RUTHFULLY YOURS

President Obama visited Elkhart, Indiana, on June 1 to tout the state’s economic recovery, taking credit for its success and claiming that it represents the 2016 election’s basic policy choice. He’s right, but the economic lessons speak better of GOP Governor and vice presidential nominee Mike Pence and his predecessor Mitch Daniels than they do Mr. Obama’s policies.

Mr. Obama touted his auto bailout, which he said rescued the city’s recreational vehicle industry that in 2009 was responsible in some way for about 70% of Elkhart’s employment. The cyclical RV industry has recovered along with the economy, but then so has the rest of the state. The most interesting statistic is that only about 60% of Elkhart’s jobs are still tied to RV sales as the economy has diversified.

All states have seen declines in the jobless rate, and Indiana’s has fallen to 5% in May from 8.4% in 2013 when Mr. Pence became Governor. The Indiana difference is that the rate has fallen even as the labor force has increased by nearly 187,000. Many states have seen their jobless rates fall in part because so many people have left the labor force, driving down the national labor participation rate to lows not seen since the 1970s. The Illinois workforce has grown by only about 71,000 in the same period, though it is roughly twice as large. Indiana is adding jobs fast enough that people are rejoining the workforce.

The Indiana turnaround began under Mr. Daniels, who took office in 2004 after 16 years of Democratic governors. His command to state employees was “we are here to raise the disposable income of Hoosiers.”

Mr. Daniels inherited a budget mess but eight years later Indiana was a rare state with a triple-A credit rating. He toyed briefly with raising the top personal income-tax rate, which we criticized at the time and was stopped by the legislature. He proceeded to cut the state corporate tax rate to 6.5% from 8.5%. He also took a big political risk by contracting with a private company to operate the Indiana toll road for $3.8 billion. CONTINUE AT SITE

President Obama has stretched beyond his legal power to end run Congress, and the bad habit is catching on. In April Virginia Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe issued an executive order giving voting rights to the state’s 206,000 convicted felons, with no consent from the state legislature.

Whether felons can vote in federal elections is determined at the state level, and Virginia has prevented the practice. The Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday challenging Mr. McAullife’s action brought by Virginia House Speaker William Howell and Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment (both Republicans), along with four Virginia voters. While Virginia’s constitution allows the Governor to grant clemency to felons, they say Mr. McAuliffe’s action exceeds his authority and violates the separation of powers.

We’re not against letting some felons who have done their time regain voting rights. But those decisions should be determined by legislatures or popular referenda like any other voting statute. The Virginia constitution says “[n]o person who has been convicted of a felony shall be qualified to vote unless his civil rights have been restored by the Governor or other appropriate authority.”

In 2010 then Governor Tim Kaine concluded after examination that the state constitution barred him from acting unilaterally to restore voting rights en masse. In a letter to the ACLU of Virginia, Mr. Kaine’s counselor Mark Rubin wrote that “[a] blanket order restoring the voting rights of everyone would be a rewrite of the law rather than a contemplated use of the executive clemency powers. And, the notion that the Constitution of the Commonwealth could be rewritten via executive order is troubling.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Like the millions who tuned in this week on the first night of the Republican convention in Cleveland to see Melania Trump’s speech, I was dazzled by her beauty, struck by her sincerity, impressed by her fluency in a language not of her native tongue, touched by her obvious love for her husband and family and country, and impressed by her quiet confidence and sense of self.

In a lengthy interview I had seen a few weeks earlier of Melania with Fox News’ Greta van Susteren, it was clear that the former super model—who is formally educated, multilingual, world-traveled, and the embodiment of sophistication—was unpretentious, of a serene temperament, plain-spoken, strong in her convictions and values, and also funny and nice. And also not interested in the spotlight, but more in raising her 10-year-old son Barron with good values and morals.

So it was shocking when I woke up Tuesday morning to read and hear of the gigantic brouhaha about Melania’s alleged “plagiarism.”

Right away, I smelled a rat.

For one thing, it is almost impossible to find anything the leftist media say that is even marginally credible. Most of the lackeys, who pose as journalists, sound more like they’re on the payroll of the Hillary for President campaign or the Democratic National Committee than in the service of the American public.

Remember, these are the people who spent a full year vilifying, insulting, and lying about Donald Trump, fully confident that their viewers and readers would listen to their wisdom, only to be soundly repudiated by the American voting public.

No matter what they said, the voters, figuratively at least, spit in their faces. But in the “culture” of journalism, such repudiation never breeds self-reflection; it only breeds vengeance, and the desire to find something, anything, to take down their nemesis.

Second, it was impossible for me to picture Melania consulting a search engine and looking up the speeches of former First Ladies, finding the words of Michelle Obama, and saying to herself: “Aha…I think I’ll lift a few lines here!”

However, it was eminently plausible for me to picture a professional speechwriter that Melania admitted to Matt Lauer helped her “a little bit” being lazy and unprofessional enough to do just that, to look up former speeches and stick random sentences into the quite brilliant and original piece Melania had written herself—without her knowledge that the excerpts had been lifted!

John Hinderaker of Powerline.com, a site founded by Dartmouth College alumni and, mysteriously to me, not a fan of Mr. Trump, weighed in with an article that damned the craven media. Entitled “Plagiarism? Please,” the writer called Melania’s speech outstanding, and said that so-called lifted sentiments “are so commonplace that they probably could be drawn from any of a hundred speeches. But, is this supposed to be some kind of scandal? One could probably think of a less important issue, but it would take a while. And I wouldn’t think that either Barack Obama or Joe Biden would want to start a conversation about plagiarism.”

Citing an article in the NY Times headlined “Melania Trump’s Speech Bears Striking Similarities to Michelle Obama’s in 2008,” Hinderaker disagrees, writing that, “Michelle Obama’s best-remembered public pronouncement is her statement that `[f]or the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country.’ Why? Because her husband was nominated for president. The heart of Melania Trump’s speech, on the other hand, was not the lines that she may have borrowed from Michelle Obama, but rather this tribute to America, delivered by an immigrant:

`After living and working in Milan and Paris, I arrived in New York City twenty years ago, and I saw both the joys and the hardships of daily life. On July 28th, 2006, I was very proud to become a citizen of the United States—the greatest privilege on planet Earth. I cannot, or will not, take the freedoms this country offers for granted.”

The Journal of the American Medical Assn. recently published a very unusual article: a scientific study authored by a sitting president of the United States. That’s never happened before.

In a sense, it’s cool that President Obama cares enough about science to want to publish a paper in one of the world’s leading medical journals. But JAMA has set a bad precedent. The article, on healthcare reform in the United States, is problematic not only in its content but in the threat it poses to the integrity of scientific publishing.

Let’s set aside the debate on whether the specific numbers in the article are factual. (Of course, there is certainly room to question Obama’s data. The president writes that “[t]rends in healthcare costs … have been promising,” even though healthcare spending per capita continues to increase.)

Far more troubling is the president’s tone, which is often self-congratulatory. “I am proud of the policy changes in the [Affordable Care Act],” he writes, “and the progress that has been made toward a more affordable, high-quality, and accessible healthcare system.”

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find another paper in any scientific journal in which a politician was allowed to subjectively analyze his own policy and declare it a success. This is a textbook definition of conflict of interest.

Moreover, despite the scholarly nature of this academic journal, the president seems incapable of resisting political rhetoric. He glazes over contentious details of the ACA with poorly substantiated claims. For instance, he writes, “For most Americans … Marketplaces are working.” Are they? A majority of Americans want ACA repealed, while others would prefer a universal healthcare system.

Worse, when it comes to those who disagree with his ideas, Obama responds with petty jabs. After denouncing “hyperpartisanship,” he then goes on to criticize Republicans for “excessive oversight” and “relentless litigation” that “undermined ACA implementation efforts.”

One-sided commentary is perfectly fine for the campaign trail, but it has no place in a scientific journal, or in the scientific record alongside the discoveries of DNA and black holes. On the contrary, a good scientific paper devotes space to seriously considering the objections of other scientists. Failure to do so would often be grounds for rejection. Rather than ignoring or belittling opposing ideas, it is the author’s job to convince his readers that his data and ideas are superior.

Students at the Colorado School of Mines selected “the Mine Shaft” as the nickname for its new athletic center — only for the administration to veto it over concern that it’s “rape culture.”

According to e-mail correspondence obtained by Heat Street, the administration decided to override the students’ overwhelming vote for the nickname because a student wrote an e-mail last August complaining that the name was “rape culture” and “phallic.”

Or, as that student spelled it, “phalic:”

“The idea behind the name, at least from the students [sic] perspective, was that the students could tell the opposing team they had been ‘shafted,’” the student, whose name had been redacted, wrote, continuing:

“The most common definition of the word means to get jipped out of a deal, which doesn’t make since [sic] for us to be telling another team. But the other and most disturbing definition is to be raped. Bottom line, I think the name supports rape culture. If Mines is truly trying to diversify the campus maybe they should not have the student section have such a phalic [sic] name.”

Um. Just a couple of things about that.

One: It’s interesting that this student used the word “jipped” — a term considered by many in social-justice circles to be “racially charged” — in an e-mail demanding political correctness perfection.

Two: This whole controversy is alarmingly stupid.

“Time and again, President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and their allies prefer to turn away and ignore the ugly consequences when their policies go wrong. They hope that if they act like it’s not a big deal, the public will follow their lead. Donald Trump and his team have made a cavalcade of bad decisions this campaign season, but turning the spotlight on the ordinary Americans suffering those consequences was one of their best.”

Yes, Donald Trump is a flawed messenger for the case against Hillary Clinton, but that doesn’t make the message any less true or compelling. The decision by a lot of big-name Republican lawmakers to skip the Cleveland convention was a blessing in disguise, because it cleared the stage for ordinary Americans who suffered the cruel, random, and deadly consequences of the Obama administration’s policies.

The speeches from the non-politicians on Monday night weren’t always professionally polished or slick. During these presentations, the high-level media risers to the right of the stage seethed with exasperated sighs, gasps of disbelief, and eye-rolling groans. But the speakers told Americans stories they needed to hear — and while Monday’s effort to force a vote on the rule shows Republican delegates aren’t fully unified on the qualities of Donald Trump, the roaring arena showed they are united in fury at the thought of Hillary Clinton continuing the misrule from the Oval Office.

Some Americans might ask, “Why rehash the Fast and Furious scandal?” — and most other Americans won’t even remember the details of the wrongdoing. But Fast and Furious was an early, important example of the Obama administration’s culture of unaccountability.