Bristol, Bristol, Bristol. The story of your charmed teenage years could have been taken right off the cover of a dog-eared Sweet Valley High paperback. You met a guy you liked, you had unprotected sex because condoms make Jesus cry, your mother forced you and your swollen belly to make an appearance at the RNC, and then your baby daddy abandoned you, trashed your family in Vanity Fair, and came crawling back with a diamond ring and five pounds of freshly-killed moose meat. I mean, really, what little girl hasn’t dreamt of a future like that? I get it, honey, you fell in love with the dream. And now I’m going to wake you up. Come crawl into Auntie Meg’s lap, Bristol Palin; it’s time for some tough love.

Bristol, dear, this marriage cannot happen. I know you have visions of white picket fences dancing in your pretty little head but, when your Save the Date cards are printed on the cover of Us Weekly, your marriage is off to a bad start. Your fiance posed for Playgirl and went on a date with Kathy Griffin — do you really think Levi Johnston is a catch? Does this dude even have a job, besides shilling for pistachios? Suffice it to say, Bristol, it is not a nice day for a white trash wedding.

I might have been able to get on board with this engagement — it’s for your son, after all, and absolutely not because you’re regretting having promised, in front of God and Oprah Winfrey, that you would remain celibate until marriage — if not for Levi’s latest Palin-baiting stunt. According to his attorney (he has an attorney, Bristol), the talented Mr. Johnston intends to act in a music video in which he plays a young lovah dealing with the ultimate drag: his girlfriend’s meddling, disapproving mother. That’s cold, Bristol. That’s colder than the salmon-rich Alaskan bay after which you were named.

I know that you’re scared and panicked but I have a plan: Girl, you need to run. Get away from Levi and get away from that crazy mom of yours. Sneak out in the middle of the night if you must. Bundle your little papoose in some pelts, hijack a team of sled dogs, and make like Cuba Gooding, Jr. Travel east until you find an oldey-timey Connecticut town and offer your services as a chamber maid in the quaint local bed and breakfast. Sure, your new life may not be as glamorous as you envisioned but, with hard work and that trademark spunk of yours, someday you’re going to run that B&B, send your daughter to Yale, and marry the proprietor of the local greasy spoon. Then, we’ll sell the rights to your story to the WB and I’ll only require 30% of your signing fee as well as a very small cut of the advertising revenues. No, no, Bristol; don’t offer me any of the syndication rights because I simply won’t take them! The pleasure of watching your life as told through a snappy, family-oriented dramedy will be payment enough.

Let’s face it: Some celebrities could use good advice. Meg Boyle gives it to them every Tuesday.

Buckle up kids, this is from ICE’s own website, discussing the Federal program designed to train State and local officers in immigration enforcement.  The authorization for this was given in 1996. 

Sort of an FYI to those of you claiming that Arizona does not have the liberty to enforce its new immigration law.

Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287(g)

Immigration and Nationality Act

A Law Enforcement Partnership

ICE ACCESS (Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security) provides local law enforcement agencies an opportunity to team with ICE to combat specific challenges in their communities.

The 287(g) program is only one component under the ICE ACCESS umbrella of services and programs offered for assistance to local law enforcement officers.

ICE developed the ACCESS program in response to the widespread interest from local law enforcement agencies who have requested ICE assistance through the 287(g) program, which trains local officers to enforce immigration law as authorized through section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Terrorism and criminal activity are most effectively combated through a multi-agency/multi-authority approach that encompasses federal, state and local resources, skills and expertise. State and local law enforcement play a critical role in protecting our homeland because they are often the first responders on the scene when there is an incident or attack against the United States. During the course of daily duties, they will often encounter foreign-born criminals and immigration violators who pose a threat to national security or public safety.

Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA), effective September 30, 1996, added Section 287(g), performance of immigration officer functions by state officers and employees, to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). This authorizes the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, permitting designated officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions, pursuant to a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), provided that the local law enforcement officers receive appropriate training and function under the supervision of sworn U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

The cross-designation between ICE and state and local patrol officers, detectives, investigators and correctional officers working in conjunction with ICE allows these local and state officers: necessary resources and latitude to pursue investigations relating to violent crimes, human smuggling, gang/organized crime activity, sexual-related offenses, narcotics smuggling and money laundering; and increased resources and support in more remote geographical locations.

Once again, the website: http://www.ice.gov/partners/287g/Section287_g.htm

I’m the one who indicated the bold and italicized text.

The world moves on a woman’s hips, says David Byrne, or maybe it was the Weymouths but we know what they are talking about. That taper, swell and taper is hypnotic, notoriously it is used in advertising and product design to subliminally trip primordial triggers. Is it no more than vestigal reproductive instincts? Science seems to demonstrate this geometric construct to be nearly a bedrock of reality; not quite as solid as the speed of light but close enough to earn the name Normal or Standard Deviation.

And it isn’t just solar intensity or SAT scores that follow this template. Like so many other aspects of finance and economics, a Standard Deviation is historically demonstrated in the relationship between tax rates and tax revenues.

This is the famous/notorious Laffer Curve, the basic foundation of Supply Side Economics. The X axis, along the bottom is your income tax rate. Obviously at a rate of 0% you collect no revenue. But at a rate of 100% you also collect nearly no revenue. The why of that seems plain but perhaps it is not. If there is a 100% rate on income, guess what? then there is NO income. If the taxpayer is going to earn no income from a certain professional action then they will not take that action and the income will never be realized either to that rich bastard or gub coffers. And this is not just theoretical. Those with longer memories may remember a rather bitter ditty for the Beatles, called The Taxman. When McCartney complains the taxman offers one for you nineteen for me, a 95% tax rate he was premature. The UK actually had some special rates for performers and other high earners that amounted to rates OVER 100%. This didn’t last long but not because of any principled case against it in British politics, rather it was found through hard experience that these nasty rates did not accomplish the goal of increasing Crown revenues but worse, drove high earners of all stripes to other shores. If you ever wondered why so many Brit-poppers at the highest levels become US citizens in their Golden Years, the burdensome tax structure that yet exists in Blighty is most of the reason.

So zero rates get us zero revenue. And 100%+ rates get us no revenue or even harm existing revenue. What is happening in between? Anyone who works with numbers can make a good guess. It is a bell curve. Revenue rises as rates rise, peaks and then declines. This is not a theory, it is an observation and it is one that obtains through other sorts of taxes like tariffs and sales taxes as well as commercial, non-coercive transactions like prices. If the goal of the Treasury is to maximize its revenue, even if there is NO other consideration like GDP growth or general prosperity or any of that claptrap, then they would still, rationally, want to set rates at the peak of the curve. Where that may be is imprecise and it probably moves marginally with other events but the highest revenues as a fraction of GDP have been reaped around the 30-35% mark.

Some will be more familiar with this concept through the sticky nickname given it by Bush the Elder in his primary struggle against Ronald Reagan. That, of course, is Voodoo Economics.

This gassy dismissal from Bush Pere has never left the national stage. We may hope that it was a cynical, tactical ploy and not the actual view of Bush Sr, especially as he served Reagan’s administration without public qualm on the actual fiscal policies, but who knows? In any case it is always Exhibit A in any pushback on Supply Side policies; a damaging Admission Against Interest from the demonic Republicans. Okay, this prominent spokesmodel is on the record, once and in a primary slugfest, dismissing the Laffer Curve and all its implications. Is that all there is?

Just about, yes. Can anyone dispute that at higher prices fewer goods are sold? Well, income taxes are the price of income. Increase the price and you will have less income. Lower the price and you will get more. Yes, this is the mechanism, hotly debated and derided, that Reagan claimed would “pay for” the tax cuts, meaning that they would not, on net, cost the gub money but MAKE it money. On the timeline this is what happened, not only from the Reagan tax cuts but also the Kennedy tax cuts and other historical instances of taxcutting. As the rates reduce we move to the left on The Great Curve, increasing the tax take because there is that elusive thing everyone now seeks; economic growth.

For the anti-Reagans, this is an insulting fraud. Everyone knows Reagan was just lucky. The economy was coming back…. it’s all cyclical, and he just happened to be the dude (or dud) in office. Generally assertions like this are not subject to serious testing, only serious screaming, but we are about to embark on a serious test of the existence, relevance and Greatness of the Laffer Curve.

The Supply Siders assumed we were on the right-hand slope of the curve. If we can move rates down, they surmised, revenues will increase, and so they did whether due to these actions or no. Obama is about to move us (or just allow us to fall, more his style) down the DESCENDING slope of the curve that predicts that higher rates not only will fail to produce proportionate revenue improvements but will collapse revenue. And the beauty is that he need do absolutely nothing to set this in motion. One of the most putrid legacies of the late and unlamented Bush the Younger is those Bush Tax Cuts, universally rebuked in media and academe. These were so controvertial, even with a Republican Congress, that they were enacted only with a sunsetting clause. These rates, which were those in place when we had four percent growth and five percent unemployment, will automatically be raised to their previous level come January 1st, 2011.

Now, neither Obama, Pelosi or any other Democrat will call this a tax hike. No no no no no. This is a repeal of an unjust and irresponsible tax CUT! Okay, let us abandon the semantic ground. That doesn’t change one damn thing mathematically. That doesn’t change the fact that those lucky enough to HAVE legit jobs with 401ks, overtime and witholding will see their checks pruned right after next New Year. That isn’t me, by the way. One mystery not yet answered is whether those lower earners who were completely relieved of income tax liability by the Bush pallate of tax cuts will be re-encumbered but they haven’t been excluded so almost certainly they will. Electoral tactics and ideology aside, is this genius politics? Genius economics?

We shall see but The Great Curve has proven to be just about indestructible up to now. Perhaps it will be more amenable to persuasion going forward.

Hope.

The recent financial reform bill that passed the House and Senate was so important that even the people who created it don’t know exactly what it will do. And we can debate all day what’s the most important part of the bill, but I’d like to suggest that it’s the ban on the despicable practice known as “Movie Futures Trading” (MFT) that will have the most positive affect on the country.

MFT is the process by which people bet on how much money a work of art — a film — will “earn” at the box office. Much as the stock market speculators nearly caused the collapse of our entire financial system, so to does this crass gambling enterprise threaten the very foundation of an industry that is vital to our economy and to our standing in the world. Interim MPAA president Bob Pisano put it best when he said:

“After proposals for these speculative gaming platforms came to light, our industry came together to oppose these plans with an unprecedented coalition that included entertainment industry workers, creators, independent producers and distributors, studios and theater owners. We are pleased with final passage of this important legislation. Congress has acted decisively to ban proposed trading in box office futures and to make important reforms in the country’s financial regulatory system. We applaud the work the bill’s authors have done, and of course, the many Senators and Members who supported the provisions to prevent movie futures trading.”

Essentially, it encourages people to “root against” certain films — films produced by studios that already have a hard time ensuring their products make money.

There might be no way of accurately measuring the negative effect that Movie Futures Trading could have on Mel Gibson’s upcoming film, “The Beaver.”

I realize that MFT might be difficult for those who live outside Hollywood to understand. Therefore, I will explain the danger in terms easily understood by Middle Americans. Suppose you went to the Nascar match, and you placed a bet on who would win. You might think, Well, what (”whut”) is the harm in that? They are (”Their”) going (”gon’”) to play the match anyway, and I am going to the 4H fairground to watch, so why not make a little money off it?

But now imagine that, right before the Nascar match started, you went to Walmart and used a squirrel-hunting gun to murder the mother of the most popular Nascar player. Now imagine that, just before the match started, the announcer came over the loudspeaker and (just before announcing the latest prices of deep-fried twinkies), he declared, “Jim Bob Podunk’s mother has just been killed (”kilt”) at the Walmart.” But rather than drop out, Jim Bob stays in the game out of a sense of duty to the fans — like a George Clooney character in a politically charged thriller.

However, because he is crying over the loss of his “dear ol’ Momma,” his eyes fill with tears and he commits a terrible tragedy that affects all the other Nascar players. Then there are a dozen casualties, and all those players and coaches and what have you lose their jobs, and their copyrights are violated by piracy.

You can see how this affects us all, not just those of us in the entertainment industry. And in a recession, the last thing we need is people making money off the failures of others.

Think about it: we help desperate homeowners who have fallen on hard times, to ensure they don’t lose the homes in which they live their versions of the American dream — many of them Nascar fans themselves. We do this because it makes sense economically, and morally. If we allow people to default on their mortgages, the domino effect on the rest of our society could be catastrophic.

We wouldn’t allow “Default mortgage futures trading,” in which I could bet on my neighbor missing his mortgage payment and defaulting on his home, would we?

Of course not. We are better than that. As a people.

Movie futures trading could harm the potential box office success of Lindsay Lohan’s upcoming Linda Lovelace biopic.

To be sure, the MFT ban is a good first step. But naturally I would like to see the government do more to help protect vital American jobs, by banning other practices that negatively impact the entertainment industry. For instance, those “weekend box office predictions” at such irresponsible websites as boxoffice.com, Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily, The Wrap, and Box Office Guru create perceptions of failure even before a movie opens. If a film doesn’t “track well,” a confused public might be under the mistaken impression that a film isn’t worth their patronage.

When a movie, any movie, fails at the box office, we’re all a little poorer for it.

Furthermore, the so-called film critics that openly criticize films can also create the illusion that a film isn’t worth seeing. This dangerous practice is causing some films to make less money than they would otherwise.

Naturally, I would not want to violate anyone’s First Amendment rights. But I do believe that the government can empower the industry by using certain tools to help put an end to speech that negatively impacts American jobs. For instance, there are some films, such as “Toy Story 3,” and “Inception,” that most film critics agree are of very high quality, and worth audience patronage. Yet there are some film critics, most notably Armond White, who seem to want nothing more than to be contrary, and to attempt to persuade people not to pay to see these films by writing unnecessarily negative reviews that fly in the face of popular sentiment.

A “Rotten Tomato Law” would provide for the removal of negative reviews of films that have an aggregate critic score higher than 80%. The same would apply to films with lower scores, as well. Critics would be encouraged to write more positive reviews, to help get a film’s rating into the “certified fresh” range. These films should be supported by everyone, as their success is vitally important to our economy. After all, if a lighting man is out of a job, he cannot purchase the breakfast oatmeal that is manufactured in those states where they grow corn.

Such a law would benefit the critics themselves, as they would be helping to promote the very product about which they write. As the product’s popularity increased, so to would their relevance and, therefore, their income.

In an uncertain world in which the American economy is suffering, the entertainment industry has shown itself to be a rare bright spot. They haven’t even required a bailout. However, as dynamic and vital as the entertainment industry is, it is also a fragile animal that needs protection. Once again, I salute our government for taking a proactive stance in its protection of a uniquely American industry. This first step is necessary, and I can only hope that it leads to even bigger steps down the line.

Movie Futures Trading might make it impossible for a future release from Roman Polanski to turn a profit.

I understand the nature of a changing economy enough to appreciate that some people are thrown out of work and have a difficult time getting back on their feet. The government doesn’t make it any easier no matter what they say because Washington only encourages continued unemployment by effectively paying people not to work. Therefore, I thought about an alternative system, one that would provide a cushion and yet not be a drag on the taxpayer. In fact, my idea provides greater flexibility and much greater potential for those who behave responsibly. No, it’s not perfect but it’s better than what we have.

Here goes. The framework is much like a health savings account. Each person has their own “account” for accumulating funds that can be withdrawn in the event the person becomes unemployed. Management of the account is the sole responsibility of the account holder, that is the individual.

The funds deposited into the account come from two sources: 1) employers, 2) the individual. The government does not contribute to the fund, nor may the individual seek funds from any government (local, state, federal) at any time to pay what is currently referred to as “unemployment benefits.” In other words, if you go with this system, you are on your own in terms of supporting yourself in times good and bad.

Funds deposited into the account are tax deductible for both the employer and the individual. The funds may also be withdrawn tax free.

Each pay period, the employer deposits a percentage of the individual’s gross pay into the account, an amount that currently is taken by federal and state governments in the form of the unemployment benefits tax. To clarify, this is a diversion of funds away from the government to an account in direct and sole control of the individual. The employee is then free to deposit additional monies if they desire.

Now, hard times come and an individual is no longer employed. The person is able to draw upon their own funds from the account at a rate at which they see fit. If the individual wants to take it all at one time, go for it, but then it will be gone. If you want to take a few bucks here and there as you need them to pay bills, that’s okay, too. And, if you just want to sit back and live off your savings and not go get another job, that’s your prerogative. Just remember, there’s no going to Uncle Sam for more when you blow the cash. The individual will have an incentive to be careful about taking/not taking employment opportunities as the money is depleted.

And here’s the kicker, when you retire, at whatever age, you take the money tax free. That’s right, it’s your money, earned by you in the first place. Why should you let it stay in a pool for some other fool who wasn’t as responsible as you? Furthermore, in the event of your untimely death, the money could be inherited tax free by anyone designated by the individual.

Think about what this plan does: 1) The individual is in control. 2) Government Bureaucracy is greatly reduced because the government is not “managing” the system. 3) The individual can build up a nice, tax-free nest egg. 4) There is a huge incentive to stay employed and save along the way, both for security and to reduce taxes. 5) This plan demands responsibility with serious consequences for people who try to live as a burden to others. 6) It rewards people who do the right thing and provides a benefit to their heirs should the individual pass away before reclaiming the money. 7) It creates pools of private capital in banks that can reenter the economy.

Finally, consider that a person who remains employed continues to see the account grow as the employer’s contribution builds the balance. It’s like having another retirement account, but unlike Social Security, it is not dependent on government funding. The cash is yours at the defined age and you know exactly how much it is. Social Security benefits may be increased or decreased at the whim of Congress.

As I stated in the beginning, it is not a perfect idea. However, I think Cass Sunstein would be proud of the choice architecture it creates, if he could get past the fact that individuals and not Big Brother are in control.

By Carter Era standards it is not really that bad. Of course by Carter Era standards Carter wasn’t that bad either. Those who remember “double-digit” unemployment remember poorly. The nation has never clocked a year with unemployment over ten percent and those two years that were close to that were ‘82 and ‘83, the shank of the Reagan Revolution. Inflation did hit murderous levels under Carter but of course we are not experiencing anything like that today. Four percent inflation has been the norm for decades and we have had some recent deflation though that was brief. Now we are about two percent, a quite good number giving us a misery index in the elevens which historically is not miserable at all.

Yet news of national misery is all ablare in the headlines. Left/Right and the crucial, self-defined Independents are all cranky and apparently turning their ire, as is the custom, at the White House. This is polling news, not actual news and so can only be understood in relation to polling history, as opposed to History.

Carville, Shrum and the other Karl Roves of the Left look back to the eighties like Three Times a Lady to get a plausible framework to shop their recently mined numbers that otherwise would have little market value to their usual customers; incumbent Democrats. These are the subject of the above mentioned headlines. The polls are bad… bad I tells ya! for Team O. This is reported with a mixture of astonishment and remonstration but it is reported. One advantage polling news has on real news is that the media generate the product in-house so it really can’t be ignored. So there it is. On the gosh dern Washington Post of all places, so it must be true. So is it time to light our hair on fire and run around in circles, ask the Dems of their advisors?

Not so fast, say the Shrumvilles. None of this is unprecedented, not in the polling anyhow. There was a President who inherited a palette of nasty economic problems who, despite making nothing but moronic if not evil decisions, was able to ride the inevitable and cyclic recovery into history’s pages as something nearing a diety. Yes, this is the secret ingredient in the special sauce that the gunslingers serve with their optimisms: Obama as Reagan.

From a statisticians point of view this is not too great a leap and where it fails there are other supports. Reagan did not take an Obama-esque fall in the polls in his first term but Clinton did, or nearly did. This precipitated the Rep takeover of the House as now threatens Obama, but Clinton survived that, no? Barack is certainly no lesser light than Bill, right?

The gunslingers have a gunslinger’s point and it has served its purpose which was to calm the restive political herd. We have been here before (statistically) so ride it out. But there are several presumptions built in to this structure that have not been tested, yet are about to be. Foremost is the bedrock belief on the Left that Reagan was at best a dunce, sound familiar? and wedded to a destructive ideology. Of course every fiscal action of his (we leave aside the disasters of foreign policy) was detrimental to the economy, the government and the nation. But the cyclical nature of economic boom and bust were forceful enough to not only overcome the damage inflicted by Reaganism but to also deliver strong growth with manageable inflation.

So even if the “Liberal” economic policies today are somewhat costly (and sure, that’s possible, I guess) the rebound is an inevitable event, like summer. All we must do is survive politically until it happens. Anyone else getting deja vue? 

Okay, Obama has deficits. Reagan had deficits, and they were BAD so even if O has deficits, even larger deficits, they must be GOOD ones, right? And look at inflation! It practically doesn’t exist! Looking at the big numbers that sank Carter and elevated Reagan it seems things are not so dreadful for the current incumbent, statistically.

But that is IF the economy follows a similar trajectory that it did in ‘83-’84. These were times of falling unemployment and simultaneously falling inflation. Inflation is docile right now. Do we have Obamonic policies to thank for that? Sure, why not? In which case that will continue. Good news. But does anyone think that employment is set for a stratospheric improvement? I cannot find that creature even among the paid Obies. And if employment merely stays static this will be near the all-time high, though statistics really start only after the Great Depression. Do the gunslingers factor these possibilities as well? Sure but they are not saying that O will have an eleven percent victory delivering nearly ALL Electoral College votes as Reagan did in his re-election, merely that he will win.

And if you are thinking that this is not possible you had better check the year.

The Washington Post reports that the DoJ is going to file suit against Arizona’s new immigration law.

At the EXACT SAME TIME, “The Obama administration has vowed to crack down on employers who hire illegals… ”

So riddle me this, Batman: It’s the Federal Government’s responsibility to enforce immigration laws when it comes to Arizona, but it is NOT the Federal Government’s responsibility to enforce immigration laws when employers hire illegals?  That sounds to me like a classic Catch-22.  Enforce immigration laws on your own, the Federal Government will sue you.  Don’t enforce immigration laws on your own, the Federal Government will sue you.

Man, I really love “Hope” and “Change”.

The Antiplanner, a Cato policy scholar, is one of my favorite bloggers here in the Beaver State. He’s a first-rate analyst, and I love how he makes Smart Growth proponents roll their eyes and burst into flames. Anyway, there’s an an excellent post on his site regarding crony capitalism and mass transit in Honolulu. I recommend the entire thing, but here are the money passages (emphasis mine):

Libertarians believe government should consist of a few basics, such as police and courts, needed to protect people and their property, leaving everything else the private sector. But places with minimal governments - such as America in the nineteenth century - saw plenty of crony capitalism. Meanwhile, Transparency International’s corruption perception index lists several big-government countries, such as Denmark and Sweden, among the least-corrupt countries in the world. (The United States is ranked 19; note that the index only measures perceptions of corruption, not corruption itself.)

To the extent that the index is meaningful, perhaps it means that corruption has less to do with the size of government than with the other checks-and-balances built into the government. If so, then someone should identify which checks-and-balances do the most to minimize crony capitalism and push to build those in to our system.

This is the kind of fluid, flexible thinking that libertarians often exhibit but rarely get credit for. Clearly the Antiplanner, who some characterize as an agenda-drive libertarian, “gets it” that anti-government catch phrases may be self-defeating in the ongoing analysis of cretinism.

Still, that’s not a good reason to promote large government, and I’d wager the Antiplanner agrees. I live in Portland, Oregon (where the Antiplanner once resided), and we possess plenty of government-spawned “livability” to complement our rising suicide rates and lustrous unemployment trends. I worry that our faux-virtuous treehouse may one day become Detroit West. Look deep below the surface and you’ll see that our planning fetishes, walkability index, and green phalluses invoke a familiar phrase.

Back to the Antiplanner, though. He really does make a great point, and a commenter named “MJ” provides another compelling view:

It’s not about checks and balances. Our Constitution makes those abundantly available, though they are rarely exercised effectively. 19th century America may have had more outright corruption, but to suggest that the crony capitalism observed today is comparable is just wrong. As government has gotten larger, the rent-seekers, advocacy groups and others have proliferated with them. Empty the trough and watch them scatter.

Thoughts, anyone?

Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, just announced that their country will break ties with Israel if it refuses to apologize for the flotilla incident. This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows Turkey’s long history of supporting freedom. A history that stands in direct opposition to Israel’s, whose aggression goes back to when it was referred to as the Ottoman Empire.

It was under the guise of this empire that the thieving Zionist entity spread its tentacles across the Middle East and well into southern Europe and northern Africa, which it controlled for centuries with an iron fist — ruthlessly smothering even the most benign forms of nationalistic sentiment, while Judaizing everything it touched.

Even at the dissolution of their empire in the period surrounding World War I, the savagery of the Zionists wouldn’t abate. This was manifested in the slaughter of over a million Armenians. A butchery that, to this day, Israel refuses to even acknowledge. It even uses its American propaganda arm, AIPAC, to prevent the truth from being recognized here in the United States.

Modern Israel has fared no better. On July 20, 1974, without justification, they invaded northern Cyprus, and enslaved half the nation — isolating it from their brethren and from the rest of the world. And what’s more, the Zionists cleansed the area — forcing a third of the island’s ethnic Greeks from their homes (while denying these people’s inalienable “right of return”) — and replaced them with “settlers.”

And despite condemnation from the United Nations and many human rights organizations, the Zionists continue their brutal occupation of this hapless island.

Finally, there are the Kurds, whom Israel endlessly persecutes — refusing these woebegone people the universal right of self-determination — while claiming land on which the Kurds have lived for two millennia. To add further to the insult, the Zionists actually have the gall to call these people’s legitimate resistance efforts “terrorism.”

Turkey should be applauded for taking this brave stand for liberty. If only other countries would follow their lead, the Zionists just might be compelled to retreat and give back all the land that is not theirs. Who knows — perhaps with enough international pressure — they could even be forced to return Constantinople.

Just imagine the joy when the first flotillas reach one of its ports.

Yesterday brought us the funeral of Sen. Robert Byrd.  He was the nation’s oldest and longest serving Senator. He also comes with a fairly controversial past, one which drew much criticism while he was alive. I’m obviously referring to his membership in the Ku Klux Klan, and his work as a recruiter for the organization.

So what is the best way to eulogize someone’s racist, cross-burning, terrorist past? Just ask former President Bill Clinton.

So how does Mr. Clinton respond to Sen. Byrd’s past associations?

“He was a country boy who was trying to get elected.”

News Update:  Upon hearing this, Godzilla took a break from destroying Tokyo to give the news a facepalm!

The logical implications of former President Clinton’s statement are astounding, but mesh well with his own personal history.

Lying under oath is acceptable if you’re trying to keep your power, right former President Clinton?

Being a recruiter for a terrorist organization which destroyed many, many lives because of irrational hatred of another person’s skin color? Nothing to see here! It’s all hunky dory, he was just trying to get power!

I guess that Mr. Clinton would excuse HItler for the concentration camps, since he wasn’t the one actually gassing the Jews, he was just associated with the people who were. He was just a Nazi because he was trying to get power. It’s ok…

James Madison once wrote in the National Gazette:

What a perversion of the natural order of things! … To make power the primary and central object of the social system, and liberty but its satellite.

To show the truth of Mr. Madison’s quote, let’s compare Mr. Clinton’s stance on this and another topic, the TEA Parties.

Mr. Clinton doesn’t care what evils were caused by Sen. Byrd’s KKK activities. He doesn’t care about the innocent black families crushed beneath the jackbooted heel of Sen. Byrd’s racist compatriots. No, all of that violence and racism is easily excused because Sen. Byrd was after power…

But those damned TEA Party supporters? Unlike Sen. Byrd and the KKK, they’re violent terrorists driven by hate and racism. 

Former President Bill Clinton on Friday said that “legitimate” comparisons can be drawn between today’s grass-roots anger and resentment toward the government and the right-wing extremism that bubbled up prior to the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City 15 years ago. Politico

So here we’ve got the guy telling the whole world that the TEA Party supporters are the kinds of people who might engage in violent, racist actions because they’re trying to preserve liberty and prevent our children from growing up as debt slaves, while ignoring the burning crosses and terrified black children from Sen. Byrd’s past?

But it’s ok, Sen. Byrd was after power. Those TEA Party folks were only trying to preserve liberty.

It reminds me of the quote often attributed to Plato:

Those who ignore politics are destined to be ruled by their inferiors.

Mr. Clinton, with his hideous double standard, is certainly inferior to the average American citizen.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said yesterday that the Afghanistan War was of “Obama’s choosing” and that the president should’ve known from history that a war there was unwinnable.

Of course, he couldn’t be more correct.

It was early in his -2nd term as president, on October 7, 2001, that President Obama — who seemingly learned nothing from his mistakes in executing the Vietnam War — recklessly launched this war that — according to Steele — “was not something that the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”

If only a Republican president had been in power at the time, he or she would’ve certainly known what Steele knows; that is, “the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan.”

If only President Obama had been a student of history like Steele he would’ve known that no foreign power had ever successfully subdued that region — not the Ancient Greeks, nor the Mongols, nor the British Empire.

Not even the Soviets could pull it off.

Why was Obama so arrogant to think we could succeed where so many before us failed?

Was it his misguided belief in American Exceptionalism? The absurd notion that we as a country can accomplish anything. Or was it his Wilsonian quest to reshape the world in America’s image? A quest that any child who’s ever tried to push a square peg into a round hole will tell you is nothing but folly.

Or was it that he just listened far too much to the neoconservatives in his party? Such as his warmongering vice-president.

Whatever the reason, we know it will be up to Steele’s Republicans to fix this Democratic mess, by bringing our troops home as soon as they take control. After all, they are the party of peace, and limited government, and have often called for what George W. Bush once famously termed, “a humble foreign policy.”

And under the leadership and wisdom of people like Steele, we can be certain they will prevail and end our long national nightmare.

Oliver Stone has a new movie out called South of the Border, which allegedly depicts President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela as some sort of humanitarian. Chavez has invested money in the poor areas of Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, and even the United States, but are his motives altruistic? More importantly what has he done for Venezuela?

Some liberal political activists really believe in Chavez. Famous pop-heretics like Sean Penn have come out publicly to support Chavez, without much understanding of how real Venezuelans feel about their leader and what they have been through.

The strong opinions people have of Chavez and socialism usually translate into the opinions they have of Obama and where he is taking America. Maybe Obama and the federal government are taking necessary pragmatic steps to revive American prosperity where the private sector has failed. Maybe they are making a huge mistake. And I am not even going to debate what socialism is, and whether it is good or bad. Whatever your opinion, I just think the new Democratic administration is perfectly vulnerable to a potential Michael Moore-like fake-umentary. However, no talented filmmakers seem to be poised to jump on this box office bang opportunity.

There are books out there that dismantle the President, but they are written by stuffy old men like Dick Morris (I actually really like Dick Morris). And did I mention they were books? You know that Stone or Moore won’t take a crack at the President. So I ask, where is the young filmmaker looking to make a name for himself by exploiting the natural turmoil and imperfections of the presidency? Like we did with W., let’s get personal.

Actually, I am glad there isn’t such a movie (yet). I do not have a great opinion of Obama, but I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. I am trying to be loyal. My bigger beef is with the people who are so blindly in love with him.

I don’t even wish to see artists like Moore or Stone go away. I really like Fahrenheit 911 and W. I did not agree with much of the context either film presented, but I did find them both intriguing. The concept of how much people really just hate Bush fascinates me. I just wish Moore’s and Stone’s films did not commend losers and maniacs like Chavez and Castro. And I wish Americans were not so simple as to form their political opinions based on these jaded documentaries.

Now would someone please go out and make a Fahrenheit 2010?

There’s one man who possesses all the skills and experience to get the BP spill under control. Love him or hate him, Dick Cheney is the man. He’s steered an oil services company (Halliburton). He’s been Secretary of Defense, proving he knows how to manage huge endeavors such as Operation Desert Storm. And he takes a heart attack the way the rest of us knock back a shot of Jack Daniel’s, with a wince and a smile.

In all seriousness, I propose that the White House nominate Mr. Cheney to the post of Cleanup Czar. It would be a bold move, one that reaches across the aisle, shows decisiveness, and is more likely to succeed than anything tried to this point. It would also send the columnists chattering all day long.

Certainly Mr. Cheney has strong ties to the oil industry. His friends would lend him a hand not only out of personal friendship and national duty, but because when Cheney says, “Jump!” the answer is “How high?” Obama, on the other hand, hires Nobel Prize winners who need a consensus of the professorial class to decide what type of coffee to make — regular or decaf? In the meantime, the oil spews, kills the wildlife, and ruins the economy.

No doubt Obama’s dithering creates an ever-growing crisis that serves his political agenda. To a point. It’s now become apparent that the public has finally woken up to the nightmare that crisis exploitation leads to greater misery. Hiring Cheney would put the genie back in the bottle by Obama demonstrating he actually wants to fix the problem. Then, when the leak is plugged and the mess cleaned up, he could give Mr. Cheney a meritorious service medal showing all the magnanimity of the gracious monarch he is.

The oil spill is only one problem where Cheney’s assistance would prove invaluable. One visit by the former Vice President to the Arizona border and the illegals will stop in their tracks, reverse course, and take every cousin with them. Of course, there won’t be any praise from Mexico’s president at a ballroom bash the likes of which no one has seen since Louis XIV ruled France. Cheney is a nuts and bolts sort of guy. He crushes the problem by giving no quarter and taking no prisoners. Obama does the same thing, but only when a general has a few lagers and lets his tongue wag.

Therein lies one more lesson for Obama to learn from Dick Cheney: how to maintain a thick skin. Slings and arrows were fired at the Vice President from day one until the present day. They glanced off like raindrops on a duck’s ass. He knew better than to rise to the stupidity of the ignorant and/or ill-informed except for that one time when he told a congressman to “blank” off. And even that incident shows you don’t want to tangle with a guy who says what he means and means what he says.

Sadly, Obama is too small a person to seek real solutions. He gorges himself on power, taking bigger and bigger bites without ever chewing the one he has. Eventually the house of cards will topple and Obama will be back to Harvard where sympathy abounds for failure. By contrast, Cheney knows that results count and that sympathy can be found in the dictionary between the slang term for feces and syphilis.

President Obama, a role model to our children (I like to think of him as our “Role Model-in-Chief”) set a terrible example to our obesity-plagued children by having a cheeseburger with some guy from Russia.

The buzz around the White House centered much more on the presidents’ unexpected jaunt for cheeseburgers to Ray’s Hell Burger in Virginia — Medvedev took jalapenos — and less about the many substantive matters they discussed.

Did the president check this out with his wife first? Remember, she is the one who created the “Let’s Move” campaign, to encourage fat kids to, well, move.

And also, to not eat so many cheeseburgers.

A photo from the event, posted on the Russian guy’s twitter feed (!), is particularly incriminating:

Look carefully at that image. It depicts a president, a role model-in-chief, who is saying through his actions that it is okay for children to eat cheeseburgers. This is a president who says, “Mm. Delicious cheeseburgers. Eat cheeseburgers, kids, and maybe you, too, can grow up to be president.”

Of course, in fairness to the president, he does get a lot of exercise. He spends a lot of time golfing.

Obama has played at least seven times since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, according to a compilation of media reports. He has reportedly golfed a total of 39 times since his inauguration, though some rounds came during vacations.

So, okay, I guess if you get in as much exercise as the president, it’s okay to indulge in a cheeseburger every now and then.

Suddenly I feel less indignant about his eating a cheeseburger.

The oil still gushes from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, and washes up on shores, destroying and threatening tourism, fishing, and ecology. The Coast Guard and BP work tirelessly to plug the leak and limit the damage. The U.S. District Court of New Orleans just overturned an Obama administration moratorium on new drilling, citing that this rig’s disaster does not necessarily presage others’. Sometimes it looks like the President is more concerned with punishing big oil than fixing the problem.

If the United States did ban offshore drilling, where would we get the lost oil? These are considerations that the government will hopefully make. In fact, which forms of energy we should develop, where we should develop them, and how we should develop them seem to be the greatest challenge facing mankind in the 21st century. The answers are debatable, but there is one consideration that is not conventionally thrown around. Antarctica.

Remember Antarctica? The seventh continent; the only place left on earth without real political domain; the only place on earth without indigenous people or permanent residents. Sometimes we forget about the ol’ girl. The ozone thing was big in the late ’80s. And who hasn’t done a middle school book report on Antarctica in order to get out of doing one on a real country? But now-a-days, Antarctica is flying under the radar.

Antarctica is 5.4 million square miles, is a little larger than Europe, and has unknown potentials for oil, coal, and other resources. The reasons why we haven’t tapped Antarctica’s resources have a lot to do with harsh polar conditions, floating icebergs, a mile-thick layer of terrestrial ice, and the high cost of dealing with any one of the three. But they also have to do with the Antarctica Treaty System, signed in 1959 and revised in 1991, which prohibits military activity or resource mining until 2048.

The Antarctic Treaty System, which weakly addresses political claims to the continent, works in large part because no one really needs Antarctica for anything else but scientific research. Today there is no real effort to exploit, or fear of exploiting, Antarctic resources because much cheaper global oil reserves are likely to last at least 30 more years. By that time, we hope that the demand for oil and other resources might subside due to advances in technology.

Nevertheless, at some point in time, technology will expose Antarctica rather than protect it. Science fiction, and even theoretical science, romanticizes a colonization of Mars at a time when inhabitation on Earth becomes unsustainable. However, forming colonies in Antarctica is much more foreseeable. In fact, the McMurdo polar station in Antarctica can support over 1,000 residents today, and runs much like a city. What if something like abnormal solar activity, radio activity, or a pandemic made life impossible near the equator or in the northern hemisphere? Antarctica could become a refuge. And the Antarctic Treaty would not hold up under the pressure.

There are seven countries that make informal political claims to 7 of Antarctica’s 8 territories. Australia has the largest claim, which covers most of the eastern hemisphere side of the continent. There are a handful of other countries, Russia and the U.S. included, that have reserved a right to claim parts of Antarctica in the future. In a purely theoretical geopolitical sense, Antarctica is a world war waiting to happen. Practically however, Antarctica is too fruitless at the moment to fight for. Maybe the need to mine or inhabit Antarctica will happen slowly and seamlessly enough as to avoid conflict. But one thing is for sure — technology will eventually diminish the costs of being there. And when that happens, people will be there. And where there are people there are nations. Maybe it is not so crazy to think that in a hundred years there will be an Antarctic War for Independence. Let me be the first on record to suggest a name for this future nation: the Penguin Republic of Antarctica. Better known as “the good old PR of A.”

The Department of the Interior — in the wake of the tragic Gulf oil spill — has created a new government agency to oversee offshore drilling.

Sorta.

Actually, what it did is rename an old agency. An agency that has been cited for its utter incompetence and corruptness.

For those keeping track at home, this stands as the Obama administration’s most proactive action yet taken in regards to the spill. Yes, never again can they say that the federal government isn’t doing anything about it.

From now on, the Minerals Management Service will be called the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. A move which is sure to send a shiver down the spine of all oil companies. For they know — all too well — that with a name like that they can’t possibly get away with another spill.

Not with the words “regulation” and “enforcement” in the title.

Especially when those two words are right next to each other.

What’s more, the employees of the agency must surely understand that because of this name change, no longer will they be able to watch porn at work, like they did under the old name.

If they want to do that, they’ll have to take jobs at the SEC, which is keeping its current name.

Bugs Bunny knew. Perception is reality. Or at least it is as close to reality as you may need to get. Who cares if it is Wabbit Season? That is merely the arbitrary designation of some bureaucrat somewhere who probably never held a shotgun in his life. The problem is Elmer Fudd. If he thinks it is Wabbit season then Bugs is skinned and fried. If he thinks it is Duck season, well, then it is time for a larf and the relish of the crackle of roasted duck.

The President currently suffers in part from a similar problem to Daffy Duck. As he felt the need to inform us last week, contrary to some assertions, he cannot, repeat NOT swim down to the gurgling hole that was once under the Deep Water Horizon and slurp up the offending goo with a straw. So, not only is he not Superman, he is not even Aquaman! He is not even a benchwarming superhero who controls hydrocarbons. Nope, he is no Tar Baby either though we may long and pray for such a caped, gooey crusader.

This comes as an existential shock to some, most notably in the media. Keith Olberman did a head-faking bitch slap stating, “Yeah, this was a great speech, if you’ve been on another PLANET for the last fifty-seven days!” Oof! Coming out of the blue and from his own bleachers this had to ring Obama’s bell. And Olby was no one-off. His interlocutor, one Chris Matthews indicts Obama mercilessly and not merely from the Left but also objects that the Gulf events and a few others show the Odministration to lack basic competence. Across the Left half of the political spectrum the guns are turned towards Obama and we know how the guns of the Right are aimed.

What has happened? It falls to the proto-typical squish, Peggy Noonan to speak some truth to sour. She endorses Obama’s confession of mere humanity and declares him a victim of events and, even more, of over-blown expectations. But even this out and proud Reaganite does not delve deeply into the why. Perhaps because we all know already.

So where were the Olbermans and Matthewses and Maddows of this world yesteryear? Unless you have had an amateur amygdylotomy lately you recall that Matthews, for instance, attested that after a particularly soaring oration from Barack that he was experiencing something known decades ago as The Vapors. Today we see this often in crowds of younglings when Justin Bieber or a celebrity vampire makes an appearance. It is an ecstasy, partly sexual but completely emotional, that consumes rationality and produces shrieking approbation. Does anyone recall the routine announcement by Obama from the stage that some flutter-hearted attendee had passed out from exhilaration? We may forgive this in a fourteen year old girl who dreams of being spirited off by Robert Pattison, and perhaps even in a guileless attendee at a political event but Matthews is supposed to be not just an adult but a trusted mediator of public knowledge and public opinion.

No need to single out Matthews here, he is of a piece. Last year’s choir has become a surly mob. The facade of near unanimity in the nation was always just that but now as the plaster crumbles, undone by the unforeseen and unforeseeable the mediocracy coughs in the dust and claims they knew it all along.

Olberman makes a peculiarly vicious about turn. He is right along with Obama… mmm. Okay. Grandiose promises, that’s great. Castigation of wreckers and anti-progress trogs… good, tasty. But then… nothing. No policy specifics. Isn’t this shocking to hear? he asks the camera.

Well moron, it is many things but shocking it ain’t. Go to your archivist and spool any Obama address from the campaign and you will find it nearly indistinguishable from the disastrous burps of the other night except that it earned hosannas not just from the usual suspects at MSNBC and Emily’s List but also the pet Righties within the citadel like David Brooks.

But with the pulling off of one placard revealing another beneath, it is no longer Wabbit season; a merry turning of all arms against the shivering W, it is now Duck season. And even the PETA types seem loaded with steel shot. Even a devoted opponent of the President like myself cannot help but feel him a bit misused. Sure, according to me and plenty of others Obamism always was an unworkable fantasy at best and a flouting of the laws of history and the nation at worst but that is not what these current malcontents said, oh no. Obama was of course The One We’ve Been Waiting For. Not surprisingly The One echoed this back that his supporters were The Ones You Had Been Waiting For. Now the wait is over and the denouement is something less than a cost-free lowering of the seas and provision of lollipops. Has Obama changed? No. He marcheth on. And he marcheth Leftwards as hard as ever he may, not quite as hard as Roosevelt but there were no internets then.

So what has happened? The foreseen and the foreseeable: Reality has taken a nasty bite out of the unicorn. Do the supporters accept this and admit that there must be some compromise, if not with the hellish Republicans then at least with circumstances? Absolutely not. Do they state forthrightly that they did not leave the President but the President left them? Oh no. They just change the tune in midstep. Their sarcasm and bile has been pent up painfully since Bush left the field. There is only one target of suitable grandeur about and he sits at the Buck Stop. Who knew?

Anyone who followed this gruesome business, that is who. The above examples are only that. The phenomenon has occurred high and low. The Messiah is brought down and even his followers have turned against Him, some from the pain of shattered hopes but mostly it is just the psychology of the scrum. The pack has fixed on their leader and scent blood. For the most part it is as simple as that.

They do not and never will know that their support was as vapid and opportunistic as their current complaints but since these come abruptly and unexplained they are also cowardly, mendacious and low. Olberman yearns for specifics from Obama but how specific is his objection? And if there were meticulous specifics there would be as fragmented a support for them especially on the Left as is the new opposition monolithic. Of course this is the conventional art of politics, the art not only of the possible but of the salable. Mr Obama famously declared himself uninterested, even above conventionality in his profession and much of his appeal across the spectrum was the hope that he would forever remove Machiaveli from the formula.

Ooops! The laws of politics, not quite but nearly as immutable as those of physics have beset Charlemagne, Lincoln and Churchill. They are not overly impressed with Barack Obama. We can in part forgive Obama’s belief that they would be, especially as his supporters in media declared it so but now he is suddenly alone on the summit. Truman would have sympathised but Bugs Bunny would smirk. It is as simple as a posted sign as long as it is read and heeded. Brother, it is Duck season and in case you didn’t know it, that’s you.

“He was supposed to be competent,” declared no lesser a luminary than Peggy Noonan last week. Welcome to the party, sister.

More appropriately, a brief overview of the current Oval Office occupant’s record reveals a staggering inability to rise to the level of presidential performance.

No sooner had the man occupied the White House than he found himself the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Forget for a moment that this chap had yet to so much as scratch the soles on his presidential shoes when the Nobel Committee bestowed this honor on him. Instead, look at his reaction. He accepts it. A wiser person would have politely declined, noting that he would work hard toward the goal of world peace and hope to one day be deserving of such an honor. Not this fellow. He stepped up to the podium to remind everyone that, “throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement. It’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.” In other words, his causes and leadership will carry the day because the Nobel gang says so.

At this point, warning lights should have been bright enough to attract attention from aliens in the Andromeda Galaxy. Still, life went on. There was the “beer summit” with its teachable moment where the boss gave a lecture about how to get along. There was also the uprising in Iran, but that was a matter for the Iranians said the White House, so don’t get too excited.

Okay, he was new to the job and needed some time to grow into shoes worn by greater — and far more experienced — men.

Moving along, you’ll have to forget little things like the health care and stimulus bills which were ramrodded down the throats of the majority of Americans opposed to them. Rather, hearken back to presidential policy in Afghanistan. Months drifted by like puffy clouds as the Commander-in-Chief supposedly contemplated what to do. He claimed he was taking advice from worthy quarters in an effort to get it right. What happened? Not much. He cut the baby down the middle, sending reinforcements late when the heat from the military and the public brought the pot to boil, a clear sign the man at the top is a follower, not a leader.

By now, the sirens should’ve been loud enough to wake the dead. It wasn’t to be. Mainstream media, sycophants, and toadies lapped up imperial dignity dripping from the Oval Office.

And then there was a terrorist attack at Fort Hood, TX, and another attempt Christmas Day on a plane over Detroit. Ignore the White House staff that peddled pablum about isolated incompetents. The man himself took days to figure out that people are still trying to blow up Americans in the sky and on the ground and that he needed to deal directly with such issues. (Please note, he was on VACATION in Hawaii and no one likes to deal with reality when taking time off from work.)

Wow, could it have been any more obvious that the White House was populated by a cheap imitation of the Keystone Cops? Apparently not because the party was on, especially for Mexico’s Presidente. What a blast that was, complete with Monarch butterflies and a Mariachi band. Illegals surging across our southern border is no reason to fret. Mexico’s supreme leader chastised the American Congress for Arizona’s passing a law to enforce the federal law. One more time, the White House takes a powder, lets Mexico have the day, and sends the Attorney General in to attack Arizona instead of the National Guard to protect the state.

But the straw that finally (maybe) stuck in Ms. Noonan’s craw was that blowout in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Sure, it was a private company that screwed up, most likely a combination of errors involving man and machine. Nonetheless, the White House is the crew chief of such disasters. And from headquarters comes a bungling form of direction not seen since Buster Keaton made movies. About the only thing coming from the presidential podium is vitriol about boots on necks, checks that are going to be cashed, and asses that will get kicked. Sand berms to keep the oil from the marsh? What’s that? Aid from other countries with reliable equipment? Who? Coordination to stage material and personnel? Where?

At last, perhaps the Nation (and Ms. Noonan) will finally come to grips with the fact that voting present was this person’s greatest achievement, that and his ability to be too cool for school. From the wreckage this presidency has created will no doubt rise a less sophisticated character, someone who got their hands dirty actually solving problems. And then the nation will see truth in action.

Earlier this month, the New York Times published a typically incisive piece entitled Democrats Skip Town Halls to Avoid Voter Rage. It contained a sympathetic portrayal of the put-upon politician in fear of a potentially violent electorate, and the ways in which they were choosing to deal with a difficult political climate:

With images of overheated, finger-waving crowds still seared into their minds from the discontent of last August, many Democrats heeded the advice of party leaders and tried to avoid unscripted question-and-answer sessions. The recommendations were clear: hold events in controlled settings — a bank or credit union, for example — or tour local businesses or participate in community service projects.

But it turns out that the voters aren’t the only ones who are angry. The elected officials themselves are pretty riled up, and have the potential to become violent when asked questions about their positions:

So, maybe we should thank the representatives and senators who are choosing to forego appearances at these town hall events, with their finger-waving, overheated crowds. After all, the citizens need protecting.

Video link via reason, from Big Government.

Bonus, Bad Timing Department: Also via reason, a link to an opinion article in the New York Times today about voter/tea party rage:

To date, the Tea Party has committed only the minor, almost atmospheric violences of propagating falsehoods, calumny and the disruption of the occasions for political speech — the last already to great and distorting effect. But if their nihilistic rage is deprived of interrupting political meetings as an outlet, where might it now go?

Perhaps all that tea party rage entered the “atmosphere,” and drifted into representative Bob Etheridge’s body, causing him to commit an actual act of rage?

Up until last week, 2.1 million gallons of crude oil per day had been pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. Since then BP and the Coast Guard have done some to siphon the leak, yet millions of gallons of oil, in hundreds of thousands of patches, float throughout the Gulf. They hurt and threaten tourism, fishing, and ecology. BP suggests that the leak might be almost completely stopped within a month. However, nothing is really certain of the future of the leak or the spill and its effects.

People think President Obama could be doing a better job addressing the oil spill. Obama spent the end of April and the beginning of May meeting behind closed doors with administrative officials and BP representatives. He made occasional and vague public statements about the incident. He also spent time vacationing, meeting with NCAA champions, and attending Democratic fundraisers. But it was not until the end of May that he nominally and authoritatively positioned the federal government in charge of the disaster. As of June 3rd he had only visited the region three times.

There is a reasonable temptation to compare Obama and the BP oil spill with Bush and Katrina. The oil spill and Katrina took place in the same area of the country within a relatively short period of time from each other. During the first two days of flooding and chaos in New Orleans, George Bush did not communicate very well with the leaders of Louisiana, New Orleans, and other important agencies. Obama has not communicated well with BP. Bush overestimated the governments of Louisiana and New Orleans’ ability to manage the problem at all, as has Obama with BP.

The right and left are engaged in intense hypocrisy — as often happens when the roles between the two are reversed in sequential administrations — arguing that there is no comparison, that one handled his disaster worse than the other. The right, who thought the media attacked Bush unfairly during Katrina, is down Obama’s throat for the oil spill. And the left, who would not give Bush any benefit of the doubt, is coming up with excuse after excuse for Obama.

The fact is that the situations are not so comparable. Bush reacted much quicker than Obama. Bush declared a state of emergency before the hurricane hit. He activated the National Guard, and addressed the nation all within the first two days of disaster. Once it was clear that chaos had broken out, the White House scrambled to get the federal government more involved. Obama’s reaction has been less urgent by weeks, almost months.

The situations are not comparable for another reason, this one not so favorable to W. Hurricane Katrina was down right more calamitous. The oil spill will undoubtedly cause people to lose their jobs. Wild life is going to suffer and the local economies are going to tank. And who knows what the oil spill will do ecologically? However, human lives were lost in Katrina on the spot. It may take 10 years for the effects of the oil spill to be reconciled, but New Orleans and the families affected will never be the same, not in their lifetime. Bush had to be quicker because of the stakes.

So in the end, the two leaders were just not quick enough, whether it was a day late or a month. Nevertheless, once he got going, Bush probably did everything a President could do in that situation, which was to authorize resources, release statements, and make appearances. And it seems Obama is now finally doing the same. Is it possible that we expect too much from these guys when something like this happens? Do we expect the President to emerge from closed-door meetings with a silver bullet in one hand and a bullhorn in the other?

And as much as I cannot stand Rachael Maddow, she made a good point the other night. For all the investment that BP does in drilling research and finding new sources of oil and energy, they invest nothing, and have made little progress in risk management — i.e. protocols and technologies to prevent and minimize the effects of disasters like this. In fact, the same could be said for the entire human race concerning the fields of medicine, space, and communications. We spend way too much of our intellectual, economic, and human resources into developing technologies that prosper under perfect conditions, but do little to invest in risk management and or societal responsibility. I guess it just doesn’t pay to plan for failure. Right BP?