Disaster Alert--Obama is on Vacation

No sooner does President Obama start for the doors and the Beltway has a 3.6 earthquake. Summer and Obama vacations almost always spell disaster. Remember last August and the tea party eruptions? Just have to keep your fingers crossed. Of course, the GOP has blasted the First Family for leaving town since there is a crisis with the BP oil spill in the Gulf. And even more damaging are the Drudge reports that Obama has played Golf ten times, while Rome burns.

But even Politico finally fessed up that Tan Man Boehner has played Golf 199 times just this year. I guess now we know why he's tan. Democrats are seizing on this to mount a billboard in his district highlighting this fact. Can you imagine the legislative schedule if the Republicans actually won back the House? The champion vacation taker is George W. Bush, who spent three whole years of his eight years in office either at his ranch or at Camp David.

The Tan Man was in fine form this past week after Wall Street Reform finally passed--with all of 3 Republican votes. Conferring with K Street lobbyists, Boehner emerged to a press conference to advocate a one-year mortatorium on all federal regulations. Can you imagine how paralyzed the government would be?Mitch McConnell is saying that Republicans really shouldn't spell out their agenda because as Republican Congressman King from New York proclaimed the media would just pick it apart. Republicans held a video conference to gather ideas from regular people--the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Home Builders of America--just folks. Mark Pence of Indiana appeared on Fox to defend Senator Kyle's statement that we must renew the tax cuts for the rich and that extended unemployment benefits were too costly. Pence used the old canned conservative argument that tax cuts for the rich generated more government revenues. Unfortunately, for him, the record has now been documented by OMB and other institutions that they massively increased the national debt. It was alright to advocate them with pie-in-the-sky projections when no one knew but now the verdict is in.

The Republicans are handing Democrats issues if they know what to do with them. An MSNBC poll of the public revealed that in every sector of the economy Americans overwhelmingly wanted more, not less regulation. As for the great social security cutters, Time magazine asked," If Congress and the President had to reduce spending, in which areas would you want tthem to cut?" 55%--wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 46%--other defense spending. 34%--unemployment compensation. 20%--Medicaid. 17%--education. 16%-Medicare. 12%--Social Security. Any bets whether the military/terrorist complex is included in the Cat Food Commission findings this December?

Apparently, Americans have not gone crazy despite the 24/7 right-wing echo chamber. Even more surprising is that Texas really hasn't gone nuts either. The Texas Freedom Network Education Fund released its survey conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. The survey wanted to gauge public opinion on the intersection of politics and religion with the public schools. Coming after the Texas School Board's total revision of American history, this only seems appropriate. Are people in Texas so crazyas to agree to purge Thomas Jefferson from history and substitute John Calvin? Well, I guess not.

72% of likely Texas voters want teachers and scholars, not politicians to be responsible for writing curriculum requirements for public schools.
84% of Democrats, 63% of Republicans and 76% of Independents through all major urban areas want experts in charge of writing curriculum standards.
68% said that the separation of church and state is a key constitutional principle but 49% said that religions should have some influence in public schools.

But this finding doesn't mean that Texans want to sign on to the religious culture wars.
80% of likely Texas voters agree that high school classes on sex education should teach about" contraceptions,such as condoms and other birth control, along with abstinence."
88% think public schools should be required "to protect all children from bullying, harassment and discrimination in school, including the children of gay and lesbian parents or teenagers who are gay".
55% of likely Texas voters oppose using publicly funded vouchers that allow some students to attend private and religious schools.

As I've previously noted, something seems to be happening in the Texas governor race. Democrat Bill White has outraised GOP's Rick Perry and with Linda Chavez-Thompson as his Lt.Gov he has a good chance to swing the Latino vote. Locals polls show post the Arizona Immigration Law that Latinos has shifted dramatically to White.

Meg Whitman has tried to become Latino friendly in her race against Jerry Brown, even though her primary campaign ran ads for more restrictive immigration laws. But you wonder why someone would spend $100 million of her own money and counting to win any office. Meg has a keen sense of business. Her core campaign idea is to eliminate the California Income Tax. Pretty nifty. So she recoups her campiagn expenditures if she wins by eliminating the tax of her income. This is populism at work.

Meanwhile in Arizona, our experiment in ethnic cleansing continues. It seems Arizonans are not dying at a high rate, it's the illegals coming across the border. Death rates are reaching historical proportions. But the great news is that militiamen led by a real neo-Nazi are patrolling the border. The federal government claims they haven't broken any laws---yet.

The NAACP passed a rather tame resolution calling on the Tea Party gang to denounce those in their ranks who are racist. Naturally, they were attacked as racist by Sarah Palin and the tea party spokespeople. Those Obama as Hitler signs were plants from the "Crash the Tea Party" group, who are also alleged to be responsible for the group's bad spelling. However, Mark Williams on the Tea Party Express was demoted for posting a racist parody of blacks rejecting the Emancipation Proclamation on the group's website. This was on the day he appeared on Fox to call the NAACP racist.

the Tea Party Folks who posted a billboard in the small Iowa town that served as River City in the Music Man have pulled it down for fear of reprisals. It likened President Obama to Hitler and Lenin.

The anti-gay marriage group, NOM has started their summer tour of the states to rev up support for marriage. In Maine they drew 50 people, in Massachusetts another 50 and in Albany, New York a record 100. It's not going so well.

The great New Panther Party Voter intimidation pseudo-scandal, which has received round the clock coverage by Fox, was dealt a blow. The U.S. Civil Rights Commission, which is now rigged with conservatives, wants to study the "case" with an aim at attacking the Department of Justice. The case has one major flaw. There is no one claiming they were intimidated by the New Black Panthers at the polls. In fact, DOJ did prosecute one New Black Panther but on other grounds. Well, Abigail Thernstrom, a Bush appointee to the Commission, slammed her fellow conservatives as trying to use this case to "topple Eric Holder and President Obama if possible." She went on to say there was no merit to the accusations at all. The idea is to run this as the Willie Horton ad for 2012.

What's amusing in all this is that the man allowing this to become a Fox News special feature is Roger Ailes. Only this week Glenn Beck called Roger Ailes a "hero of the civil rights movement". The sublime reason for this is that Roger Ailes booked Martin Luther King, jr. on the old Mike Douglas show. Other than that Ailes was a prominent figure in devising Richard Nixon's southern strategy, which oozed racism.

Speaking of Glenn Beck, who is morphing more frequently than John McCain, the great showman said that Jesus Christ conquered death and did not return with his resurrection to seek revenge on the Jews who killed him. Spoken like a real Mormon. Beck's theology doesn't come from Mel Gibson's pre-Vatican II Catholicism but an old strain of American evangelical thought that Jesus is really of the Nordic race. There was a school of thought still lingering on the mudflats that Jesus simply couldn't be Jewish and, according to American racial theories, he exhibited characteristics of the Nordic race. This reached it's high-tide in the early 1930s. It is embarrassing that a leader of the American evangelical movement Rev. Buchen embraced Hitler and advocated the world be run by global fascism. Beck's own Mormonism was actually encouraged in Hitler's Germany, when Jews were being exterminated and the Christian churches were shut down or silenced.

I have to channel some of this insanity. Since this stuff is so repulsive, I'm switching to our Chamber of Commerce, which despite its claims of representing small business advocates the policy positions of our top 19 corporations. Progressives immediately took the bait about the Chamber's new call to cut social security spending and no regulations. But they missed the visionary aspects of the new platform. The Chamber has publically called for the privatization of our highways , waterways and opening public lands to more timber cutting. This comes at a time when free-market Hong Kong has just adopted its first minimum wage bill. The Chamber has gone back to the late 19th century for its motivation.

I am reviving my paper organization--The Newark Whaling,Sealing and Holding Company. This company estabished in 1833 at the height of our dependence on whale oil had one ship and managed in its short history to capture one whale off the coast of Valapraiso, Chile. it wasgiven the whaling rights off the New Jersey coast but it's ship sank and the original company was financially ruined. I've decided to revive it again to launch a new career in the privatizing of our waterways. I first thought I would aim at the Los Angeles River, now paved with concrete, but instead decided to privatize the Delaware River in keeping with the company's state of origin. With a Republican governor in New Jersey and a likely one in Pennsylvania this year , the political climate in these two states lends itself to privatizing the river border between the two states. And in keeping with the Tea Party spirit, I will stand on the bow of a rowboat and wade ashore in Trenton in honor of George Washington. Hopefully, I can receive a government loan to finance this endeavor.

If that doesn't work, I seek political asylum with the Six Nations in upstate New York. The Haudenosaunee lacrosse team was denied entrance into the UK for a lacrosse tournament because they were travelling on Iroquois Nation passports. Hillary Clinton had to intervene to OK them leaving the states on the passports but British authorities denied them admission because after all they actually invented lacrosse. Also, they invented federalism and had a great influence on Benjamin Franklin and his attitudes on federalism. And also, they built the Brooklyn Bridge. But no dice. They couldn't play but they looked great in their jerseys and long hair. They shouldn't feel bad. Lacrosse great Oren Lyons, one of their spiritual leaders and advocate for Indian rights, was deprived for decades a place in our own Lacrosse Hall of Fame, which had been exclusively for white players. Finally, they had to let him in because they were ashamed that the Hall would not include one of the greatest players of all time and someone from the people who invented the sport.

Zbig says that we are all suffering from an Obama malaise--and he should know about malaises since the Carter days. Bloomberg's poll reports that Obama is crashing wildly--at 52% approval rate; Gallup has been the same for about six months; and other polls show a 9 month plateau.
Charles Krauthammer warns conservatives they are seriously underestimating Obama. Charles, I thought you said he was the next Carter.

Anyway, Mr. Godwin will be sworn in to replace Harry Byrd on Tuesday and an hour later Harry Reid plans to call another vote on extending unemployment insurance. And we will see. Elena Kagan , Gallup tells us, has the lowest approval rate of someone about to be approved since they have been polling this odd question. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions claims that he may filibuster. This would then put Elena Kagan in the elite company with Abe Fortas, the only other Supreme Court nominee every filibustered, in the history of the United States. I doubt whether it will happen.

But that's the type of thing that happens when Obama goes on vacation. Phew, I noticed his plan has left Bar Harbor. Maybe we have averted a national disaster.