Using a time-honored establishment press technique, an unbylined Associated Press report out of Indianapolis this evening (“Ind. lawmaker’s lynching reference riles tea party;” saved here at my web host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) twisted the real news about Congressman Andre Carson’s inexcusable, hateful comments at a Congressional Black Caucus-sponsored event in Miami on August 22 by making the story largely about the reaction to what he said. By doing so, the AP largely diverted attention from Carson’s clear primary targets: Tea Party-sympathetic congressional colleagues.

The AP report also opens by contending that what Carson said was only a “metaphor.” Really.

The heck it was. Here’s the full quote, as noted by Matthew Balan (here and here) at NewsBusters. The very first bolded sentence directly refutes the AP’s “metaphor” claim:

CARSON: And this is beyond symbolic change. This is the effort that we’re seeing of Jim Crow. Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second-class citizens. (audience members reply, “Yes!”) Some of them in Congress right now of this Tea Party would love to see you and me- I’m sorry, Tamron (Hall) – hanging on a tree. (audience members reply, “Yes!”) Some of them right now in Congress are comfortable with where we were 50 and 60 years ago.

Carson was obviously accusing some of his congressional colleagues, whom he gutlessly would not name, of actually wanting (not metaphorically wishing) to see himself and his black colleagues lynched. The meaning of the words Carson used is not arguable.

But that’s not at all how the AP framed it:

A black Indiana congressman used a lynching metaphor to describe tea party policies he says would turn minorities into “second class citizens,” and the lone Republican member of the Congressional Black Caucus threatened Wednesday to quit the group in protest.

Democrat Andre Carson made the remarks to a crowd at a black caucus-sponsored event in Miami, arguing that some tea politicians are trying to block the economic advancement of blacks and other minorities.

“Some of them in Congress right now with this tea party movement would love to see you and me – hanging on a tree,” the Indiana congressman said.

The comments from Carson’s speech last week were first posted online Tuesday by the Glenn Beck-founded website The Blaze.

Allen West of Florida, the only Republican member of the black caucus, said on the program “Fox & Friends” that he might quit the panel over what he said were “reprehensible” comments.

Carson told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he and West have a “cordial” relationship but that nobody on the black caucus would “lose sleep” if West left the panel because of the comments. He said the Democrats who make up the rest of the caucus have supported him.

Carson said that while he wishes he would have chosen different analogies in his speech, he would not have changed its substance. He said the language he used has become a “distraction” to the message he was trying to get across about some tea party members.

“I’m deeply concerned about some of the extremist elements who I feel have been a distraction to many of the well-meaning Americans who affiliate themselves with the tea party,” Carson said.

Carson can claim he used “analogies” all he wants, but that will never change the actual meaning of what he said — nor will the AP’s pathetic attempt to cover for him.

Carson owes Majority Leader John Boehner, every Tea Party-sympathetic congressman (really all of his colleagues for his total abandonment of decorum), and the American people a major apology. Absent that, I agree with blogger Doug Ross’s call for a congressional censure.

When a Republican says something controversial, reporters almost invariably work like mad to get a negative reaction from a fellow party member until they find someone who will criticize him or her. Why isn’t there any evidence of any such attempt by the AP to get quotes from Charlie Rangel, John Conyers, Jesse Jackson Jr., or any other Black Caucus members about what Carson said, whether agreeing or disagreeing? Or, if they won’t talk, where’s the time-honored employment of “Congressman X wouldn’t comment on Congressman Y’s controversial remark”?

Meanwhile, back in Indiana, the AP upped the distraction by getting reaction from Tea Party-sympathetic citizens instead of Congresspersons, and found “Indiana State Rep. Vanessa Summers, an Indianapolis Democrat who is chairwoman of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus, (who) said Carson shouldn’t apologize for expressing what many people feel.”

By the way, speaking of “economic advancement,” has anyone else noticed that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for whites from January 2009 to January 2011 increased from 7.1% to 8.0%, while the black unemployment rate rose from from 12.1% to 15.7%? The black unemployment rate went up four times as much as the white rate (3.6 points divided by 0.9 points). This occurred during the first two years of the Obama administration while Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid ran Congress and before any of the eeeeeevil Tea Party-sympathetic freshmen arrived. Since then, both rates have stayed about the same (July’s rates were 8.1% and 15.9%, respectively). Who has had the more harmful effect on black economic advancement — or I should say, who has inflicted real harm on the black community?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Two weeks ago (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), yours truly pointed out how establishment press coverage of the bankruptcy of Massachusetts-based Evergreen Solar had emphasized its Bay State assistance, and only rarely brought up how it benefitted by being able to sell solar panels it otherwise would probably not have bothered to produce to projects benefitting from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“stimulus”) dollars.

On August 17, Larry Dignan of ZDNet, in an item published at CBSnews.com, tried to convince readers that Evergreen’s failure was not indicative of an industry meltdown (bolds are mine):

The bankruptcy of Evergreen Solar is causing some media consternation about the solar industry, but it’s a stretch to imply that the company’s demise is the sign of an industry meltdown.

… Evergreen Solar, like many businesses in an emerging industry, benefited from an initial surge, failed to adjust to market conditions and failed. Evergreen Solar may hang around after restructuring, but the company is akin to those early hard drive and PC companies. The industry consolidates and some players die. Other bankruptcies in the industry will occur. CNET noted that Solon is also closing facilities amid global competition.

You can’t have more than 300 companies—a stat via Solarbuzz—playing in the solar panel market and not expect a few to flop. In its most recent annual report, Evergreen Solar cited BP Solar, First Solar, Kyocera, Mitsubishi, Sanyo, Sharp, SunPower, Trina Solar and Yingli. While some of those competitors are Chinese, most of them aren’t. Evergreen Solar wasn’t run over just by China outfits, but companies from around the world too.

Other reasons Evergreen Solar had to file for bankruptcy:

• It focused on off-size solar panels. Evergreen said in its annual report that “historically, we have produced non-standard size rectangular wafers that were then processed into Evergreen Solar branded solar panels.” Those panels were assembled in its Massachusetts facility.
• The company made a move to focus on industry standard size wafers, but ran out of time and funding. Was it China that derailed Evergreen Solar or the fact it was Betamaxed?
• Evergreen Solar failed to raise enough cash when times were good. In the stock’s glory days, Evergreen Solar could have raised cash via stock sales. It could have used that currency to build a war chest. Perhaps Evergreen could have used its inflated stock to acquire more companies and assets. It didn’t buy its way into a company that could weather a storm.
• There was simply too much debt on the books. Evergreen Solar needed more capital, but you raise debt when you DON’T need it. Not when you’re desperate.
• The company doesn’t make money. Evergreen Solar’s net loss for 2010 was $465.4 million. In 2009, the company lost $266.2 million. In 2008, Evergreen’s net loss was $228.6 million.

All of this would be fine (with everyone but the investors, of course) if Evergreen’s failure had been 100% investor-funded. But it wasn’t. The State of Massachusetts is out tens of millions of dollars, and the stimulus-funded projects containing Evergreen-produced panels may not be serviceable if something goes technically wrong.

After today’s news — as well as the August 19 news that Spectrawatt, which received some funding from the state of New York, was also giving up the ghost — someone should be asking Larry Dignan: “Are we at meltdown yet?”

In case you missed it, direct stimulus showcase beneficiary Solyndra filed for bankruptcy this morning, idling 1,100 workers. The reasons identified in Darren Goode’s Politico item somewhat echo those relating to Evergreen (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

“Regulatory and policy uncertainties in recent months created significant near-term excess supply and price erosion,” [1] Solyndra President and CEO Brian Harrison said in a statement. “Raising incremental capital in this environment was not possible. This was an unexpected outcome and is most unfortunate.”

Solyndra’s problems included “uncertainty in governmental incentive programs in Europe and the decline in credit markets that finance solar systems,” according to a company news release.

The price of solar has dropped more than 40 percent this year, influenced heavily by highly subsidized Chinese firms.

Clean energy advocates called Solyndra a casualty of a maturing solar industry.

“That’s the reality of capitalism,” [2] said Josh Freed, vice president for clean energy at Third Way. “The solar industry is shaking out — prices are dropping and consolidation is happening. [3] We’re in a survival of the fittest or fleetest mode where companies are positioning themselves for a more competitive market.”

… Obama visited the Fremont facility in May 2010 and touted it as an example of why the administration had funneled tens of billions of dollars in loan guarantees and overall stimulus help to clean-energy facilities.

“The true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra, will always be America’s businesses, ” Obama said at the time. “Less than a year ago, we were standing on what was an empty lot. But through the Recovery Act, this company received a loan to expand its operations. This new factory is the result of those loans.”

The Energy Department — in a blog post just before the company’s noon announcement — touted its loan guarantee programs while acknowledging that it does not always pick winners. [4]

Notes:

• [1] — I believe this translates to: “We were making stuff even when we had no idea of whether we could sell it.”
• [2] — That’s a pretty brazen statement by Mr. Freed with little if any attachment to reality. Any resemblance between the solar “industry” and capitalism is purely accidental. Rush Limbaugh was much closer to the truth when he said on the air during the 2 p.m. hour that “There never was a business there.” And here’s a shocker (not, not really) Darren Goode “somehow” overlooked: Joshua Freed recently “was a Vice President at GMMB, where he was part of the media team for Obama for America and advised the senior leadership of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Mr. Freed also was the communications director for the Obama Colorado caucus campaign and advised the Obama for Colorado campaign in the general election.”
• [3] — In another non-surprise, Mr. Freed, in his position at Third Way, “focuses on the policies and strategies needed to bring about clean energy reform and to address climate change.” There is no evidence in Mr. Freed’s stated background of anything resembling first-hand experience with capitalism.
• [4] — This statement echoes Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s statement that he “would do it all over again” after Evergreen’s bankruptcy filing. They just don’t get it. It’s not the government’s job to “invest” in “private” industry in the hope that they can “pick winners.” Private investors, who of course often fail to pick winners, do a consistently better job of that, especially in the areas of due diligence (taking equity if necessary (more often than not it is, and in the form of a majority stake) and in structuring financing arrangements which put the founders’ and managers’ feet to the fire to produce results — or get out of the way so investors can find people who can.

Solyndra’s still-extant history page indicates that it reached $140 million in revenues last year after $100 million the previous year. Since it’s privately held, unless Congress received financial statements at some point (which seems doubtful, based on the history of efforts to pry information from the executive branch and the company; per Politico’s Goode, “a July [congressional]subpoena deadline came and went without a response”), we don’t know if it was ever profitable. Another interesting point: Goode also notes a company claim that its sales “has increased its sales revenue by 2,000 percent in three years.” That statement makes would appear quite likely that the company’s annual sales at the time the it received its hundreds of millions in federal loan guarantees were far less than $100 million.

A non-accounting person intuitively knows that even a somewhat profitable company with the high-end revenue stream noted is courting danger by borrowing money to the tune of almost four times its sales ($535 million divided by $140 million). But it looks like the Department of Energy couldn’t figure that out.

Early indications are that President Obama in his jobs initiative announcement next week will want to dump more money the government doesn’t have into even more “clean energy” and “green jobs” projects which, based on the track record, are destined not to pan out. One would hope that Obama and his party will give this madness a second thought in the wake of the Evergreen and Solyndra fiascos; but it probably won’t happen.

Update, Sept. 1: It will be interesting to see how the broadcast networks handle any “green jobs” proposals Obama might raise in his September 8 speech. Last week, the Media Research Center’s Julia Seymour, in an analysis of network news stories on the topic (“Networks Barely Criticize Obama’s Disastrous ‘Green Jobs’ Policies”), that “only 4 stories out of 52 (roughly 8 percent) between Jan. 17, 2009 and Aug. 17, 2011 included any criticism. That means 92 percent had no criticism.” The smart money would be on yet another free pass.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

First, ADP’s private-sector employment release:

According to today’s ADP National Employment Report, employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose 91,000 from July to August on a seasonally adjusted basis. Employment in the private, service-providing sector rose 80,000 in August, down from increases that averaged 115,000 per month over the prior two months. Employment in the private goods-producing sector rose 11,000 in August, while manufacturing employment slipped by 4,000.

The company’s initial figure of 114,000 jobs created last month was also revised down to 109,000.

According to Reuters, expectations were for 100,000 job additions. Business Insider’s daily email predicted 110,000.

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Announced Layoffs — Meanwhile, Challenger, Gray & Christmas issued its monthly announced layoffs report, with the following good-news, bad-news intro:

United States-based employers announced plans to trim 51,114 workers from the payrolls in August, a 23- percent decline from July, when the number of job cuts hit a 16-month high of 66,414, according to the report released Wednesday by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

The August decline follows three consecutive increases in the monthly job-cut total that saw job cuts rise from 36,490 in April to the July peak. The August total, however, was up 47 percent from a year ago, when employers announced just 34,768 job cuts during the month.

I would guess that August would typically be a month with relatively few layoff announcements. If so, the year-over-year comparison is the more relevant of the two items bolded above.

_____________________________________________

Yesterday, in a report under consideration for the “unexpectedly bad” Hall of Fame, the Conference Board told us the following about consumer confidence, more properly described as “consumer despair”:

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index®, which had improved slightly in July, plummeted in August. The Index now stands at 44.5 (1985=100), down from 59.2 in July. The Present Situation Index decreased to 33.3 from 35.7. The Expectations Index decreased to 51.9 from 74.9 last month.

… Says Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center: “Consumer confidence deteriorated sharply in August, as consumers grew significantly more pessimistic about the short-term outlook. The index is now at its lowest level in more than two years (April 2009, 40.8). A contributing factor may have been the debt ceiling discussions since the decline in confidence was well underway before the S&P downgrade. Consumers’ assessment of current conditions, on the other hand, posted only a modest decline as employment conditions continue to suppress confidence.”

Business Insider’s email expected a drop to 52.5. The Associated Press carried a prediction of 53.3. Reuters must have been really embarrassed about the variance from expectations, only noting that “Economists had expected a much-less-pronounced decline.”

I would suggest that the saturation coverage of the debt-ceiling discussions and the mediocre results achieved broke through the media fog and got the attention of many of the usually disengaged, educating them as to how bad things really are and will continue to be for at least 17 more months because of you-know-who. If that’s true, it’s a good thing, despite its negative effect on the survey result.

At Ann Althouse’s place, her reaction to a story about a “fatal home intrusion” incident and a “castle doctrine” self-defense bill pending in Wisconsin:

I favor the bill myself, because people who are considering breaking into a house shouldn’t have a complicated set of risk/benefit factors to weigh. It should be really clear.

Indeed. If you break in, armed or unarmed, you deserve whatever negative consequences follow.

Also, this important reaction from a commenter:

I whole heartedly support the new law. Don’t know if I’m going to purchase a gun or not, but just the fact that others do makes me safer.

It would be nice if the gun-averse among us who wish to take everyone’s guns away, or force us to keep them unloaded, or to have their triggers locked to the point where their self-defense value is virtually nil, would comprehend this.

You might consider locating a hankie before reading this one.

From San Francisco (HT Daily Good; post title is mine; bolds are mine):

Dr. Richard Olney in last stages, study of disease
Monday, April 25, 2011

Dr. Richard Olney is racing to finish what is almost certain to be his last research paper.

The 63-year-old UCSF neurologist is considered one of the country’s top clinical specialists for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, popularly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. ALS is also the reason Olney is in a hurry to finish his paper: He was diagnosed with ALS in 2004, and after a long period of relative stability, the disease appears to be rapidly winning out over the doctor.

Olney has almost no muscle function left.

“He’s at the end stages now, certainly,” said Dr. Catherine Lomen-Hoerth, once Olney’s medical trainee, now his doctor. “I’m hopeful he may have at least a few months.”

Olney hopes the disease he is studying will spare him at least long enough to finish his research on it. His son, Nicholas, 33, is assisting with the final write-up.

Their goal is to show how certain clinical readings of the muscles and nerves, recorded over a three-month span in the early stages of ALS, might help identify which patients will lose all muscle control quickly and which might have years before they succumb. That kind of information would be invaluable for patients and their families. It also could point researchers toward new genetic clues and treatment strategies for at least some of the many ALS subtypes.

Results are based on only 26 cases. The value of the findings will take time to determine. The study author will have to leave the follow-up to others.

Breathing problems sent Olney to the UCSF emergency room in March, followed by a few days in the intensive care unit. He has lost virtually all muscle control. He communicates by moving his pupils. Sweeping his gaze over a computer tablet, he selects letters and key words one by one, blinking to record each choice.

The computer reads out his sentences in his own voice, which he recorded for this purpose, back when he was still able to speak. As one of the country’s top ALS specialists, Olney knew, right from the start, what he was in for.

He founded the ALS Treatment and Research Center at UCSF in 1993 and served as its director until he became a patient of his own center, now headed by Lomen-Hoerth.

Trial subject for drug

Lomen-Hoerth also wound up leading a placebo-controlled clinical test of two ALS drug candidates that Olney had designed and planned to run. He served as a trial subject instead. The drugs proved to be ineffective. One of the compounds in the study – which happened to be the one Olney was assigned to take – even showed toxic effects in the ALS patients.

That may have contributed to Olney’s rapid deterioration during the early months of his disease, Lomen-Hoerth said, but she insisted such bitter outcomes are unavoidable if the research is ever to move forward.

Considering the notoriety of a disease nicknamed for one of the legends of baseball, treatment of ALS is still largely a guessing game. It arises in nearly all cases without any known genetic risk or link to pathogens. Researchers suspect ALS actually should be considered a catchall category of many different conditions. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

As best I can tell, Dr. Olney is still alive. May his final days be blessed and productive ones.