Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty April 30, 2013 The year is flying by. April? Almost gone. Enjoy your Tuesday Morning Jolt! Forget the Rest of the World; President Personally Calls Some Athlete You Never Heard Of Before Hey, remember North Korea? They're detaining a U.S. citizen. Unless the Syrian rebels figured out some way to fake the presence of sarin in the bloodstream of some volunteers, the Syrian regime used chemical weapons and crossed the red line . . . and no one can come up with a way to demonstrate the consequences of crossing that line. Oh, and the guys we may soon intervene to help, the Syrian rebels, may have just tried to shoot down a Russian airliner. Remember Boston? But U.S. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) told ABC News yesterday that the FBI is also looking into "persons of interest" in the U.S. possibly linked to the Boston bombings. U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said he's spoken with the FBI about the probe into possible trainers the brothers had. "Are they overseas in the Chechen region or are they in the United States?" he said. "In my conversations with the FBI, that's the big question. They've casted a wide net both overseas and in the United States to find out where this person is. But I think the experts all agree that there is someone who did train these two individuals."
Remember Boston, again? State lawmakers have launched an investigation into whether the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings improperly received public benefits. Sources who have seen the 500 pages of documents sent to the House Committee on Post Audit and Oversight told News Center 5's Janet Wu that the Tsarnaev family -- including the parents of the two bombing suspects, the two suspects themselves, their sisters, the widow of the suspect killed and their child -- received "every conceivable public benefit available out there."
Remember the economy? We're still stuck in the muck. That's the conclusion to draw from the new report on gross domestic product. The U.S. economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, which was an improvement from the weak 0.4 percent of the final months of 2012… We're muddling along at basically the same pace we've been at for nearly four straight years of this dismal recovery, with growth too slow to make up the lost economic ground from the 2008-2009 recession."
National debt? $16,756,644,393,707.05, as of Friday. (That's $16.7 trillion.) Remember Obamacare? In total, it appears that there will be 30 million to 40 million people damaged in some fashion by the Affordable Care Act—more than one in 10 Americans. When that reality becomes clearer, the law is going to start losing its friends in the media, who are inclined to support the president and his initiatives. We'll hear about innocent victims who saw their premiums skyrocket, who were barred from seeing their usual doctor, who had their hours cut or lost their insurance entirely—all thanks to the faceless bureaucracy administering a federal law.
With all of this going on, guess what the top story was on Memeorandum, measuring what bloggers and news sites are writing about? An NBA player coming out of the closet as gay. Wait, there's more: A groundbreaking pronouncement from NBA veteran Jason Collins — "I'm gay" — reverberated Monday through Washington, generating accolades from lawmakers on Twitter and a supportive phone call from President Barack Obama. Hours after Collins disclosed his sexuality in an online article, Obama reached out by phone, expressing his support and telling Collins he was impressed by his courage, the White House said. Collins, 34, becomes the first active player in one of four major U.S. professional sports leagues to come out as gay. He has played for six teams in 12 seasons, including this past season with the Washington Wizards, and is now a free agent.
This president can't get squat done about North Korea or Syria, and so he doesn't want us to focus on those far-off lands. His policies have done diddlysquat for most of the long-term unemployed. He's not interested in throwing people off public assistance, even when they don't deserve it, and he wants to insist that every terror attack is a one-time occurrence, instead of connected bits of an international ideological movement dedicated to killing Americans. Obamacare's a mess, and he's hoping you don't notice. The national debt continues to increase, even with the alleged horrors of sequestration. "God, gays, and guns." That's what he's got left. And that's what he hopes stays on your mind, for as many days between now and November 2014 as possible. NBC Affiliate in Richmond Does Actual Hard-Hitting Investigative Journalism about GreenTech Virginia Republicans are feeling pretty good about how the GreenTech Automotive story has dominated the early weeks of the state's gubernatorial race. By nominating Washington's most high-profile fundraiser and wheeler-dealer in Terry McAuliffe, Virginia's Democrats have offered the state's political press — a fairly aggressive group — a story of elaborate unkept promises and whiffs of crony capitalism. The NBC affiliate in Richmond did a fantastically detailed, and hard-hitting, two-part report, one that probably ranks among the best of local-television political journalism. You can see the video here and here, and they lay it out in print form here: Tunica has long been in search of hope. They thought they found it in McAuliffe. "Now we start at full factory production," McAuliffe said at the launch of the Greentech's first manufacturing facility, an elevator factory the company bought in nearby Horn Lake, MS. "At full capacity," he promised, "we can make a car an hour." The July 2012 roll out was impressive. It featured former President Bill Clinton and Mississippi's then-Governor Haley Barbour, a Republican. The plan was to start full production in Horn Lake and immediately begin construction of a massive, permanent plant in Tunica. 
That was nine months ago. Today the site in Tunica is an empty field with a Greentech sign out front. The only sign of construction is a makeshift gravel driveway. It is, for the most part, a large, empty space filled with overgrown grass. Barbara Tuchel worries that is all it will ever be. "I'd like to know where his plant is," she said while surveying the empty lot. "Where the thousand jobs are." Tuchel is part of an independent group demanding transparency in Tunica's government. She believes her county's board was swayed by McAuliffe and his Chinese partners to invest state money in a project that had no hope of succeeding. Greentech and Tunica County received a combined $5 million in loans to develop the Tunica site. In order to make good on those loans they must invest $60 million in the manufacturing plant and employ 350 people by December 31, 2014. 
The Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) considers Greentech in good standing when it comes to the loan. Sally Williams, a spokesperson for the agency, said they are focused on the 2014 deadline.
"Greentech has done everything it has told us it would," she said in an emailed statement. But with the clock ticking on 2014, Tuchel has become less and less convinced their plan will work. . . . There is a pretty significant difference between what McAuliffe and Greentech promised publically and what they agreed to with state leaders to bring the project to Mississippi. Mississippi's Development Authority is only expecting 350 jobs by the end of 2014. McAuliffe pledged much more and much sooner. Here are just some of his publically-stated goals: *Greentech will create 5 thousand American jobs, 900 by the end of 2012. *Greentech will start full production in the fall of 2012. At full production they will produce a car an hour. *Greentech will eventually produce 100 thousand "green energy" cars. *Greentech will build a 300 to 400 thousand square foot manufacturing plant in Tunica. At this point there is no evidence any of this has occurred.
Brutal, just brutal. If you're impressed with this kind of work from a local network affiliate, make sure you tell @RyanNobles. South Carolina Media Notices Congressional Race Has Largely Ignored Issues So Far A revealing word in the lead of the Post and Courier's coverage of the Mark Sanford-Elizabeth Colbert Busch debate: The race for Tim Scott's former congressional seat finally turned to issues Monday, as Republican Mark Sanford and Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch met for the first — and probably only — time.
They later note, "Colbert Busch has held several public events, mostly emphasizing her themes of creating new jobs and pushing for equal pay for women and men, though she has offered relatively few details." The Island Packet offers some of the back-and-forth: Colbert Busch said she met with then-Congressman Sanford when she was working as a government liaison for a maritime company to encourage Sanford to support the dredging project. Sanford, she said, indicated he would do so. "And in fact you didn't tell the truth. In fact, you turned around and did the opposite," Colbert Busch said to Sanford. Sanford fired back that Colbert Busch later wrote him a $500 campaign-contribution check during his first gubernatorial run. "I don't think it must have bothered her that much, given she wrote a $500 check in support of my candidacy," said Sanford, smiling. Sanford also denied Colbert Busch's claims he did not support the dredging and other economic-development projects, adding he disagreed with the methods of paying for the projects, not the actual projects. "Because I was against earmarks before being against earmarks was cool," he said. Meanwhile, Sanford worked to tie Colbert Busch to Pelosi who, he repeatedly said, has put money in the race through national Democratic groups that are attempting to buy the election. "I don't think Nancy Pelosi gives $370,000 expecting (Colbert Busch) not to vote for (her for) speaker," Sanford said. Colbert Busch never directly addressed the Pelosi charge, leaving it instead to her supporters who booed each time Sanford mentioned Pelosi.
Love Mark Sanford, hate him, whatever. Just don't let this woman coast into office on the themes of "My brother makes you laugh" and "Isn't the other guy just terrible?" ADDENDUM: I saw on Twitter someone declare that Tim Tebow is an example of how "God loves us, but that doesn't mean he won't test us." Indeed, and I find that the instrument of his testing is quite often the New York Jets.
NRO Digest — April 30, 2013 Today on National Review Online . . . To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com
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