Stimulus

PBS recently responded to accusations of a liberal slant to its July 23 Need to Know program which featured satirist Andy Borowitz making fun of Sarah Palin’s intelligence as the show's executive director Shelley Lewis claimed that, because the previous week's episode had featured a segment that was critical of President Obama, the program in reality has been balanced in going after political figures. According to TVNewser, quoting from Michael Getler's July 28 "The Ombudsman Column" on the PBS Web site, Lewis argued: "Is a little joking about Ms. Palin's penchant for malaprops really such a big deal? Last week, editorial cartoonist Steve Brodner was pretty tough on President Obama, and we heard plenty from Obama fans about how unfair we were, how right-wing we were, etc. We do try to have some fun at both sides' expense..."

But the July 16 segment that poked fun at Obama actually criticized him for not being liberal enough in keeping his campaign promises as cartoonist Steve Brodner was shown drawing sketches of Obama while a voiceover of the cartoonist lamented that "the presumed anti-war Obama became the 30,000 more troops Obama," and that "the previous stimulus advocate Obama who faced McConnell finally and a vocal conservative movement, he didn't campaign consistently for the stimulus that he mentioned in the State of the Union, wound up advocating for that along with deficit reduction, making him at least partly like McConnell."

Free enterprise and the American marketplace – not the guiding hand of government – have revitalized the beleaguered automaker General Motors, which expects to announce another profitable quarter, according to GM officials. 

President Barack Obama plans to visit a GM plant in Hamtramk, Michigan on July 30, and his administration is linking GM’s return to profitability with the bailout of the old GM the administration orchestrated last summer.
 
“Just over a year after President Obama made tough decisions to save Chrysler and GM, these companies are returning to profitability, hiring workers, and keeping plants open,” the White House said in a July 23 press release. “And because of the steps the Administration and Congress have taken with Cash for Clunkers and the Recovery Act, the industry overall is strengthening.”

Chris Matthews on Monday got a much-needed lesson from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) on how tax hikes impact the budget as well as the economy.

"Congressman Ryan, is there any tax role for reducing our $1.4 trillion to $1.7 trillion debt this year -- deficit this year?" Matthews asked during the 5PM installment of MSNBC's "Hardball." "Is there any role in tax increasing to help do that job?"

When Ryan gave an answer Matthews didn't like, the host arrogantly responded, "So, you won`t cut -- you won`t raise taxes and you won`t cut spending...All this bitching about the deficit doesn`t mean squat, because you won`t do either, raise taxes or reduce spending."

With the ball nicely teed up, Ryan unleashed a drive down the middle of the fairway that would make Tiger Woods proud (video follows with transcript and commentary, h/t Twitter's @LFRGary):  

If it worked for Germany, it should work for the United States, right?

In a July 21 story, AP writer Geir Moulson praised government stimulus for helping Germany "bounce back" from the recession. Moulson highlighted two government stimulus packages totaling $104 billion and a government-sponsored program that cut back workers' hours instead of laying them off as reasons for Germany's endurance:

"The various government measures are all part of the upswing."

However, nowhere in Moulsion's 25-paragraph story did he acknowledge tax cuts over the past decade as a reason for Germany's success. As reported in Deutsche Welle, a German media outlet, the European Union's statistical office indicated Germany's corporate tax rate was cut to 29.8 percent in 2010, a 42-percent decrease from the 51.6-percent rate in 2000. Germany has also cut income taxes by 3.6 percent over the past ten years.

We all probably knew the sentiment of the American left for just not getting the entire Tea Party movement concept, but this statement ought to cement that notion.

On the July 18 broadcast of "The McLaughlin Group," host John McLaughlin asked his panelists what the long-term implications of national debt could be for the United States.

"Is America in danger of the current debt crisis becoming a sovereign debt crisis as Mort [Zuckerman] mentioned, like the one that is now hitting Greece, yes or no?" McLaughlin asked.

MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan warned it was more "imminent" than many people have forecast. He cited British historian and Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, who has declared the country to be on the brink of a Greek-like collapse.

UPDATE - 7/15, 7:00 PM: Politico makes a nearly identical argument. Ace tears it to shreads. Details below.

The folks at ABC News are confused. Democrats are passing all this awesome legislation, they posit, so why are Americans acting so hostile and looking to hand Congress to the GOP? The key problems, ABC's Z. Byron Wolf deduces, are that Democrats simply have not embraced liberalism enough and Americans have failed to perceive just how great the Democratic agenda has been.

"The imminent passage of a tough new Wall Street Reform bill," wrote Wolf, pictured right, on ABC's website, "will cap off a wildly productive two years for Democrats in Washington – they will have passed two pieces of sweeping legislation and an enormous $800 billion stimulus bill to deal with the ailing economy."

Wolf goes on to wonder why those three pieces of legislation haven't benefited Democrats' electoral prospects. Let's see: 6% of Americans believe the stimulus bill created jobs, a strong majority favors repealing the health care bill, and almost 80% of Americans polled have little or no confidence that the financial reform bill will achieve its stated objectives. Is Wolf still confused?

Liberal talk radio host Bill Press says President Obama's poll numbers are down because Americans are spoiled, impatient children that want everything solved yesterday.

After describing to his listeners Tuesday all the fabulous accomplishments this president has made since taking office in January 2009, Press admonished the citizenry for giving the White House resident poor grades for his efforts.

"I think this says more about the American people than it does about President Obama," barked Press.

"I think it just shows once again that the American people are spoiled" (audio follows with partial transcript and commentary):

While Washington lawmakers may be deadlocked over extending unemployment benefits, the liberal media are picking up the slack and helping unemployed individuals find more government help.

In a July 13 story on CNNMoney.com, reporter Hibah Yousuf profiled two individuals who've been unemployed for over 99 weeks, the maximum number of weeks a person is eligible for unemployment benefits. Yousuf how they're turning to more government agencies for assistance:

"Many have already started falling through the safety net," she reported. "These people are coping any way they can, often reaching out for other aid from agencies and charities."

Yousuf devoted one paragraph to explaining how the first individual, Kevin Huffer, took matters into his own hands by doing handyman work in exchange for rent and went fishing for meals. But she devoted another three paragraphs to the various agencies and organizations, such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Community Action Partnership, helping out-of-work Americans find federal assistance beyond the nearly two years of unemployment benefits.

An outraged electorate has just handed Japan's ruling party its hat in elections for half of the seats in the upper house of that country's parliament in a direct reversal of election results from a year ago. Opposition parties made major gains.

The results constitute a resounding rejection of a massive value-added tax increase proposed by a guy whose immediate predecessor of the same party sounded an awful lot like the U.S. President Barack Obama when he led his party to a historic victory a year ago. But, as will be shown later, you wouldn't know that from reading the Associated Press's coverage of Sunday's returns.

But first, a bit of background: The 2010 version of Naoto Kan (pictured at top right in an AP photo) is round two of an attempt by the country's Democratic Party (no direct relation that I know of, but philosophically they're nearly clones) to "remake" the island nation. If that sounds depressingly familiar, it should. The parallels of Kan's same-party predecessor's victory to Barack Obama's 2008 electoral win are eerie, as this August 2009 election night report from Eric Talmadge the Associated Press will demonstrate (bolds are mine):

Japan opposition wins landslide victory
Vote seen as a barometer of frustrations over high unemployment, falling exports

Channeling her inner Nancy Pelosi, Rachel Maddow on Sunday actually said extending unemployment benefits is "the most stimulative thing you can do" to help the ailing economy.

Appearing on the panel discussion of NBC's "Meet the Press," Maddow boldly presented a liberal view of economics that only the current House Speaker would be proud of.

"I think that most Americans also, though, understand the basic arithmetic that when you're talking about pushing tax cuts that do mostly benefit the wealthy and you're simultaneously talking about getting tough on the deficit, you're talking about a world in which math doesn't work the way most people think it works."

Indeed, for moments before she falsely stated that Obama inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit.

But Maddow's best remark Sunday had to be, "If you really want a stimulus, do what we -- what's proven to work in stimulus, which is things like extending unemployment benefits...It's the most stimulative thing you can do" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

George Will on Sunday accused Barack Obama of being an expert at selling snake oil.

As the Roundtable segment of ABC's "This Week" began, host Jake Tapper asked Will if the President's claim Republicans "are peddling that same snake oil that they've been peddling now for years" will resonate with voters this November.

Will marvelously responded, "No, because he is an expert on snake oil."

"This is the man who said, if we pass the $767 billion stimulus bill, which it turns out costs $862 billion, a $95 million oops, we would have unemployment at 8 percent and no higher, and it went higher," continued Will.

"This is the man who last week was out saying, 'I'm going to give $2 billion, about $2 billion, to two companies to create about 1,600 jobs.' That's $1.5 million per job. That is snake oil" (video follows with partial transcript and commentary: 

The Associated Press gave voice to a Repuiblican Congressman today to bemoan what he sees as "poisonous 'demagoguery'" from the usual suspects, including, by the AP's own account, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.

Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., who lost in a primary for the GOP nomination last month, went so far as to claim that heated political rhetoric is "dividing the country into partisan camps that really look a lot like Shia and Sunni." The AP did not feel the need to qualify this absurd statement (and it is absurd, given that a few years ago Sunni and Shia tribes in Iraq were "systematically trying to assassinate moderates").

And while the AP now feels the need to unquestionably parrot claims that conservatives are dividing the nation into potentially murderous political sects, just last year it ran an article headlined "Obama spokesman says sharp tone is justified." By the AP's unquestioning accounts, heated conservative rhetoric is dangerous, but heated liberal rhetoric is necceary for the health of the nation.

While some on the left side of the aisle in Congress are getting all starry-eyed about prospects of more federal stimulus spending, the first round of stimulus under President Barack Obama may have done even less to help the ailing economy than supporters claim.

On MSNBC's July 9 broadcast of "The Daily Rundown," co-hosts Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie interviewed CNBC "Closing Bell" anchor Maria Bartiromo from the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colo. And Bartiromo offered her views why the economy didn't spiral out of control any more than it did. She said according to some on Wall Street, it wasn't Obama's $787-billion "stimulus" that included a huge bulk of state government bailout spending, but instead action by the Federal Reserve to put more liquidity in the economy.

"Look, there's no doubt about it - we were close to going off a cliff the weekend at Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, Merrill [Lynch] was sold and AIG acquired by government," Bartiromo said. "You know, I mean I think we were very close and the economy needed stimulus in a big way. It's arguable whether that stimulus that helped the economy was really because of the stimulus plan or really because of the Federal Reserve. I think most people on Wall Street will believe and will tell you that it was really the Fed action in terms of giving greater access to the banks to overnight lending that really, really got us out."

For the second day in a row, liberal talk show host and MSNBC guest anchor Cenk Uygur pushed the outlandish notion that President Obama is a conservative. Filling in on July 7 for Dylan Ratigan on his 4 p.m. show, Uygur exclaimed, "I didn't realize we voted for a Republican president!"

Uygur preceded this statement with a rant on how ridiculous it is for Obama to express concern about the ever-growing deficit when "60 percent of Americans favor additional government spending to create jobs and stimulate the economy." Uygur and liberal guest Ryan Grim of “The Huffington Post” could not understand President Obama's rationale for focusing on deficit concerns.

Grim argued that, "when people say they are concerned about the deficit" they are just really saying that, "they are nervous about the economy. That's all they mean. So if you solve the economic problems, you're going to solve the deficit concerns."

This morning CNNMoney.com reports "Jobless claims slide in latest week."  The article starts:

The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance fell last week, according to a government report released Thursday.

There were 454,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended July 3, down 21,000 from an upwardly revised 475,000 in the previous week, the Labor Department said.

A problem with the story is the numbers are, according to the Department of Labor, "seasonally adjusted" with a statistical technique designed to accommodate fluctuations in the job market.  DOL's release paints a more sobering picture:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 463,560 in the week ending July 3, an increase of 22,560 from the previous week.

West coast viewers got to see a July 4 CBS Evening News on Sunday, and those who tuned in saw CBS's interim "report card" on Congress's performance so far. Under the headline of "unfinished business," correspondent Wyatt Andrews and his sole expert, Politico's Jonathan Allen, both fretted how Congress is now "paralyzed" due to a "growing fear of the deficit."

Many Americans are probably wishing Congress had become "paralyzed" a few trillion dollars ago.

Andrews rued that supposedly job-creating "stimulus spending" may be sacrificed if enough congressmen feel deficit spending is now "political Kryptonite."

Many members of Congress especially those in tough re-election campaigns are home right now, trying to figure out the spending issue: Will voters support more stimulus spending if it directly leads to jobs, or has deficit spending itself become political Kryptonite?

The June jobs report was released July 2 showing a tiny decline in the unemployment rate to 9.5 percent, but a depressing 125,000 overall non-farm payroll jobs lost.

CNN's "American Morning" reacted with an appropriately downbeat report, but the onscreen chyron led with the better news -- showing the lower unemployment rate rather than the job losses. Christine Romans also pointed out that it was the "best unemployment rate since July 2009," though later in the segment she admitted the rate is still "horrible."

NBC's Ann Curry offered a very brief report on the jobs data on "Today," also highlighting the lowest unemployment rate "since last July."

The report also contradicted Vice President Joe Biden's predictions of 100,000 to 200,000 jobs gained each month for the rest of 2010. This month, Biden is off by about 275,000 jobs

In the wake of a European debt crisis, the recent G-20 meeting in Toronto revealed the intention of many European nations to begin dramatically tightening their fiscal belts.

The world leaders agreed to cut deficits in half by 2013 and "start to stabilize their debt-to-output ratios by 2016," according to Bloomberg Businessweek. That goal conflicted with President Barack Obama's wishes. During the economic summit, he "urged continued spending to support growth."

Overall, the news media have been supportive of the Obama's spending requests, a trend some continued in reports about the summit.

An "American Morning" segment painted a flattering picture of Obama at the G-20 summit by ignoring the "rift" between Obama's push for more stimulus and Europe's desire to slash budgets. Christine Romans made it sound as if everyone came to an agreement.

It's hard to imagine an economist being provocative, but Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner, has managed to do so.

In his June 28 New York Times op-ed, Krugman argued that since governments around the world aren't willing to double-down on Keynesian policies meant to stimulate the global economy, the United States and the rest of the world are facing a third depression. But on CNBC's June 28 "The Kudlow Report," host Larry Kudlow asked if Krugman's premise were true, how come none of the measures being applied, which Krugman advocates more of, have failed to have any effect on the current economy.

"Steve Forbes, I want to focus this, coming out of G-20," Kudlow said. "Paul Krugman's remarkable op-ed today in The New York Times - he says, we are already in the early stages of a depression. He calls it the third depression in U.S. history. He says that it's primarily a failure of policy. But, Steve, the so-called spending cuts or tax increases or deficit reduction hasn't happened yet. In the last two years, we've had gargantuan spending and ultra-easy money which is what Professor Krugman has been advocating the whole time. And he still thinks we're in a depression. So I need to ask you, maybe his policies are what threaten the depression."

According to liberal economic Paul Krugman, a "third depression" will occur if nations tighten their belts and attempt to balance their budgets.

Forget about the riots in Greece over a social welfare system the government couldn't maintain or a $1.4 trillion annual U.S. budget deficit. Krugman claimed that the threat of deflation supersedes both of those results of runaway government spending - that is higher taxes in the long run and a debt to future generations.

In his June 28 column for The New York Times, Krugman wrote: "We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost - to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs - will nonetheless be immense."

Based on the view of a single economist, ABC portrayed the agreement by world powers, at the G-20 summit in Toronto, to pursue fiscal sanity over the accelerated government spending urged by President Barack Obama, as a threat the well-being of the American people. “President Obama lost an argument today with other world leaders, and some economists say that could plunge the world into a second recession,” Dan Harris intoned at the top of Sunday’s World News.

From Toronto, reporter David Kerley agreed: “The President lost the argument and there could be serious consequences. Some economists are saying what was decided in Toronto today could actually lead to a double-dip recession.” A dire Kerley elaborated: “The worry is that by turning off the stimulus spigot the fragile economic recovery could disappear and turn into a double-dip recession.”

ABC’s “some economists” turned out to be a single one, Professor Peter Morici of the University of Maryland, who ominously warned: “It will be very difficult to recover from that. Then we start to get into depression-like conditions.”

George Will on Sunday gave a much-needed economics lesson to New York Times Washington correspondent David Sanger that greatly demonstrated the difference between how conservatives and liberals view unemployment benefits.

As the Roundtable segment of ABC's "This Week" shifted to the G20 summit in Toronto, Sanger said, "Just the day before [Barack Obama] left, Congress could not come to an agreement on a very small extension of unemployment benefits, you know, the most basic stimulus effort that the President tried to push."

Host Jake Tapper asked, "George, why can't they pass this extension?"

With the ball sitting up nicely on the tee, Will smacked it out of the park (video follows with transcript and commentary, relevant section at 4:10):  

On his June 24 radio show, left-wing host Ed Schultz went on a rant against NewsBusters’ Matt Hadro, who earlier that day wrote a pretty inoffensive piece documenting how Schultz credited President Obama’s $862 billion stimulus package with more than doubling the size of his North Dakota construction firm.

Schultz bizarrely (and incorrectly) tried to ridicule the Media Research Center summer intern as a spoiled rich kid.

(Audio excerpt here.)

Did Mommy and Daddy pay your way to go to school? Are you a little conservative boy that gets all the tax breaks of the top 2 percent rich? Have you ever gotten your hands dirty doing a job, Matt? [employs falsetto voice] ‘Oh, Matty, it’s time for milk and cookies! It’s 4:00, come home now! And here’s some more money. Oh, I think it’s so cute that you’re working for those wonderful conservatives over at Newsbusters. Oh, Matty!’ I’ll bet you that’s exactly who that kid is.

What triggered Schultz’s wrath was Hadro’s matter-of-fact reporting of what the talk radio host said on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on Wednesday:

On Thursday, a new unemployment bill died in Congress as Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) joined Republicans on the grounds that government spending can't go on forever.

Instead of reporting both sides, the media couldn't seem to hide their anger.

The bill was called a "jobless aid" package that "governors were counting on" to help "the poor" across the nation. Almost all news reports began from the Democrat perspective and waited several paragraphs before weakly defending Republicans.

Worse yet, a consensus with far more damaging impact began to grow: the loss will cause the nation's economy to fall into a double dip recession, and it will be entirely the Republicans' fault.

Never mind last year's stimulus bill worth $700 billion, or the bank bailout of 2008, both of which have failed to live up to promises of recovery. No, our economy is suffering because fiscal conservatives won't spend even more.

The Seattle Times was quick on the draw Thursday night with a clearly disappointed report headlined "Republicans Continue Blockade of Federal Aid Bill." What followed was an obviously biased effort to paint Republicans in a bad light:

It's union thuggery, but at a higher echelon.

Imagine you're representing the AFL-CIO, going on Fox News and trying to make a case that the $787-billion stimulus last year wasn't nearly enough and that more is needed, despite the prevailing argument being that Keynesian economics doesn't work based on this example.

Well, Ron Blackwell - the chief economist for the AFL-CIO faced that on the June 25 broadcast of Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto." Cavuto, asking some honest questions, pressed Blackwell, who was attempting to make the case for more stimulus, as to why the idea of more government spending to help the ailing economy was a legitimate one.

"You're not creating the jobs, with all this money you're wanting us to spend - then why should we keep digging?" Cavuto asked. "What's wrong with saying let's put the shovel down - that's not working?"

This is one of those "I told you so" moments conservatives should really be out publicizing: The $787-billion stimulus passed early 2009 - it's not working.

And on CNBC's June 25 broadcast of "The Call," CME Group floor reporter Rick Santelli explained that all government spending is not created equal, and President Obama's so-called stimulus spending was for government payrolls and not the infrastructure improvement is was sold to be.

"Well, you know, it's all about, in my opinion, definition and choice," Santelli said. "Definition, I don't disagree with our guest, Richard [DeKaser, president of Woodley Park Research], about stimulus, but I haven't seen any stimulus. I've seen a lot of spending. And in terms of choice, austerity isn't something people are going to volunteer for. The creditors are going to force it on them. I think these issues are much different than we're selling them. You know, we don't have a new Hoover Dam. We don't have a new electric grid. We paid a bunch of salaries and benefits and extension benefits, unemployment with a lot of that money that you save jobs because you paid teachers because states couldn't afford it I don't think any of that really falls under a definition of stimulus."

Fresh off his Tea Party cover story in the June 24 Weekly Standard, CNBC's Rick Santelli foresees what could be classified as an economic black hole for the United States of America.

On the network's June 24 broadcast of "Strategy Session," the CME Group reporter explained how the country could be headed down the same path and face the economic calamity the Japanese faced in what is known as the "lost decade." That period, from 1991-2000, was one which the Asian nation failed to grow economically despite countless efforts by the government to intervene. But as Santelli explained - the U.S. version of Japanese economic policies could result in Greek-style austerity measures.

"The notion that we are turning into Japan has been something talked about on this floor for probably a year and a half," Santelli said. "What changes though, is that it is now a toss up between Japan and Greece and trust me the eventual solutions or recommendations for avoiding the pitfalls of either are completely different strategies. A lot of Japanese say, ‘More Keynesian, more stimulus, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend.' And the other side of the equation says, ‘Well then, you are going turn into Greece.' Where does the truth lie? One thing I can tell you is, is that demographics are a big issue in this story as well. The Japanese have a demographic time bomb similar to the U.S. in terms of underfunded pensions and liabilities."

While defending the Obama administration as a champion for small business owners, MSNBC host Ed Schultz revealed that his construction company more than doubled its number of employees in the past year – thanks to the stimulus bill.

"We've gone from eight employees to 20 employees in the past year, because of the stimulus package," he said of his construction company. "We've put some people back to work. There is some growth."

[UPDATE, June 26: Schultz lashes out at NewsBusters's Hadro on his June 24 radio show]

Schultz made that revelation as a guest on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" Wednesday morning. In a segment of the show where he was discussing corporations shipping jobs overseas and skimping on benefits to regular workers and labor union members, Schultz stepped up and defended President Obama.

"This President, and this administration, has done more for small business than any other President has in the last thirty years," he claimed.

On Friday's Situation Room, CNN's Jack Cafferty tossed cold water on the Obama administration's "recovery summer" claims, stating that the "current recovery has been one of the worst for job creation ever." Cafferty also criticized the dangerous growth in the national debt, underlining that there "appears to be a rather serious disconnect," as the President requested billions in additional spending.

The CNN commentator began his 5 pm Eastern hour commentary with a contrast between Obama's "massive P.R. campaign" touting the apparent effectiveness of the $860 billion "economic stimulus bill" and the continuing high unemployment figure: "President Obama and Vice President Biden have kicked off a massive P.R. campaign, celebrating what they're calling 'recovery summer'....But the celebration may be premature. Just yesterday,  the Labor Department reported new claims for jobless benefits jumped by 12,000 last week- much sharper increase than was expected."

Cafferty touted a recent editorial in the Washington Times which "suggests the administration's 'make-work' jobs program has failed, and that those infrastructure jobs, which are being funded by the taxpayers, will disappear when the stimulus money runs out- soon." He bluntly continued, "Fact is the current recovery has been one of the worst for job creation ever."

For taxpayer-funded PBS, the blueprint for America's future is centered on advancing the Obama administration's taxpayer-funded green agenda. In the June 17 installment of "Blueprint America," Miles O'Brien, a "NewsHour" special correspondent, hailed Dubuque, Iowa as the "city of the future" for transforming itself into a liberal beacon of environmental sustainability.

O'Brien's piece showered Dubuque with praise as it promoted the city's liberal environmental initiatives, which the correspondent noted are bankrolled with taxpayer dollars courtesy of the Obama administration's economic stimulus package.

"The people in this old factory town along the Mississippi have signed on to a unique experiment," explained O'Brien. "They're attempting to turn Dubuque into one of the nation's most sustainable cities."

Listing the city's seemingly countless awards for "livability" -- a term the PBS reporter struggled to define -- O'Brien championed President Barack Obama's budgetary boondoggle for the bountiful fruit it has given to Dubuque: