AN EMPLOYMENT MIRACLE: Economy Sheds 20,000 Jobs But Unemployment Rate Drops to 9.7 Percent.
Okay, not so much of a miracle: “A sharp increase in the number of people giving up looking for work helped to depress the jobless rate. The number of ‘discouraged job seekers’ rose to 1.1 million in January from 734,000 a year ago.”
MARK STEYN: Credibility is what is really melting.
ADVICE TO OBAMA: Don’t stop thinkin’ about tomorrow. Or at least, you know, maybe start.
WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN CONCERNED WITH EMPLOYMENT IN EASTASIA: Obama says jobs have always been his highest priority.
TAKING THE MONEY INSURGENTS OUT OF POLITICS: “Incidentally, there are ways to open up elections still further that would reduce rather than raise the role of money in politics. When local governments consolidate or when a city moves from ward-based elections to a council whose members are elected at-large, the increase in the size of the electorate means it’s harder to rely on door-to-door canvassing, making campaign ads (and, thus, campaign war chests) more important. It therefore stands to reason that you could make money less important and encourage more grassroots organizing by reversing the process and breaking up those jurisdictions, an idea that could be applied to congressional elections by having more and smaller districts. Yet that hardly ever comes up as a proposal when campaign reformers make their pitches. Interesting, no?”
CORPSE-MAN: Okay, I think people are probably making too much of this stumble, though he does do it twice.
SOMEBODY TELL MAX BLUMENTHAL OF SALON: Black Debater From ‘Race and Conservatism’ Event Defends O’Keefe, Slams Blumenthal.
So does this make Max Blumenthal a racist? Surely, somehow or other, it must.
VENEZUELA: Chavez Equates Twitter With Terrorism. It interferes with the plan to render the public voiceless and impotent. That terrifies him. So . . . .
FINANCIAL POST: The War On Toyota. “The attack on Toyota, at this time of U.S. economic weakness and populist excess, is fast turning into a great American nationalist assault on a foreign corporation, an economic war.”
They told me if I voted for McCain we’d be attacking foreigners just to distract voters from problems at home. And they were right!
WAIT, I THOUGHT CALLING PEOPLE SOCIALISTS WAS A “SMEAR.” Gallup: Majority of Dems View Socialism Positively.
Related: A Stroll Down Extremism’s Memory Lane.
In response to a question asking Democratic Party delegates whether they felt George W. Bush was legitimately elected in 2000, fully 91% of respondents said he wasn’t. The poll also noted the response rate of self-identified Dems overall, 78% of whom thought Bush’s 2000 election was illegitimate (question 56).
Just for perspective.
COURT: Chiquita Must Face U.S. Suit Over Colombia Murders. “Chiquita Brands International Inc., owner of the namesake banana label, must face a lawsuit accusing it of helping Marxist rebels in Colombia who murdered five American missionaries a decade ago. . . . The families accused the grower of prompting attacks on Uniban, the seller of Turbana brand bananas and plantains based in Medellin, Colombia, and soliciting the FARC to burn the competitor’s supplies and block its exports. Chiquita paid the FARC to intimidate labor unions and sabotage rival growers as a means of ‘squashing competition and assuring defendants of an accommodating labor force,’ the families said. ” Interestingly, Eric Holder was representing Chiquita until he became Attorney General.
TREACHER KNEE-BREAKING UPDATE: Struck Down: Feds Refuse to Explain How Agent Injured Daily Caller Writer. (Sean Medlock is “Jim Treacher’s” real name, for those who don’t know).
DAVID PAUL KUHN: Dems Haunted by Revived Stereotypes.
Election Day 1988 was only days away. Ronald Reagan was headlining a rally in Nevada. He said the options were the same as “when I stood before you.” Reagan framed the Democratic “choice” as one for “liberal policies of tax and spend, economic stagnation, international weakness, accommodation, and always, always blame America first.”
Reagan-era framing is regaining its relevance. Fair or not, liberalism’s worst stereotypes have returned from the dead to haunt Democrats.
Read the whole thing.
HOW TO SPOT A PROFESSIONAL JOURNALIST: Their heroic self-appraisal. Unstinting!
The US transportation chief’s public rebukes of Toyota’s handling of a massive safety recall have raised eyebrows, given the US government’s major stake in rivals General Motors and Chrysler.
“The optics are terrible because — and this is what happens when a government owns a company – the two companies that are going to gain the most out of this are General Motors and Chrysler,” said Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s business school.
Conflicts of interest.
MARKDOWNS ON baseball gear at Amazon.
NICE LITTLE MAJORITY YOU GOT THERE: Obama hints to Dems: If you don’t pass ObamaCare, you deserve to lose the midterms.
RALPH PETERS: One Thing Obama Is Doing Right: The Drone War. “To his credit, Obama authorized a much wider employment of these weapons than did the Bush administration. Partly, this is due to improved intelligence capabilities and, in part, to improved UAS availability and technology. But, in the end, the president personally green-lighted intensified attacks.”
UPDATE: Reader Phil Manhard writes: “And each Hellfire missle is tipped with a small replica of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize…” Heh.
HEH: Media Matters Should Actually Listen To….The Media. I think they just listen to their funders. But yeah, Jamison Froser might try hitting the “play” button next time.
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