Fighter Pilot

Via Maggie's Farm:

Also at Theo's: "Grab a beer, turn down the lights, turn off your cell phone, shut the door and watch full screen & High Definition and sound!"

Black Bear Tranquilized at University of Colorado Returned to the Wild

At USA Today, "Tree-falling bear has been returned to the wild."

And see Telegraph UK, "Black bear falls from tree after being sedated."

Employment Picture in South Los Angeles Worse Now Than During the 1992 Riots

So, I guess we're just waiting for the spark to set off the powder keg, or something.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Blacks in South L.A. have a bleaker jobs picture than in 1992":

Two decades after the L.A. riots brought pledges of help to rebuild South Los Angeles, the area is worse off in many ways than it was in 1992.

Median income, when adjusted for inflation, is lower. Many middle-class blacks have fled in search of safer neighborhoods and better schools.

And the unemployment rate, which was bad at the time of the riots, has reached even more dire levels. In two areas of South Los Angeles — Florence Graham and Westmont — unemployment is almost 24%. Back in 1992, it was 21% in Florence Graham and 17% in Westmont.

Last summer, thousands of South Los Angeles residents showed up to a job fair that brought out almost 200 employers at Crenshaw Christian Center on Vermont Avenue. The event, organized by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), was seen by some as grandstanding.

"People were really skeptical," said Kokayi Kwa Jitahidi, a community organizer with the nonprofit Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. "People thought, 'Another job fair?'"

There have been training and other job programs — both privately and government-funded — in the roughly 51-square-mile area in the last two decades. A post-riots report said the area needed an investment of about $6 billion and the creation of 75,000 to 94,000 jobs.

The federal and state governments spent as much as $768 million, according to a 1994 estimate, but the main aim of Rebuild L.A. — the group leading the revitalization effort — was to steer the private sector to create jobs in the area.

Toyota, Pioneer Electronics and IBM were among the corporations that held seminars and classes.

The training center started by Toyota, in conjunction with the Los Angeles Urban League, was one of the few that succeeded in the decade after the riots. It's now closed, but it produced about 1,000 graduates trained in entry-level automotive skills.

Most of the private-sector programs, however, had little effect.

"There are many things the private sector does well, but investment in depressed areas is not often one of them," said Chris Tilly, director of the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. "The nature of private-sector investors is to look where the payoff is. If you've got large swaths of the city where there are bad schools, poor people and crime, that's not where private investment will go."

The funny thing is, just the other day the New York Times was touting how the changed demographics of South Los Angeles signaled a rising level of prosperity for the area's blacks, who moved out to the suburbs to buy homes and so forth. The Los Angeles Times piece, on the other hand, makes this out to be a bad thing. Not enough black consumers for black-owned businesses, or something. Or blacks are "stigmatized" for living in the area. That's just horrible. Sheesh. I guess the authors want the federal government to kick in more money for "community development," "urban renewal," or whatever folks call these tax-funded programs nowadays, programs that have failed over and over to lift the nation's poor. Indeed, one of the scholars interviewed at the report says what's needed is a "muscular public investment" in education. That's either pure stupidity or a bald-faced lie. We spend more money today on public education than we did in the 1960s, when educational outcomes were much better.

Al Armendariz, EPA Official, Apologizes for Call to 'Crucify' Oil Companies

The Daily Caller has the video, which was pulled, naturally: "YouTube pulls Armendariz ‘crucify them’ video."

And Ed Morrissey has the apology, at Hot Air, "EPA: Hey, sorry about that whole “crucify” thing, we’re all about being ethical."

BONUS: From Dan Collins, at Protein Wisdom, "EPA’s Crucifixion Maven Has Already Given It a Try."

IMAGE CREDIT: The People's Cube, "If Only the Romans Had the EPA to Crucify the Dissenters."

UPDATE: I forgot about Michelle's column from yesterday, "“Crucify them:” It’s the Obama Way."

Kelly Brook Tumblr Rule 5

It's all Craig Ramsay's fault.

He tweeted me Kelly Brook's Tumblr page, and of course I can't resist posting some Rule 5.

She's lovely. Lots more pics on Tumblr.

And here's an encore from Maggie's Notebook: "Rule 5 Saturday Night: Kelly Brook."

I'll hold off on another big Rule 5 roundup for now. Here's last week's: "Big Old Saturday Rule 5."

Plus, Bob Belvedere has more: "Rule 5 News: 27 April 2012 A.D."

And since I've unforgivably neglected him, don't miss Dana Pico, "Rule 5 Blogging: This One’s for Mom," and "Rule 5 Blogging: This One’s for Hoagie Edition."

BONUS: At Pirate's Cove, "If all You See…is a dog which requires huge amounts of Gaia’s resources, you might just be a Warmist."

Dan Savage, Gay Rights Extremist, Calls Bible 'Bullsh*t' During 'Anti-Bullying' Speech

When I first saw the headlines it never occurred to me that this guy was the gay freak Dan Savage, but it was a pure "Aha!" when I saw it was him.

What a freakin' douchebag.

Robert Stacy McCain reports, "Students Walk Out After Anti-Bullying Speaker Dan Savage Calls Bible ‘Bulls–t’."

Plus, see Darleen at Protein Wisdom, "Irony Alert: Gay activist Dan Savage gives anti-bullying speech – bullies Christians and calls objecting students “pansies”."

And previously on Dan Savage, "Gay Sexual Abandon and the Perverse Inversion of Values by Same-Sex Extremists."

The New Politics of Hostage Taking? Actually, Republicans Are Not the Problem

Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein have a new book due out next Tuesday, It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism.

The title of this post is taken from their first chapter, "The New Politics of Hostage Taking." I'm not sure if I'm all that interested in reading the book. Sure, Mann and Ornstein are highly respected political scientists, and they're not especially prone to partisan hackery (or they haven't been previously), but when your main thesis is that the Republicans are the problem --- that Republicans are extremist --- then, well, I doubt you can claim scholarly objectivity. And frankly, the authors confess as much in their commentary at the Washington Post, "Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem." An excerpt:

We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change anytime soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public.

Our advice to the press: Don’t seek professional safety through the even-handed, unfiltered presentation of opposing views. Which politician is telling the truth? Who is taking hostages, at what risks and to what ends?

Also, stop lending legitimacy to Senate filibusters by treating a 60-vote hurdle as routine. The framers certainly didn’t intend it to be. Report individual senators’ abusive use of holds and identify every time the minority party uses a filibuster to kill a bill or nomination with majority support.

Look ahead to the likely consequences of voters’ choices in the November elections. How would the candidates govern? What could they accomplish? What differences can people expect from a unified Republican or Democratic government, or one divided between the parties?

In the end, while the press can make certain political choices understandable, it is up to voters to decide. If they can punish ideological extremism at the polls and look skeptically upon candidates who profess to reject all dialogue and bargaining with opponents, then an insurgent outlier party will have some impetus to return to the center. Otherwise, our politics will get worse before it gets better.

Oh brother.

Talk about giving up any pretense of fairness or analytical detachment. Mann and Ornstein want the GOP to fail. They've got a book coming out demonizing the party as a gang of hostage takers and they've put out the directive to the press to get with the program. Never mind the fact that other political science research puts current trends in political gridlock into longer-term context, for example, Alan Abramowitz's, The Polarized Public. The authors have their meme and they're sticking with it --- or else!

And hey, don't miss Victor Davis Hanson, "Obama shouldn’t preach about civility":

President Obama has repeatedly derided the sort of Republican partisanship that led the current minority party in the Senate to filibuster some of his appointments – most prominently his nomination of Goodwin Liu to the federal bench. But Sen. Obama not long ago strongly advocated such partisan obstructionism when, out of power, he praised the filibuster as much as he now deplores it while in power.

Indeed, he joined a filibuster to deny votes on the nominations of both Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court and John Bolton to the U.N. ambassadorship....

We are now engaged in a continuing debate about debt, taxes and spending. Both sides have vastly different ideas about how to solve our financial problems, and they will continue to embrace tough talk to win over public opinion to their respective sides. We hope for the best argumentation but expect the worst – democratic politics being what it is. And President Obama, the past master of bare-fisted partisan invective, knows that better than anyone.

So spare us any more of the bottled piety, Mr. President. Instead, just make the argument to the public that borrowing $4 billion a day is still necessary and sustainable – and explain how it came to be that this post-recession recovery on your watch is the weakest since World War II.

Well now, I think that's just a tad bit closer to the truth.

Lack of Civility at Long Beach City College

Actually, it's the LBCC Board of Trustees that lacks civility, according to Michael Smith of Long Beach, in a letter at the Los Angeles Daily News, "Trustees Lack Civility":

Never have I been so ashamed of elected officials as when I attended the Long Beach City College Board of Trustees meeting on April 24.

Issues being discussed were the mass layoffs of necessary and important classified staff and how it would affect students' classes and the community. So many eloquent people spoke clearly and directly on the issues and presented their cases to the elected Board of Trustees, from international students, to ESL students, from faculty to classified staff. But time after time Board President Doug Otto rudely interrupted them and told them their stories weren't relevant. He scolded them to wrap it up, even though they were under the five minutes allowed. Then he told the community they were being rude and they couldn't continue. Shame on the trustees. Our community elected them, and now they are stifling free speech and telling a concerned community their stories don't matter.

-- Michael Smith, Long Beach

Video of the meeting is here.

I mentioned the tension on campus previously: "LBCC Announces 55 Layoffs — Tensions High as Faculty Union Prepares Jobs Actions and Protests."

Suicide Bomber Hits Syrian Capital of Damascus

At Telegraph UK, "Syria: suicide bomber hits Damascus mosque."

And also at the New York Times, "Suicide Attack Kills 9 Near Damascus as Cease-Fire Erodes."

RELATED: "U.N. Observers Prove Little Deterrent to Syrian Attacks."

House Speaker John Boehner Slams Obama for 'Fake Fight' Over Student Loans and Women's Health

You gotta love Speaker Boehner.

At Newsmax, "Boehner: Obama Creating ‘Fake Fight’ Over Student Loan Rates." And from Yahoo, "Boehner Asks Angrily, 'Do We Have to Fight About Everything?'"

And progressive hack Joan Walsh takes umbrage: "John Boehner’s Blues."

Dennis Prager, Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph

Prager discusses his new book on Fox & Friends:

And you can pick up a copy at Amazon: Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph.

I'm reading it now and can't recommend it enough. The book probably has the best discussion of leftist ideology in print. A fantastic read.

More on this later...

What 'Gutsy Call'? Obama Didn't Make 'Operational Decision' to Kill Osama bin Laden

The Obama campaign is out with this new ad below attacking Mitt Romney, claiming that the presumptive GOP nominee wouldn't have been "gutsy" enough to make the call on killing bin Laden.

But perhaps Obama's "decision" to get bin Laden wasn't so "gutsy" after all.

See Ben Shapiro, at Big Peace, "What 'Gutsy Call'?: CIA Memo Reveals Admiral Controlled bin Laden Mission" (via Memeorandum). Read it all at the link. In question is the language of the CIA memo obtained by Time Magazine. See, "The Last Days of Osama bin Laden":

MEMO FOR THE RECORD Apr. 29, 2011, 10:35 a.m.

Received phone call from Tom Donilon who stated that the President made a decision with regard to AC1 [Abbottabad Compound 1]. The decision is to proceed with the assault. The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven’s hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the President. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the President for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and if he is not there, to get out. Those instructions were conveyed to Admiral McRaven at approximately 10:45 am.

Here's Shapiro's take:

...the memo doesn’t show a gutsy call. It doesn’t show a president willing to take the blame for a mission gone wrong. It shows a CYA maneuver by the White House.

The memo puts all control in the hands of Admiral McRaven – the “timing, operational decision making and control” are all up to McRaven. So the notion that Obama and his team were walking through every stage of the operation is incorrect. The hero here was McRaven, not Obama. And had the mission gone wrong, McRaven surely would have been thrown under the bus.

The memo is crystal clear on that point. It says that the decision has been made based solely on the “risk profile presented to the President.” If any other risks – no matter how minute – arose, they were “to be brought back to the President for his consideration.” This is ludicrous. It is wiggle room. It was Obama’s way of carving out space for himself in case the mission went bad. If it did, he’d say that there were additional risks of which he hadn’t been informed; he’d been kept in the dark by his military leaders.

Finally, the memo is unclear on just what the mission is. Was it to capture Bin Laden or to kill him? The White House itself was unable to decide what the mission was in the hours after the Bin Laden kill, and actually switched its language. The memo shows why: McRaven was instructed to “get” Bin Laden, whatever that meant.

President Obama made the right call to give the green light to the mission. But he did it in a way that he could shift the blame if things went wrong. Typical Obama. And typical of him to claim full credit for it, when he didn’t do anything but give a vague nod, while putting his top military officials at risk of taking the hit in case of a bad turn.

And note something else here: Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post is apparently a grade school friend of Admiral McRaven, and she basically made the same argument last year shortly after the Abottabad raid: "Adm. William McRaven: The terrorist hunter on whose shoulders Osama bin Laden raid rested:"

As leader of the military’s highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command, McRaven has overseen a rapid escalation of manhunts for Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda figures around the world. Although he’s a three-star admiral, the muscular 55-year-old still sometimes accompanies his teams on snatch-and-grab missions.

On Friday, McRaven received the green light from Panetta to launch the raid at the earliest opportunity. Later that day, he met with a six-member congressional delegation that was coincidentally visiting Afghanistan. He gave the lawmakers a tour of the Bagram operations center that — unbeknownst to them — was gearing up for the critical mission.

“Little did we know he had already given the order to take out Osama bin Laden,” said Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), who led the delegation.

So, indeed it was Admiral McRaven who ultimately made the "gutsy call" to kill bin Laden ---  and if anything went wrong it would have been McRaven's head on a block, not the un-gutsy members of this epic clusterf-k Democrat administration.

Is Barack Obama Cool?

John Hawkins has commentary on the new ad out from American Crossroads, at Right Wing News: "American Crossroads Gives Obama Way Too Much Credit. He’s Actually Not Cool."

First Quarter GDP Growth Slows to 2.2 Percent, Dampening Democrat Reelection Prospects

It's downbeat economic news today.

The government's report is here: "National Income and Product Accounts Gross Domestic Product, 1st quarter 2012 (advance estimate)" (via Memeorandum).

And see the New York Times, "U.S. Economic Growth Slows to 2.2% Rate, Report Says," and MarketWatch, "Mediocre GDP report even worse in the details: Commentary: Final sales up less than 2% for 4th quarter in last 5":

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — It should not be a surprise to anyone that the U.S. economy continues to struggle. The evidence is all around us, but the hawks on the Federal Reserve are clinging to false hopes.

The economy grew at a 2.2% annual rate in the first quarter of the year, down from a 3% growth rate in the last three months of 2011, the government estimated Friday. Read our full news coverage of the slowdown in U.S. growth.

Growth of 2.2% is mediocre, but it’s worse than that once you peel away a few layers — about a fourth of the growth in gross domestic product was accounted for by a buildup in inventories, and half of it came from the building and selling of motor vehicles.

Strip away the inventory growth, and final sales in the economy increased 1.6%, the fourth quarter in the past five that was below 2%. Although all the headlines report on the GDP numbers, the number to watch is final sales, because that gauges demand for our products, not merely how much we made.

Consumers continue to outperform. Consumer spending rose at a 2.9% annual pace, the best in more than a year. Yet disposable incomes increased just 0.4%, the seventh quarter in a row in which spending growth outpaced income growth.

You don’t need a Ph.D. from MIT — as Fed Chair Ben Bernanke in fact possesses — to know that’s not sustainable.

Plus, from James Pethokoukis, "Weak GDP report clouds Obama’s reelection chances":

With six months to go until Election Day, time just ran out for Team Obama to run any sort of plausible “Morning in America” reelection campaign. And it’s not just that the U.S. economy grew at a subpar 2.2% annual rate in the first quarter, according to the Commerce Department.

It’s that this may be about as good as it gets for the economy this year. Most analysts have been looking for the second quarter to be no better—if not worse—than the first. So we could end up having a first half of the election year with GDP growth near 2% or below. As Citigroup puts it: “… 1Q GDP data should limit remaining optimism that U.S. economic growth will accelerate significantly this year.” And IHS Global Insight says it’s “looking for second-quarter growth to be similar to the first—around 2%”....

Even if growth perks up a bit from here, it seems unlikely that it will be enough to dent the unemployment rate or boost incomes.

President Obama could still win, of course. But given the current economic trajectory, he will be defying historical precedent if he does.

Exactly.

Obama can only win by changing the subject and demonizing the opposition. That's all he's got, and the progressive thugs will be protesting all year against "economic inequality" and the "corporate rich." And of course the professional left will continue to blame Republicans for the economic disaster, like far-left dullard Steve Benen at Maddow's blog, "More underwhelming economic growth" (via Memeorandum).

RELATED: At IBD, "Hiring Pace Halved: Just 120,000 Jobs Added In March."

PREVIOUSLY: "The Obama Campaign's Reelection Death Rattle."

The Romney Opportunity

At the Wall Street Journal, "Running on biography and the economy won't be enough":

With Newt Gingrich finally leaving the GOP Presidential race, Mitt Romney is now closer to realizing the ambition he has so long pursued: He has an even-money chance to become America's 45th President. He's more likely to fulfill that ambition if he overcomes his cautious nature and runs a campaign that is equal to America's current political moment.

***
This will not be the instinct of Mr. Romney or his close-knit group of advisers. Looking at the polls, they see a nearly even race, with President Obama below 50% despite the beating Mr. Romney took in the primaries.

The temptation will be to assume the public has decided to fire the incumbent and so run a campaign to become the safe alternative. Take no policy risk, stress Mr. Romney's biography, his attractive family and the seven habits of highly effective businessmen, and then hammer away on the economy.

It's possible, if job creation sputters again or Europe goes into bond-market arrest, that this kind of campaign will be enough to win. It's also possible—more likely in our view—that this will play into Mr. Obama's strengths of personal likability and Oval Office experience, especially if the economy keeps chugging on its current slow-growth path. Mr. Romney will have to make a case not merely against Mr. Obama's failings but also for why he has the better plan to restore prosperity.

On the economy in particular, such a larger argument would fit the country's current mood. The public's anxiety isn't merely about the failures of the last three years, as important as it is for Mr. Romney to score this Administration for its failed stimulus, crony capitalism, hyperregulation, soaring debt and ObamaCare.

Americans are more deeply worried than at any time since the 1970s about their country's long-term prospects. Why aren't middle-class incomes rising? Why are nonmilitary public institutions failing—from K-12 education to entitlements?

Mr. Obama understands these anxieties, even if he has no new answer for them. So his diversionary re-election strategy will be a combination of class warfare, more government subsidies (free student loans!), and personal attacks on Mr. Romney for being wealthy. Mr. Romney will need allies who can rebut these attacks.

But he'll find it easier to defeat Mr. Obama's argument—even to transcend it—if he offers his own economic narrative that reaches back to the mistakes of the Bush Administration to explain how we got here and how he can get us out. Politically, this will help shield Mr. Romney from Mr. Obama's inevitable attempt to link the Republican to the Bush era. Such a critique also has the advantage of being true.

Continue reading.

Romney's got to hammer away on the Obama debt explosion, for one thing. Dennis Prager was making a similar argument on Hannity's, which I posted previously: "Mitt Romney Sweeps 5 Northeast States, Effectively Clinching GOP Nomination."

Stand Your Ground Conservatives!

Just read Michelle's report: "Conservative consumers: Stand your ground."

She writes: "Silence is complicity. Speak now or surrender your ground."

Michael Yon Slams ''Drunken Monkeys', 'Milkooks', and More

This one is like, "Whoa man, WTF!"

See Michael Yon's post, "Drunken Monkeys, Milkooks, Military, and the Media" (via Glenn Reynolds).

Grab a cup of coffee.

Woman Fired After Donating Kidney to Her Boss

My wife mentioned this story to me the other day and then I saw this clip on CNN.

Truly unbelievable.

See the New Jersey Star-Ledger, "Risky business? Woman alleges she was fired after donating kidney to boss."

And I didn't know you can take back an organ donation, but here's this, at London's Daily Mail, "Give it back! Mom 'who was fired after donating kidney to ailing boss' now demands the organ is returned."

It's an awful story, but Debbie Stevens, the organ donor, screwed up if you ask me. Giving your kidney to save your boss is a conflict of interest --- and in this case the conflict was that Stevens was in an inferior power position. She was vulnerable. Her altruism overtook her rationality. I doubt she would ever be so generous with a life-saving organ again, if she even had another to give --- or at least, never in a situation in which the recipient had that much power to really harm her life chances.

Supreme Court May Uphold Arizona's SB 1070

Actually, the Court may be willing to uphold a part of the law.

William Jacobson reports: "Oral argument reports: Supreme Court appears poised to uphold key part of Arizona Immigration Law (SB 1070)."

And see CSM, "Arizona immigration law: Another setback for Obama at Supreme Court?"

Walter Williams: The Power of Profit

Walter Williams at Prager University, via Small Dead Animals:

And buy Dennis Prager's new book: Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph.