A spine has been located within the Republican U.S. Senate delegation (“Obama’s appeals court pick blocked”):

Democrats fell short of the 60 votes they need to end a filibuster and give Goodwin Liu an up-or-down vote on his nomination to the San Francisco-based US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Liu is a 40-year-old legal scholar at the University of California’s Berkeley law school.

Hope it’s not a fleeting appearance. It will need to hang around for a long time.

If you can stand it, the rest of the relatively brief Associated Press report appearing at the Boston Globe perfectly exemplifies its institutional bias.

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Kyle-Anne Shiver, at Pajamas Media –

America Drowns, But Obama Throws the Mideast Our Life Preserver
It’s the kind of stupid you can only afford with other people’s money.

… Which brings us back to President Obama and his innate arrogance. Only a truly arrogant fool, using other people’s money, could possibly ask the struggling American taxpayer to dole out more money to save the world — at a point when we cannot even save ourselves from economic crash-and-burn reality.

What’s even worse about this fool’s-errand speech is that the money he’s promising on our behalf is for the Islamic regimes which daily threaten to destroy our way of life and grow stronger as we grow weaker. Any American with a mere grain of common sense will see this presidential folly as not merely stupid but also traitorous.

Arrogant, and misguided.

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At Zero Hedge (truncated title): “Philly Fed Plummets” — The Philadelphia branch of the Federal Reserve issues a monthly report on manufacturing activity in its region. It came in pretty weak.

Specifically, Reuters: “The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank said its business activity index slumped to 3.9 from 18.5 in April. Economists had expected a reading of 20, based on the results of a Reuters poll, which ranged from 10.0 to 28.0. Any reading above zero indicates expansion in the region’s manufacturing.”

This is another indicator that anyone expecting 4% annualized economic growth for the rest of the year is dreaming.

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Laws? Who cares about those? —

Kent Conrad, (Democratic) Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, ignored the law that requires his committee to produce a budget by April 15.

John at Powerline believes it’s all about avoiding dealing with Medicare, pretending it’s okay, and using its not far-off implosion to ensure that health care is nationalized. That looks about right.

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Robert Spencer, at FrontPageMag.com: “Obama Throws Israel to the Dogs” —

It was widely reported Thursday evening that Obama was calling for a return to the 1967 borders, but this is not the case. He actually called for the creation of a “sovereign and contiguous state” for the Palestinian Arabs, and said that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines.” Thus he wasn’t calling for a return to the 1967 lines, but new borders “based on the 1967 lines.”

There were, however, no 1967 lines in which Palestinian Arab territory was contiguous. For the territory of Palestine to be contiguous, that of Israel will have to be substantially reduced. Israel’s 1967 borders were indefensible, and Obama is calling for Israel to be reduced even further so that a contiguous Palestinian state can be established.

Thus, from all indications, Israel would end up smaller than it was in 1967.

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At Investors Business Daily (“Patching Potholes”):

Ever wondered where that 18.4 cents-a-gallon gasoline tax goes while dodging disaster on an overcrowded and crumbling highway? Too much of that revenue is spent on nontransportation items.

… But it isn’t. Only about 60% is used for federal highways and bridges. The rest is spent on whatever Washington decides it wants to use it for. Mary Peters, transportation secretary under President George W. Bush, once noted on PBS that it’s spent on “special programs.”

… Hoping for a better arrangement? So are a couple of state lawmakers in Michigan. In separate bills, Paul Opsommer and Tom McMillin have introduced resolutions asking Washington to let the states keep the revenues from the federal gasoline tax rather than round-tripping the money around the Beltway, where it’s watered down by politics and the usual bureaucratic handling fee before it’s returned with strings attached.

This is a wonderful idea. Of course the money would need to be sequestered, and politicians everywhere have a hard time leaving their hands off specifically targeted money. But in Ohio’s case, instead of having stupid discussions about whether we should take $400 million in “free” money for a choo-choo train route the private sector abandoned almost 40 years ago and which would run annual deficits forever and ever, the Buckeye State could target its money to areas where it’s really needed — like the sections of I-71 between Columbus and Cleveland which are still only two lanes each way.

From Muskegon, Michigan (HT AP):

Published: Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 8:49 AM
Updated: Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 2:16 PM

Twice in her lifetime, Agnes Anderson, 98, of Laketon Township has strolled down the aisle to the altar in her special wedding dress.

The first time was in 1938 in Youngstown, Ohio, to marry her college sweetheart and fiancée, Delmar Anderson.
Her second trip was last week as part of the grand finale of a vintage bridal gown fashion show at Samuel Lutheran Church in Muskegon, where her daughter, Alice Land, is a member.

“She was just beaming,” said Marilyn Nygren of Laketon Township, the fashion show’s organizer, of Anderson’s entrance May 10 into the church sanctuary where about 145 audience members and participants gave her a standing ovation. “It was wonderful,” Nygren said.

Land said nearly three quarters of a century ago, her mother, the former Agnes Smith, then a resident of Youngstown, ordered the ivory-white, satin and lace wedding gown with a veil and train from one of the town’s department stores to wear at her church wedding on Thanksgiving Day to Delmar Anderson.

Agnes Anderson said their marriage lasted nearly 51 “wonderful” years until his death in 1989.

As for her wedding dress, she said it was in mint condition when she retrieved it this spring from a storage box at her home that she shares with Land.

Anderson said before she made her entrance in her wedding attire into the sanctuary last week, she thought she was to be escorted down the aisle by one of the church’s member. That was until her son, Dick Anderson of Laketon Township, surprised her with his arrival at the church.

“He was sitting out in his car waiting in the parking lot, waiting to be called in at the right moment,” Nygren said. “It really was a surprise (for Agnes Anderson).”

Dick Anderson escorted his mother into the church sanctuary and to the altar where Agnes Anderson stood in among more than a dozen other models wearing gowns of church and family members or other friends. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

American Jews supported Obama 79-21 in 2008. Certain Gentiles, including people like Peggy Noonan, voted for Obama because … well … he was all bright and shiny … and gave nice speeches … and gosh, it would be neat to have an African-American guy (who really isn’t African-American) in the White House.

Question: So, how’s that hope and change workin’ out for ya?

From the AP:

Obama says Palestine must be based in 1967 borders

President Barack Obama is endorsing the Palestinians’ demand for their future state to be based on the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war …

… Until Thursday, the U.S. position had been that the Palestinian goal of a state based on the 1967 borders, with agreed land swaps, should be reconciled with Israel’s desire for a secure Jewish state through negotiations.

Well, I guess Israel’s security isn’t all that important any more.

Nobody who really followed the news in 2007 and 2008 should be surprised (but oh, they will be). Here’s just one item (HT Atlas Shrugs):

Palestinian minister praises Obama

A senior Palestinian minister said yesterday that he was pinning his hopes on US presidential candidate Barack Obama, believing he would seal an elusive deal on creating a Palestinian state.

… Obama has been working to reassure Jewish Americans that he is a friend of Israel’s.

In May, Obama’s Republican opponent John McCain said that the hardline Palestinian movement Hamas would welcome an Obama presidency, charges the Democratic candidate denied as “offensive.”

Oh, and here’s a BizzyBlog post in June of 2008 that lefties didn’t like (too bad, so sad), which wrapped with the observation that Barack Obama and his associates had (and more than likely still have) “terror-supporting and/or terror-sympathetic relationships you can believe in.” That patently obvious observation has been further vindicated.

By advocating a one-sided surrender of land without simultaneously demanding as a precondition that Palestinians unconditionally renounce terrorism (which they’ll never do) and drop their insistence that “Palestinians” have a unilateral right to return to their homes as they were in 1948 (which, again, they’ll never do), Obama has just given aid and comfort to those in the Arab world who want to see the destruction of Israel.

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UPDATE: Captain Ed at Hot Air is claiming that AP got it wrong. Here’s the full report (for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes), which as far as I can tell is the first official release –

Well Ed, AP is doubling down, as of 2:01 p.m. as written by Ben Feller:

Trying to advance debate in the explosive Middle East, President Barack Obama on Thursday endorsed a key Palestinian demand for the borders of its future state and prodded Israel to accept that it can never have a truly peaceful nation that is based on “permanent occupation.”

Obama’s urging that a Palestinian state be based on 1967 borders – those that existed before the Six Day War in which Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza – was a significant shift in U.S. policy and seemed certain to anger Israel.

The guess here is that AP and Feller wouldn’t be making the “1967″ assertion without confirming it with others on background.

This looks like it might head towards FUBAR-Land, as was the case with the continual story changes concerning the killing of Osama bin Laden. The White House will probably try to backtrack to some extent, but my take is that Obama has told Arab opponents of Israel’s existence what they wanted to hear.

UPDATE 2, 4:45 p.m.: Via AP’s Josef Federman, as of 3:30 p.m. –

Israeli leader reacting to Obama speech: West Bank pullout would leave Israel indefensible

Reacting to Obama’s speech, Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a full withdrawal from the West Bank, saying the 1967 lines were “indefensible” and would leave major Jewish settlements outside Israel. Netanyahu rejects any pullout from east Jerusalem.

Netanyahu heads to the White House on Friday and said he would seek clarifications.

Behind the rhetoric, though, was the possibility of finding common ground. Obama said he would support agreed-upon territorial swaps between the Israel and the Palestinians, leaving the door open for Israel to retain major West Bank settlements, where the vast majority of its nearly 300,000 Jewish settlers live.

Netanyahu said he would urge Obama to endorse a 2004 American commitment, made by then President George W. Bush, to Israel. In a letter at the time, Bush said a full withdrawal to the 1967 lines was “unrealistic” and a future peace agreement would have to recognize “new realities on the ground.”

So it is a policy change. Ed at Hot Air has acknowledged that “this does represent a significant change, at least in public commitments.” That’s what I like about so many righty bloggers; they fight like heck when they know they’re right, but they’ll acknowledge errors when they occur. This characteristic is virtually absent in leftyland.

UPDATE 3, 10:50 p.m.: Alan Deshowitz —

The US President was wrong to insist that Israel give up its card of occupying most of the West Bank without demanding that the Palestinians give up theirs, the so called right of return.

Refusing to give up the “right of return” is the equivalent of saying “We want it all; we want our ‘Palestinian’ state, and we want to overrun Israel with million of ‘returning’ refugees.” Horse manure.

Imagine if the Bush 43 administration had decided to exclude a newspaper’s reporters from full access to presidential events–regardless of the ostensible reason. Does anyone believe that the New York Times or Associated Press would have ignored the story?

Well, in a thoroughly predictable but nonetheless sad development, that is what has happened since the Boston Herald’s Hillary Chabot reported that “The White House Press Office has refused to give the Boston Herald full access to President Obama’s Boston fund-raiser today, in e-mails objecting to the newspaper’s front page placement of a Mitt Romney op-ed, saying pool reporters are chosen based on whether they cover the news ‘fairly.’” Lachlan Markay relayed Chabot’s item at NewsBusters yesterday, and also chronicled several previous examples of White House mistreatment, maltreatment, and abuse of disfavored media members.

A search of the Associated Press’s main site late this morning on “Boston Herald” (without quotes) returned nothing relevant, as seen here:

An advanced search at the New York Times also returned nothing relevant:

At the Washington Post, the coverage consists of the following in Chris Cilliizza’s “The Fix” Blog, in its entirety: “The White House has shut out the Boston Herald from a presidential event today.” Wow. Don’t get carpal tunnel over this, Chris.

The LA Times, to its credit, had an item yesterday by Kim Geiger at its Politics Now blog. To its discredit, the story’s headline (“White House quarrels with Boston newspaper over Romney op-ed”) failed to communicate the situation’s true nature, while Geiger aired a mindless White House argument over what was supposedly “on the record”:

More than two months after the Boston Herald devoted its front page to promoting an opinion piece by Republican Mitt Romney, the White House press office denied the Herald full access to President Obama’s activities in Boston on Wednesday, sparking an unusual release of email banter that illustrated the sometimes adversarial relationship between the White House and the media.

The Herald published portions of what the White House says was an off-the-record email exchange, as part of a scathing report that suggested the White House was retaliating against the paper.

According to the Herald, White House spokesman Matt Lehrich wrote in an email that, in determining which local reporters to include in the press pool, he considers “the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly…”

Citing the March 8 op-ed, which ran as President Obama was visiting the area, Lehrich said: “My point about the op-ed was not that you ran it but that it was the full front page, which excluded any coverage of the visit of a sitting U.S. President to Boston. I think that raises a fair question about whether the paper is unbiased in its coverage of the president’s visits.”

Obama is in Boston for two Democratic National Committee fundraisers.

According to this link, one has to be an LA Times subscriber to view its print edition online. It would be interesting to learn whether or not Geiger’s work made it into print. I’m betting against it.

Leave it to Investors Business Daily to tell the full truth, in an editorial (internal link to Dan Gainor’s Fox News column on Soros money in the media added by me):

What the White House has done by telling the Boston Herald it can no longer send a pool reporter to cover local campaign events on behalf of the media is another baby step toward state control of the media, using the carrot of access against the stick of exile.

… As it stands, the Boston Herald is on its own, with its media colleagues in other organizations largely silent as a vindictive White House press office gets away with determining what’s “fair.”

It’s not as if the Herald was making up stories — as the New York Times or Washington Post have been caught doing. Its “crime” to the White House was an unrelated editorial decision to run former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s opinion piece on “the Obama misery index” on its front page two months ago.

Seems the newly self-appointed goons of “fairness” never noticed that what the former governor thinks is of particular interest to Massachusetts readers.

Nor did it notice that the Boston Herald has been unusually hard on Romney in both its news and editorial coverage in the past.

… Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci was threatened with the same booting the Herald got because of White House displeasure at her filming of a bunch of looney left protestors improbably criticizing Obama.

… Meanwhile, an Orlando Sentinel pool reporter was stuffed into a closet and held against his will on the Joe Biden campaign trail, while the Pleasanton (Calif.) Weekly was warned by the White House its coverage of first lady Michelle Obama was insufficiently flattering.

The media silence over these repeated violations of press freedom is baffling. Can the fact that 30 mainstream media outlets have been co-opted by $48 million in spending by George Soros, a top campaign ally of President Obama, have something to do with this?

Or is the urge to fawn over Obama more important than covering the news without fear or favor?

I’d say it’s both.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Reports from the Progressive Paradise, Item 1:

Senator questions benefits to ‘adult baby’
Coburn sees possible fraud

A key senator has asked the Social Security Administration to investigate how people who live their lives role-playing as “adult babies” are able to get taxpayer-funded disability payments — after one of them was featured on a recent reality TV episode wearing diapers, feeding from a bottle and using an adult-sized crib he built.

Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican and the Senate’s top waste-watcher, asked the agency’s inspector general to look into 30-year-old Stanley Thornton Jr. and his roommate, Sandra Dias, who acts as his “mother,” saying it’s not clear why they are collecting Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits instead of working.

… In an email response to The Washington Times, Mr. Thornton threatened to kill himself if his Social Security payments are taken away.

… In an extensive biography on his web page, Mr. Thornton says he worked as a security guard for a year and a half but said trauma stemming from childhood abuse, combined with other mental problems, made it impossible for him to hold the job, and he has been receiving SSI payments for most of the last 10 years.

But, according to progressives, there’s absolutely no way Washington can make meaningful spending cuts or reform the unsustainable entitlement state without unconscionably harming people.

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Reports from the Progressive Paradise, Item 2:

Michigan man still on food stamps despite winning $2M

A man who won $2 million on a Michigan lottery show has told a TV station that he still uses food stamps.

Leroy Fick of Bay County admitted he still swipes the electronic card at stores, nearly a year after winning a jackpot on “Make Me Rich!” He told WNEM-TV in Saginaw that more than half the prize went to taxes.

Fick says the Department of Human Services told him he could continue to use the card, which is paid with tax dollars. He told WNEM: “If you’re going to … try to make me feel bad, you aren’t going to do it.”

Quite the sense of entitlement, eh?

According to USA Today, “Department of Human Services officials confirmed that they had told Leroy Fick, 59, that he could continue to receive aid because he took his Make Me Rich earnings in a lump sum and still met the income threshold for food assistance.”

This story proves, as if any proof was really needed, that the example Matt Hurley at Weapons of Mass Discussion cited in Warren County, Ohio (his original post; my related column) is not isolated. As I noted at the time, incidents such as these continue to demonstrate that the original intention of Food Stamps has been perverted in “a conscious expansion of the program to people who have the resources to buy their own food.”

But, according to progressives, there’s absolutely no way Washington can make meaningful spending cuts or reform the unsustainable entitlement state without unconscionably harming people.

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Reports from the Progressive Paradise, Item 3:

You idiot! Shamed politician John Edwards rages at mistress Rielle Hunter for not destroying sex tape

Furious John Edwards has allegedly vented his anger at mistress Rielle Hunter over the steamy sex video they made during his White House run.

In an amazing outburst, the shamed politician reportedly exploded after a judge ruled portions of his testimony under oath would be made public.

… According to the Wall Street Journal (former Edwards aide Mr. (Andrew) Young has described the tape as like “watching a traffic pile-up occur in slow motion – repelling but also transfixing.”

Edwards did what he did because the fawning leftist press made him think he was untouchable. The fawning leftist press wouldn’t follow up on the National Enquirer’s dead-on accurate reporting in late 2007 because he adhered to the complete menus of correct progressive political positions, especially protecting and expanding the entitlement state. John Edwards, if he had caught a few other breaks, could have been the Democrats’ freaking nominee for President.

The media elites in “progressive paradises” around the world treat their rulers with overindulgence and look away when hints of scandal appear. That ultimately leads to situations like the next item.

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Reports from the Progressive Paradise, Item 4: By now, most readers probably know of the arrest of International Monetary Fund head and French Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who has resigned from the IMF.

While the reporting in the U.S. has tended to play the story straight, FrontPageMag.com tells us that the French press has gone on the offensive — in defense of Strauss-Kahn:

… leftists defending one of their own have been shameless, mixing equal parts of attacking the alleged victim with an odious denial of Strauss-Kahn’s long track record of “seduction.”

The onslaught has been relentless. French newspaper Le Monde and the French version of Slate Magazine have printed the woman’s name, with Le Monde adding information about the size of her breasts and the shape of her behind. A photo of the alleged victim has been revealed on Twitter, and a Facebook profile of her was linked to blogs and other social media sites before it was deleted. Bernard Henri-Lévy, who once called it “shameful to throw a 76-year-old man into prison for unlawful sex committed 32 years ago,” in reference to sexual predator Roman Polanski, is using one of the left’s favorite expressions when it comes to defending Strauss-Kahn. Henri-Lévy contends that Strauss-Kahn, more familiarly known as DSK, is a victim of sexual “McCarthyists” and “nothing in the world can justify a man being thus thrown to the dogs” which one would assume is a reference to the American justice system.

Leftist politicians were quick to follow suit. Socialist Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Gilles Savary, while admitting that “[E]veryone knows it’s true to say that Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a hedonist,” declared that the real problem is American culture “where everything is shaped by unforgiving Protestantism[.]” Socialist Party Member of Parliament (MP) Jean-Marie Le Guen contended, “[W]hat they are asking us to believe…it’s just hallucinations. I’m a doctor and I know this can happen,” adding that pictures of DSK in handcuffs are “hyper violent.” Socialist politician and Strauss-Kahn loyalist Manuel Valls described the handcuffing as “an unbearable cruelty…Political life in France, will now be remembered as being before and after this moment.”

Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) leader Jean-Francois Cope was worried about France’s international image. …

… Prospect Magazine columnist Tim King explains the genesis of the French media’s “remarkable solidarity with a man who has been accused of attempted rape,” which has resulted in 57 per cent of French voters believing that Strauss-Kahn was the victim of a setup.

Like progressive John Edwards, Socialist Strauss-Kahn clearly thought he was untouchable, thanks to the just-described “solidarity” of his country’s press with the man and his supposed causes, especially his party’s promotion of the seemingly bottomless but in reality unsustainable entitlement state. In advanced stages of socialism, the “progressive” press goes into attack mode against those who dare question their leaders, no matter how corrupt, venal, or criminal.

The press defense and subsequent lionization of ARIFPOTUS (that would be “Accused Rapist and Impeached Former President of the United States” for those of us who refuse to forget his full, sordid history) Bill Clinton is, sadly, an object domestic example.

Update: Here’s a Poliwood segment from Pajamas TV which covers the French media’s sympathetic treatment of Strauss-Kahn, accompanied by a warning that this is what happens when you have a monolithic government-media complex, and why we must avoid the Obama administration initiatives which clearly point in that direction:

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Reports from the Progressive Paradise, Item 5, via Investors Business Daily:

Why Won’t Media Stand Up To White House?

The Obama administration has picked another fight with a dissident newspaper, kicking the Boston Herald out of the press pool on an unprecedented claim that its coverage is unfair. Who died and elected them judge?

If the mainstream media had any gumption at all, they would vigorously protest the strange, new self-appointed arbiter of “fair” press coverage as an implicit threat to their own capacity to cover the news fairly.

The Herald is being hung out to dry with no establishment press defense because the establishment press agrees with and promotes the Obama White House’s agenda, particularly its grim determination to protect and expand the entitlement status quo. To them, that’s far more important than the freedom of the press it champions only when its sympathizers suffer the least little trifle.

Here’s the updated graphic (DOL report is here):

This week’s report is the best news in quite a while, especially when you consider that the raw (i.e., not seasonally adjusted) number was only 358,000, down 40,000 from the previous week and down 57,000 from a year ago. Both the SA and NSA numbers need to drop more in the coming weeks, but it’s a start. That said, six weeks over a seasonally adjusted 400K after five weeks under 400K is nothing to brag about, and even the Associated Press has noted that the SA number needs to get consistently below 375K for consistent, meaningful job creation.

Note that each of the past 10 weeks has subsequently been revised upward.

More locally, Ohio, after a couple of weeks of getting noticed for an increasing number of layoffs (April  23, +1,700; April 30, +2,319) came in with a large reported decrease of 3,014 during the week of May 7 (note that the state detail is for the week before week addressed by the initial claims report). The increases were reported as due to layoffs in the automobile industry (hmm) and construction; the May 7 improvement was unexplained.

From Houston:

May 18, 8:52 PM EDT

Doctors repaired Gabrielle Giffords’ skull on Wednesday, the latest milestone in her recovery from an assassination attempt and a procedure that experts say will improve her quality of life.

A gunman shot her in the head more than four months ago in Tucson, Ariz., and doctors had to remove a portion of her skull to relieve pressure on her brain.

On Wednesday, they put a plastic implant in place to fully cover her brain, according to a statement from TIRR Memorial Hermann hospital. The hospital planned a briefing on Thursday to give an update on her medical condition and discuss the next steps in her rehabilitation.

Giffords is “recovering well after her surgery today,” a hospital statement said.

Giffords’ astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, is orbiting Earth on space shuttle Endeavour and is getting updates on her condition, NASA said.

Doctors familiar with the procedure and not involved in her care said it was fairly routine, will significantly improve her quality of life and help her feel more normal.

“It’s a very significant milestone in the recovery,” said Dr. Robert Friedlander, chair of neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

The implant – or bone flap as doctors call it – will protect the brain and the skull, Friedlander said. It will allow Giffords to freely move about without her helmet, adorned with the Arizona state flag, for the first time since she began therapy in late January.

In addition, it makes therapy easier because the helmet can be uncomfortable and cumbersome, Friedlander said.

Dr. Reid Thompson, chairman of neurological surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, said there is also an important psychological element to removing the helmet.

“They look in the mirror and they don’t see someone who’s been injured or shot. They look normal,” Thompson said. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

You would think that a story about the awful summer job outlook for teens this year would be receiving more than a little media play. So far, it’s not getting much at all.

Here are key paragraphs from the relevant unbylined Associated Press report (“Summer 2011 could be worst ever in teen job market, study finds”):

Teenagers unable to line up work this summer may not just be making excuses. A forecast warns that summer employment among teenagers, ages 16 to 19, continues to be weak, with about one in four expected to be working.

… Nationwide, 27 percent of teens are projected to have a job during the months of June, July and August, according to a recent estimate by Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies in Boston.

That’s slightly better than the 25.6 percent teen employment rate last summer, which was the lowest recorded since World War II. However, after several years of on-target forecasts, the center’s modeling has yielded slightly more optimistic projections than the actual employment numbers in recent years. So the center acknowledges there’s a distinct possibility that this summer could set a new record low for employment among the nearly 17 million teens.

During the summer of 2000, 45 percent of the nation’s teens held summer jobs. The employment rate has declined sharply eight of the past 10 years, with post-World War II lows reached each of the past four summers.

From 2000 through 2010, employment rates for every age group of adults 54 and younger declined, the center says. The reductions were the most severe among teens, who frequently compete with jobless adults amid persistently high unemployment.

As is usual with so many AP reports, this one suffers from bias in date selection and in the determination of the relevant data (though to be fair, the study’s authors may also be to blame).

The following graphic from Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Labor Statistics using raw data (i.e., not seasonalized) shows that there were big drops in the teen employment-population ratio in 2001, 2002, and 2003. The rate stabilized and actually edged up during the next three years, declined again in 2007 and 2008, dropped like a rock in 2009, and dropped even further in 2010:

In other words, the ratio held steady while the economy prospered, the job market was growing, and the minimum wage was left alone. But in 2007, in one of the Democratic Congress’s first official acts, “The minimum wage increased in three $0.70 increments–to $5.85 in July, 2007, $6.55 in July, 2008, and to $7.25 in July 2009.” These increases deserve the presumptive blame for the 2007 and 2008 drops, while the third minimum-wage increment combined with recessionary conditions caused the disastrous 2009 drop.

When the AP report cites “the 25.6 percent teen employment rate last summer,” it is unfortunately and erroneously referring to the seasonally adjusted values, which should not be used when comparing summertime employment rates across multiple years.

As to the story’s visibility, Google News searches done on the report’s first sentence (in quotes) at 11:45 p.m. ET returned 15 Google News results and 45 Google Web results. That’s hardly a drop in the media bucket. Additionally, I did not find the story in a search on the AP’s main web site on “teens” (not in quotes).

I daresay that if there were a Republican or conservative in the White House, this story about a group which President Obama desperately needs to turn out in his favor in 2012 in numbers similar to 2008 would be getting far more play.

To expand this post a bit beyond probable media bias, I’ll add some other possible non-minimum-wage explanations as to why the teen employment-population ratio has dropped so much in the past decade, lifted from a column I wrote last year on the topic (“The Teenage Workplace Disengagement Epidemic”):

• More demanding high school activities, including sports and music — These have increasing encroached on summertime to the point where many teens could only work for a few weeks at most even if they wanted to.
• Overprotective parents who don’t want to expose their little darlings to the harsh, cruel world of work — With many teens, if you don’t push, it won’t happen. In many cases, no one’s pushing.
• Illegal immigration — Why would an employer hire a high school kid with an unproven work ethic when cheap, reliable help is otherwise available? Besides making it harder for teens who are looking for work, other teens don’t bother because they know they won’t get anywhere.
• Substantial penalties against working teens in college aid calculations — The higher a college-bound or college-attending teen’s earnings (and assets in their name), the higher a family’s Expected Family Contribution will be. This means, all other things being equal, that less financial aid will be available.
• A plethora of distractions which make it much easier to waste vast amounts of time accomplishing absolutely nothing while still not getting really bored — Video games, fantasy sports leagues, and the like would certainly fit into this category.
• Unpreparedness for work — This has to do with basic literacy, the ability to follow simple instructions, decorum, and attitude, all of which I have recently been told by several different employers continue to deteriorate, even among those who attend supposedly “good” schools.

I would be interested in seeing if there are any other factors readers feel are relevant to the problem.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Via the Daily Caller (internal link is in original):

Dodge: Newt declines to answer question about $250k-500k Tiffany’s tab

On Tuesday, Politico’s Jake Sherman reported former House Speaker and 2012 GOP presidential nomination contender Newt Gingrich owed between $250,001 and $500,000 to Tiffany & Co., a high-end jewelry store, which was revealed in a financial disclosure filed in the mid-2000s when his Callista Gingrich was employed by the House Agricultural Committee.

Although the relevance isn’t clear why this is news, as Fox News Channel’s “On the Record” host Greta VanSusteren pointed out on her Tuesday show, she still inquired about the report in an interview with Gingrich. She asked Gingrich about it and if it had been paid. Gingrich’s reply: No comment.

Oh, and there was another $15-50K owed to American Express.

So why is this relevant? Let me count the ways:

1. Hypocrisy — Champagne tastes exhibited by someone who likes to stake out the “man of the people” ground.
2. Fiscal Responsibility — Assuming he wasn’t getting a special deal (which would be problematic if he was), Gingrich was (and may still be) incurring tens of thousands of dollars a year in interest.
3. Adultery — Since Gingrich’s affair with Callista went on for seven years before they were married in August 2000, and for several years while he was still married to Wife Number 2, it’s legitimate to ask how much of the monstrous Tiffany’s and Amex bills were run up keeping Mistress Callista, as opposed to Mrs. Callista Gingrich, happy. Any such purchases before Newt’s second divorce should be seen as resources stolen from Wife Number 2.
4. If you think Numbers 1, 2, and 3 are strictly private matters irrelevant to public service (you’re wrong, by the way), what in the world were Callista’s qualifications to be an employee of the House Agricultural Committee? (Yeah, she was employed by the committee in the mid-1980s, but that may lead cynics to question if their affair really began before 1993.) What did she earn? Was it comparable to what others were earning?

This is really too much to take. Please-please-please Newt, get out now.

Attempting to clear out the backlog, with possibly more to say on certain of them at a later point …

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At the Wall Street Journal —

What If the U.S. Treasury Defaults?
‘People aren’t going to wonder whether 20 years ago we delayed an interest payment for six days. They’re going to wonder whether we got our house in order.’

This is based on an interview with a guy who used to manage money for George Soros, who, despite that former affiliation, says it’s all about spending restraint, not tax collections.

Great point at the end: Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner need to explain “why technical default is a crisis, but runaway spending is not.”

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Related, at Investors Business Daily — Half of Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling “even if Congress promises not to increase federal government spending as a precondition.”

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Conn Carroll at the Washington Examiner reacts to “Obama’s latest fake plan for more drilling” — “… all Obama has promised is to speed up the evaluation. If he follows through on this promise, all that means is we’ll get an ultimate ‘no’ quicker.”

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Supposedly good news, with really bad news — Bad news first: “Budget deal costs $3 billion more in short term.” Supposedly good news: The Boehner-Reid-Obama deal several weeks ago will supposedly save $122 billion over the next 10 years. Excuse the “yeah, right.”

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Somebody needs to find another word to replace “anarchists” to describe what’s happening in Greece, essentially says David Boaz at Cato — “So these ‘anarchists’ object that the state might cut back on its income transfers and payrolls. That is, they object to the state reducing its size, scope, and power.”

Perhaps we should start with the term “dissatisfied statists,” and work on better alternatives.

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“Name That Party” History Lesson – from an Associated Press report where the main topic is how President Obama is trying to fire up his frustrated leftist supporters (words “somehow” omitted from the report of Darlene Superville, who “just so happens” to be African-American, are in bold):

… in 1957, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the Army and the Arkansas National Guard to protect (Ernie) Green and eight classmates as they entered Central High. Democratic Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus had refused to comply with the Supreme Court decision.

I corrected the spelling of Faubus’s last name in my excerpt. Superville spelled it “Fabus.” Was it an accident, Darlene, or was it done on purpose to avoid search engine detection? The question is not without basis, as it would be quite inconvenient if inquisitive readers were to find out how the careers of ardent segregationist Faubus and Bill Clinton are intertwined.

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Bias advance alert: I’ve noticed how Associated Press reports seem to have moved away from comparing the results of various economic indicators to expectations. In my view, it’s because, far more often than not, reported results usually trail expectations significantly, thereby continuing to make the Obama administration and its policies look bad. For example, as reported here at CNNMoney yesterday, yesterday’s seasonally adjusted annualized housing starts (523,000) and building permits (551,000) trailed expectation of 563,000 and 590,000, respectively. Those are pretty significant misses of about 7%. The expected numbers were not in Derek Kravitz the Creative’s AP report yesterday.

I’ve especially noticed AP’s failure to compare in its early reports on initial unemployment claims during the past few weeks. By contrast, note that this 2008 AP report on initial claims brought out how they exceeded expectations (i.e., piled on the Bush administration) in its very first sentence. On the housing front, this late 2009 report (when Bush could still in the AP’s fevered mindset get the blame for current conditions) also was very up-front about blown expectations.

So when will AP resume increase its comparisons of reported results to expectations? When those results start beating expectations, and more than likely not a moment sooner. Based on the way things have been going in the economy and the overoptimistic mindset of those who are doing the predicting, we’re in for a long wait.

The AP’s latest Obama approval poll betrays its (alleged) values.

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Note: This column appeared at Pajamas Media and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Monday.

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A May 5-9 poll released on May 11 by a polling partnership of the Associated Press and GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications purports to show that Americans’ approval of President Barack Obama’s performance in office has risen to 60%, up from 53% in March and 47% in January.

As would be expected among the left-dominated press corps, all of a sudden the other daily presidential approval polls, virtually all of which show Obama in the high-40s and low-50s in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden (e.g., 51% at Gallup, 46%-48% at Zogby, and 52% at Rasmussen, with a 37%-25% difference between those who strongly disapprove and those who strongly approve), mean nothing. Former Bill Clinton aide, Gary Aldrich smearer, Linda Chavez targeter, and now “Good Morning America” co-host George Stephanopoulos crowed: “[A] new poll out just this morning shows President Obama with his highest approval rating in two years.”

AP reporters acted as if they had died and gone to heaven, issuing at least three lengthy items on various aspects of the poll’s results. Wednesday’s morning’s opening missive by Liz Sidoti and Jennifer Agiesta kicked things off, informing readers that a “comfortable” majority of the public “now call(s) Obama a strong leader who will keep America safe,” that America “now approve(s) of Obama’s stewardship of the economy,” and, with the 2012 presidential election still eighteen months away, “more people say he should get a second term than not” by a margin of 53%-43%. Maybe we should just cancel the elections and sing “All hail, King Barack!” Zheesh.

That evening, Robert Burns and Ms. Agiesta waxed ecstatically over the impact of the successful bin Laden operation: “Few events have sparked such soaring approval from the nation, and almost nothing has since George W. Bush’s handling of the U.S. campaign against terrorism in the months following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.” “Almost nothing” was a mighty convenient term to employ, giving the AP pair the ability to gloss over the fact that George W. Bush’s approval rating at Gallup rocketed from 58% to 71% in a single week in March 2003 as military operations commenced in Iraq.

Thursday morning, the wire service’s Jim Kuhnhenn engaged in an attempt to talk up the economy, writing: “[T]he public’s brighter economic outlook also could signal a boost to the current recovery, which relies to a great degree on consumer behavior. A public that is confident about economic performance is more likely to spend more and accelerate the economy’s resurgence.” Well, if anyone should know, it would be an AP reporter, given that the wire service fully cooperated with the progenitors of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy in relentlessly talking it down and erasing the business community’s optimism beginning in the spring of 2008, up to and including what is probably still AP’s worst story ever: “Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control.”

It seems that the folks at AP and GfK are unusually on edge over their partnership’s most recent production. The report by Burns and Agiesta includes the following priceless paragraph:

Some conservatives criticized the AP-GfK poll as heavy with responses from Democrats that skewed the results. AP-GfK polls use a consistent methodology that draws a random sample of the population independent of party identification. … [T]he change in party identification in the current AP-GfK poll is not a statistically significant shift from the previous poll in March and could not by itself explain the poll findings.

Note that the AP reporters didn’t have the nerve to tell readers how “skewed” May’s poll was. 46% of those surveyed identified themselves as Democrats, 29% as Republicans, and 4% as independents (after classifying leaners); 20% didn’t know. By contrast, the latest available party identification results from Rasmussen as of April have the GOP at 34.8%, Dems at 33.5%, and 31.7% as not affiliated. Gallup, in an aggregate of 21 separate polls conducted last year, shows a Democrat-Republican split of 45%-44%.

Polling 101, or I guess I should say “Reliable Polling 101″ considering AP’s laughable defense, is that for your samples to generate meaningful results they should not only should be random, but they must also be representative. AP-GfK polls since the beginning of 2010 have had the following partisan breakdowns:

Excluding the likely voters poll in mid-October 2010, only two of the twelve results (April and November 2010) closely match the party-ID spread found at two of the most reputable polling firms in the country. Three of the other differences, at three and four points, are forgivably close and arguably representative. The other seven have Democrat-over-Republican differences of six points or more. Five of them, including the two most recent, are in double digits. AP-GfK’s most recent party-ID divergence is by far its largest. Truly random sampling from the beginning of 2010 through May 2011 should have resulted in a least a few of AP-GfK’s samples skewing Republican. Yet it did not happen even once. Random, schmandom.

Contrary to what AP claims, at least five points of Obama’s seven-point improvement since March and at least eleven of the 13 approval points he has picked up since January can be explained by the vast differences in party identification between the three polls.

Most of the small remaining differences disappear because of moves between strong, moderate, and leaning within each party. Instead of capitalizing on the results as an opportunity for obsessive propaganda, the AP and the rest of the establishment press, assuming they have any latent desire to hang on to any reasonable claim of professionalism, should have reacted the way many of them seem to think we should respond to Obama’s stridently divisive statism: Nothing to see here; let’s move along.

Because the polls are not representative, and because they have become successively less so in their last three efforts, at least two dozen assertions made in the three AP reports cited above have no support.

In relaying the results of its partnership’s most recent polls as if they are legitimate, the Associated Press has made an utter mockery of its “Statement of News Values and Principles,” specifically this passage contained therein:

… we insist on the highest standards of integrity and ethical behavior when we gather and deliver the news.

That means we abhor inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortions. It means we will not knowingly introduce false information into material intended for publication or broadcast.

AP-GfK’s polls are clearly inaccurate, are obviously done carelessly, and are riddled with distortions. AP is knowingly conveying false information in its publications and broadcasts. In its reporting on the partnership’s polls, the wire service is not doing what it claims it does, namely “bringing truth to the world.” The AP-GfK polling partnership should be rechristened “Absolutely Pathetic Garbage for Koolaiders.”

From Denver:

May 18, 2011 / 02:19 am

The National Lawyers Association, a group dedicated to providing support to pro-life attorneys across the U.S., will hold their annual conference in Denver this summer.

“We are pleased to be offering expert presentations on topics ranging from the historical origins of our 18th century federal Constitution to 21st century medical and legal issues involving human embryos,” said organization president John Farnan.

The conference, held from June 24-25 at the Holland and Hart law firm in downtown Denver, is open to association members and non-members, and will feature prominent speakers on a wide range of topics related to today’s field.

The presentations “will touch on pressing issues in our Republic, while allowing lawyers to learn how to be more persuasive in the courtroom,” Farnan said.

Christopher Ferrara, president of American Catholic Lawyers Association, will give the keynote speech on legal positivism and the future of the pro-life movement.

Professor Patrick T. Gillen, a teacher of constitutional law and American legal history at Ave Maria School of Law, will discuss the origins of the Federal Constitution.

Trial attorney from Illinois Rita L. Gitchell will present theories on the the legal status of human embryos, and Kevin R. Boully, Ph.D. – a litigation and jury consultant – will address how jurors and judges make their decisions. He will also touch on how attorneys can be better advocates and more persuasive in the courtroom. …

Go here for the rest of the story.