Fox News: "Breaking News! Breaking News!"

The always reliable, fair and truly balanced Steve Benen has the scoop:

Fox News' Trace Gallagher interviewed Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) on "cash for clunkers" yesterday, and apparently she was doing a little too good a job responding to Republican talking points. He quickly ended the segment, saying he a "breaking news" story he had to report. The big story? "Shark Week" on the Discovery Channel.

Daily Kos TV has the video:

It makes you wonder... How can anyone working for Fox TV News look themselves in the mirror without retching?

Bienvenidos, El Niño!

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

NOAA now expects a near- to below-normal Atlantic hurricane season, as the calming effects of El Niño continue to develop.
* * *
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service, now predicts a 50 percent probability of a near-normal season, a 40 percent probability of a below-normal season, and a 10 percent probability of an above-normal season. Forecasters say there is a 70 percent chance of seven to 11 named storms, of which three to six could become hurricanes, including one to two major hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5).

The main change from the May outlook is an increased probability of a below-normal season, and an expectation of fewer named storms and hurricanes. The May outlook called for nine to 14 named storms, of which four to seven could become hurricanes, including one to three major hurricanes. During an average season, there are 11 named storms with winds of at least 39 mph, of which six become hurricanes with winds of 74 mph or greater and two of those become major hurricanes with winds of 111 mph or higher.

In another weather forecasting news, we are predicting the Philadelphia Phillies will suvive the weather to win the 2008 World Series, the Mars Climate Orbiter will fail in 1998, and a great big black cloud will engulf the Midwest on April 14, 1935.

Rachel Maddow Rocks

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Stimulus for the Florida Panhandle

Pro Publica is publishing "Recovery Tracker," containing detailed data, state-by-state and county-by-county, showing to whom, for what, and in what sums the Obama administration's economic stimulus money has been allocated. At a glance, it looks like Florida is getting far more than its share, and the Northwest Panhandle is doing even better than that.

To be sure, Escambia County is poorer than your average Florida county. (See averages listed in the image, above). Apart from Perdido Key, Pensacola Beach, and various other pockets of wealthy neighborhoods scattered throughout the county, Escambia has a relatively high poverty rate and a very bad unemployment rate.

Click the image above to read a screen shot of the overall numbers for Escambia County. To see a detailed breakdown for each county --

Click here for Escambia County

Click here for Santa Rosa County

It needs to be emphasized that the data is only a small portion of the overall stimulus package, and it is incomplete. As Michael Grabell and Jennifer la Fleur explain:

ProPublica combined all the data on the federal stimulus Web site, Recovery.gov, with reports from other government sources into a list totaling $120 billion worth of stimulus spending. Of that, ProPublica examined $55 billion that could be traced to the county level.

Getting a complete accounting of the stimulus is nearly impossible because some of its largest elements -- tax cuts for individuals, increases in Medicaid and unemployment -- aren't being tracked to the local level or have yet to be distributed by the states.

Since Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties also have a lot of older, poorer retirees who draw Medicaid, it's a good guess we're doing even better than these preliminary numbers would suggest.

Pro Publica is griping that based on available data it looks like some poorer counties aren't getting as much as most richer counties. But this is a cheap shot, and misleading to boot. The example Pro Publica uses -- LaGrange County, Indiana and Trigg County, Kentucky -- shows just how deceptive it is.

The first thing to be said is that no one ever claimed the economic stimulus package was an anti-poverty program. It isn't. It's an economic stimulus program, designed to rescue the economy and jobs. What sort of places are central to the U.S. economy and jobs? Cities with people and towns with employers. What sort of places are not so central? Vast unpopulated areas with lots of trees and cows or polar bears.

The second thing is that statistical comparisons of small population samples can be very misleading. Pro Publico surely knows this, yet they hardly mention it when speaking of the two low-population counties they cherry-picked for an example.

LaGrange County, Indiana has a total population of 37,172. It's receiving about $30 per person in stimulus money. By contrast, Trigg County, Kentucky, has only 13,418 people. Pro Publica's partial data show it is receiving $2,419 per capita. Both counties have an unemployment rate standing at about 15.8 percent, yet they are getting widely different averages of stimulus money on a per capita basis.

For another example, Pro Publica could have looked at Yukatat County, Alaska. Total population: 657. Total stimulus grants: $137,685. Average per capita: $210 per person!

Of course tiny-populations will get more per capita, on average, than larger populations. There isn't much you can do to stimulate a predominantly rural, very thinly-populated county if you merely give them the same per capita share allocated to cities and towns. What can be done in Yukatat County, Alaska, with, say for example, $30 for every man, woman, and child? Give everyone an extra pair of mittens?

As even Pro publica admits, "Overall, the counties faring the best in the stimulus program are sparse communities with a giant road project." There are two reasons for that, of course, and it has to do with small population statistical theory and the relatively fixed price of construction goods like cement and steel girders.

There is, however, one thing for sure: the Obama administration is not playing politics with the stimulus money. The particular Indiana county that Pro Publica cherry-picked, and which it implies got short-changed on a per capita basis, voted for Barack Obama over John McCain in 2008 by a margin of 51.6 percent to 49.4 percent. By contrast, Trigg County, Kentucky, is receiving a whopping $2,419 per resident. It went overwhelmingly for McCain, 64.2% to 34.4%.

Here in Northwest Florida, with almost the same unemployment rates (15.4%) as the two out-of-state counties mentioned by Pro Publica, Escambia County is getting an average of about $104 per person and smaller-population Santa Rosa County about $158 per person.

Needless to say, this red-painted buckle on the Bible Belt of America mostly voted overwelmingly for McCain in 2008. The percentages were 59.02% to 39.76% for McCain (Escambia) and 51% to 49% for Obama (Santa Rosa County - excluding minor candidates).

There appears to be no partisan pattern to the distribution of stimulus money. That is as it should be, of course. But you can bet it wouldn't have been the way a Republican administration would have done it.

If McCain/Palin had won, all the stimulus money would have gone to Halliburton Corp.

Condescending to Constituents

You're probably wondering, "Hey! What's been goin' on lately in the world's greatest deliberative body?" Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the G.O.P's chief opponent of health care reform, is here to show you.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Chuck Grassley's Debt and Deficit Dragon
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

The One and Only Faith

It's good to see readers of this blog feeling free to leave comments about alleged public servant, and supposed educator, Frank Lay. Mr. Lay stands accused of criminal contempt of a federal court by using his position as principal of a public high school in Pace, Florida, to order a subordinate athletic director to deliver a prayer at a school event, when he assuredly knew it would violate a federal judge's order.

It's also good to see that one or two of yesterday's comments were slightly above the lizard-brain level so common at a certain daily Pensacola newspaper we could name. That doesn't make them any more coherent or convincing. But it does qualify them as reasonably civil expressions in an important public policy discourse.

For that much, we salute you. You know who you are. Heck, that's more than anyone can say for the Republican thugs and swastika-waving insurance industry lackeys who've been deliberately disrupting health care reform town meetings in congressional districts across the country.

The careful reader should realize by now that the criminal contempt charges against Mr. Lay and his athletic director, Robert Freeman, were not sought or filed against the defendants by the American Civil Liberties Union. Indeed, according to a news item in this week's issue of the Santa Rosa Gazette, the A.C.L.U. was asked to amend its complaint to add a criminal charge and declined to do so.

The criminal contempt charges were filed by a federal judge on her own motion under the authority of a federal statute that makes it a crime for any person to act in "Disobedience or resistance to its lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command" of a federal court.

The issue no longer is one of school prayer. That matter was decided by Santa Rosa County's school district many months ago, when the school board -- wisely, in our opinion -- agreed to prohibit religious demonstrations, prayers, and the like in its public schools and at school events by its publicly-paid educational employees.

No, the criminal contempt issue which Lay is now facing is much more basic than that. Quite simply, it comes down to a question of respect for the law and the courts. Are we to remain a nation of laws? Or, as once was the case in medieval Europe, are some among us so privileged by their particular brand of religious beliefs that they are free to ignore the orders of any judge who announces a legal ruling -- or even merely approves a mutual settlement by all the parties, as happened in this case.

Rational people will see that the law granting a judge the power to bring criminal contempt charges is reasonable and necessary. Indeed, it lies at the very foundation of our constitutional democracy. If everyone were free to ignore or disobey a federal court order just because they disagreed with it, or found it inconvenient, we'd be up to our eyebrows in Dino-land Bible Parks.

One of the commentators asked a question. He probably meant it to be read aloud as an angry rhetorical question, complete with flecks of spittle spraying all over the computer monitor, but we'll pretend he's really interested in knowing the answer.

"How in the name of God," he writes, "does the supreme court or anyone else who can read intrepret [sic] a high school principal saying grace before a meal as being 'congress making a law.' The "supremes" have it wrong, just as they have many other decisions wrong."

There are two conventional ways to answer the question. One is to point out, as we just did, that it's irrelevant whether or not the judge acted properly when she approved the Santa Rosa School Board's voluntary agreement to an order forbidding religious proselytizing at school events. Mr. Lay and his confederate had no more legal right to disregard that court order than a sailor has to disregard the order of a Navy officer just because he may think the officer is mistaken or believes him to be a fool.

The other conventional answer is one which the national American Civil Liberties Union fairly and succinctly articulates on its public information web site. Read the whole thing if you really want a good answer. Here, we'll do the A.C.L.U. a minor disservice and rework the organization's main points to emphasize the historical explanation our commenter impliedly wants:

Free Exercise Clause

The "free exercise clause" of the First Amendment guarantees the individual the right to express and manifest one's religious (or non-religious) beliefs in private or public. That right is "fundamental and should not be subject to political process and majority votes. "

Mr. Lay, our commentators, churchly people of every imaginable denomination, Muslims, Hindus, Rastafarians, and even common frauds who think Adam and Eve rode herd over dinosaurs -- they all have that right. So, too, do those who are persuaded that all religions are bogus; or as the father of our Constitution, James Madison, once said, that religion is mere "bondage" that "shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."

Establishment Clause

The "establishment clause," on the other hand, forbids government from "establishing" or promoting any religious belief. By "government" we mean not only some amorphous "Government" in far-off Washington, D.C. or some federal judge so poorly understood that even one of our commentators mistakes her for a male.

"Government" includes all of its leaders, powers, property holdings, activities, and and personnel -- from the highest executive in the land to the lowest wage earner on the government payroll. Essentially, what's included is anyone, any place, and any activity which is largely paid for with public funds and traditionally seen as integral to a governmental function.

So much for a synopsis of the A.C.L.U.'s helpful explanation. Now, to answer the rest of the question -- how did the "Congress shall make no law" language come to apply to a li'l ol' high school principal in Pace, Florida? That requires a little knowledge about our nation's rich history. We assume anyone dependent on Mr. Lay's educational skills must not have learned this yet.

Puritan Times

The reasons our Founding Fathers insisted on the "establishment clause" are deeply rooted in the American experience, stretching back centuries to the very founding of Plymouth Plantation. So, we speak, as we have before, of the first birthplace of the American colony government as well as the place where the "shot heard 'round the world" was fired.

The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony organized their towns as inseparable from their religious "congregation." Taxes were imposed on everyone as tithes. The Congregation's "elect" decided how to spend the money.

That worked out as long as everyone in town was a member of the "elect." But, almost immediately non-Puritans emigrated to America, too. From the outset they objected to paying taxes that supported building and maintenance of Congregational schools and meeting houses; hiring Congregational schoolmasters; teaching from Congregational texts; and running town market places where only Congregational officials could determine who was allowed to sell what and for how much.

Even the right of simple yeomen to let "hogges" run loose in the town was decided each year by majority vote at the town meeting -- at which only members of the "one and true" religion had a vote. Others had no rights at all.

Today "teabaggers" feel oppressed by taxes? Quakers were fined, their property confiscated, and they were hung from a tree on the Boston Common. Methodists were forbidden to have their own school, but were taxed to support the Congregationalist school just the same. Baptists were forbidden to have their own church, but they were required to pay taxes to support the Congregational meeting house and the Congregatiional school. Catholics were banished altogether; and when some slipped in, anyway, they were denied access to all the town's services, including the grammar school.

In the late eighteenth century, about the time of the Articles of Confederation, the Congregationalists themselves began to split into factions. One was still invested in orthodox Calvinism and predestination; the other was liberal and Arminian. Eventually, many of these latter would become Unitarians.

But wouldn't you know it? Whichever faction had the majority of votes at any given annual town meeting exercised its power to hire like-minded schoolmasters. They banned textbooks they considered too friendly to other religions. They even changed the location of the town's "grammar school" from one place to another to suit their fancy -- or their religious faction's preference.

During the process of state ratification of the U.S. Constitution, fear of the federal government "establishing" religion, just as the Puritans once had done so successfully for centuries, was so widespread that Madison, Jefferson, and others had to pledge to the states that they would enact a "Bill of Rights" which would "secure" the rights of individuals, including forbidding the establishment of any religion by the government.

Fourteenth Amendment

It is true that in 1833 the Supreme Court held in the famous case of Barron v. Baltimore that the Fifth Amendment (and, by extension, all of the Bill of Rights) did not apply to the states. State governments thereafter remained legally free to "establish" a religion, suppress speech, and deny equal protection and due process to any class of people they chose. Mostly, the southern states chose to deny those rights to millions of Black people.

A few states, also mostly in the South, chose to deny equal rights to certain religious sects. In Georgia, ministers of the Protestant denomination were by statute forbidden to run for any political office. In South Carolina, state law punished anyone who spoke out or wrote against certain laws supported by state officials. And, of course, throughout the South persons of a darker skin color were denied every personal freedom you can think of except the 'freedom' to be a slave.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. In pertinent part it provides:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. [emphasis added]

In time and in connection with a long line of cases decided by the Supreme Court in its incremental fashion, the language italicized above has come to be understood to incorporate all of the "fundamental liberties" contained in the Bill of Rights -- including the freedom of speech, press, religion, and the establishment clause.

Hence, to the commenter who asked, the answer is this: Thanks not to "God" but to Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and some 600,000 dead in the Civil War, "Congress shall make no law" was effectively transformed by the Fourteenth Amendment into 'No federal, state, or local government shall... abridge... ."

And that's a good thing. Without it, we might still be living under the "one and only truth" of the Puritans, or perhaps some new anti-Puritan sect-of-a-sect-of-a-sect. Then, one day the Pace High School principal, Frank Lay, might have awakened to find that his favorite church congregation had splintered -- they all do, of course, sooner or later. And, he might have been told he hadn't been praying in a way the new government school board found acceptable. So, off with his head!

Faith of Our Founding Fathers

The hard lessons of history have taught us as a people that religious convictions can divide people at least as easily as they may comfort them. The Founding Fathers were keenly aware of that truth, as revealed by the American experience as well as that of Europe and the ancient world.

In a world still run by avowedly religious governments, they embarked the infant United States on a new experiment: a totally religion-free government in a nation where individuals remained free to believe what they wanted. Their near descendants fought a Civil War which concluded with the adoption of three Constitutional amendments that extended that same experiment to all subordinate governments in the various states.

High school principal Mr. Frank Lay is an employee of one of those subordinate governments. Thanks to the Founding Fathers, he enjoys a constitutional right to believe anything he likes, religiously or otherwise. As a public employee paid with public funds, however, he isn't allowed to proselytize while on the job -- no more than the science teachers at Pace High would be allowed to teach students that Adam and Eve ate fresh dinosaur meat, even if his pastor told him it was so.

But principal Lay has known this since the day the Santa Rosa School Board lawsuit was settled and the court entered an order approving the agreement. So, it isn't Mr. Lay's religious freedoms that are being questioned. What is being questioned is whether he and Freeman willfully violated a federal court's order, and thereby attacked the integrity of our legal system.

At the heart of the experiment started by our Founding fathers was faith, to be sure. Faith in government run by law. They decreed that the Constitution would be the "supreme" law of the land, not the whims of a privileged elite -- be that elite a king, or "god's elect," the Puritans, or some high school principal who wants to use his lowly government position to promote his personal religious views.

Article 6 of the Constitution stipulates: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. "

The Constitution is the "one and only" faith we need to preserve.

More Pace High School Religious Instruction
Sept. 18: Late Editorial Update ("Homo Neanderthalensis")
Sept. 17: Lay, Freeman Beat the Rap with the 'I'm Stupid' Defense
Sept. 17: Pictures of a Pep Rally
Aug. 22: Stupid, Not Contemptuous
Aug. 4: Frank Lay's Criminal Contempt Order
May 31: Principal Lay Has a 'Come to Jesus' Moment
May 27: Laying Down the Puritan Law
May 15: Southern Hos-Pee-Tility

Because CNN Won't Air it

We'll air it because CNN won't. And, because we don't need any more ignorant bigots like Lou Dobbs in the corporate media. There are plenty, already, on Fox Cable News, alone:

Frank Lay's Criminal Contempt Order

Here comes da' judge, with an unsealed order in the Pace High School contemptuous prayer case. After you read the excerpts below, give silent thanks, if you like, to the genius of our Founding Fathers and the Constitution.

Here you had a supposedly well educated man, the principal of a Florida high school, who is directly and unambiguously ordered by a federal court judge to refrain from "promoting, endorsing, or causing religious prayers during school-sponsored events" because it's against the law. But, so it would appear from the allegations, the principal's fanaticism and arrogance are so strong - yet, his cowardice so pronounced -- that he deliberately violates that court order by ordering someone else to deliver a prayer in contempt of the court's order.

That's what called 'having the cowardice of one's convictions.'

When the facts come to light in another proceeding, and on her own a judge concludes there is reasonable cause to believe the offending principal acted in criminal contempt of our judicial system, that judge nevertheless is required by the Constitution to extend to him the fundamental fairness of notice of the court's criminal charge of contempt, the right to counsel of his own choosing, and a full and fair opportunity to refute the charge (if he can).

All, much more fair and straight-forward treatment than it seems the principal extended to the court. And the judge was more courageous, too. We might even say, if we were looking for a literary allusion -- say, from the Bible -- that the judge was more "Christian": "He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight." (Psalm 101, King James ver.)

Excerpts, from a 4-page Order of Federal District Court Judge M. Casey Rogers [footnotes and citations omitted]:

On January 9, 2009, this court entered a temporary injunction ... prohibiting the School Board for Santa Rosa County, Florida (“School Board”); Tim Wyrosdick, Superintendent of the School District of Santa Rosa County, Florida (successor in office to John Rogers); H. Frank Lay, the principal of Pace High School; and all of the School Board’s officers and employees, from promoting, endorsing, or causing religious prayers during school-sponsored events.

On May 5, 2009, the plaintiffs in that case filed a motion ... for an order to show cause why the court should not find Michelle Winkler, a nonparty School Board employee, in contempt of court for violating the temporary injunction, based on her conduct of causing her husband to say a prayer at a school-sponsored event. Within the motion, plaintiffs also made specific reference to another possible willful violation of the temporary injunction by Principal Frank Lay, a party to the action, and Athletic Director Robert Freeman, a nonparty School Board employee. The plaintiff’s motion, however, did not seek an order to show cause regarding their conduct. At oral argument on plaintiff’s motion, plaintiff again referenced the conduct of Lay and Freeman.

[T]he court, pursuant to its inherent and statutory contempt power, hereby sua sponte [i.e., on its own motion] initiates criminal contempt proceedings against Lay and Freeman for willfully violating the court’s temporary injunction order.

Criminal contempt proceedings are punitive and serve to vindicate the court’s
authority through the imposition of a criminal sanction against one who has willfully violated a court order. [citations omitted]. While the court’s contempt power should be used sparingly, “[t]his power has been uniformly held to be necessary to the protection of the court from insults and oppression while in the ordinary exercise of its duty, and to enable it to enforce its judgments and orders necessary to the due administration of law and the protection of the rights of citizens.” Id. (internal marks omitted). The court has statutory authority to punish acts in contempt of its orders by fine, imprisonment, or both. [citation omitted]
* * *
The temporary injunction, in relevant part, enjoined the defendants “and their officers, agents, affiliates, subsidiaries, servants, employees, successors, and all other persons or entities in active concert or privity or participation with them” from engaging in the following conduct:

1. Promoting, advancing, aiding, facilitating, endorsing, or causing religious
prayers or devotionals during school-sponsored events;
* * *
4. Permitting school officials to promote their personal religious beliefs and
proselytize students in class or during school-sponsored events and
activities; and
5. Otherwise unconstitutionally endorsing or coercing religion.
* * *
The order required the defendants to provide a copy of it to all Santa Rosa School District officials, staff, faculty, and other employees and agents. On January 28, 2009, after the effective date of the court’s temporary injunction and with knowledge of it, Lay asked Freeman to offer a prayer of blessing during a school-day luncheon for the dedication of a new field house at Pace High School. Freeman complied with the request and offered the prayer at the event. It appears this was a school sponsored event attended by students, faculty, and community members.

Accordingly, it is ORDERED:

1. Frank Lay and Robert Freeman are each required to appear before the court at 9:00 a.m., Central Standard Time, on September 17, 2009, to show cause why they should not be held in criminal contempt of court, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 401(3) and Fed. R. Crim. P. 42(a). The trial will be held in Courtroom 4 North, United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola Division, located at One North Palafox Street, Pensacola, Florida 32502.

2. Frank Lay and Robert Freeman each have the right to the representation of counsel, the presumption of innocence, the privilege against self incrimination, to prepare a defense and to present witnesses, and to proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt before any criminal sanction may be imposed.

More Pace High School Religious Instruction
Sept. 18: Late Editorial Update ("Homo Neanderthalensis")
Sept. 17: Lay, Freeman Beat the Rap with the 'I'm Stupid' Defense
Sept. 17: Pictures of a Pep Rally
Aug. 22: Stupid, Not Contemptuous
Aug. 5: The One and Only Faith
May 31: Principal Lay Has a 'Come to Jesus' Moment
May 27: Laying Down the Puritan Law
May 15: Southern Hos-Pee-Tility

Repo the Republican Clunkers

The cash-for-clunkers program has been such a huge success that it is out of money. Originally scheduled to last four months until November 1, the $ 1 billion stimulus program exhausted all available funds in ten days. If Congress doesn't extend it this week, the program goes belly-up.

Obama's cash-for-clunkers program rescued car manufacturers who just months ago were at bankruptcy's doorstep. Ford Motor Co. just reported its first profitable month in two years. The program also has been putting money in the pockets of car salesmen, many of whom, in our experience, are notorious spenders -- which means they'll be passing that dough onto other businesses, which will in turn spend it on their inventory and employees, etc. etc. etc.

The program is popular with car owners, of course. And, it has removed a quarter of a million old gas-guzzling monsters forever from the highways, replacing them with more fuel efficient passenger vehicles:

"It's the gift that keeps on giving," says George Pipas, a sales analyst at Ford Motor. "We estimate fuel savings at about 3 million barrels of crude (oil) annually, forever. It might not sound like much, but it was accomplished in a week. This could be the biggest shot in the arm for energy conservation ever to come from inside the Beltway."

Only an oil sheik should hate the program. So, why is it that Republican senators want to stop it in its tracks? One Senate GOP leader opposed to extending the program is Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). "We've got to slow this thing down," he said yesterday. John McCain (R-AZ) is even threatening a filibuster!

What is wrong with the Republicans these days? These birds gave away hundreds billions of dollars in tax breaks to the richest top 2 percent of the nation seven years ago. In a single stroke, they handed more than $20 billion in excess profits to drug and pharmaceutical companies in 2004. They spent over $2 trillion on a worse than useless war in Iraq. With all those no-bid contracts, they feathered the nest of Halliburton Corp. with more money than the entire "cash-for-clunkers" would cost, and got little other than fraud and corruption in return. As for the hundreds of billions Bush gave Wall Street banks last year.....

But, put a little stimulus money where it really does some good -- in the hands of middle- and low-income consumers needy enough to spend it right away -- and what's the Republican response? "No!"

It's time to repossess all the Republicans. They're belching smoke. They look terrible. Their ideas are way out of date. And, they just don't work well anymore.

Contempt of Education

We'll refrain, for now, from commenting directly on the new criminal contempt-of-court charges facing Pace, Florida, high school principal Frank Lay and athletic director Robert Freeman. We accomplished our objective the other day, anyway, by waking up the PNJ news assignment editor.

Besides, according to the newspaper's summary, the specifics are under seal. They first have to be served on the defendants.

It's serious business when a federal judge initiates charges of criminal contempt against anyone. Very, very serious. Judges don't do that kind of thing lightly or often. The penalty, if found guilty, rarely is light. The stakes are huge for everyone. For the defendants, their freedom. For the rest of us, nothing less than the rule of law on which our democracy depends.

That same secular law we operate under, let us remember, also extends to Lay and Freeman the legal presumption of innocence. That presumption can only be removed by a final judgment, after a fair trial, of their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; or, by an admission of guilt in hopes of saving themselves from an endless jail sentence, ruinous defense attorney fees, and unemployment.

We would like to point one thing out, however. While Lay and his alleged criminal accomplices have been busy secretly concocting prayers to "Father God/in Jesus' holy and precious name" -- to be read aloud at school events by spouses and surrogates, there are students -- and even Santa Rosa School District employees -- whose manifest need for more education has gone unattended.

Take, for example, Linda S. Novota's Letter of Reprimand to Michelle Winkler. Now, we have no doubt that Ms. Novota is a wonderful person. She's probably over-worked, too, what with all the school employees busily trying to sneak Jesus through the back door into Pace High School.

Even so, it's disappointing to see a "Director of Exceptional Student Education" carelessly mismatching plural nouns with imprecise singular verbs in a document so manifestly important as an employer's reprimand of one of Lay's alleged confederates:


And, that's the real point of all these court proceedings, isn't it? Where certain educators in Santa Rosa County have gone wrong is putting their personal religious preferences ahead of the public school job they are paid to do: namely, educate.

We don't mention this to embarrass Ms. Novota. Indeed, a larger question here might be what is a "Director of Exceptional Student Education" doing, anyway, handing out reprimands that properly should be written by the personnel department?

In any event, if Lay & Co. want to engage in magical thinking and recite aloud purple-prose paeans to make-believe characters, they're free to do so on their own time in any place of their choosing -- except a public space operated by the government for the benefit of all people of all religious, and non-religious, beliefs. While they're engaged in the public school educational jobs they're paid to do, they should do just that -- educate, not proselytize.

To do anything less is contempt of education. And if that isn't a crime, it ought to be.

Blue Dog Tricks

Remember this the next time you find yourself in a voting booth. From WaPo:

A look at career contribution patterns also shows that typical Blue Dogs receive significantly more money -- about 25 percent -- from the health-care and insurance sectors than other Democrats, putting them closer to Republicans in attracting industry support.

Most of the major corporations and trade groups in those sectors are regular contributors to the Blue Dog PAC. They include drugmakers such as Pfizer and Novartis; insurers such as WellPoint and Northwestern Mutual Life; and industry organizations such as America's Health Insurance Plans. The American Medical Association also has been one of the top contributors to individual Blue Dog members over the past 20 years.
* * *
"The Blue Dogs are carrying water for the industry instead of their constituents," said Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager for Health Care for America Now, a liberal pro-reform group. "In effect, the Blue Dogs and the Republicans are taking positions that are closer all the time and further away from what most Americans want."

'That's What I Lack About the South'

It's embarrassing to live in a part of the country with so many dumb, brainless people.

Mural Mania!

A commentator on this blog -- yes, we do have one or two -- sent along some good news about the George Snow Hill mural in Milton. You can read it here.

Soon after the large oil painting was rescued from the Milton fire, we mentioned that we had last seen this terrific WPA mural -- a tremendous example of WPA public art and perhaps George Snow Hill's best work -- "in a setting more appropriate for a feed store than a museum." Well, a few months ago we managed to track it down again.

It had been removed to the floor of an antique shop in Milton. We found it half-hidden behind a nightmarish collection of stuffed bunnies, rubber duckies and hideous candle holders.

All we can say is, thank goodness for bad taste! One never knows... It was always possible that among the hundreds of customers who browse through that antique shop every week, someone might have figured out what they were looking at it and suckered a temp into selling it for a dollar or two.

Click on the photo below to get a full view of the now-former exhibition place for "Pulpwood Logging," George Snow Hill's classic 1941 mural.

Moolah for the Masses

UPDATE BELOW

The Cash for Clunkers economic stimulus program -- just about the only "bailout" program aimed directly at helping the average citizen -- has worked so well it has run out of money in less than ten days. Only $1 billion was allocated by Congress. The program started July 24 and today it's all gone.

Meanwhile, $12.2 trillion dollars have been allocated by the Bush and Obama administrations to Wall Street banks. A hell of a lot of that went into million-dollar bonuses for the wealthy yahoos who put us on the brink of ruin in the first place. The banks spent tens of millions more on lobbyists hired to buy more congressmen so federal regulations won't be toughened to protect consumers. And, still, no one is lending much.

We've been told from the beginning that this is the most severe recession since the Great Depression. As we see it, the main difference in the government's response, then and now, is this: FDR's New Deal program was designed mainly to help the little guy get on his feet. George Bush's program, which Obama has left essentially in place, was aimed at helping the rich get richer.

There is a good side to all of this. When Economics graduate students of the next generation start looking around for a dissertation topic, maybe they can compare the effectiveness of stimulus programs directly aimed at average Americans versus stimulus programs that shovel buckets of money into the pockets of Wall Street bankers and lobbyists.

"Which was more effective in helping the economy?" might be the subtitle, if future economists can write clearly. What do you think the answer will be?

UPDATE
7-31 pm

The good news update: This morning, the Obama administration persuaded one-half of Congress to add $2 billion to the "Cash for Clunkers" program. The House of Representatives vote was 316-109. We'll get you the names of those 109 Wall Street buddies as soon as we can.

The bad news downbeat: In the U.S. Senate, which hasn't acted yet, Democrats are likely to seek a "bipartisan" solution to the surprise exhaustion of stimulus money for average Americans. If they follow the pattern established by health reform legislation, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) will turn the whole thing over to three right-wing Republicans so they can hand it all over directly to the auto insurance industry.

Sanctimonious Stimulus Money

It's good to see the Southern Baptist Convention filing frivolous, tardy motions to horn in on cases which have been already decided. In these tough times, it means more attorney's fee awards for the ACLU. We can't think of a better use for the SBC's collection plate revenues.

The Baptists' motion [pdf warning], among other glaring faults, displays a woeful lack of historiography. As part of the argument in favor of forcing their religious views into the Santa Rosa public school system, they claim "the Bible is undisputedly [sic] the only source for various historical facts, and is probably the sole source for the early history of the Jewish people."

"Probably?" "Only source?" Oh, my. Liberty University Law School, wherever that may be, needs a new history professor.

As for how Southern Baptists may be "irreparably harmed" by the federal court consent decree entered many months ago, among other equally weightless claims, they claim "if students prior to competition choose to pray voluntarily, school employees must disrespect this act by not closing their eyes, bowing their heads or even folding their hands... ."

It's utter nonsense, of course, and any real lawyer would know it. The motion merely buys time for Pace high school's principal Frank Lay and his confederates to continue flipping off the federal court and treating its orders with contempt. In the end, though, it'll cost them.