From Milwaukee:

Jun 25, 2011 / 01:15 pm

Who could blame Susie Fieder Kelly for not recognizing God’s voice calling her through the 1981 parish bulletin? After all, she was a brand spankin’ new member of St. Gregory the Great parish in Milwaukee, Wisc. and had little experience with “God speak.”

Besides, she had just finished her master’s degree in special education: learning disabilities, from Cardinal Stritch College her life was suddenly less hectic, and besides, she just found a comfortable spot in the pew.

“I didn’t grow up in this parish so I was not one of the frozen chosen,” she said, laughing. “No one knew me, and I didn’t know them and it was just fine with me.”

The first time it happened, Kelly was sitting in her pew and reading the Sunday bulletin. Like a magnet, her eye caught an ad that said, “Help needed with special religious education program.” As soon as she returned home, she tossed the bulletin in the trash, convinced that this ad was designed to somehow taunt her.

“I felt very personal with that,” she joked. “The next Sunday it was in the bulletin again and of course, I threw it away again.”

After the ad made it to the bulletin for the third time, Kelly began to identify with Samuel and nearly felt inclined to respond, “Speak Lord for your servant is listening.” Instead, she phoned the church and inquired about the job.

The position entailed assisting the woman who ran the special religious ed program in existence since 1957. Classes met Saturday mornings and Kelly’s job was to help the coordinator/teacher work with the four to five special needs students.

While the teacher did a great job with the students, Kelly’s experience was that not all students learned at the same pace, especially in a more abstract subject as religion. She was also interested in reaching out to special needs adults who had not been instructed in Catholicism or received the sacraments. The following summer she took a class in special religious education curriculum to learn more about teaching methods, and suddenly another path unfolded that would absorb 30 years of her life.

“The coordinator decided to retire and I interviewed for her position,” said Kelly. “I explained what I would do differently and she offered me the job. At first I wanted to scream that I didn’t know anything about this, but then as I worked to individualize the program for kids, teens and adults, and a parent support group, the program began to fall into place.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Yeah, let’s go back to horses for transportation, mules for plows, and operator-assisted phone calls while we’re at it.

Really, automation is bad (HT Hot Air via The Blaze):

Milton Friedman’s classic response:

Reportedly, while traveling by car during one of his many overseas travels, Friedman spotted scores of road builders moving earth with shovels. When he asked why powerful equipment wasn’t used instead of so many laborers, his host told him it was to keep unemployment low. If they used tractors, fewer people would have jobs was his host’s logic.

“Then why don’t you give them spoons?” Friedman inquired. It was quintessential Friedman: Employment doesn’t make us wealthy — production does.

By failing to initially cover a story millions of people nevertheless learned of — the presidential gaffe noted at NewsBusters by Matt Sheffield, among others, on Thursday morning — the Associated Press created a bit of a problem for itself. In a speech to soldiers at Fort Drum, President Obama “mistakenly identified a fallen member of that division as another soldier in a completely different Army unit who is alive” — both of whom were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

NB’s Geoffrey Dickens noted later on Thursday that the Big 3 television networks also ignored the story.

A search on the last name of deceased soldier and Medal of Honor winner Jared Monti at the AP’s main site only returns one relevant story: its Friday night/Saturday morning coverage of Obama’s apology. Wait until you see how dishonestly the wire service tried to cover its tracks (graphically captured here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes), starting with the headline:

White House confirms Medal of Honor mistake

The dictionary’s primary definition of “confirm” is “to establish the truth, accuracy, validity, or genuineness of.”

You see, in the Orwellian world of the Associated Press, we don’t know that the President’s gaffe really occurred because the self-described “Essential Global News Network” didn’t report it. Therefore, it can only turn into something that really did occur when a White House spokesperson “confirms” that it occurred. Until then, in AP-Land, it’s only some kind of unverifiable rumor.

Never mind that it’s recorded here at YouTube and heaven knows how many other places.

Never mind that it was noted Wednesday by over 50 blogs, including several high-traffic leaders like Pajamas Media (here and here), Hot Air, Gateway Pundit, Blackfive, and Wizbang.

Never mind that Andrew Breitbart posted the related video at 3:59 p.m. on Wednesday.

Never mind that a few establishment press outlets noted the gaffe early on Thursday, though with a level of understanding which would never have been and almost never has been allotted to a conservative or Republican, including the LA Times (“Obama confuses his Medal of Honor recipients during Ft. Drum remarks”), the Washington Post (“Obama slips on names of Medal of Honor recipients”), CBS News (“Obama criticized for flubbing name of medal of honor recipient” — Of course, the gaffe isn’t the story, it’s the fact that meanie conservatives are pointing it out), and ABC News (“Obama Flubs Medal Of Honor Winner”).

And finally, never mind that even the White House transcript of the speech posted Wednesday correctly records Obama’s gaffe:

First time I saw 10th Mountain Division, you guys were in southern Iraq. When I went back to visit Afghanistan, you guys were the first ones there. I had the great honor of seeing some of you because a comrade of yours, Jared Monti, was the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn’t receiving it posthumously.

Nope. At the AP, it’s not official until a White House spokesman “confirms” what everyone who knows of it has already seen, heard, and/or read, as the text of the AP’s unbylined coverage (I’d say it’s unbylined for a reason) demonstrates:

The White House is confirming that President Barack Obama misspoke about a Medal of Honor winner coming home alive during comments at Fort Drum in upstate New York.

Addressing soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division on Thursday, Obama said one of their comrades was the first person he had awarded the Medal of Honor who wasn’t receiving it posthumously. In fact, the soldier, Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti, was killed in action.

Obama spokesman Josh Earnest says the president misspoke. He noted that Obama paid tribute to Monti in remarks to troops in Afghanistan in March 2010. But Salvatore Giunta was the first living recipient of the medal among veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

You would almost think that until Mr. Earnest said the president “misspoke,” everybody thought Obama was correct (Update: … and that, as NewsBusters commenter MotherBelt wryly observed, everybody else was wrong about which soldier lived and which one died).

Earth to AP: The correct words are “admitted” and “acknowledged.” We’re not in a situation where a historical event isn’t considered to have happened until the White House says so — at least not yet.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

This was soooo predictable.

The stimulus and the hundreds of billions of dollars of additional Obama administration spending were supposed to be represent a one-time pick-me-up to the economy.

Now, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has so much as said that spending levels which are 30%-40% higher than they were just four years ago represent the untouchable baseline. The U.S. spent $2.7 trillion in fiscal 2007; it’s on track to spend well over $3.5 trillion and conceivably as much as $3.819 trillion (the number in President Obama’s gutless February budget) this year.

Last night, Investors Business Daily commented on Geithner’s admission, and his insistence (video carried here; HT PJ Tatler) that taxes must be raised to pay for the new baseline (bolds are mine):

The secretary of the Treasury says taxes must be raised on small business so the federal government can stay big. With that breathtaking statement, he helpfully mapped out the key difference between the parties.

While testifying Wednesday before the House Small Business Committee, Timothy Geithner told Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., that hiking taxes on small businesses is the only “alternative” that will allow “a balanced approach to reduce our fiscal deficits.”

“If you don’t touch revenues,” Geithner said, “you have to shrink the overall size of government programs, things like education, to levels that we could not accept as a country.”

… Democrats never give up hope they can raise taxes, and this particular Democrat wants to slap higher rates on small business. This is an especially poor choice. Small businesses are America’s jobs engine.

Even more appalling is the fact Geithner didn’t back off his position when Ellmers told him that 64% of new jobs in this country are created by small businesses. In fact, he acknowledged that she is correct.

While the number Ellmers used is compelling, we believe the rate is actually higher, around 85%. We base this estimate on our own database of public companies, which shows that over the last 25 years, big businesses created no net new jobs. That leaves small business as virtually the only job creator.

Geithner’s unabashed statement helps explain the sorry situation in which America finds itself. But in so doing, he has also provided the clarity that voters will need when his boss comes up for re-election.

The trouble is, there’s a good chance we don’t have 19 months (i.e., until January 20, 2013) to fix “the sorry situation.”

From Rome:

Jun 24, 2011 / 06:10 am

The Vatican has introduced a new way of keeping silence in their churches while also informing tourists – the iPod.

Today is the first full day of a trial which sees pilgrims to the basilica of St. John Lateran given the audio-guide with a special app explaining the 1,700-year history of the church, which serves as the Pope’s cathedral.

“I can easily say that in Italy there are no examples of experiences like this in religious contexts, probably not even those in museums,” Jelena Jovanovic said to CNA. Her company, Antenna International, created the handheld device.

The multi-lingual guide offers audio, video, photos and texts to give an interactive experience to pilgrims. It also provides historical re-enactments narrated by actors.

Tourists can now listen to the experience of their fellow pilgrims from centuries past or even a “first-hand” account of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, when the Emperor Constantine saw a cross in the sky and converted to Christianity.

But the primary purpose of the guide is not entertainment or even education – it’s prayer and silence.

Bishop Luca Brandolini, the head of Pastoral Care for the Diocese of Rome, explained to CNA that “Unfortunately, our basilicas have become more like noisy meeting places at many times.”

“We need to bring back a place and time for silence. So I think this audio-guide will help achieve that.”

The Managing Director of the Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, the Vatican body that oversees all pilgrim activity in the Diocese of Rome, agrees.

“Those who want to enter into a basilica to pray must be able to pray. So this multimedia guide helps with that,” said Fr. Caesar Atuire.

“Everyone can now do what they have to do without disturbing others.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

I can’t say that I’m up on what every state is doing, but it’s hard not to notice contrasts between two trios of states singing decidedly different tunes:

• Wisconsin, Ohio and New Jersey, three states with recently elected conservative Republican governors, have either put their budgets to bed, or are on the verge of doing so, by cutting costs and not raising taxes.
• Connecticut, Minnesota, and California, three states with recently elected liberal governors who are Democrats, are on the verge of a shutdown, serious layoffs, or issuing IOUs. All three governors have enacted or want tax increases.

So how is the press covering these situations?

(more…)

Note: I’m going to keep this at the top as much as possible on Friday.

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It’s a only week until the big event (Direct YouTube link):

The schedule is so jam-packed with valuable sessions, I suspect many attendees will wish that they had cloned themselves for the occasion.

Oh, and did I remember to mention that GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain will be there?

James Pethokoukis at Reuters notes that the President hasn’t put any meat on the skeleton he presented in April, and that the Congressional Budget Office can’t do anything with it (bolds are mine; internal links are in original):

At a House Budget Committee hearing today, Chairman Paul Ryan and Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf had this exchange:

+++++++++++++

Ryan: “We got your re-analysis of the President’s budget. I won’t go back into that. But the President gave a speech on April 13th where he outlined a new budget framework that claims $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 12 years. Have you estimated the budget impact of this framework?”

Elmendorf: “No, Mr. Chairman. We don’t estimate speeches. We need much more specificity than was provided in that speech for us to do our analysis.”

+++++++++++++

Bingo. As I wrote back in April, when President Obama made his big budget speech, it wasn’t at all clear from where his numbers were coming — nor in what direction they were heading. A “fact sheet” on his “Framework for Shared Prosperity and Shared Fiscal Responsibility” gave a few more specifics, but little or no context to make real sense of them. Even for seasoned budget experts, it was a puzzlement. At the time, I predicted it would never get submitted to the CBO, and so far I have been proven correct. The whole mess now seems like nothing more than a political ploy to make Obama seem like a debt hawk. We also know now that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had to push the White House to do even that.

Exactly. The President is so insincere about his alleged interest in fiscal control and debt reduction that he won’t even put a concrete, credible plan on the table (February’s doesn’t count, and he knows it; that’s why April’s charade came to be).

No wonder the President is a non-player in the current negotiations, turning it all over to VP Joe Biden. If Obama were to get involved, he might actually have to commit to something. As he has done on so many other important matters in his political career, he is voting “present” — something with which even the establishment press had a problem in late 2007, just a couple of months before it swallowed the hopey-changey koolaid:

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UPDATE: Miss an hour, miss a lot –

President Barack Obama will wade into the angry impasse over raising the US government’s borrowing limit next week, hosting meetings with rival Senate Republican and Democratic leaders.
Obama’s intervention follows a Republican walkout from crucial talks on the issue and warnings by top party leaders that they will not accept White House demands to close tax loopholes and hike rates on the wealthiest Americans.

dscott has raised an important point in a comment: If they want “tax increases,” end subsidies, and call ‘em “tax increases.” Like ethanol, farm subsidies, and the array of green subsidies, including the $7,500 Chevy Volt/electric car credit.

UPDATE 2: It would appear that Obama was heckled into showing up by none other than New Jersey Governor Chris Christie —

Speaking with Matt Lauer on NBC’s “Today” show Friday, Christie suggested the president more personally engage in budget talks with lawmakers. The Republican suggested the first thing Obama do about debt ceiling talks is “show up.”

… “You can’t negotiate through a secondary person. And with all due respect to the Vice President, the President’s got to show up,” Christie said.

It would also appear that Christie may be attempting to create momentum for a presidential run.

I’m going to have to start doing better at shameless self-promotion (actually, engaging in any shameless self-promotion would represent an improvement).

The PR people at Pajamas Media arranged three radio interviews for me on Tuesday to talk about the differences between Paul Ryan’s plan for Medicare and Barack Obama’s plan, i.e., Obamacare, and I didn’t say a thing about ‘em here at BizzyBlog.

One of the interviews was with Brad Davis at the Talk of Connecticut (audio found here).

If you go there, you’ll be able to tell that the interview was at 7:10 in the morning. I’m going to have to ramp up the vocal animation and mainline a bit more coffee in the future.

(Links are mine unless otherwise noted; unquoted commentary is all mine)

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More Evidence That Cain Is Very Able — He had a prolife pledge handed to him. Instead of signing it without any thought to artificially ingratiate himself with the prolife community, he actually read the pledge, and lodged a specific, constitutionally correct objection:

Herman Cain Reaffirms Pro-Life View After Not Signing Pledge

Businessman and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain reaffirmed his pro-life views in a statement today, one day after he declined to sign the pro-life pledge sponsored by the Susan B. Anthony List that other presidential candidates signed.

“I support right-to-life issues unequivocally and I adamantly support the first three aspects of the Susan B. Anthony pledge involving appointing pro-life judges, choosing pro-life cabinet members, and ending taxpayer-funded abortions,” Cain said in a statement. “However, the fourth requirement demands that I ‘advance’ the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. As president, I would sign it, but Congress must advance the legislation.”

Herman Cain understands separation of powers. As President, he can “advocate” legislation, but he has no ability to advance it.

Herman Cain actually reads documents presented to him. Imagine that. The other candidates who signed the pledge either didn’t understand the separation of powers issue, didn’t care about it, or thought the political advantage of signing a flawed pledge would outweigh clear evidence that their signature betrays a less than complete understanding of the Constitution.

As with the Hermanator’s insistence a month ago that he can’t say what he would do about Afghanistan without having access to the information a president has, this is incredibly refreshing.

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dscott provides a couple of “human interest” links about multiple jobholders:

• Out of Oregon — “More People Holding Multiple Jobs”
• From Kentucky — “You have how many jobs? Moonlighting works for some”

They’re interesting reads, but I’d like to look at how the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy’s recession and aftermath have affected multiple jobholders.

It doesn’t seem to have increased their overall numbers (in fact, they’ve declined a bit), which may simply reflect the fact that finding any kind of job is still very tough.

The following chart from a Bureau of Labor Statistics report, supported to an extent by a recent BLS table, highlights one significant trend:

This female-male divergence could mean a number of things: Fewer employed men are looking for a second gig, they’re looking but not finding something they want, they’re not finding something they can fit into their schedules, or the opportunities aren’t there.

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(via Greg) Before everyone jumps on the Rick Perry bandwagon, read this — “14 Reasons Why Rick Perry Would Be A Really, Really Bad President.”

The points may be stridently stated, but I don’t think the facts noted are in dispute; several of them are more than a little troubling.

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(via Greg) At Red State – “Senate Plans to Abdicate its Confirmation Duties; The Obama Czars will trump the constitution.” Briefly stated:

The Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act (S.679), which was never reported out of a committee, would eliminate the (Senate) confirmation requirement for 200 presidential appointees. This bill would completely abrogate the safeguards against tyranny that were established in the “Appointments Clause” of the constitution.

Y’know, because that “advise and consent” stuff is just too much hard work.

Heritage’s Reax: “The Senate Should Preserve, But Speed Up, Its Role in Senior Presidential Appointments.”

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(via Greg) The march of tyranny (“arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority”) continues. But it’s for the children, so it’s supposed to be okay.

This is NOT okay:

Obama’s Food Police in Staggering Crackdown on Market to Kids

Tony the Tiger, some NASCAR drivers and cookie-selling Girl Scouts will be out of a job unless grocery manufacturers agree to reinvent a vast array of their products to satisfy the Obama administration’s food police.

Either retool the recipes to contain certain levels of sugar, sodium and fats, or no more advertising and marketing to tots and teenagers, say several federal regulatory agencies.

The same goes for restaurants.

… “When regulators strongly suggest a course of action, it’s treated as a rule, not a suggestion,” said Scott Faber, vice president of federal affairs for the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

Of course it is, because there’s never a coequal relationship in discussions between private parties and the government, and because those who don’t wish to follow the “suggestions” are putting targets on their backs.

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Walter E. “Black by Popular Demand” Williams: “America’s New Racists” –

The late South African economist William Hutt, in his 1964 book, “The Economics of the Colour Bar,” said that one of the supreme tragedies of the human condition is that those who have been the victims of injustices and oppression “can often be observed to be inflicting not dissimilar injustices upon other races.”

… Today … Most racist assaults are committed by blacks. What’s worse is there’re blacks, still alive, who lived through the times of lynching, Jim Crow laws and open racism who remain silent in the face of it.

… In many of these brutal attacks, the news media make no mention of the race of the perpetrators. If it were white racist gangs randomly attacking blacks, the mainstream media would have no hesitation reporting the race of the perps.

… Black silence in the face of black racism has to be one of the biggest betrayals of the civil rights struggle that included black and white Americans.

Read the whole thing.

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At the Hill — “President ‘becoming an absolute monarch’ on war powers …”

“We have been sliding for 70 years to a situation where Congress has nothing to do with the decision about whether to go to war or not, and the president is becoming an absolute monarch … And we must put a stop to that right now, if we don’t want to become an empire instead of a republic.”

The quoted congressman is Jerome Nadler (D-NY). In July 2008, in one of many occasions when he invoked the word in connection with George W. Bush, Nadler said:

If we had a just system and it weren’t overly political, the president would be impeached. I think he has committed impeachable offenses.

I’ll believe that Nadler is doing more than making himself feel good and placating his far-left base when he says exactly the same thing — or stronger — about Barack Obama. Don’t hold your breath.

The government’s full report is here.

The updated Reagan vs. Obama scoreboard for the first seven post-recession quarters now reads as follows:

In the first seven post-recession quarters under Reagan, the economy grew by almost 12%. Under Obama? Just under 5%, barely getting back to where we were before the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy and the recession as normal people define it began.

In terms of sustainability, the economy under Reagan grew 7.9% during post-recession quarters 4-7. Under Obama? 2.3%.

The economy under Reagan zoomed along at more than triple the speed of the current economy. Economic policy choices matter. Millions of Americans are needless suffering with little solace in sight because the Obama administration has chosen the wrong ones, and won’t move away from them.

Strong (and true) stuff at Investors Business Daily, from an editorial last night:

With Democrats’ poll numbers in the dumps, President Obama has decided to release some of the U.S. strategic petroleum reserves to cut prices at the pump. Problem is, its only real “strategic” purpose is politics.

… The spigots have been opened just twice — in 2005 by President Bush, who released 11 million barrels after disruptions from Hurricane Katrina, and in 1992 by President Bush Sr., who tapped 20 million barrels in the wake of the Gulf War. President Obama’s release — which is far bigger than either of those two emergencies — is supposedly in response to disruptions from Libya, which isn’t even a U.S. supplier. It isn’t our crisis.

Instead, Obama has said this release is part of a “coordinated” effort by the International Energy Agency to lower world oil prices and “save” the global economy.

It’s more than that, given that the IEA’s 60 million barrel release amounts to twice Libya’s daily lost output. This looks a lot more like a blatant effort to manipulate oil prices globally, using U.S. resources.

Frankly, the president doesn’t have a right to do that.

The SPR is not and never has been an open-market mechanism for lowering world prices. It’s an emergency supply for us alone, and so this release amounts to a misuse of American resources.

… it suggests that he thinks the reserves are his to use as he sees fit, rather than a tool for use in an emergency.

… Prices are high not because of Libya, but because of Obama’s own failed energy policies — which is based on little more than punishing oil producers.

… It’s no substitute for a sound energy policy that will secure America’s energy future. It’s short-term politics that sets a bad precedent. And it won’t work.

There’s a word (“a ruler who is not effectively restricted by a constitution, laws, recognized opposition, etc.”; “a person who makes pronouncements, as on conduct, fashion, etc, which are regarded as authoritative”) for a president who believes that a country’s resources “are his to use as he sees fit.”

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UPDATE: Heritage IDs the three conditions for accessing the SPR –

1. An emergency situation exists and there is a significant reduction in supply which is of significant scope and duration;
2. A severe increase in the price of petroleum products has resulted from such emergency situation; and
3. Such price increase is likely to cause a major adverse impact on the national economy.

The “reduction in supply” has been driven by administration’s energy-restrictive policies.

Well, I guess we do have an “emergency.” We have a president who’s choking the economy at every opportunity, and won’t stop. The emergency will last until at least January 20, 2013.