Ann Althouse has continued to be on the scene in Madison:

• She’s not impressed with yesterday’s Tea Party “Take Out the Trash” effort.
• Jesse Jackson — “We’ve gone from Wallace to Walker.” Are we sure Walker and the evil Kochs aren’t paying Jesse to be there?
• Protesters need “Guides for Talking on the Telephone“?

As they say, “Keep scrolling.”

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Even if you’re a fan of the coal-powered Chevy Volt, which by the way sold a non-electrifying 281 units in February, this video will make your head hurt.

And yes, it is an officially sanctioned production of Government/General Motors, whose stock by the way closed on Friday below its initial public offering price.

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At the New York Times, David Carr claims (“The Fading Power of Beck’s Alarms”) that “Fox and Glenn Beck Stare into a Dark Future” (that’s the search engine-optimizing window title). Artificial ratings peak-picking rules the day; of course he’s going to be down from last summer’s national rally time period, but to say that indicates weakness is absurd, especially given the pathetic competition.

Based on Thursday’s cable ratings, I’d say that Carr engages in wishful thinking. It’s like saying late-1990s dynasty New York Yankees were facing a “dark future” because they were only in first place by 10 games instead of 15.

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Obamacare waivers have passed the 1,000 mark. So much for equal protection.

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Michelle Bachmann stands by “her” characterization of the Obama administration as a “Gangster Government.“ Well of course she should. It has been a Gangster Government since before the even-keeled Michael Barone first coined the term in May 2009 in the wake of the government’s rip-off of secured non-TARP lenders during Chrysler’s bankruptcy proceedings.

A year ago Barone called Gangster Government “a long-running series — because it has been. In the wake of Florida judge Vinson’s ruling voiding Obamacare in its entirety, the administration’s continued granting of waivers as if nothing has happened is a more current Gangster Government example.

Update: This is what gangsters and tyrants do —

Despite openness pledge, President Obama pursues leakers

In just over two years since President Barack Obama took office, prosecutors have filed criminal charges in five separate cases involving unauthorized distribution of classified national security information to the media.

… legal experts and good-government advocates say the hard-line approach to leaks has a chilling effect on whistleblowers, who fear harsh legal reprisals if they dare to speak up.

Not only that, these advocates say, it runs counter to Obama’s pledges of openness by making it a crime to shine a light on the inner workings of government – especially when there are measures that could protect the nation’s interests without hauling journalists into court and government officials off to jail.

… leak prosecutions brought under Obama amount to “almost twice as many as all previous presidents put together,” noted Daniel Ellsberg, who changed history and helped set a legal precedent when he handed the Pentagon’s top-secret assessment of the Vietnam War to New York Times reporters four decades ago. “The campaign here against whistleblowers is actually unprecedented in legal terms.”

Gangsters aren’t fond of snitches.

If you’re a Democrat, you have to be going way over the top to be getting a call-out from Daniel Ellsberg.

From the Archdiocese of Indianapolis (HT Catholic News Agency):

February 11, 2011

All coaches have teams and players that they’ll never forget—no matter how many years pass.

And when tragedy strikes a former player, a coach often feels the heartbreak deeply because of the dreams they once shared, the triumphs they celebrated together, and the disappointments they endured together.

Roncalli High School head football coach Bruce Scifres had that feeling when he first heard the news that Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer David Moore had been shot four times while making a traffic stop on Jan. 23.

To help deal with the heartbreak of knowing that Moore was fighting for his life, Scifres pulled out a copy of the football yearbook that he made in 1999—the season when Moore was one of the four co-captains who helped lead Roncalli’s football team to a 15-0 record and an Indiana State High School Athletic Association championship.

“As part of the yearbook, I always ask our seniors to write a reflection about what their football experience means to them,” Scifres recalled. “His reflection was short and profound. To understand it fully, you have to know that still today, David, pound for pound, is the strongest player to ever walk through Roncalli. As a senior, he was 195 pounds, and he bench-pressed 400 pounds and dead-lifted 600 pounds. Still, his primary strength was from within.”

Scifres then shared Moore’s reflection: “The amount of success you have is dependent on the amount of faith you have. In order to achieve this faith, one must understand that no amount of iron in the weight room is equal to the iron nails of the cross.”

A tribute from a teammate

Tony Hollowell witnessed that faith and dedication every day he spent with Moore as a co-captain on that 1999 Roncalli football team—along with the other two co-captains, Greg Armbruster and Ryan Brizendine. Their bond was tight, the bond that develops when people make a commitment to a goal and each other. (Related: Father John Hollowell’s tribute at Officer Moore’s funeral)

When Hollowell learned the news that Moore had been shot, he remembered those 15 games in 1999 when he walked on the field, “knowing David was right by my side.”

He also remembered the last time that he saw Moore.

“I told him, ‘I am so glad that a man like you is protecting our families,’ ” recalled Hollowell, now a first-year seminarian for the archdiocese at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology.

The full extent of the heartbreak for Hollowell and Scifres—and everyone else who knew Moore—came on Jan. 26 when the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer died.

When Roncalli had a school Mass to remember and celebrate the life of Moore, Roncalli’s president, Joe Hollowell, who is Tony’s father, asked Scifres to share his thoughts about Moore with the current students.

Scifres read Moore’s quote from the 1999 football yearbook. He then shared the remarkable prayer that Moore wrote and delivered at Roncalli’s all-sports banquet in the spring of 2000.

The prayer of a champion

“Dear Lord,

“We are gathered here tonight in your name to honor those athletes who have not only taken the field for Roncalli, but who have taken to the battlefield for you.

“It is not always on the sports field that we do our battle, but on the field of everyday life. We do not battle for the goals nor the touchdowns, or the blue rings, but for the cross that we will carry to you.

“Allow not our memories to be filled by the highlight tapes or the dazzling plays, but instead by the prayers that began our games and the huddles we made to praise you after our victories and even our defeats.

“Let us not only think it was the weight of the iron in the weight room or the long hours at practice that made us victorious, but the weight of the cross and the hours on our knees that made us great.

“As for the seniors who have taken off their Roncalli jersey for the last time, help us remember that the competition has just begun. For the real battle is not with the pigskin or the round ball, but with the crosses that you have laid upon us.

“Allow us to be coached by your love, and let all of us give you, our true coach, 110 percent. That is where we will find the true meaning of a champion.

“In the name of your Son, Christ Jesus, we ask this blessing. Amen.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

I hope the WSJ’s editorialists are right.

There are reasons to be concerned, not the least of which are the $3.50 a gallon prices at gas stations around here (higher elsewhere).

But if the Journal is right, it reminds us that it’s happening way, way, way later than it should have:

The pace of job growth from a recession that vaporized some eight million jobs has been the most anemic of all post-World War II recoveries. Keynesians will have a hard time explaining why the jobs recovery started long after the bulk of the stimulus dollars were spent.

We still have 13.7 million officially unemployed Americans, with 2.7 million more who stopped looking for jobs. Nearly half (43.9%) of those without jobs have been out of work at least six months. The main reason the unemployment rate has fallen the last several months is that the number of working-age Americans not in the labor force dropped by two million over the past year. The U.S. economy needs to maintain a pace of 190,000 net new jobs for at least the next 12 months merely to get the jobless rate back to a still awful 8%.

The Keynesians don’t have an explanation, but I do: The “Rebound? What Rebound?” Economy of the past 20 months, the second stage of the POR (Pelosi-Obama Reid) Economy — the first was the Pelosi-Obama-Reid Recession/”Repression” as normal people define it — really is beginning to recover, it’s because the change in the balance of power in Washington and in many state capitals not only has ensured that the stimulus is mostly over, but is also showing signs of reining in our lawless, runaway government. It’s because there is a real likelihood that the crushing burden of Obamacare may really be excised. It’s because adults cleaning up after the children (figuratively and literally) may finally be getting a grip on out-of-control costs at the state and local level.

Look at what they’ve done (and are still doing) to ruin things, and to extend the pain: stimulus, uncalled-for drilling bans, Cash for Clunkers, Cash for Appliances, HAMP. All of these distorted markets, created perverse incentives, crowded out or beat down the private sector, and held back the economy. Some programs, particularly HAMP and others in housing, are still working against economic progress. The administration’s over-the-top regulatory hostility and contempt for the law (latest example here) remain as formidable barriers to a true recovery.

As a result of what they did and didn’t do while fully in charge, millions remain unemployed and, as the Journal noted, the post-recession employment market has been the “most anemic” ever. The suffering they have caused, which will linger for years until unemployment gets back to a tolerable level, has been incalculable, and with the exception of the Great Depression itself — which FDR extended for almost a decade by embarking on similar policies — unprecedented.

Party of compassion my a**.

From Vatican City:

Mar 2, 2011 / 05:53 pm

At the Wednesday general audience on March 2, Pope Benedict XVI discussed the life of St. Francis de Sales, a 17th century bishop and Doctor of the Church whose secret to holiness was his unreserved trust in God.

“He was an apostle, preacher, writer, man of action and of prayer,” the Pope recalled, describing how the saint became “committed to realizing the ideals of the Council of Trent, and involved in controversies and dialogue with Protestants.”

“Yet, over and above the necessary theological debate, he also experienced the effectiveness of personal relations and of charity.”

St. Francis de Sales was born in 1567 to a noble family in the Duchy of Savoy. At a young age, he experienced profound anxiety while reflecting on the topic of predestination. In the course of this “profound crisis,” the Pope observed, the young man “ found peace in the radical and liberating truth of God’s love: loving Him without asking anything in return and trusting in divine love.”

This unreserved trust in God, Pope Benedict observed, “would be the secret of his life.”

Although he acquired a law degree and could have married, Francis de Sales chose to become a priest and take on the difficult task of bringing Swiss Calvinists back to the Catholic Church. He was ordained in 1593, and later consecrated as the Bishop of Geneva in 1602.

His ministry in Geneva frequently subjected him to dangerous travels and rejection by Swiss Protestants. However, by the end of his life he had succeeded in bringing between 40,000 and 70,000 of them back to the Catholic fold.

He also collaborated with St. Jane Frances de Chantal in founding the Order of the Visitation, whose sisters live a life of “complete consecration to God” in “simplicity and humility.” St. Francis de Sales died in 1622 while visiting one of the convents he had helped to found.

Alongside these accomplishments, the saint also composed significant spiritual and theological works. Pope Benedict called attention to his book “An Introduction to the Devout Life,” a book that was unusual in its time for calling laypersons “to belong completely to God while being fully present in the world.”

The Pope also highlighted the importance of St. Francis de Sales’ most important theological work, the “Treatise on the Love of God.”

“Following the model of Holy Scripture,” he observed, “St. Francis of Sales speaks of the union between God and man, creating a whole series of images of interpersonal relationships. His God is Father and Lord, Bridegroom and Friend.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Here’s the relevant portion of a Friday evening Investors Business Daily editorial:

Thursday … U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson gave the Obama administration seven days to file a motion to appeal or seek an expedited appeal at the U.S. Circuit or Supreme Court level.

Vinson is the Florida judge who on Jan. 31 ruled the act unconstitutional. The White House said it would appeal the decision, but it clearly chose not to so it could drag out the legal process. Administration officials simply ignored the judge’s order to cease implementation of the law, and Vinson called them on it.

In Thursday’s 20-page opinion, an agitated Vinson chastised Justice Department lawyers for delaying their motion asking him to clarify his original ruling.

“It was not expected that they would effectively ignore the order and declaratory judgment for 2 1/2 weeks, continue to implement the act, and only then file a belated motion to ‘clarify,’” Vinson wrote.

Once again, the judge is expecting the administration to comply with his orders. Should it fail to satisfy his requirements within the seven-day window, it should be hauled back into court and dealt with seriously. Contempt for the law is a grave matter.

This was Mark Levin, shortly after Vinson’s original ruling:

The judge said, “This is a declaratory judgment,” finding the entire statute unconstitutional, (saying in effect) “I don’t have to issue an injunction. The government can’t impose an unconstitutional statute on the nation.”

I said that if the administration failed to follow the law, then it was lawless.

… This (ruling) is a de facto injunction issued by a federal judge, and they cannot pretend that it hasn’t been done, and play so ruthlessly with the rule of law.

… They don’t get to enforce what they want, and ignore what they want … Either the court has the final say or it doesn’t, and if does, there’s nothing else to say.

Barack Obama today, the Attorney General of the United States, the Secretary of HHS today, are conducting themselves in a lawless fashion. It is they, it is they who are leading opposition to the United States Constitution. … It is they who are disregarding our universal values. It is they.

Judge Vinson has called out the Obama administration for its “implementation will continue” lawlessness. His action vindicates Levin’s post-ruling interpretation.

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Related: From all appearances, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine was not involved in responding to Judge Vinson’s request to the state attorneys general for comments on the administration’s self-evidently dishonest request for “clarification.”

His name not be on the “Plaintiffs’ Memorandum in Opposition to Defendants’ Motion to Clarify”

His web site has issued no news releases relating to Obamacare since the original late-January ruling.

Yes, other state AGs among the 26 involved are not listed. But Mike DeWine is the only one who premised his entire election campaign on a promise not to “stay on the sidelines.”

By adding Ohio’s name to the list of states contesting the law, DeWine basically went into the game for one play, and then came out. Ever since, he’s been riding the pine. Unless he can demonstrate otherwise, Mike DeWine’s continued inaction represents a broken promise made to the people of Ohio.

Related II: The content of Mike DeWine’s campaign web site has either been taken down or made inaccessible. The “issues page” link now goes to a login page. The link two paragraphs above is to a copy of the “Issues” page saved by yours truly. Shades of Ted Strickland;s 2007 scrub?

From Beirut:

Mar 3, 2011 / 12:39 am

Pope Benedict XVI has written a personal letter to the retiring Cardinal Patriarch of Lebanon’s Maronite Catholic Church, thanking him for his “service for the greater glory of God and the good of all his faithful.”

On Feb. 26, the 90-year-old Cardinal Nasrallah Pierre Sfeir of Antioch retired from his position as the leader of more than three million Maronite Catholics. He has served as a bishop for 50 years – 25 of them as his Church’s patriarch – and as a priest for 60 years.

Although the outgoing patriarch – like most of the Maronite faithful – resides in Lebanon, difficulties in his homeland transformed his ministry into a global one. Pope Benedict took note of the fact in his letter, recalling how war had dispersed some Maronite Catholics throughout the world.

“You started this noble ministry of the Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites in the turmoil of the war that bloodied Lebanon for too many years,” he wrote, referring to the civil war that lasted from 1975 to 1990. “With the ardent desire for peace for your country, you have driven this Church and traveled the world to comfort your people forced to emigrate.”

The Pope recalled how Patriarch Sfeir was chosen, in April of 1986, to lead one of the oldest Christian communities in existence. The Maronite Church, unlike most of the other Eastern Catholic Churches, was never formally separated from communion with the Holy See. Their primary liturgical language, Aramaic, is the language of Jesus himself.

During the 1990s, the Pope noted, “peace finally came back” to Lebanon – a peace that he observed was “always fragile, but still present.”

Pope Benedict drew attention in the letter to other key moments in Patriarch Sfeir’s ministry, such as his 1994 appointment to the College of Cardinals, and Pope John Paul II’s visit to Beirut in 1997. Looking back on these moments, the Holy Father said they signified the patriarch’s depth of “communion with the Church Universal” and the “constant link” between the Maronite Church and the Church of Rome.

Go here for the rest of the story.

First, a flashback for historical context — In May 1984, the 20th month after the 1980s recession ended, the economy on Ronald Reagan’s watch added 308,000 seasonally adjusted jobs (280,000 of them in the private sector), when the workforce was 25%-30% smaller:

February 2011 was the 20th month after the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy’s recession officially ended. As shown here, the first 19 post-recession months have seen a net LOSS of 228,000 jobs. Perhaps today’s employment report will finally get that number into positive territory.

Given the hints I’ve seen that the press is going to break out the pom-poms today if the numbers come in good, we should recognize that even if they do, the POR Economy’s post-recession performance will still be over 4.8 million jobs behind Reagan’s economy — the equivalent of well over 6 million if adjusted for population size.

Okay, now to the current economy. The economic news this week has been pretty good, leading to hopes that a good employment report might finally add an exclamation point to a week of good news instead of throwing cold water on things.

Specifics:

• The Institute for Supply Management’s Manufacturing and Non Manufacturing indices each came in with stellar readings. The former’s February value was 61.4%, up from 60.8% in January (anything about 50% indicates expansionary sentiment on the part of survey participants). The commentary was strong: “New Orders, Production and Employment Growing; Supplier Deliveries Slower; Inventories Contracting.” The far more important NMI value was 59.7%, up from 59.4%. Prices paid sentiment was that they’re increasing. That’s potentially troubling, but hardly a reason, at least at the moment, for bearishness.
• Vehicle sales were very strong in February, up 27% from February 2010. Government/General Motors (+46%) and Toyota (+41%) were the big gainers. Every major maker reported stronger numbers. One ominous note: Chrysler’s product mix was 81% light trucks and 19% cars, compared to 69%-31% a year ago. The company may be in for big trouble if gas hits $4 or so and stays there.
• ADP’s employment report showed 217,000 additional private-sector jobs. It’s the third or fourth strong report in a row. Why that hasn’t been translating into strong numbers in the government’s report is a mystery.
• Seasonally adjusted weekly unemployment claims were 368,000, the lowest number since July 2008, the first month of the recession as normal people define it. Even more impressive, the raw, not seasonally adjusted number was over 25% lower than the same week a year ago, the biggest differential in many months.

The predictions:

• Gallup says things are getting worse — “Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, hit 10.3% in February — up from 9.8% at the end of January. The U.S. unemployment rate is now essentially the same as the 10.4% at the end of February 2010.”
• This source is predicting 185,000 seasonally adjusted job gains and a slightly higher unemployment rate of 9.1%.
• According to this Associated Press report from yesterday, “The consensus before the ADP survey was that U.S. employers added around 175,000 jobs. Some analysts now think the figure could be around the 250,000 mark.”
• A different AP report predicts the jobless rate will be 9.1%.

The NSA Benchmarks: Here are the not seasonally adjusted (NSA) numbers for the past 10 years –

In this context, strong numbers for actual overall and private-sector jobs added would be about 800,000 and 400,000, respectively. On-the-ground numbers significantly lower than that will signal an unimpressive performance, regardless of what the seasonally adjusted numbers are.

The report will appear here at 8:30.

The news:

Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 192,000 in February, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 8.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in manufacturing, construction, professional and business services, health care, and transportation and warehousing.

… The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for December was revised from +121,000 to +152,000, and the change for January was revised from +36,000 to +63,000.

So giving full credit, 250,000 more people (192k plus December’s and January’s +31k and +27k respective revisions) were estimated to be working in February than was the case in January. Thus, the post-recession Obama economy is finally showing positive job growth — a whole 22,000 jobs in 20 months. Again, as seen here, it took Reagan’s economy only 7 months to go positive.

On the NSA front, the actual adds in February were 816,000 and 427,000 for overall jobs and the private sector, respectively. So the benchmarks were met.

Pending some deeper digging, it looks like February was a relatively good month for the Obama economy, perhaps the best since he took office. But, benchmarking against Reagan and obviously pending revisions, it still trailed the real Gipper’s comparable post-recession month by 116,000 jobs — more like 150,000 jobs when adjusted for population.

So — although I know the press will ignore the request — spare me the cheerleading.

Other commitments will prevent me from commenting or posting further on this report or anything else for the rest of the business day.

Via the Catholic News Agency:

Mar 3, 2011 / 01:54 pm

President of Chile Sebastian Pinera said March 2 that human rights, especially the right to life from conception to natural death, must be protected in order to achieve comprehensive human development.

President Pinera wrote in an article published in L’Osservatore Romano that “Development has always been a central objective of humanity and constitutes a principal goal for nations, governments and the international community.”

“Benedict XVI’s encyclical ‘Caritas in veritate’ concentrates in depth on the concept and need for comprehensive development as put forth in the Social Doctrine of the Church,” he continued.

The president noted some of the recent challenges has Chile faced. He recalled the Feb. 27, 2010 earthquake and underscored that the “the Church and civil society should actively participate” on the path toward development.

He also reflected on the solidarity that unified the country during the rescue operation to save the 33 miners trapped in the San Jose Mine in Atacama. “Chile came together as one big family, overcoming differences and willing to do whatever necessary to find and rescue the miners.”

“We know that we were able to count on the prayers of the Pope and of millions of men and women of good will around the world, and we continue to count on them today,” he said.

The president said development must take place “in both its material and spiritual dimension,” and that this requires seeking after the common good, defending “the inalienable rights of the human person in every moment, place and circumstance, and supporting a transcendent humanism.”

It is essential, he stressed, “that our democracy protects human rights, especially the right to life from conception to natural death.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

I heard this on Mark Levin’s show earlier this evening. He was referring to a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel blog post by the paper’s Don Walker.

The question is: What is the State of Wisconsin’s estimate of the amount of damage done to the Wisconsin State Capitol after roughly two weeks of non-stop protests?

The answer, and a link to the JSonline.com story, are after the jump — No fair Googling or otherwise searching for the answer:

(more…)

Philip Elliott at the Obama White House’s state-compliant wire service reports, and distorts (bolds are mine):

Barbour says Obama cheers for higher gas prices

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a potential presidential contender, accused the Obama administration Wednesday of favoring a run-up in gas prices to prod consumers to buy more fuel-efficient cars.

Barbour cited 2008 comments from Steven Chu, now President Barack Obama’s energy secretary, that a gradual increase in gasoline taxes could coax consumers into dumping their gas-guzzlers and finding homes closer to where they work.

In 2008, while the head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, Chu told The Wall Street Journal that energy prices were the lynchpin to an energy overhaul.

“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” Chu said in September 2008.

Obama has distanced himself from those comments …

Barbour could have gone directly to Obama to support his contention:

Obama: I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment.

Without doubt, that means he’s okay with the idea of high gas prices.

I don’t recall that Barack Obama has ever “distanced himself” from this assertion, which, if I recall correctly, was also made at least a couple of times in campaign appearances.

Plenty of folks at Philip Elliott’s state-compliant wire service know darned well that Barack Obama said what he said in 2008, but want to make readers believe that it’s Haley Barbour who’s making it all up. It’s the AP which is making things up about the Obama and his administration’s position, as Conn Carroll at Heritage detailed this morning (bolds and paragraph breaks are mine):

… Back in February, when the protests in Egypt were first unfolding, Energy Secretary Steven Chu was asked what the Administration could do to combat rising world oil prices. Chu responded: “The best way America can protect itself against these incidents is to decrease our dependency on foreign oil, in fact to diversify our supply.”

It is now one month later and the Administration has not updated its talking points. Pressed on gas prices yesterday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said: “We are also, as you have seen over the past two-plus years, very focused on the need precisely to develop other energy sources so that we are not as dependent on foreign oil as we have been in the past.”

So what are these “other energy sources” the White House has been developing? How does the White House plan to “diversify supply” to reduce gas prices? The answers are corn, wind, sun, and electric cars. And they won’t help a bit.

Phil Elliott, please note: There is no record of which I’m aware of Barack Obama “distancing himself” from Chu’s or Carney’s comments — and Carney supposedly speaks for him.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

You’ve got a 23-10 majority.

The most important reform in the imbalanced relationship between state and local government and the public-sector unions is proposed, and all you can get is the barest majority to pass it?

Whew:

The Tea Party’s work to save the Buckeye State has just begun.

P.S. I’m not ready to let the majority who voted for SB 5 off the hook. Yours truly suspects that the Republican caucus decided that it had to give John Kasich what he wanted, and then got into discussions over who could “safely” vote no. It’s not like they haven’t done this kind of thing before (see: cynical maneuvering, Ted Strickland’s retroactive 2009 tax increase).

Thank goodness Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker isn’t stuck with this bunch in Madison. If he were, his cause would be hopeless.

Despite six quarters of tepid post-recession growth and a net loss in employment, nothing is really changing.

___________________________________________

Note: This column went up at Pajamas Media and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Tuesday.

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Friday morning, the government announced yet another downward revision to a previously published economy-related number. The nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), thought to have grown at an annual rate of 3.2% a month ago, was downwardly revised to 2.8%. “Unexpectedly,” of course; analysts thought that the figure would increase to 3.3%.

In the six quarters since the recession ended, the economy under Barack Obama has grown by about 4.4%, and by only 2.7% in the most recent four quarters. By comparison, in the six quarters after the early 1980s recession ended while Ronald Reagan presided, GDP increased by almost 10%, with 8.5 points of that growth taking place during quarters three through six. The economy under Reagan blasted off; under Obama, it’s mired in what is worse than mediocrity.

The glaring shortfall in growth under Obama might not be so troubling but for the catastrophic results it has caused in the employment market. In mid-January, I noted, based on data available at the time, that Reagan’s first six post-recession quarters saw the creation of over 4 million jobs, while only 72,000 jobs were created during Obama’s comparable six quarters.

That was before Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) completed its annual comprehensive revision. When it went on the books in January’s employment report, it zapped hundreds of thousands of jobs from previously reported figures for the prior 21 months.

Here’s how the Reagan versus Obama six-quarter jobs comparison looks after BLS’s comprehensive revision:

Eighteen months after the recession officially ended, the revised figures show that the economy under Obama is still in the hole by over a quarter-million jobs. That’s because 44,000 job additions in the private sector have been far more than offset by 308,000 jobs losses in the public sector. Here’s a supreme irony, considering that Obama is still somehow perceived as a hero by the state and municipal employees’ unions: All of those seasonally adjusted government job losses — and then some — have occurred not at the federal level, where employment is up by 38,000, but at the state and local levels, where job losses have been 29,000 and 317,000, respectively.

Arthur Laffer and his fellow supply-side economists have more than enough justification to address Will Smith’s famous I, Robot line to leftist Keynesian holdouts like the insufferable Paul Krugman: “You know, somehow, ‘I told you so’ just doesn’t quite say it.” Krugman’s latest laugher is that “The stimulus can’t have failed, because it never happened.” Stop it, Paul. The federal government has operated as one big, failed stimulus program since late 2008. Barring a miracle, whether you go with administration or Congressional Budget Office (CBO) numbers, Uncle Sam will show three years of reported deficits totaling over $4 trillion when the current fiscal year ends — even if Tea Party freshmen in the House get absolutely everything they want.

Krugman despairs that Obama “has effectively given up on the idea that the government can do anything to create jobs in a depressed economy.” We should be so lucky to receive such benign neglect. Unfortunately, the administration seems more determined than ever to suppress and prevent job creation:

• In direct defiance of a court order not to do so, it continues to pursue implementation of Obamacare as if nothing happened. What about Florida District Court Judge Roger Vinson’s declaration that “the declaratory judgment is the functional equivalent of an injunction” don’t they understand? The apparent lawlessness is bad enough; but then consider Obamacare’s effect on the economy. The CBO estimates that full implementation will cost the economy 800,000 jobs over the next decade.
• What Investors Business Daily has accurately described as the administration’s “war against fossil fuels” shows no signs of letting up. IBD notes the following in its short list: a virtual shutdown of oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico; making much of the Outer Continental Shelf off-limits to exploration and production; and the “cancellation of 77 existing drilling leases in Utah.”
• The administration’s latest salvo against jobs and economic growth may be its most punishing yet. As gasoline prices are hitting all-time February highs, as the reliability of international sources of fossil fuel imports is coming into question, and just as it appears that the recovery might finally start to produce a decent number of new jobs, the Environmental Protection Agency has decided that it will “study” the practice of “fracking.” This in effect freezes the shale gas industry, our best hope for long-term energy independence, dead in its tracks. The EPA won’t even make initial study results available until late next year (read: after the 2012 elections).

Bill Whittle opens the most recent of his outstanding videos with this statement:

Y’know, there comes a point where no matter how hard you try to offer the benefit of the doubt, evidence builds up to such a degree that you can no longer deny that the evidence is telling you something.

Halfway into his first term, the foreign policy decisions made by Barack Obama and his administration are so appalling, so destructive in the long-term, they can no longer be credited to inexperience or even incompetence. They’re so consistent, they must be due to ideology.

Replace “foreign policy” with “economic,” and Whittle’s statement is none the falser.