The time of the season

In less than a month, voters will be going to the polls for the Pennsylvania primary, and the pre-vote TV ads are showing up full force. A few observations about some of the early offerings:

– Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato, who is running for governor, has an ad in which he talks about growing up in a home that is shown on the screen. Later he says that he still lives in the same neighborhood, a few miles away. Now, is it just me, or is that the biggest neighborhood known to man? I'm thinking that if you have to drive several miles away, you're NOT in the same neighborhood.

– Does anyone know what party Mark Critz belongs to? It's really hard to tell based on the advertisements being run by the former Murtha aide who is running for the late, legendary congressman’s old seat. The answer to my original question: Critz is a Democrat. He just doesn't seem to be very proud of it.

– Finally, has anybody seen the hatchet-job advertisement Sen. Arlen Specter has rolled out to target his Democratic primary opponent, Congressman Joe Sestak? No touchy-feely stuff from Arlen. He's going straight to the brass knuckles. The Specter ad starts by attacking Sestak’s military record, then goes on to chastise him for missing a lot of votes in the House. Here's the deal. To have any chance at unseating a guy like Specter, who has been in the Senate since the Iron Age and has a big old campaign war chest, a challenger has to spend countless hours raising money and actually campaigning. The big-money politics of our time demands it. If any challenger in Sestak's position played by Specter's rules, he would have little or no chance of unseating an incumbent. Oh, yeah, I get it now.

If you're driving, look out for Turnpike officials

If you’re involved in a scavenger hunt that has you looking for people who are in trouble with the law in Pennsylvania, the first place to stop might be your county jail. The second place might be the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. The AP reports that the chief operating officer of the Turnpike Commission was picked up April 5 for drunken driving after he allegedly crashed into a fence in Hershey and then drove off northbound in the southbound lane of the road. It's been over two weeks, and no disciplinary action has been taken against George Hatalowich, who was driving his own car at the time. Police say he blew a 0.137 on the Breathalyzer. This comes just two months after the vice chairman of the commission, Timothy Carson, resigned after admitting to a pair of drunken driving incidents involving Turnpike Commission vehicles, according to a report in The Patriot-News in Harrisburg. And just days after Hatalowich was allegedly running into stuff while drunk, the former head of the Turnpike Commission, Mitchell Rubin, pleaded guilty to felony obstruction of justice for trying to hamper an FBI investigation of former state Sen. Vince Fumo, who is now doing five years in prison for corruption. What a crew. It's no wonder that former Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburg, in an op-ed piece that ran late last year in the Observer-Reporter, called for the Turnpike Commission to be dissolved and its duties taken over by PennDOT. I'll let Thornburg have the last word: “The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is a haven for those who wish to gorge themselves upon commonwealth tax dollars and load the payroll for political purposes. This type of patronage abuse has no place in Pennsylvania politics. The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission should be abolished.”

Of Bart and baseball

A couple of quick hitters on a Friday afternoon:

After being the center of an abortion-funding controversy during debate on the new health-care reform law, Rep. Bart Stupak has decided to call it quits. The Michigan Democrat was being targeted by teabaggers who were spending plenty of time and money in an effort to oust him come November. The AP reports that three little-known Republicans are on the ballot for Stupak’s seat, along with an anti-abortion Democrat who planned to challenge the congressman in the Democratic primary. Stupak said the teabaggers had nothing to do with his decision. He says he's just tired of the travel involved with the job. The funny thing is, the whole abortion hysteria that Stupak was at the center of was really a non-issue that was whipped up by health-care reform opponents. It was much like the non-existent “death panels” that a certain village idiot screeched about. I don't think Stupak's retirement is any great loss for our country, but you never know what the people of his district might get in his place. Could be a great statesman or stateswoman. Chances are it won’t be.

•••

Major league umpire Joe West was probably out of line for doing what he did, but baseball fans everywhere most likely agreed with his statement that the length of baseball games is ridiculous. In an interview with the Bergen Record in New Jersey, West ripped into the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox over the slow pace of play in their season-opening series. He called it a “disgrace to baseball.” And he’s right. Anyone who watches baseball regularly has to be frustrated by pitchers who wander around the mound licking their fingers and then wiping them on their trousers repeatedly, adjusting their caps six or eight times and then shaking off their catcher until said catcher has to come out and have a personal conversation with the hurler. And sometimes that's just to get one pitch thrown. The batters are no better. After almost every pitch, they step out of the batter’s box and adjust their protective cups, their helmets, their batting gloves, their shoes, their uniform shirts, their pants, etc., etc., etc. The powers that be in baseball have said they want to shorten games, but they apparently won't give the umpires the backing to crack down on these delays, or they're not demanding that the umpires do so. As retired player Curt Schilling noted, the umps also could go a long way in helping to shorten games if they'd just simply call more strikes. If you know what the rules say about the strike zone, you also know that not a single umpire in Major League Baseball adheres to it. Every ump seems to have his own personal conception of what a strike zone entails. Some won't call "high strikes." Some won't call "low strikes." Others won't call an "inside strike" but will give the pitcher a strike call on a ball that remains six inches off the outside part of home plate. If the umpires started calling strikes in the zone laid out in the rule book, there would be a lot more swinging of bats and a lot fewer full counts. And a lot faster games.

Now that's rich

John McCain is a funny guy. Not intentionally, but funny nonetheless. As you might have heard, President Obama made a dozen or so recess appointments over the weekend. In layman's terms, that means he waited until Congress was out of session, then appointment people to various government posts after Republican senators refused to allow votes on those nominations, sometimes for many months. Republicans in the Senate were, predictably, running around like their hair was on fire after Obama’s decision, especially as it regarded the appointment of union lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. The funniest lines came from McCain, who is quickly becoming the Senate’s angry old man. Any day now, I expect him to wave a cane at a bunch of kids outside the Capitol, telling them to pick up those dadgum skateboards and get the hell out. On Obama’s recess appointments, he had this to say: “Once again, the administration showed that it had little respect for the time-honored constitutional roles and procedures of Congress. This is clear payback by the administration to organized labor.” Pardon me, but I sure don’t recall McCain bitching and moaning when George W. Bush used recess appointments 170 TIMES during his tenure, including seven times to put people who thought like him on the National Labor Relations Board. And does McCain really want us to believe that Obama is the first American president to reward groups or individuals who support him and his party? Obama naming a union lawyer to the NLRB is no different than Bush, his dad or Ronald Reagan naming rich white guys to various posts. Those who win elections get to make the appointments. The opposition can fight them tooth and nail, but sometimes presidents use the recess appointment method to go over senators’ heads. Republicans in Congress have done pretty much everything in their power to obstruct the president since the moment he took his hand off the Bible at his swearing-in, with one GOP lawmaker even bragging that his party would make health-care reform Obama’s Waterloo. When Republicans are back in control of the White House, Democrats will no doubt assume the obstructionist role, and the GOP president will do exactly what Obama has done. But then, as far as McCain is concerned, that’ll be OK.

And life goes on

President Obama signed the health-care reform legislation into law yesterday, and today the sun came out as usual and the United States was not sucked into a huge black hole. To hear some people talk, you might have thought the country would have disappeared from the face of the Earth the moment Obama's pen touched paper. Is the health-care legislation perfect? Far from it. Is it better than doing nothing? Almost certainly. Is it better than what the Republicans were proposing? It has to be, because they really weren't proposing much of anything, other than to squawk “TORT REFORM" in unison at almost every turn. I believe I read somewhere that tort reform might actually cut health-care costs ... by 1 percent. Not really the big-picture answer. The past few days saw teabaggers using racial epithets against black lawmakers, another black lawmaker being spat upon, more teabaggers mocking a crippled man and a Republican congressman calling Rep. Bart Stupak a "baby killer." Stupak, some of you might recall, is staunchly anti-abortion but agreed to vote for the health-care bill based on Obama's pledge to reaffirm a ban on use of federal funds for abortions. The funniest comment came from Sen. John McCain, who, upset over the procedures used to pass the health-care bill, vowed that “there will be no cooperation for the rest of the year.” To quote Joe Biden, BIG #@$%^&! DEAL. There hasn't been any significant cooperation by Republicans since Obama took office. More and more, McCain is starting to sound like a nursing home resident miffed that his daily dose of Metamucil wasn't delivered fast enough. That said, I'm not overly impressed with the new law. I have my doubts that it will result in any real savings. The best that can probably be said for it is that it should provide coverage to more people and might - might - restrain increases in health-care costs. I'm also not thrilled about the mandate that people buy coverage, but mainly because I favored a system that would render that unnecessary. It's called single-payer. Essentially, you just extend Medicare to cover everybody in the country. Would it be expensive? Of course. But should it be a priority for a country of our wealth and power to make sure everyone has equal access to quality health care? I think so. I hear a lot of crying about government-mandated insurance. It's funny how many of those doing the crying never utter a peep about paying for government-mandated car insurance and government-mandated license plates for their vehicles. And the worst of this crowd were the senior citizens at the town hall meetings who shrieked, “Keep the gubmint outta my health care.” Never mind that their health care is provided through a government program. Those people, and the other ones mentioned above, make me think that death panels might actually be a good idea. The health-care bill might not be the greatest piece of legislation passed by an American Congress, but I have to admit it was enjoyable watching horse’s behinds like Mitch McConnell, Joe Wilson and John Boehner lose and cry like little girls.

On another topic that never gets old to me, there’s a new poll out about beliefs held by Republicans in our country. The national Harris poll finds that 57 percent of Republicans believe Obama is a Muslim, and 45 percent are still clinging to the stupid notion that the president was not born in this country and is ineligible to be our leader. That's nearly half of the Republicans polled who are ignoring facts and common sense in order to side with the "birthers." But here's the best part: Nearly one in four Republicans surveyed agree that Obama “may be the Antichrist.” I'm sorry, but that’s beyond dumb. It's imbecilic. Responsible Republican leaders should call a major news conference and denounce this lunacy. They should outline their policy differences with the president but make it clear that if someone believes Obama is a Kenyan Muslim who just might be the Antichrist, they’re not welcome in the Grand Old Party. But on the other hand, brain-dead sheep like those folks are pretty easily manipulated by lies and scare tactics, so they might come in handy this November.

’Tis the season

There were some interesting goings-on lately in the bid to succeed the late Jack Murtha in Congress. When Democratic Party leaders met to choose their favored candidate, the two leading contenders were Mark Critz, an aide to Murtha, and veteran political figure Barbara Hafer. The Dems favored Critz, by a wide margin. Perhaps they believe Critz could keep at least a shorter version of the Murtha pork train rolling into Western Pennsylvania. Maybe they just believed he'd be a better candidate. Despite the rebuke, Hafer filed nominating petitions to run for the seat in the May primary (the party primaries and the special election for the remainder of Murtha’s term will be contested at the same time). Then, a day later, Hafer announced she was dropping out of the race in deference to Murtha’s widow. There also were concerns that Hafer’s nominating petitions might not pass muster. This is not the first time that Hafer, a former state treasurer and auditor general, has expressed interest in running for a post, from governor to Congress, before backing out. When it comes to the quick surrender, Hafer seems to be the French army of political candidates. On the Republican side, party leaders had a choice between Eighty Four businessman Tim Burns and Bill Russell, who lost to Murtha two years ago. Their vote was nearly two-to-one in favor of Burns, who will be the GOP candidate in the special election. Russell is still a candidate in the primary, and he was none too pleased about his treatment by state Republican leaders. In remarks to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Russell assailed Burns’ supposed inexperience. I’m not sure what he’s talking about. Is it life experience? Russell was a career military man. While that military experience might be useful in Congress, is that more valuable than what Burns brings to the table? I don’t know a lot about the man, but I do know that he’s regularly described as a “self-made millionaire.” This sounds like a guy who knows how to keep more money coming in than going out. Would that kind of approach be good in Washington right now? Or maybe Russell was talking about political experience. Well, Burns is a political novice. But Russell’s experience would seem to consist of being a carpetbagger who moved to Johnstown solely for the purpose of running against Murtha, then had his butt handed to him, despite raising more campaign cash than the incumbent. That's really not much of a resume. Maybe, just maybe, the Republican powers that be thought that Russell wasn’t exactly a ball-of-fire candidate the last time around, and they decided to try something different. Whatever the case, it makes for an interesting race.

Now or never?

In a matter of weeks, we will know whether significant reform of the nation’s health-care system will pass in Congress. With their ability to stop filibusters in the Senate eliminated by the recent Massachusetts election, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress faced a decision: scrap everything they had done on health care over the past year, or use a filibuster-exempt process known as reconciliation. There really was no decision to be made. Reconciliation is the only option, because Republicans have never and will never negotiate in good faith on health care. If, at the beginning of the reform process, Obama had offered legislation that was an exact replica of what the GOP is now touting as its “plan,” the Republicans would have been unanimously against it, solely because it was proposed by Obama. They have no interest in real health-care reform, offering only piecemeal approaches that would likely do little to make health care significantly more affordable or cover very many of those currently without insurance. Nevertheless, Obama has offered to include several of the GOP proposals in the final health-care bill. Republicans, of course, are not satisfied. And, of course, their idea for how health-care reform should proceed is for Obama and the Democrats to totally kill every bit of what they've done to this point and start over, start over, start over, start over. Why did I just type "start over" four times. Because that's how the Republicans sound, like a broken record. Apparently, they received a script from GOP headquarters telling them that anytime they are asked a question about health-care reform, their reply must be, like a trained parrot, to squawk, “START OVER!" If the Democrats did agree to start anew, does anyone really believe that Republicans would engage in good-faith negotiations on health care? Of course not. They would do as little as possible, as slowly as possible, while filibustering each and every item that showed any sign that it might hurt the big insurance companies. And the Republicans still may get their wish. Democratic unity is a non-entity. There are a lot of Democrats in Congress who are clearly more interested in their re-election prospects than pondering whether the reform bill would be good for their constituents. There's no doubt that they are facing an angry electorate. It's not surprising, considering that the economy is still struggling to rebound, and that Republicans have spent the past year spreading misinformation and outright lies about the health-care measures, including false claims about abortion funding and the “death panels.” But at some point, people who claim to be leaders have to have the courage to cast unpopular votes, if they believe those votes are in the best interest of the people they represent. The key objections raised by opponents of real health-care reform are the cost of such an effort and the government involvement. Well, doing nothing clearly isn't working in terms of controlling costs, and if not the government, who is going to put a stop to the mess that exists today? I'm pretty sure that insurance companies and drug-makers aren't going to cut us all a break out of the goodness of their hearts.

Despicable

U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., was a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher back in the day. As a human being, he belongs in the Hall of Shame. On Thursday, the House passed a bill that, in part, would extend unemployment benefits for laid-off workers. The Senate planned quick action on the bill, because the benefits are due to expire this weekend. But that plan was wrecked by one person: Bunning. The Kentucky senator, who has a reputation of being a pain in the behind, even to his Republican colleagues, unilaterally blocked action on the measure because he said the overall bill would add $10 billion to the budget deficit. This is the same guy who had no qualms about grabbing hundreds of millions – probably billions – of dollars in pork-barrel spending for his state over his long Senate career, deficit be damned. He's also the same guy who created the tax-shielded Jim Bunning Foundation, a “non-profit” organization whose main beneficiary has been none other than Jim Bunning. According to a 2008 report in the Lexington Herald-Leader, Bunning raked in $180,000 in "salary" over 12 years for a "job" at which he reportedly worked one hour a week. Nice gig if you can get it. At the same time, the foundation gave out a little more than $136,000 to real charities. And no one was going to argue with Bunning, because the three-member board that oversaw the foundation consisted of Bunning's wife, an old pal of his and a guy who used to work for him who is now a lobbyist whose clients received pork barrel cash from the senator. Sweet. The guy's a real humitarian, unless of course you're a poor, unemployed person who is scratching and clawing to pay the mortgage, keep food on the table and pay the heating bill this winter. He clearly doesn't a damn about those folks, despite the fact that his home state has an unemployment rate of 10.7 percent, one of the highest in the nation. But what does Bunning care about what those folks think? He's retiring and not facing re-election. I guess I'll just be left to hope that Bunning develops gangrene in a most uncomfortable part of his anatomy. Is that mean?

Cleaning house

An AP story in today’s O-R notes that some teachers unions are now getting on board with what Timothy Knowles, director of the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute, calls “more aggressive interventions in failing schools.” In other words, the unions are becoming more willing to participate in things like merit pay and cutting ties with underperforming teachers. While cleaning house might seem like a natural step in places like the Philly school referenced in the story (more than 90 percent of the high school’s 11th-graders last year couldn’t read or do math at grade level), there is the question of who will replace the fired educators. Raising salaries to attract better instructors might work to some degree, as might the prospect of merit pay, but the effort in Philly also involves making the school day longer, adding some Saturday sessions and holding classes in July. Those aren't selling points for most prospective employees. And let’s be honest. If you’re a top-notch teacher and have the choice of working harder in an inner-city school or plying you trade in a leafy suburb, which job are you going to take? There was another story that moved on the AP wire today about an impoverished school district near Providence, R.I., that has decided to fire every teacher, guidance counselor and principal at Central Falls High School, where only about half of the students graduate and only 7 percent of 11th-graders were meeting basic math standards last year. The union there says it is pondering its legal options. The union might have a point. Surely, there's at least one teacher there who doesn't deserve to be canned. But at the same time, when your school is a total disaster, bold moves are necessary. It will be interesting to see if this move toward accountability takes hold in our region, which is a staunch union area. We might have gotten an indication recently when not a single school district in Washington and Greene counties met the eligibility standards for grants that could have brought in six-figure checks. In many cases, the reason was that teachers unions refused to sign off on the proposal. One of the concerns was that student assessment data would be used in teacher evaluations. In fairness, there also were worries about what would happen if the federal money dried up. But it’s been pretty clear to me that unions have little interest in tying evaluations of teachers’ performances to the achievements of students. Teaching is a tough profession. Dealing with kids can be a pain, and dealing with their parents, especially those who don't give a damn, can be even worse. But the pay these days is pretty damn good, and teachers tend to have Cadillac health-care plans, wonderful pensions and, yes, plenty of time off in the summer. Back in the olden days, when I went to school, I had some excellent teachers who made learning fun and knew how to get information across. But I had others who couldn't teach a fish to swim. They shouldn't have been allowed to feed at the public trough for 30 years while failing their students. Every workplace – from newspapers to schools to factories – has its weak links. When private companies are involved, it's up to the managers and owners to weed them out. When those weak links are being paid with tax dollars, the public should have the right to expect they'll be removed.

Stop the insanity

Anyone who watched the Pittsburgh TV news Friday night or Saturday no doubt saw the coverage of the incident at the Giant Eagle in Murrysville. According to police, an 86-year-old man behind the wheel of a 1993 Oldsmobile (what else) was backing his car out of a parking space when he bashed into a vehicle behind him. At that point, he surged forward, out of control, toward the store's entrance and went up on the sidewalk, hitting an unfortunate 48-year-old woman who was slammed so hard into the front glass door that her body shattered it. The octogenarian then backed up before lurching forward again and smashing into a pillar in front of the store. The woman who was struck had multiple open fractures and chest injuries that required her to be flown to a Pittsburgh hospital. The driver also was flown for treatment. The woman who was hit by the car in this case, believe it or not, is one of the lucky ones. Sometimes people die because family members, doctors and even our state legislators refuse to confront the problem of the dangers posed by elderly drivers who no longer have any business being behind the wheel of a multi-thousand-pound piece of machinery. Much in the way that we need to stop the hazardous practice of people driving while they gab away or text on their hand-held cell phones, somebody needs to address the issue of members of the "greatest generation" mowing down people with their Oldsmobiles and Buicks. Family members need to do whatever is necessary, even reporting their loves ones to the proper authorities, if necessary, to get their parents and grandparents off the roads when they start posing a threat to themselves and others. Doctors need to do their duty by reporting those who should have their licenses pulled. And our legislators should have the courage - yeah, right - to impose mandatory driver re-testing after a certain age. Those who object to these measures often argue that young people have more accidents. Maybe they do, but most of those young drivers, through experience and the maturation process, will eventually become good drivers. Unfortunately, there's really no substitute for experience when it comes to improving one's driving skills. But those young people aren't wrecking because they forget which pedal makes the car go and which one stops it, or which gear makes the car go forward and which one makes it go backward. And those elderly drivers aren't going to get better with advancing age. For most of them, it's a one-way trip toward being a threat to all of us.

This is why I find some Republicans frightening

It's become crystal clear that Republicans in Congress will vote in total lockstep against anything significant proposed by President Obama, even if he proposed that Congress be turned over to the Republicans. If Obama wants it, they're against it, even if they would benefit from it or previously supported it. This makes me wonder what sort of people are still supporting these jackasses. (No need to tell me that the Democratic ranks in Congress also are primarily filled with jackasses. I'm aware of that.) Thanks to a poll conducted for the Daily Kos Web site by Research 2000, I have some answers. My thanks to the 2 Political Junkies blog http://2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com/ for bringing it to my attention. Before you GOP backers get your panties all in a twist, I know that Daily Kos is a liberal Web site. But Research 2000 is a well-respected, non-partisan, independent polling outfit. Their poll involved 2,000 self-identified Republicans. Here are some of the findings, which I find sad and scary. Nearly 70 percent of those polled agree or are on the fence about the idea that Obama should be impeached. No reason was given, but I assume it's because he's a white-hating, terrorist-loving sumbitch who is also a "furriner." Gee, I guess I was right on at least one count, because the next question asks whether those polled think Obama is a socialist. Nearly two-thirds believe he is, and 16 percent are thinking it over. For the record, that's just dumb. Now, for something dumber. Nearly a quarter of those responding believe Obama wants the terrorists to win, and another 33 percent are not sure. Those people are idiots. More than three-quarters of the Republicans questioned believe or are willing to consider that ACORN stole the 2008 election. You have to be a little bit mentally ill to believe that. Oh, lookey here, I'm right about something else regarding why Republicans want Obama impeached. More than 30 percent believe the president is a racist who hates white people, and 33 percent more are unsure. Here's another crazy one. Nearly one-quarter of those polled think their state should secede from the United States. There was no follow-up question about whether gay people and minorities would be allowed to live in those states after secession. Wait. Maybe I have that answer. It seems that the percentage favoring secession is highest in the South, by a pretty fair margin. Hmmmmm. I'll sum up the area of gay rights by saying that the Republicans surveyed overwhelmingly oppose equality for gay people. We know Republicans, by and large, don't want gay folks to be allowed to marry, but almost three-quarters of those responding think gay people should be prohibited from teaching in public schools. Oh boy. The Republicans surveyed are against sex education, and they're also overwhelmingly opposed to aborting any pregnancies resulting from kids' lack of knowledge about how to prevent babies from getting made. Not a surprise. A lot of very moderate, reasonable people are against abortion. But here's where it gets squirrelly. Nearly half of those polled believe or are willing to consider a ban on the use of contraceptives, and even more think that the use of birth-control pills is the equivalent of abortion. So, very clearly, it's not enough for some Republicans if abortion were outlawed. A significant percentage of them think it should be against the law to attempt to prevent a pregnancy. That's tin-foil hat territory. And maybe somebody should point out to them that outlawing birth control would lead to more abortions. So maybe a little more thought is in order before they schedule that condom-burning rally. But I've saved the best stuff for last. More than half of those responding think Sarah Palin is better qualified than Barack Obama to serve as president, and 33 percent can't make up their mind on that question. Say what you will, I'm laughing out loud at that one. And even after all this time, 36 percent of Republicans polled think Obama was born somewhere other than the United States, and 22 percent are undecided. Really? To believe that, a person would have to be so intellectually crippled that keeping their spit in their mouth would require constant concentration. And finally, more than three-quarters of those responding believe that students in public schools - PUBLIC SCHOOLS - should be taught that "the Book of Genesis explains how God created the world." If that ever happens, I want to be given the right to offer the alternative view that Tim the Enchanter from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" really created the world. In closing, while I was looking around Research 2000's Web site, I came across their recent prediction that Sarah Palin will be the Republican presidential nominee in 2012. These are the same folks who accurately predicted in June 2007, when Hillary Clinton had been all but crowned the Democratic presidential nominee, that Hillary would NOT be the choice in 2008. So, for all of you who criticize me for keeping track of what Sarah Palin is saying, arguing that she's not worthy of so much attention, I beg to differ. I shudder to think what would happen to this country if she and those who think like her ever gained control of this country. And I'm going to continue to point that out. My apologies to those who are offended.

Open mouth, insert foot

It's only Tuesday, but at the risk of being proven wrong, I'm going to go ahead and anoint South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer as jackass of the week. During a recent speech at a town hall meeting in rural South Carolina – where his message was no doubt warmly received – Bauer related a story allegedly told to him by his grandmother when he was but a small boy. Grandma, said Bauer, told him to stop feeding stray animals. "You know why?" asked Bauer. "Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a human ample food supply." I don't think it's going too far out on a limb to interpret Bauer's remarks as meaning that he believes we should cut off the food supply to poor people before they have a chance to reproduce. Bauer later explained that he was trying to explain that government social programs have bred a "culture of dependency." Why he didn't just say that, instead of suggesting that hordes of lazy, worthless poor people are suckling at the public teat and then producing more and more poor people who will take those good Republican tax dollars, is beyond me. Maybe he's just an idiot. It doesn't take a whole lot of reading between the lines to hear Bauer telling a no-doubt heavily white audience that the black people are bleeding them dry. Even if Bauer is not a dope, he certainly comes off as someone who doesn't give a damn about the less fortunate in his state, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the entire country. But, of course, Bauer, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, is more interested in attracting the votes of the rich and, let's go ahead and say it, rednecks who don't like black people, than he is in courting the downtrodden. Poor folks aren't his "base." But it might be interesting to see how many of South Carolina's large number of right-wing evangelical voters stand behind Bauer if there are more stories cropping up about his personal life. Prominent gay activists have outed the anti-gay-rights Bauer as being, himself, gay. For the record, Bauer is a 40-year-old bachelor who was once a varsity cheerleader at the University of South Carolina. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Protecting the children from words

George Carlin, in his famous comedy bit about the seven words you can't say on television (all of which have since been said on television, with the advent of cable), opined that there really are no bad words, just bad thoughts and bad intentions. I tend to agree with that. A parent in a California school district doesn't agree with that assessment, and the district has gone absolutely nuts in response. According to blogger Judy Molland on the www.care2.com site, the mother demanded that the district ban the 10th edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary after her kid came across the term "oral sex" in one of the books. School officials, unbelievably, folded like a cheap suit and pulled the dictionaries from every school in the district. And now, in true bureaucratic fashion, they've formed a committee to determine whether the ban should be made permanent. Apparently, in Menefee Union School District, a book filled with words used in the English language presents a clear and present danger to youngsters who are supposed to be learning. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water.

For a truly funny example of unnecessary censorship, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCxgmPEt7Y4

Brown-out for the Dems

The equation in the special Senate election in Massachusetts was simple: Bad Democratic candidate + angry electorate = embarrassing loss. Massachusetts might be the last state where a Republican would be expected to topple a Democrat in a major race, but it happened Tuesday, when the GOP's Scott Brown whacked Democrat Martha Coakley to claim the Senate seat that had been held for decades by Ted Kennedy. Several questions came to mind after the election was over. My first thought was, how bad were the other candidates in the Democratic primary if Coakley was the winner? The second question, and much more important, is what this means for health-care reform. It would be an easy out for the Democrats to lay blame for Tuesday's loss on Coakley's failings as a candidate, but they really should recognize that anger over government spending and pending health-care legislation was the real reason for the Republican victory. What should the Democrats do now about health-care reform? With Brown taking office, they no longer have the votes to block a Senate filibuster, unless they can attract a moderate Republican - and there ain't many of them - to their side. But that would take some major concessions, weakening an already watered-down bill. They also could try to find enough House members to approve the Senate bill, as is. That's a tough sell. I wouldn't be the least bit unhappy if the legislation died a quick death. They lost me when they eliminated any mechanism to provide real competition for the health-insurance companies. Without a single-payer system or a true public option, the chance for the measure to have a significant impact on health-care costs is minimal. Those who still support the pending legislation say it's a good first step and can be improved later. Really? Who, exactly, is going to "improve" the legislation down the road? The next Congress? You mean the one with a lot more Republicans in it? Good luck with that. Some Republicans are positively giddy about Tuesday's outcome. Some are touting the benefits of a divided government, now that Democrats have lost their 60-40 advantage in the Senate. Funny, but I don't remember them crowing about those positives when the Republicans lost the House and Senate in 2006. One person I saw on Facebook last night even called it the beginning of the second American Revolution. Easy there. Don't go digging up Paul Revere's corpse and strapping him to a horse just yet. The midterm congressional elections aren't until November, and a lot can happen in nine months. As you might recall, nine months before the 2008 Democratic primaries began, Hillary Clinton was being fitted for a crown for her coronation tour. How did that work out? For the Democrats' sake, I hope they're not going to follow the advice of Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the chief of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who told the Associated Press that the plan is for his colleagues to continue to lay the blame on the Bush administration for steering the economy "into a ditch" and then running away. Enough of that. Certainly, Obama was left with a mess by Bush, who, in my opinion, was a really rotten president. But Obama has been in office for a year now, and the Democrats have controlled Congress longer than that. By the time the November elections roll around, Obama's tenure will be close to two years. At that point, whatever state the country is in, he and the Democratic Congress own it, not George W. Bush. One problem with the Democrats is that they want to be the party of lofty ideals, but they're not willing to get down in the mud and wrestle for what they believe in. The GOP might be morally bankrupt, depending on your way of thinking, but they've rarely gone broke by pandering to and rallying the birther/town hall shrieker/take-back-the-country-for-Jesus-and-the-rich crowd. They secure their base much better than the Democrats do, and if they can attract independents angry about the course of the country, they're winners. That's exactly how that Obama fellow ended up in the White House. He rallied the Democratic core and added support from independents, some of them disgusted by the eight years of Bush-Cheney rule and others, no doubt, legitimately fearful about having the Wasilla Wingnut a heartbeat away from the presidency. At this point, the best the Democrats can really hope for is moderate losses of seats in the next Congress. The worst is a wipeout that would leave them and the president largely impotent. To minimize the damage, they need to go on the offensive, stake out their positions clearly, point out the failings of the Republican Party and truly stand up for what they believe in. They've got a big selling job ahead, but knowing the history of the Democrats, they'll probably just sell out.

Oh, come on

Let me preface this by saying that I think Harry Reid is a dim-bulb political hack and a sad excuse for a leader of anything, let alone the U.S. Senate. But Republican calls for him to step down over remarks he made about the 2008 presidential race and the election of Barack Obama are just plain stupid. For those who didn't hear the story in recent days, there's a new book out called "Game Change" in which Reid is quoted as saying that Obama benefited by being light-skinned and having "no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." Based on the trumped-up outrage of Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Senate GOP Whip Jon Kyl, you would have thought that Reid had said Obama should be picking cotton in the Mississippi Delta. Oh, wait, that was Trent Lott, the former senator to whom those Republicans are trying to compare Reid. I kid you not. Steele, who is an early betting favorite to win the "Political D-bag of the Year" award for 2010, said Reid should resign his leadership position, and he tried to link Reid's comments to those of Lott, who quit his Senate leadership post in 2002 after suggesting that the United States would have been a better place if blacks were still separate and unequal. Any rational, intelligent person can see that there's no comparison between what Reid and Lott said, but rational, intelligent people aren't the folks whom Steele, Cornyn and Kyl are pandering to. Fact is, Reid was talking about the reality of Obama's appeal to voters, particularly white voters, and while Reid has apologized for his wording, his comments are essentially true. When 25 percent of Democratic primary voters in West Virginia in 2008 said their decision was at least somewhat motivated by race, it's pretty easy to see that a candidate like Barack Obama would do better with some voters than a guy who looks and talks like Sonny Liston. And while it might not be politically correct to say so, there is a "black dialect" in our country. It's a pattern of speech that most of us hear every day if we watch television, and traces of it are detectable even among highly trained speakers such as TV newscasters. It's really no big deal. As a nation that includes people of many different cultural backgrounds, we shouldn't expect each and every person to sound like Rex Harrison in "My Fair Lady." Lott's remarks eight years ago were decidedly different. The senator, now a lobbyist, said at a birthday party for Sen. Strom Thurmond, who was once one of America's leading racists, that his home state of Mississippi was proud that it had supported Thurmond's bid for the presidency in 1948. Added Lott, "And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over these years, either." Nice. As for Reid, black leaders far and wide are rallying behind him, so this issue really is a tempest in a teapot. The Republicans should just move on.

Health or dollars?

Can we start by agreeing that air pollution is bad? Probably. But where we'll disagree is on how much air pollution is acceptable and how much we're willing to spend to reduce it. The Environmental Protection Agency today proposed tougher smog standards, just a couple of years after President Bush ignored scientists’ recommendations and set a higher smog standard than what they proposed. Actually, ignored is probably not the right word. Bush heard what they said, but when electric utilities and other companies complained, he sided with industry over the health of Americans. The new, tighter standards are not cost-free, by any means. The EPA says it will cost tens of billions to meet the called-for smog reductions, but the agency says billions eventually will be saved in terms of avoided emergency room visits, premature deaths, missed work, etc. We can't control what other countries do around the globe, but we can, and should, do what we can to improve our environment. And that includes, for some people, admitting that climate change is real and that our actions are largely to blame for it. And admitting that we need to do more – much more – to develop alternatives to our current fuel sources.

Something worth screaming about

Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic Party and onetime presidential candidate, is a bit of a strange bird, but I think he’s absolutely correct when he says the health-care reform bill emerging from the Senate is a piece of garbage because it doesn’t offer consumers a real alternative and actually gives more clout to private insurance companies. Said Dean today in a “Good Morning America” interview, “You will be forced to buy insurance. If you don’t, you’ll pay a fine. It’s an insurance company bailout. This is an insurance company’s dream. This is the Washington scramble, and it’s a shame.” Dean also claimed that the Senate bill, as currently crafted, would allow the insurance industry to hammer older people with higher premiums while still denying people coverage because of pre-existing conditions. If Dean is correct, it’s hard to see a whole lot that’s positive about the Senate legislation. Without any public option, it’s hard for me to fathom that there will be much in the way of cost control. And covering millions more people only because you're compelling them to buy coverage isn’t much of an achievement. I'm really afraid that this process has devolved into such a purely political mess that it might be better to do nothing than to approve a measure that could end up doing more harm than good. If the Democrats are smart, and the jury is still out on that, they would do well to abandon the issue, because by approving bad legislation, they'd be making a silver-platter delivery of a rallying cry for Republicans in the midterm elections. By dropping reform efforts, Democrats could say – and they would be absolutely correct in saying so – that Republicans were a “party of no” who stood in the way of meaningful improvements in our health-care system.

Enough is enough

City officials in Washington are still trying to bail out the Titanic with a teacup, and it would seem that if there's any light at the end of this tunnel of fiscal misery, it's from a big, fast-moving train called reality. The approach of elected officials has been an incremental one, including the current move to bludgeon people who park in the city. Council is now discussing a plan under which the price of parking at a metered space would increase from 25 cents for 30 minutes to 25 cents for 15 minutes. On top of that, the city is contemplating a $10 fine for overtime parking, and they'd give violators just two hours to pay that fine before it doubled to $20. And you couldn't even put the $10 fine in one of the courtesy boxes. The fine would have to be paid at the city parking authority office. To say this is onerous is an understatement. And it continues. After five days, the fine rises to $30; after 15 days, it goes to $50. But wait, there's more. The city also is considering a tax - perhaps as much as $3 per space, per day - on all for-profit parking garages and lots in the city, including the Trust Building garage and the one owned by Washington County. Owners of those lots and garages would have to register with the city treasurer as a tax collector and keep strict records of all the taxes taken in. The city already is dunning people who work in Washington with an earned income tax, and that is expected to increase this year. What all this means is that Washington is financially raping people who work or do business in the city, in order to avoiding raising taxes on those who actually live in Washington (also known as voters). But they can't even accomplish that, because now there's talk of raising property taxes in order to make up for a $400,000 shortfall in revenue from the current year. And who is to blame for that shortfall? That would be council and the mayor. They are the ones who approved a budget that included ridiculous revenue projections. For example, the current year's budget called for $220,000 to be generated through building permits. The city has taken in less than $85,000 so far. The city also has fallen $100,000 short of its projections in business privilege taxes. These are not minor mistakes. They amount to borderline fiscal malfeasance and abuse of the public trust. In other words, the city is being led by incompetents. They can continue bending over the people who work in the city, because they're captive victims. But what this situation calls for is bold moves, ones that most likely would anger the very people who get to vote on whether current council members and the mayor get to stay in office. But true leaders do the right thing, not the politically expedient thing. And don't let it be said that I'm criticizing them without offering my own answers. First, eliminate any non-essential services and cut the work force to the lowest possible level in order to meet essential services such as tax collection and snow removal. Second, eliminate any non-required financial outlays. For example, if the city makes an annual payment to Citizens Library, that should stop. Libraries are a wonderful resource, but they are not essential when a city is going into the toilet. Finally, eliminate the paid fire department. You could retain a couple of paid firefighters and supplement them with volunteers. The time for half-assed, piecemeal fixes is over. Either make bold moves, or let the state come in and take control.

The not-good-enough book

I'm an atheist, but I'm fairly well-versed on the Bible, and it just never occurred to me that the most popular versions of the book are nothing but socialist tracts. Boy was I wrong. So says the Conservative Bible Project, which is heading up an online effort by "regular folks" to rewrite the Bible in order to get out all that liberal stuff. The effort is being led by Andy Schlafly, who founded Conservapedia,com, where the butchering, I mean rewriting, of the Bible is taking place. And if his last name rings a bell, yes, he’s the son of the old conservative warhorse Phyllis Schlafly, who is perhaps best known for fighting against equal rights for women. Andy Schlafly, shown above left, tells the AP, “Professors are the most liberal group of people in the world, and it’s professors who are doing the popular modern translations of the Bible." Of course, people who actually know a lot about the Bible and biblical translations think he's full of frankincense and myrrh, among other things. Timothy Paul Jones, a self-described theological conservative who is a professor at Southern Baptist (those damn liberals) Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., had this to say about Schlafly’s crusade: "This is not making scripture understandable to people today, it’s reworking scripture to support a particular political or social agenda.” But Schlafly isn’t fooled by those theological conservatives. He says that's not the same thing as being "politically conservative." So, by his own words, Schlafly is making it clear that this is all about politics. For one thing, conservatives don't apologize, even if they’re responsible for a really big boner like the Iraq war. And to reflect the might-makes-right-and-we're-never-wrong approach, the Conservative Bible Project is rewriting the Gospel of Luke to excise the part where Jesus says of his killers: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." The lesson here: Forgiveness is for pansies. Here, courtesy of the AP, are a few other passages that are getting a raping, I mean makeover:

LUKE 10:21

King James version: In that hour, Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes; even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.

Conservative Bible Project: With that, Jesus rejoiced, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for withholding Truth from the intellectuals while revealing it to common man, as this pleased You."

In other words, don’t give information to smart people who might want to think for themselves. Reveal it only to mindless sheep.

PHILEMON 3

King James: Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Conservative Bible Project: God’s grace to you, and peace of mind, from our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We certainly wouldn’t want to encourage a concept like peace, but peace of mind comes in really handy if you want to sleep well after trying to screw over people who aren’t like you.

JUDE 7

King James: Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

Conservative Bible Project: Furthermore, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them whose people also gave themselves over to sensuality, and homosexuality and bestiality, were made examples of, and suffered the vengeance of eternal fire.

Yes, let’s make sure that the verse clearly bashes gay people and equates them with folks who hump goats.

ACTS 2:44

King James: And all that believed were together, and had all things common.

Conservative Bible Project: Everyone who believed was together and shared values, faith and the truth.

Because only this particular group of mouth-breathing dimwits could possibly know the truth, and they want to make sure that their Christian soldiers remember to uphold important values such as divisiveness, celebrating stupidity and hatred.

Schlafly's defense of this dumbing down and bastardization of the Bible is that “the best of the public is better than a group of experts.” Really? Really??? Because I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Schlafly’s band of merry men (don't know if women are allowed to participate) probably aren't the cream of the crop when it comes to things like rational thought. And I'm also guessing that the Jesus portrayed in the "regular" Bible would be sickened by these jackasses. I'm not sure what this group will turn its attention to next. However, I'm hearing rumors that they’re working on eyeglasses that will be soothing to ultra-conservatives by allowing them to look at President Obama and see a rich white guy.

Quagmire redux?

President Obama will speak to the nation tomorrow night about his decisions regarding the ongoing conduct of the war in Afghanistan. According to an Associated Press report, the president is expected to commit to an escalation of the war that will involved perhaps 35,000 more U.S. servicemen and women. That, the AP said, would take the number of troops in Afghanistan to more than 100,000, at an annual price tag of $75 billion. I've made clear in the past my disgust over the war in Iraq, and the toll it took on our efforts in Afghanistan. Admittedly, I bashed Bush over his war decisions, and if Obama is going down the same path, committing who knows how many American lives and billions of our tax dollars to a military engagement with a highly uncertain outcome, I won't hesitate to criticism him. What I'd like to know from you folks is how you feel about a massive troop buildup and what you might do differently.

Unenlightened rogue

This won’t come as much of a surprise, but I won't be among the huddled masses trying to get Sarah Palin to scrawl her name for me inside her new book at an event Saturday at the Sam’s Club in South Strabane Township. For one, I generally try to avoid that entire traffic-challenged plaza. Second, I think Palin is a jackass. But there no doubt will be throngs of people lining up to get a coveted wristband that will make them one of 1,000 people who will get Palin's signature on a copy of "Going Rogue." As best as I can recall, I only have two books signed by an author, and they’re two cookbooks by the same chef/writer. If Christopher Hitchens came to town, I'd probably get in line to have him sign my copy of "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." Other than that, probably not. I'd like to hear from folks who do plan to attend Saturday's event. I have two questions: 1) What is it that attracts you to Palin? and 2) What makes you think she'd be a good president? Don't waste everyone's time by telling us all the horrible things Obama is doing. Stick to making a case for Palin as a leader of the Republican Party or even its next candidate for the White House.

Big Brother debate

A borough in suburban Philadelphia is debating whether to install surveillance cameras in public places in an effort to catch lawbreakers. It brings up an interesting debate. Opponents of the move claim it could be an infringement on civil liberties, but supporters see it as a way to cut down on crime. I tend to believe that if you're a law-abiding citizen, you really have no need to fear the cameras. We already have them in stores and at ATM machines, among other places. Private citizens position them on their homes to keep an eye out for those who might do them harm or take their property. Even the O-R has them for security purposes. It's not as if the cameras proposed by Newtown Borough would be peering into people's homes. Does anybody see a problem with this that I'm not recognizing?

Pre-existing issue confronts Dems

Alexander Burns of Politico wrote an interesting piece http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29393.html about how a flare-up of the abortion issue has affected the current push for passage of health-care reform legislation. The crux of the story is that Democrats are finding themselves split over what restrictions, if any, should be imposed on abortion funding in whatever health-care bill emerges from Congress. The centerpiece of this clash is an amendment offered by Michigan Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak and approved by the House that would, essentially, prevent money from being spent on abortions through a proposed national health insurance exchange or a public-option plan. The real question is, should the government be in the business of paying for abortions? While I would never support a complete ban on abortions, I don't see why the government, or any insurance program connected to the government, should be paying for them. I wouldn't object to coverage of abortions in the case of rape, incest or threats to a woman's health, but I think it's highly distasteful for the government to have a role in providing abortions to people who use the procedure as birth control, often because they were too stupid, lazy or irresponsible to take precautions against pregnancy in the first place. At the same time, I could make the argument that people's tax money is used all the time for things they oppose or object to on moral grounds. For instance, I think the proposal to spend $300 million to build a maglev people-mover at Cal U. is ridiculous. And I've been sickened by the horrible waste of Americans' tax dollars to finance the war in Iraq. But no matter what abortion-funding restrictions are included in the health reform legislation, women will still be able to undergo the procedures. They just might have to dig into their own pockets to do so, and abortion-rights advocates can feel free to help those who are short on funds.

Self-inflicted damage

We still have people among us who believe climate change is a hoax or some sort of natural cycle of the Earth, despite overwhelming and unrelenting evidence to the contrary. Another brick in the wall of reality was put in place this week with the release of a federal study showing that nearly half of the lakes and reservoirs across our country contain fish with potentially harmful levels of mercury, a metal that is toxic to us humans. An AP story notes that mercury is a pollutant "primarily released from coal-fired power plants." Coal is a valuable fuel resource in our country, and the industry is a provider of a great many jobs in this area, but it galls me that when someone suggests that we need to do more to control emissions from coal-fired power plants - at some additional cost to consumers - the climate change deniers and energy industry apologists start shrieking as if their hair were on fire. The new EPA study on lake and reservoir pollution is yet one more sign that we need to quit poisoning the world in which we live. It amazes me that with all the technological advances and brilliant minds we have in this country, we are still burning rocks for fuel, but if we are going to do so – and we clearly are for at least decades to come – we must find ways that do not kill us in the process.

Security before political correctness

Sen. Joe Lieberman and I don't end up on the same side of issues much these days, but the senator is absolutely correct in calling for an investigation into whether the government and/or the military missed indications that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged gunman in the Fort Hood shootings, held potentially dangerous extremist views. An Associated Press story today said that classmates of Hasan’s in a 2007-08 master’s degree program at a military college told members of the faculty about Hasan’s apparent anti-American beliefs, including a presentation he made that justified suicide bombing and remarks to classmates that Islamic law overrode the U.S. Constitution. At that point, the faculty members should have reported Hasan to his military higher-ups, and if the allegations against him were found to be true, he should have been removed from the military without delay. As Lieberman said, "If Hasan was showing signs ... that he had become a Muslim extremist, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance. He should have been gone.” The military, or the populace at large, should not be in the business of discriminating against Muslims solely because of their faith, but if a soldier shows any signs of favoring another country or his religion over the United States government and his fellow servicemen and women, appropriate action should be taken immediately. As the facts emerge, it's likely to become clear that people in positions of authority had multiple opportunities to, at the very least, kick Hasan out of the service. Their failure proved deadly.

Go ahead and protest, but think a little, too

As I was driving to the grocery store after work Wednesday, I noticed some young folks who I assume were W&J students protesting at the corners of Lincoln and Beau in Washington. It appeared they are not pleased with the president and were taking considerable pains to point out that unemployment is currently very, very high. The impetus for the protest, I assume, was the first anniversary of President Obama's election. Yet, it's been only about nine months since Obama took office, and blaming him for the country's high unemployment rate is shortsighted and rather thoughtless. Certainly, the jobless rate is painfully high and will, no doubt, creep higher in the coming months. At the same time, however, it should be noted that other economic signs are trending in a better direction. We've recently seen encouraging reports about housing. The national economy actually grew in the last quarter. And just today, there was positive news about retail sales, giving businesses hope that this holiday sales season won't be a huge downer. Also today, there was even a report that the number of new jobless claims was lower than expected. The overall unemployment rate is expected to hit 10.5 percent in the coming months, but analysts expect that to start improving by next summer. A little history, semi-ancient and recent, might be in order for the campus protesters. The jobless rate was close to 11 percent during the first term of Ronald Reagan, but I doubt anyone who currently is pillorying Obama wants to be reminded of that black mark on the record of the hero of modern conservatism. To Reagan's credit, the rate got better. Under Obama, it's likely to do the same. I'd also remind the demonstrators that when George W. Bush took office, the rate was 4.2 percent. At the beginning of 2008, it was still only 4.9 percent, but it was 7.6 percent when Bush left office and already well on its climb to where we sit today. I have to confess that when I saw the protesters Wednesday evening, I wondered to myself how many of them come from wealthy homes from which Mommy and Daddy dispense checks for more than $40,000 annually so that they can enjoy college life at a top-notch school. I also wondered how many of them had heard their parents griping that Obama wants to tax them into the poorhouse. Young people are very impressionable. But at the same time, this group apparently was paying no attention during the previous eight years when "W" took a strong economy and ran it right into the ground, in part thanks to his "war of choice" in Iraq. No one could fix in 10 short months the economic devastation that Obama faced on the day he took office. He deserves more time to see if his policies can help to lift us from our current mess. If he fails, those protesters at W&J will have plenty of company in voting Obama out of office in 2012. Bottom line, I'm glad that the young demonstrators were taking an interest in our government and exercising their freedom of speech, but it's a shame that they seem to be taking their marching orders from Fox News.

What does it mean? Not much

If there are signs today that the problem of global warming has increased, the main culprit was most likely all the hot air spewed into the atmosphere by the so-called experts (there were at least eight of them on CNN at the same time) trying to analyze what happened in Tuesday’s off-year election. And the answer, after all the pontificating is, really, not very much. Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele declared that the victories by GOP candidates in gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey proved the Republicans are "a transcendent party" with a future so bright they’re gotta wear shades. Leading Democrats say those same results were in no way a reflection of overall dissatisfaction with their party or its leader, President Barack Obama. The truth, as the old saying goes, is somewhere in the middle. There was really little doubt that Virginia would choose the Republican gubernatorial candidate, and there were few people in New Jersey less popular than incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine. But at the same time, it would be foolish to say that the results bear no connection to dissatisfaction with Obama, even if that dissatisfaction comes mainly in the form of angry Republicans who are now energized to get revenge. For the Democrats, it's a valuable wake-up call before next year's really important midterm elections. If they want to maintain their advantages in the House and Senate, they're going to have to work very hard to motivate voters – especially young people and minorities – who turned out in droves to elect Obama but stayed home in droves on Tuesday. You can try to pick apart Tuesday's races to conjure up trends, but none really exist. In very large part, next year's elections will hinge on one factor: the state of the economy. If people have more money in their pockets, if jobs are being created and if people feel optimistic about their futures, that bodes well for the Democrats. If the economic recovery stalls out, Republicans could make major strides toward proving that reports of their demise were greatly exaggerated.

A few other thoughts:

– The special congressional election in upstate New York, which filled a vacancy in a seat held by Republicans since sometime close to the Bronze Age, didn't go quite like far-right conservatives such as Sarah Palin had in mind. The right-wingers forced the Republican candidate from the race because she wasn't "right" enough, leaving an ultra-conservative to take on the Democratic nominee. The Democrat won, but again, don't read too much into that. There's an election for a full term representing that district next year, and there's a good chance the Republicans will reclaim it.

– It personally saddens me that voters in Maine chose to overturn that state's law allowing gay marriage, but a struggle such as this, for the hearts and minds of a people, isn't won in short order. Thirty years ago, a proposal to allow gay marriage probably would have been defeated by a 90 percent to 10 percent margin. Today, the votes are much closer, and eventually gay marriage will be the law of the land. The good news, from my vantage point, is that voters in Washington state appear poised (votes are still being counted) to expand the state's domestic-partnership law to give gay couples all the rights of heterosexuals. It would mark the first time a gay-rights measure had won statewide approval in this country. It's far from a major victory, but it's a small step.

– While switching over to watch the 10 p.m. local news last night, I happened to catch the last few minutes of the new "Melrose Place" on the CW network. If you are a fan of terrible, over-the-top acting, I urge you to tune in sometime. It was cringe-worthy.

– Is it just me, or is political commentator James Carville, above left, looking more and more like Skeletor from Masters of the Universe?

An incredibly bad memory

Republicans, and some Democrats, correctly took President Clinton to task for his prevarications and equivocations during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. I wonder how many from the GOP will be bashing former Vice President Dick Cheney, who it turns out was very Alberto Gonzalez-esque in an FBI interview amid the investigation of the Valerie Plame affair. Plame, as you might recall, was allegedly outed as a CIA agent by the White House after her husband, an American envoy, accused the Bush administration of manipulating evidence to support its push for a war against Iraq. During the probe, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said there was a "cloud over the vice president.” And late last week, the FBI provided some support for that statement by revealing the summary of Cheney’s answers during a May 2004 interview. During that questioning, Cheney relied on the old "I can't recall” approach on 72 occasions. That’s six dozen times. Most notably, Cheney was asked whether he might have revealed the CIA status of Plame, whose married name was Wilson, to his chief of staff, Scooter Libby, who ultimately was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the feds. According to the FBI interview summary, "It is possible Libby may have learned about Valerie Wilson’s employment from the vice president ... but the vice president has no specific recollection of such a conversation." Now, if they asked Cheney what he had for lunch on the Tuesday six weeks earlier, I wouldn't blame him for issuing an "I can’t recall.” But when it comes to a central issue in the outing of a CIA operative, I'm a bit skeptical of Cheney's answer. It's a shame they couldn't have hooked him up to a lie detector when they conducted the interview. I'm guessing the machine would have gone through a lot of ink.

Free speech comes first

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has, in my opinion, correctly overturned a Pittsburgh ordinance that all but prevented anti-abortion protesters from providing leaflets or other information to people entering abortion clinics. Pittsburgh enacted a measure that banned protesters from coming within 15 feet of clinic entrances while also requiring them to stay at least eight feet away from clinic clients within a 100-foot zone around the entrances. Basically, it all but barred the protesters from exercising their free-speech rights. I'm pro-choice on abortion, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with abortion opponents expressing their views to the contrary. If they go beyond leafletting, holding signs and trying to talk to clinic clients, then we have a problem. In other words, those protesters cannot block entrances, physically accost clinic clients or otherwise impede people from having legal abortions. But when they do those things, they're already breaking existing laws that can be enforced by authorities. They can, and should, be arrested and sentenced accordingly. But they should not be punished for, or prevented from, speaking their minds.

Judge not, if you’re going to be this stupid

I generally don’t comment or try to pass judgment on what appears on the editorial pages of other newspapers. They buy the ink and paper; they can say what they want. But an editorial in Sunday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette contained an idiotic editorial endorsing Republican Joan Orie Melvin of Pittsburgh, shown at left, for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court over Democratic candidate Jack Panella of Easton. The editorial spent seven or eight paragraphs outlining the backgrounds of the two well-qualified candidates. Then the paper got to the crux of the matter: announcing who it was endorsing, and why. The endorsement went to Melvin. Why? I kid you not, the two reasons cited by the paper for picking a candidate for the Supreme Court were: 1. Because she lives around here, and, 2. Because she's a woman. Really. I'm not making this up. The editorial said that “all things being equal, we tend to favor a candidate from the west over one from the east.” Does a Supreme Court justice’s zip code really matter in terms of the decisions they make on the court? And all things are NOT equal. There are always substantive differences between the candidates, and it's the newspaper’s job to determine what those are and to suggest which candidate would best serve ALL the people of Pennsylvania. The other reason was even more ridiculous. Because a female justice is stepping down, the P-G believes she should be replaced by another woman. So, what we can take from this is that the Post-Gazette believes Melvin is the better choice for the Supreme Court not because she would do a better job than Panella, but because she has the preferred reproductive organs. It's ludicrous. I'm not in any way suggesting that Melvin is or is not the better choice for the high court. But surely there's a better way to make that determination.

A turn for the better?

A few weeks after town hall shrieking was all the rage, it appears that public opinion might be shifting back in favor of health-care reform. A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds that opposition to the president’s effort has dropped, with the public now split evenly, with 40 percent in favor and 40 percent against the plans now being debated in Congress. Twenty percent of those polled apparently were too stupid or uninformed to know what they think. Significantly, outright opposition from independents, a group that likely will play a key role in deciding which party will control Congress after next year’s midterm elections, declined from 51 percent to 36 percent. Also, senior citizens are now less likely to oppose reform plans. Republicans, of course, are decidedly in favor of the status quo. My opinion is that unless there is a public option, reform is little more than window dressing, and if I had to bet a large of sum of money right now, my guess is that the watered-down mess that eventually emerges from Congress will have little impact on the health-care problems facing the country, namely cost and access.

A fool and his money are soon parted

As a story on Yahoo! News said today, anyone who think the "birthers" are going to quietly fade away is sorely mistaken. Now there's a new group pushing the idea that President Obama was not born in the United States and is, thus, illegally occupying the White House. The Yahoo! story says a Christian Web site called LivePrayer.com has produced an infomercial that will be trotted out in seven Southern states (of course) asking for $30 donations that will entitle the givers to have a fax with their name on it sent to the U.S. attorney general and all of his counterparts on the state level demanding an investigation of Obama's origins. Oh, they also get a "Got a Birth Certificate?" bumper sticker. Sweet. The LivePrayer.com outfit is led by a guy named Bill Keller, a born-again Christian who was once found guilty of insider trading on Wall Street. Who better to send your money to? Keller is working hand in hand with a lawyer named Gary Kreep (really) to distribute the infomercial, entitled "Where Was Obama Born." You can check out the lowlights here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_jZdkCFAUw In the infomercial, Mr. Kreep cites an unnamed expert who has written a 186-page dissertation on why Obama's certificate of live birth is a fake, and although it's neither here nor there, Keller, the guy who looks like a deranged Harpo Marx, appears to be wearing white socks with his suit. I'm just sayin'. They also make sure to call the president Barack HUSSEIN Obama. Of course. The birthers, as a group, are the dumbest of the dumb, but the really mentally deficient pinheads are the people who will send money to these sad-sack losers. But it appears they have a built-in market. The Yahoo! report cites a recent Public Policy Polling survey that found 42 percent of Republicans believe the president was born outside this country. Congratulations, GOP. You're now officially the party of the terminally and deliberately stupid. Let's be clear here. Obama has provided the aforementioned certificate of live birth that shows he was born in Hawaii. The state of Hawaii has certified that, yes, Obama was born in that state. Newspapers in Hawaii, at the time of Obama's birth, carried announcements of that birth, stating that it occurred IN HAWAII. At that time, who would have had any reason to lie about something like that? If Obama held a news conference tomorrow and handed the president of Fox News the precise documentation that the birthers are demanding, they'd just claim it was a forgery (note the 186-page dissertation cited above). But for those who are convinced that the president is a "furriner," please do get your "Got a Birth Certificate?" bumper sticker and slap it on your vehicles, because those of us who don't struggle to keep our own spit in our mouths would probably benefit by knowing when we're in the presence of mouth-breathing, cousin-humping droolers who still believe this junk.

Government waste alert!

I ran into something today that should have the teabagging crowd howling, but I'm guessing we won't hear a peep. Since they're all about railing against the wasting of tax money, I'd like to rally them to the cause of stopping the feds from spending $50 million a year on something that would produce the same return as flushing that money down a toilet. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah (no surprise there) is the sponsor of a bill that just cleared the Senate Finance Committee on a 12-11 vote. The measure would give $50 million annually to support abstinence-only sex education. Hatch says that approach works. Facts suggest otherwise. A study ordered by Congress two years ago showed that students who were in abstinence-only classes were just as likely to have sex as those who didn't. There also was a study showing that many of the kids who take those pledges to remain virgins until after marriage are perhaps technically accomplishing that by delving into oral and anal sex. So it would appear that Sen. Hatch is in favor of America's God-fearing kids going off the sexual "main menu" and, since good kids don't use condoms, subjecting themselves to all kinds of nasty diseases. At the same time, just as many of them will be having regular sex as kids who don't get the "just say no" instruction. And, of course, he wants to spend $50 million a year to accomplish this. Does that sound like good government?

You can take your revitalization and ...

It seems that a good number of Mt. Pleasant Township residents aren't taking too kindly to a proposed "revitalization” of Hickory’s main drag, and who can blame them? Someone got the bright idea to pursue a Main Street project in Hickory, and township supervisors held a meeting to discuss the proposal Wednesday night. About 20 residents turned up to tell supervisors they don't want it. They cite concerns about safety and are worried about the effect on their homes if planned 5-foot-wide sidewalks are installed along a section of Main Street that includes just a few more than two dozen properties. One concern is that the proposed creation of eight on-street parking spaces would cause a visibility hazard along that stretch of Route 50. According to an O-R report, the residents heard from Mark Paluso, executive director of Town Center Associates, who outlined the plan to "establish a vital village center for the community." That plan includes – and I kid you not – the aforementioned 5-foot-wide brick sidewalks, floral gardens, old-fashioned light posts, trees and "a life-sized bronze sculpture of a farmer, honoring the area's agricultural roots." Are you kidding me? Paluso, who by his remarks quoted in the O-R story sounded almost shocked that anyone would oppose his plan, said it would be unwise to do away with the on-street parking spots, unless a clear hazard is proven. "The attempt is to create a mixed-use village center,” he said. "That's where you get life, vibrancy and continuity. You are dramatically hurting your ability to make a village center." Did he ever think that maybe most of the folks who live in that area aren't interested in what he's selling? Hickory is a farm town, and I could be wrong, but I'm going to venture a guess that Paluso is a "city fella." If he's not, he sure has lost touch with his roots. I'm not sure how much money – and you can bet that at some level, it'll be the people's tax dollars – is supposed to be spent on this plan, but do they really think people are suddenly going to be flocking to Hickory, and for what purpose? The proponents of this project should look to Washington, where $15 million was spent on such things as new sidewalks, planters and trash cans. Has anyone seen the fruits of this investment? All I've seen are the same dead downtown and some fancy streetlights that don't work. Mt. Pleasant Township (that's one of its "residents” shown in the above photo; he's "on the fence" about the project) has been around since 1788. It seems to be doing just fine without a "revitalization." Perhaps Town Center Associates should peddle its wares elsewhere. I hear Taylorstown and Sparta don't yet have "vital village centers."

"Jackass of the Month" race too close to call

It seems some ABC news employees who were listening in on a conversation between President Obama and CNBC’s John Harwood before the start of an interview tweeted that Obama had some unkind words for Kanye West. For those who missed it, West mounted the stage at last weekend’s MTV Video Music Awards and commandeered the microphone from pop-country teen star Taylor Swift, who had just won the award for “Best Female Video.” West proclaimed to the crowd that Beyonce Knowles, not Swift, should have won the award. Well, it appears the president has the same opinion of West as most other people. On the audio feed that was listened in on by the ABC folks, Obama is asked why West would do what he did. Replied the president, “He’s a jackass.” Couldn’t have put it better myself. There’s been some debate about whether Obama’s remarks should have been reported, or shared on Twitter. But it’s really a tempest in a teapot. The real issue is the growing number of jackasses we encounter in our daily lives. Never in American history have people been as rude as they are today. Other recent examples are good old Joe Wilson and Serena Williams, who let loose with a threatening, F-bomb-laden tirade against a line judge a few days ago at the U.S. Open. Wilson and Williams have not been serial offenders, but it’s not the first time that West has climbed on an awards show stage to make his displeasure known. And has anybody else noticed that Kanye only complains when it’s a white person winning an award? Bill Maher said recently that we’re becoming a nation of stupid people (It’s getting harder and harder to dispute that.). It seems we’re also becoming a nation of really rude, angry people. Not a good combination.

What a boob

Because my parents and my youngest brother live in South Carolina, I try to believe that it's not a state filled with crackpots and buffoons, despite behavior to the contrary by public officials down there. Gov. Mark Sanford has been under the hottest spotlight of late, what with his gallivanting around with a mistress while his aides claimed he was on a hiking trip. He must have been somewhat relieved when, during President Obama's health-care speech last night, Republican Rep. Joe Wilson wrested away his title as biggest idiot from the Palmetto State. If you haven't heard, when Obama was noting that health-care reform would not lead to spending of public money on care for illegal immigrants, Wilson shouted out, "You lie!" Politicans on both sides of the aisle condemned Wilson for his embarrassing action, and Wilson later called the White House to apologize. But in an atmosphere in which a recent candidate for vice president can lie about "death panels” and talk radio-fueled imbeciles try to shout down a handicapped woman at a town hall meeting, is it any surprise that public discourse has come to this? Oh, by the way, Wilson (no surprise here) didn't know what he was talking about. There's no move afoot to use public funds to finance health care for illegal immigrants. In fact, current legislation in the House would expressly prohibit it. And Wilson’s intemperate behavior might come back to haunt him at the ballot box. His Democratic opponent in next year's election raised $200,000 following the outburst.