WHY PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL (CONT’D): Police Unions Cross Line While Bullying Public Officials: California cops employ mafia-style tactics against their critics. Fire ’em all and privatize. And this case calls for a RICO investigation, too.

DARK CLOUDS: Democrats gather amid a drumbeat of bad economic signals. “Today we learned that U.S. manufacturing plunged to July 2009 levels and construction suffered its biggest drop in a year. Coupled with several weeks of increased first-time jobless claims, we can expect a poor jobs report on Friday.”

BUT HEY, I’M SURE YOUR HEALTHCARE INFORMATION WILL BE SAFE IN THE GOVERNMENT’S HANDS: FBI Agent’s Laptop ‘Hacked’ To Grab 12 Million Apple IDs.

UPDATE: Reader July Linett writes: “Yes, but why does the FBI have our Apple IDs?” A good question.

FIVE REVELATIONS from No Easy Day.

READER BOOK PLUG: Reader Peter Wizenberg writes: “Please plug my friend Michael Zarocostas’ new first novel, a law firm thriller drama/thriller, Plummet, now out on Kindle. It’s a very well written page-turner and you and your readers will love it! Many thanks!”

THAT STADIUM? YOU DIDN’T FILL THAT: Democrats may move Obama’s speech from 74,000-seat stadium to 20,000-seater indoor arena. It’s the weather. Nobody could have foreseen rain this time of year in North Carolina.

IT’S A LIVING: Football hero Doug Flutie hawking Dove’s products for men.

IT DEPENDS: Is A Science Ph.D. Worth The Time?

A BEATLES Blog Carnival.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: When Government Distorts The Truth.

BAD TIMING FOR THE DEMOCRATS: National Debt To Hit $16 Trillion As DNC Kicks Off.

THE HILL POLL: Voters say second term undeserved, country is worse off. “A majority of voters believe the country is worse off today than it was four years ago and that President Obama does not deserve reelection, according to a new poll for The Hill.”

That sounds about right.

UPDATE: Manufacturing Shrinks for Third Straight Month: “Manufacturing shrank at its sharpest clip in more than three years last month, while separate data showed exports and hiring in the sector slumped in another shot to the country’s struggling economy. August was the third month in a row of contraction in manufacturing, and firms in the sector hired the fewest workers since late 2009, according to an Institute for Supply Management survey on Tuesday.”

Plus: Gallup: Americans’ Economic Confidence in August Ties 2012 Low.

WELL, HE DID KILL OSAMA BIN LADEN PRETTY MUCH SINGLEHANDED: President Obama To Be Made Honorary Green Beret. But happily, this is satire. Though it’s hard to tell the difference these days.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Terrifying New Normal.

I’ve witnessed two of the most radical developments in my lifetime the last four years — changes far greater than those brought on by the massive new increases in the national debt, the soaring gas costs, the radical decrease in average family income, the insolvent Medicare and Social Security trajectories, or the flat housing market.

One is the fact of less than 1% interest rates on most savings (well below the rate of inflation), and the other is an epidemic of 20-something unemployment. All that is the new normal. . . .

These new realities fall heavily on the young male. Traditionally, he was in charge of taking charge — working two jobs to acquire enough to seed a marriage and family or buy a house, striving to be the protector of the household, and accruing experience in his late twenties that would translate into needed promotions in his thirties that would later on pay for braces, kids’ camp, and college tuitions.

No more. We have become emasculated Italians . . . The new model for the next generation is to cobble part-time work together, intern, occasionally draw on unemployment, send out resumes hourly, and hope for something to turn up (preferably in government, state or federal). We all witness the reality behind these statistics firsthand. When we travel we see more and more older people at work, often well into their 70s. I know 50 or so young offspring of friends, relatives, and associates who are desperately trying to find work.

Some other symptoms: There is a new backlash at colleges, which habitually lie to students about the value of their degrees and care more that their offices of diversity are staffed well and their vice provosts for external relations are hitting all the necessary conferences — at least far more than they worry that their tuition increases have yearly soared well beyond the rates of inflation. The federal government, of course, has masked such excess with subsidized loan-sharking. I asked some young people recently what their various (and all had confusing loan “packages”) “subsidized” student loan interest rates were. Most said between 6 and 9% (as their parents get .25% of their own savings).

I don’t know where this all leads. The aging baby boomers are not going to have the retirements that they envisioned, and their children are not going to have the good jobs their baby-boomer parents enjoyed. The more I talk to those my age (58), the more I hear that they are madly trying to save money, buy an extra house, get a good used car — all for their children who may not otherwise ever have a savings account, a home, or reliable transportation.

Read the whole thing. How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya?

UPDATE: Related: McJobs: Low-wage positions dominate new job market.

KATIE GRANJU: Death By Prescription Drugs: How Dare You Say My Son “Deserved” It.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD IS LOOKING FOR INTERNS: “This is a great opportunity for aspiring writers. Interns receive training from Walter Russell Mead and staff, participate in our weekly strategy and story conference calls, and are intimately involved in helping the blog stay abreast of the ever-churning news cycle. You will get a broad and unique perspective on issues shaping the world, and help us figure out new and innovative ways to help communicate these trends to an ever-growing audience.”

WHAT? YOU CAN’T GET COLLEGE CREDIT FOR BEING AN OBAMA VOLUNTEER? OSU to Faculty: “No Classroom Electioneering.” Plus: “There is surely more to be done, not only at Ohio State but at many other colleges and universities where the 2012 presidential race has tempted faculty members to misuse their classrooms for partisan purposes. NAS is reaching out to students and faculty members across the country to ask for their assistance in identifying other cases of abuse like this.”

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION: Geography Matters In Law School Employment.

AT AMAZON, up to 50% off in Home & Garden.

Also, today only: Garmin nuvi 1390LMT 4.3-Inch Bluetooth GPS with Lifetime Maps & Traffic, $114.99.

AP: Dems open convention playing defense of Obama.

UPDATE: Well, this won’t help: Bedbugs an increasing concern at DNC hotels. New slogan: Obama 2012: An Itch You’ve Got To Scratch.

ANDREW MALCOLM: Michelle Obama addresses the DNC, but first, how to grocery shop her way.

FORBES: How Paul Ryan Could Help End “The Little Dark Age.” “Some among the privileged elite are settling for this, complacently, and dubbing it the ‘new normal.’ Some, such as Obama, are responding to it with policies of redistribution — policies which supply sider Jude Wanniski argued are desired by the electorate for periods of economic contraction. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

UPDATE: Related: Obama’s Accelerating Downward Spiral For America: “New income data from the Census Bureau reveal what a great job Barack Obama has done for the middle class as President. During his entire tenure in the oval office, median household income has declined by 7.3%.”

How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya?

CLIVE CROOK ON THE “FACT CHECKERS:” Glenn Kessler’s Shameless Lie.

So I’ve got just one thing to say about Glenn Kessler. Fire his ass.

Of course I could criticize Kessler without calling him the filthy liar that he is. You know, exercise a little “restraint”. On the one hand, on the other hand, all that crap. But leading scholars have taught us that in politics things aren’t complicated, and when somebody builds a career on a lie, we need to say so. I try to be fair, God knows I try. Like Ezra Klein (what would we do without that impartial authority?) I strive to do justice to both sides. But here’s the thing. At some point, you can be fair, or you can seem to be fair, but not both.

Kessler’s foundational lie–the stinking lie on which his whole corrupt operation is based–is that he’s “fact-checking”. Untrue!

Read the whole thing. And chuckle.

OUT TODAY, AND ALREADY #1 ON AMAZON: No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden. The Administration doesn’t seem very happy with it.