable, saying he could not immediately think of any other hardcover nonfiction books in 2010 that had sold over 1 million copies.

Devonia Smith at Examiner.com offers succinct reason for this:

After reading both books, it is much more accurate to offer that meaningful historical substance was the reason Bush’s book outsold Clinton’s x-rated description of an x-rated life.

_______________________________________

Piling on: The New York Post has filed at least four damning reports about sanitation workers’ conduct during the City’s snowstorm (previously noted, accompanied by fact-free defenses of the indefensible at the New York Times, in BizzyBlog posts here, here, and here).

Here’s the fourth:

Sanit bigs boozed amid snow chaos: witnesses

Instead of plowing, they got plowed.

A group of on-duty Sanitation supervisors is under investigation for allegedly buying booze and chilling in their cozy department car for hours Monday night after the blizzard stranded a bus and three snowplows blocks away.

The city Department of Investigation is probing the incident after witnesses said four snow blowers blew off their duties to get blitzed, buying two six-packs of beer from a Brooklyn bodega. The workers then walked five blocks to their car, which was in 20 inches of snow in the middle of 18th at McDonald avenues near the F train entrance, passing the stuck bus and idle plows on 18th Avenue between Third and Fourth streets.

The four remained in the idling sedan until morning — then told their bosses they could do nothing about the blizzard because they had run out of gas, one witness said.

“They just sat in their car all night with the heat running,” the witness said.

… six riders remained on the snow-stalled bus all night.

Michelle Malkin’s related December 31 column (“Slow the plow: Big Labor’s death grip”) nails it:

It would be laugh-out-loud comedy if not for the death of at least one newborn whose parents waited for an ambulance that never came because of snowed-in streets.

This isn’t a triumphant victory for social justice and workers’ dignity. This is terrifying criminal negligence.

It’s especially terrifying because, barring a miracle, the large majority of those who willingly participated in the past week’s work slowdown will suffer no consequences for their actions.

From San Francisco (video is at link):

Zheng Cao, a Non-Smoker, Was Diagnosed With Stage IV Lung Cancer
Dec. 21, 2010

At the annual Christmas concert of the San Francisco Boys Chorus, one voice sounded out like no one in the crowd had ever heard before. Singing “Oh Holy Night”, the woman at the front of the theatre had a life story that was perhaps worthy of her own opera.

Zheng Cao, born during China’s Cultural Revolution, came to America 23 years ago with virtually nothing.

“Zheng is one of God’s best creatures,” said Frederica von Stade, a fellow opera singer. “When he puts a lot of good things all in one person, it results in someone like Zheng.”

A Grim Diagnosis

With two suitcases at $45 in hand, Cao arrived Dec. 17, 1988. After formal training she became a household name on America’ grandest stages, as one the great mezzo-sopranos to come from abroad.

But in 2008, on stage and off, something was wrong. Zheng had a pain that wouldn’t go away. Soon medical tests delivered grim news.

“I said, how bad is it?” Zheng, 44, recalled in an interview with “Good Morning America.” “And she said ‘it’s stage four.’”

Despite having never smoked, Zheng had stage four lung cancer that had spread throughout her body. Her doctors gave the San Francisco woman six months to live.

“She had 24 tumors in her brain, a tumor in her spine,” said Dr. David Larson of Washington Hospital in Fremont, California. There were large tumors everywhere.

Zheng said it felt like she had dropped everything and it just scattered.

“And that moment felt so bad about “My God, what am I going to tell my friends? And what am I going to tell my parents?’”

She said she called it her death sentence of a few months. But she turned the bad news into a journey of life and living and started keeping a video diary to remember it.

And then her tragedy began to look like a miracle. Her inner circle came together quickly, formulating a plan to save her. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

From the New York Times on Thursday, in an item put together with the help of a half-dozen Times reporters (“Inaction and Delays by New York as Storm Bore Down”; bold is mine):

… Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association, said the problems late Sunday (during the initial stages of the Northeast’s post-Christmas snowstorm — Ed.) underscored how the city could not rely on outside contractors to help with snow removal and other jobs in such storms, particularly during a holiday weekend.

“You can never count on the privates, because they don’t have to show up,” he said. “What obligation do they have? The mayor can’t order them out. The commissioner can’t order them out.”

That’s quite an interesting assertion, given the following item carried in the New York Post today:

More workers catch a ‘cold’

Between 660 and 720 Sanitation workers called in sick for the cleanup of last week’s blizzard — more than double the usual rate, The Post has learned.

About 11 to 12 percent of the Sanitation Department’s 6,000-strong force didn’t show up for work on Monday or Tuesday, city officials confirmed, as 20 inches of snow brought the Apple to a near-standstill.

Perhaps one of the six reporters at the Times might consider taking a moment away from their paper’s knee-jerk sympathy for organized labor, seemingly regardless of the damning circumstance, and ask Mr. Nespoli of the Sanitaationmen’s Union, who you would think would have been aware of the absenteeism issue when interviewed, to elaborate on who can and can’t be counted on in a municipal emergency.

By the way, a “normal” workforce absenteeism rate of 5%-6% (i.e., half the reported 11%-12% during the storm, or roughly 11-13 days a year) would be considered completely intolerable at just about any private sector company.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

A brief January 1 item from the Associated Press’s Barry Massey on the inauguration of Susana Martinez (“Martinez becomes NM gov as new year starts”) began as follows:

Republican Susana Martinez has claimed her place in history as New Mexico’s first female governor, taking office with the start of the new year.

If it weren’t for the “place in history” part, I might have blown right by it without hesitation. But speaking of a “place in history,” especially at a wire service that sometimes seems overly obsessed with race and racial milestones, it’s more than a little odd that the AP dispatch failed to note what the AP’s Jesse Washington reported on Election Night in November:

Wed Nov 3, 2:24 pm ET

Minorities ride GOP wave to groundbreaking wins

The Republican wave produced groundbreaking results for minority candidates, from Latina and Indian-American governors to a pair of black congressmen from the Deep South.

In New Mexico, Susana Martinez was elected as the nation’s first female Hispanic governor. Nikki Haley, whose parents were born in India, will be the first woman governor in South Carolina, and Brian Sandoval became Nevada’s first Hispanic governor.

Clearly, becoming the first Latina governor in the country is more significant for those who keep score of such things than becoming the first female governor of New Mexico. At a minimum, it’s quite an oversight.

At a maximum, it may just be that someone at the AP does not appreciate the existence of a female Latina who appears to be a genuine conservative with growing star power. An LA Times item by Michael Haederle, containing the predicatble “you’d better not govern like a conservative” warnings, elaborates:

When she takes the oath of office Saturday morning in Santa Fe’s historic plaza, Susana Martinez will become New Mexico’s — and the nation’s — first elected Latina governor.

The 51-year-old, four-term Doña Ana County district attorney is also a rising star in national Republican circles, already being mentioned in the blogosphere as a potential vice presidential candidate in 2012.

But as she takes over from Bill Richardson — a termed-out Democrat whose final two years in office were clouded by federal investigations into pay-for-play allegations — Martinez faces stiff challenges as New Mexico deals with a high unemployment rate and a hefty budget deficit.

“We have to start cutting back on the wasteful spending,” Martinez said in a telephone interview last week as she drove to her hometown of Las Cruces. She wants to sell the state’s $5.5-million jet, pare administrative costs in the education budget and put the state’s generous film industry incentives under the microscope.

Martinez is also considering scaling back the Rail Runner Express commuter train service and is looking to privatize operations at Spaceport America, where Virgin Galactic soon hopes to launch suborbital space flights. She has also promised to reverse a policy of issuing driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants and to fight for reinstatement of the death penalty.

Each of these proposals could be seen as a repudiation of Richardson and his expansive approach to state government. “We’re asking people to cut back and not spend as much, but government has not been able to do that,” Martinez said.

… Voters were ready for a change, said state Democratic Chairman Javier Gonzales. But he warns that if Martinez hews too closely to a budget-slashing, tax-cutting agenda she will quickly alienate New Mexicans, many of whom rely on government-funded programs. “There is a real concern among the Democrats about how she is going to prioritize solving the state’s problems,” he said.

Later in the article, Haederle relays a story about how local Republicans invited Ms. Martinez and her husband to lunch to discuss political issues, after which they realized, “Oh my God, we are Republicans! Now what do we do?”

The ultimate to that question came Saturday. You can’t help but wonder if Barry Massey or perhaps someone else at the AP decided that they didn’t like how Susana Martinez answered that question, and determined that readers, viewers and listeners at the wire service’s news, radio and TV outlets should not be made aware of “her place in history” as the nation’s first Latina governor.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

On the big stories of the year, they engaged in preemptive propaganda.

___________________________________________

Note: This column went up at Pajamas Media and was teased here at BizzyBlog with five more examples on Friday.

___________________________________________

In George Orwell’s 1984, set in a pre-computer era, Winston Smith, working in the misnamed Ministry of Truth, alters documents that contradict or conflict with his totalitarian government’s take on history, wiping out inconvenient truths or revising them to fit the current template.

In 2010, the establishment press ramped up its propaganda role, acting as a collective of preemptive Winston Smiths. They ignored or massaged important news stories in ways that prevented the relatively disengaged vast majority of the population (probably 85%, but perhaps as low as 80% thanks to the Tea Party movement) from getting their arms around the truth without doing a great deal of independent research.

Reviewing my blog’s 2010 posts, I thought I might have a hard time coming up with ten obvious Smith-like examples. I found about 50. If I’m lucky, I may have addressed 10% of the really offensive instances that occurred during the year. What follows are ten of the worst, with occasional multiple offenses packed into one item. Except for the final two, which are clearly the worst I found, they are in no particular order.

1. Refusing to describe the U.S. homebuilding industry and new home market as the worst since World War II — The current meme is that it’s the “worst in 47 years of record-keeping,” except that in most instances the “record-keeping” phrase is omitted, giving readers the clear impression that at least 2010 wasn’t as bad as 1963.

That’s not so. 2010 was 43% worse than 1963, and worse than every full year after Japan blessedly surrendered to us–even before adjusting for population.

Reporting the truth would make it painfully obvious that the Obama administration’s HAMP (Home Affordable Mortgage Program) and other initiatives have not only failed to revive the market, but have harmed it. The press won’t tolerate that.

2. “Channel-stuffing” at Government/General Motors — From July through November, the company shipped 112,000 more cars to its dealers than its dealers sold, increasing dealer inventories to an unreasonable 90 days’ sales. In doing so, GM, which according to accounting rules recognizes a sale when a vehicle leaves the factory, created over $1 billion in shipped-ahead profit.

This is a very effective technique for dressing up the books ahead of an initial public offering and making things look good for a while thereafter. But it’s not sustainable without a huge upward spike in sales, which isn’t happening. None of this is news in the establishment press.

3. ObamaCare’s work and marriage disincentives — Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation has shown that If ObamaCare ever takes full effect, those who wish to advance themselves could face marginal health care subsidy-loss rates of more than 100% (I’m not kidding). A person’s “reward” for earning more income would be having to pay more for the same health care coverage than the additional wages they have earned.

Additionally, couples who marry or wish to stay married would lose thousands of dollars a year by doing so. If not stopped, the subsidy structure will virtually kill any incentives for financial self-improvement, and will be a recipe for breaking up untold numbers of families. Of course, the establishment press has raised no concerns over this.

4. Global warmists’ admissions — First, there was Professor Phil Jones’s February concession that there has been no global warming since 1995. Then there was IPCC Economist Ottmar Edenhofer’s frank November assertion that climate policy “is redistributing the world’s wealth.” Apparently only English newspapers and editorial writers at Investors Business Daily care about these things. Meanwhile, journalists moaned about how people were no longer buying into the supposedly “settled science.”

5. Multiple falsehoods packed into one report — For sheer volume and chutzpah, it’s hard to beat the falsehoods the Associated Press’s Martin Crutsinger churned out in one September dispatch. First, he informed readers that trillion-dollar deficits didn’t happen until two years ago (wrong; the 2008 deficit was “only” $455 billion). Then he claimed that tax collections through eleven months of fiscal 2010 were up from the same period in fiscal 2009 (wrong again; they were down). Finally, he wrote that government spending was down compared to the previous year (three times wrong; true spending, as opposed to “outlays” as defined by Uncle Sam, was up by over 4% at the time). I asked the AP to retract Crutsinger’s false claims. To my knowledge, the wire service never has, and the falsehoods are still out there.

6. The State in the boardroom — The “Small Business Lending Act” passed in the fall contains a little-known provision requiring banks wishing to participate to accept federal government “capital investment” in their institutions. It’s little-known because the press has shown little interest in reporting it.

7. Flubbed scrub at the New York Times — The scrub goes back to a December 2009 article (link is to post-scrubbed version), but relates to the Ground Zero Mosque, one of the most misreported stories of 2010. In August, as the controversy heated up, a few bloggers who had excerpted that December story noted that several passages were missing from the original, including this quote from GZM spokesperson Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf:

“New York is the capital of the world, and this location close to 9/11 is iconic.”

The article’s co-author, Sharaf Mowjood, is a “Former Government Relations Coordinator for the Council on American Islamic Relations.” It is reasonable to believe that Mowjood recognized the odious religious triumphalism in Rauf’s statement, and had it and other questionable items expunged shortly after they appeared online and before they went to print.

8. Skimmers, what skimmers? — The press said virtually nothing about the EPA’s utter lack of preparedness for the BP oil spill. Journalists also took very little interest in the fact that several nations offered many forms of tangible aid to help the federal government contain and clean up the spill, and were either turned down flat or severely delayed. One Associated Press item whined that many nations wishing to provide help expected to be (gasp!) reimbursed for their costs.

9. He didn’t read it; what’s your point? — Except for the uniqueness of the final item, this example would be firmly in the running for 2010′s worst media muff. In May, regarding Arizona’s commonsense immigration enforcement measure, long after irresponsible charges of nativism and racism had been hurled by many administration members, President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress: “I have not had a chance to, I’ve glanced at it. I have not read it.” The press virtually ignored this shocking dereliction of duty.

10. Shirley Sherrod — No review of 2010 media “Smithing” can be complete with mentioning Sherrod, the USDA employee who was fired after Andrew Breitbart showed a video of a speech she made to an NAACP chapter. Sherrod and her husband Charles received the free press ride of the year. The $13 million the pair received in a farming racial discrimination lawsuit settlement just before she took her USDA job in July 2009 was almost never reported. The documented proof from a longtime leftist that the pair’s New Communities “cooperative” exploited child labor, paid less than minimum wage, illegally resisted union organizing efforts, and employed scab labor never made it into the mainstream media.

Finally, the press has fiercely resisted reporting the pervasive fraud in a related legal action meant to compensate black farmers who truly suffered discrimination in past decades. It is an operation that Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com recently exposed as a false claims gravy train. CNN actually covered for the government by relaying without question its contention that only three claims were fraudulent.

Will the press’s Winston Smiths be more or less aggressive in 2011? As New Media gets stronger, the establishment will likely get more desperate. So the answer is probably: “Yes.”