And the Rats Begin to Flee...

Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor, briefly sought the Republican nomination for president. He quit early on, because he was the only person who wanted him to be president. He then immediately turned around and endorsed Romney for president and signed on to promote Romney's candidacy.

Now Pawlenty has quit the Romney campaign and has become the CEO of the lobbying organization for the financial services industry.

Pawlenty was briefly in the spotlight when he coined the term "Obamneycare" to describe the health care law President Obama signed into law, a law that essentially cloned from Romney's health care initiative in Massachusetts. But when Pawlenty appeared in a debate with Romney he declined to repeat his charge and tried to weasel out of it:

"Why is it not Obamneycare standing here with the governor right now?" King pressed.

"President Obama is the person I quoted," Pawlenty insisted. "Using the term 'Obamneycare' was a reflection of the president's comments."

Pawlenty is and always has been an empty suit. As an unmoneyed moderately conservative governor, he never had enough cash to buy delegates' allegiance to escape the stigma of coming from a liberal state the way Romney could. He's always been a weak and uninspiring candidate, winning election in Minnesota twice only because he was running in three-way races against two Democrats. In both 2002 and 2006 he ran against a former Democrat running in the Independence Party and a weak candidate running under the Democratic banner.

It was once thought that Pawlenty was a top contender for Romney's VP slot. That was always a pipedream (the Tea Party would never stand for two Romneys at the top of the ticket). After Ryan's selection it was thought that TPaw was wangling for a cabinet slot.

But now the first question is: has Pawlenty seen the writing on the wall and believe Romney's run for the presidency is doomed? And the second question is: Is Pawlenty a rat deserting a sinking ship, or just a lizard getting out while the getting is good? Considering that the lobbying organization he's going to run is dedicated making Wall Street banks even richer by eviscerating the Dodd-Frank law and forcing regular Americans pay the highest possible interest rates on our credit cards, I'd say he's like one of those mutant rat-lizard hybrids created by exposure to toxic radioactive waste on one of those barges coming out of Chris Christie's New Jersey.

The only real claim to fame Pawlenty ever had was that he was a middle-class "Sam's Club" Republican. But now that he's traded in his Sam's Club card for his American Express Black Card he's lost any shred of credibility that he might have ever had. Though his spokesman claims he still has the option of a career in politics, it seems unlikely he will ever be elected to office again: nothing says "kiss of death" to a politician's career than a resume that includes "lobbyist for Wall Street banks."

Will the Natural Gas Boom Go Boom?

In 2003 five men in Rosharon Texas were engulfed in a fireball when their truck ignited fumes from the fracking waste they were disposing of. Two of them died immediately and a third died six weeks later.

How did this happen?

The site at Rosharon is what is known as a "Class 2" well. Such wells are subject to looser rules and less scrutiny than others designed for hazardous materials. Had the chemicals the workers were disposing of that day come from a factory or a refinery, it would have been illegal to pour them into that well. But regulatory concessions won by the energy industry over the last three decades made it legal to dump similar substances into the Rosharon site – as long as they came from drilling.

The workers thought they were disposing of "BS&W" (basic sediment and water), but fracking fluids contain benzene and other flammable hydrocarbons. The relaxed regulation on the disposal of waste water from fracking operations has resulted in these deaths, as well as the contamination of numerous aquifers, forests, farmland, rivers, streams and lakes. There have also been thousands of cases of intentional malfeasance:

More than 1,000 times in the three-year period examined, operators pumped waste into Class 2 wells at pressure levels they knew could fracture rock and lead to leaks. In at least 140 cases, companies injected waste illegally or without a permit.

My brother in law is an executive for a large energy company. Several years ago, when natural gas prices were upwards of $8 per thousand cubic feet, his company started construction on a huge facility in Louisiana to import liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Since then the fracking boom has hit the United States. The price of gas has plummeted to $2 or less. According to my brother in law, at this price the frackers are losing money even faster than they can drill gas. This was echoed by Rex Tillerson, head of Exxon, who said they're "losing their shirts" on gas. So my brother in law is converting his LNG import facility to also serve as an export facility. He smugly noted that no matter which way the gas flows, his facility is guaranteed to make billions.

Here's the problem: all these domestic gas drilling operations made large investments in fracking technology and leasing rights several years ago when prices where high. Now they've all gone and done exactly the same thing at the exactly same time, and they've produced a huge glut of gas. And they're losing money hand over fist.

Now they're whining that we have to pull their chestnuts out of the fire by loosening regulations and letting them dispose of fracking waste anywhere they want to. And even though they're losing money on the gas they're already extracting, they're still pushing to open more and more areas for fracking in Pennsylvania and New York and all around the country. Which will only make their own problem worse.

The accident in Rosharon occurred in 2003, when the price of natural gas was two and three times what is today. In the current price environment we simply cannot trust that these people are going to do the right thing by their workers, the environment and our children. Because they are losing so much money, they are going to take shortcuts in sealing wells and disposing of waste. For this reason alone, we need increased regulation and enforcement on fracking.

In economic terms, the all-powerful market has sent a price signal. Supply has exceeded demand and the price has collapsed. Production needs to slow down so that the price can go up, making it profitable enough to safely extract gas and dispose of waste by detoxifying rather than just pumping or dumping it. In other words, the all-powerful market needs to weed out the weaklings and let the strong survive. Yeah, we're going pay more for gas. But better to pay more today than let financially strapped operators cause earthquakes and taint our ground water with carcinogens for the next thousand years.

We should be extracting this energy over the next thirty years for domestic consumption instead of exhausting our reserves in the next five by madly rushing to export to China as much gas as possible today at the lowest possible price.

This country needs natural gas. It's a much better fuel than coal because it produces less CO2—because of gas CO2 emissions in the United States are at their lowest levels in 20 years. It is much more versatile than coal—it can generate electricity, power vehicles, heat homes and cook food. It's safer to extract than coal because you don't have miners thousands of feet below ground. But it's outright stupidity to extract and burn or export it all at once just because we can.

We have to stop thinking of energy resources as the property of individuals and corporations to do with what they will. We need a long-term plan for transitioning away from fossil fuels, which are finite and will be exhausted within our lifetimes. Short-term corporate profits should not be allowed to endanger the long-term energy security of the United States.

Farmers often come under criticism for creating their own crises: when the weather is good, they all produce the same crops and the price collapses. They are characterized as whining for price supports, but the fact is that in bad years—like this year—they can lose everything.

Energy companies are doing the same thing now with gas, but they don't have the excuse of weather. They are creating a gas boom which is going to explode like that truck in Rosharon.

Simply A Beautiful Site

It's a rare moment when you can find John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, and Mitch McConnell all sharing a stage in agreement on an issue.

But that's what the story of San Suu Kyi does for people. Her courage in the face of tyranny was truly extraordinary and it warms my heart to see her receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

We certainly do have our differences in this country but seeing all these folks together in this photo gave me hope that we can work out our disagreements because we all cherish freedom and personal liberty.

No Way

Of all the things there are to say about Mitt Romney, I simply can't believe this is true.

No fucking way.

Good News on Housing

I've got loads to talk about today so I'm going to put up a few brief posts.

You don't hear the words "Good News" and "Housing" very often together so it's nice to hear that US Homebuilders confidence is at a six year high. Builders also report seeing their highest sales levels since July of 2006.

That's great news, folks, because it means we are climbing up from the bottom.

The Redistribution Canard

As a response to Mitt Romney's 47 percent video, the Right has pointed to the video below as proof that Barack Obama is a communist.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Let's take note of a couple of things. First of all, this video is not newly discovered nor was it hidden. This was a public conference, not a private fundraising gathering.

More importantly, take note of how the last part of the clip about markets and innovation was conveniently left off of the version on YouTube. Taken in context, what he is saying isn't any different than what Bill Clinton was saying in 1998 as well.

I also don't think this is a gotcha! moment because the only people who are going to be pissed off about this are people that aren't going to vote for him anyway.

I guess what I don't understand about this video is the apoplectic reaction to the word "redistribution." Somehow it  means communism. Or fascism. Or socialism. Or anti-colonial Kenyanism. Pick one and I guess it's right for whatever day it is.

But there's nothing wrong with redistribution when you consider that every organization (public or private) redistributes wealth when you think about it. The NFL operates under a profit sharing model where teams like Green Bay (owned by the city of Green Bay, a public entity) share profits through redistribution of wealth from larger market teams like the New York Giants or the Chicago Bears. This begs the question...are the owners of the NFL communists?

When we pay our taxes, that money is redistributed to the various sectors in public life that need it. These would include defense, b to the w. I hardly think anyone will argue that a member of our armed services not paying federal taxes because he or is she is in a combat zone is taking advantage of wealth redistribution or a moocher off of the government.

Of course, this doesn't mean that wealth redistribution isn't going on nor does it mean that there are ill effects from it. It most certainly is going on and we can clearly see by the inequality in this country that it is being redistributed upwards, not downwards, and this is the fault of the federal government to a large degree.

Cleared

In what is sure to spark howls of derision and extra foamy mouth foaming, the Justice Department's inspector general released its report on Operation Fast and Furious.

The Justice Department’s inspector general on Wednesday issued a scathing critique of federal officials for their handling of the botched gun-trafficking case known as Operation Fast and Furious, but essentially exonerated Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., whom many Republicans have blamed for the scandal.

In a long-awaited report, the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, laid primary blame on what he portrayed as a dysfunctional and poorly supervised group of Arizona-based federal prosecutors and agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, describing them as “permeated” by “a series of misguided strategies, tactics, errors in judgment and management failures” that allowed a risky strategy to continue despite the danger to public safety.

The report identified 14 people who should lose their jobs. Pretty much what I had thought all along.

The 471 page report is exhaustive and I would hope that those detractors of Eric Holder and the president would take the time to read through it before rendering further judgments.

Up In The Polls

President Obama seems to be holding on strong to his convention bounce. Take a look at some of these polls from Fox News in the swing states.

• Ohio: Obama 49, Romney 42
• Florida: Obama 49, Romney 44
• Virginia: Obama 50, Romney 46

That's not the only good news for the Democrats. A recent slew of Senate polls show them up in several states which makes their chances for holding the Senate much better. 

On Stiglitz Part Three

Given Mitt Romney's recent comments, I think it's time to get back to Stiglitz. The next section in his book, The Price of Inequality, is called Markets and Inequality. His basic premise here is that even though market forces are real, every law, every regulation and every institutional arrangement has been made to benefit those at the top and to the disadvantage of the rest. Simply put, it is the government's fault! They create the problem by making rules that benefit the wealthy and then they do little to change the fall out.

He faults the government's reaction to the technology boom, for example, as being quite poor when one considers that education at that time should have been shored up in a sort of GI bill type of way. The steel industry, for example, now operates with a quarter of the workforce because of technological advances. What are the remaining three quarters supposed to do now that their services are no longer required? Train for a new profession. Of course, this isn't usually easy and it can be expensive.

That's where the issue of stagnant wages comes in. Stigiliz accurately points out that from 1949 to 1980, productivity and real hourly compensation rose together. After 1980, they began to drift apart. Why? Because the government began to make policies that benefited rent seekers at the top of our society. This is where these two premises

• Taxing the top at higher rates reduces incentive
• Helping the poor means more poverty because they then don't want to work

are inaccurate and no longer apply. Because of the large amount of inequality, people have less of incentive to work. They are essentially hopeless so why bother? Stiglitz asks, "How seriously would incentive be weakened if we had a little bit less inequality?" The problem here is that the Straw Man Machine gets to work and labels folks like me and Stiglitz as wanting no inequality. That's simply not true and no one is trying to do that.

Further, incentive pay for wealth execs isn't really that.

Under incentive compensation schemes, pay is supposed to increase with performance. What the bankers did was common practice: when there was a decline in measured performance according to the yardsticks that were supposed to be used to determine compensation, the compensation system changed. The effect was that, in practice, pay was high when performance was good, and pay was high when performance was bad. (Bebhuck and Fried, Pay Without Performance) 

In fact, they were so embarrassed by this that "performance bonuses" was changed to "retention bonuses." Executives were (and still are) allowed to set their own compensation schedules which has effectively separated pay from performance and misalign incentives, as Stigliz correctly notes.

Countries that have large financial sectors typically have greater inequality. Deregulation along with hidden and open government subsidies distort the economy and make it easier to move money from the bottom to the top. As Stiglitz notes, "We don't have to know precisely the fraction of inequality that should be attributed to the increased financialization of the economy to understand that a change in policy is needed." Indeed. The banks are simply too big right now and need to be broken up. I'm happy to see that many on both the right and the left are calling for this to happen.

A recent report by the Congressional Research Service confirms much of the information above.

The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie. 

However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. As measured by IRS data, the share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1% fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009. Tax policy could have a relation to how the economic pie is sliced—lower top tax rates may be associated with greater income disparities.

I highly recommend reading the entire report. It is loaded down with data that supports Stiglitz's assertions.

The other big part of this chapter is a discussion on the free mobility of capital and the free mobility of labor. It is here where he and I part ways. He rightly criticizes the MNC's and financial institutions for some of the problems they have caused the Global South. However, he completely ignores the fact that the average age of mortality in Africa, for example, has doubled in the last fifty years and it's largely due to Global North investment and direct aid.

He seems to be calling for a return to trade restrictions and tariffs placed on imports that would, in turn, benefit labor in this country. I think that's a giant mistake. We have progressed for the last 70 years towards liberal and free markets. This was done to prevent world wars which were very costly in many ways (the biggest of which is human life). To go back after all the progress we have made in the Global South is very short sighted.

What we can do in the age of free mobility of capital is use that money to further educate our workforce and make the more competitive in the world. Labor around the world is very cheap right now and those without college degrees simply can't compete which is the main reason why we have a large number of people unemployed or underemployed. These people need to get college degrees and that's going to mean sacrifice by everyone...colleges, universities, professors, bankers, and many more of the very wealthy.

All of these people are going to have to step up to the plate, whether it is in the form of lower tuition, lower salaries for professors, higher taxes for the wealthy, or more private grants...A LOT MORE PRIVATE grants. Remember, the 1 percent can't enjoy their money without the support of a strong middle class.

With education, comes strength.

The Rumble Is a Fox Fumble

Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly are going to have a debate in October. They're calling it a rumble, but it looks like a Fox fumble.

The debate posits that Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart are intellectual equals. It admits that Fox's true competitor is not the 336 hours of weekly programming broadcast by MSNBC and CNN, but the one hour of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert shown Monday through Thursday. Ultimately, it concedes the fact that Fox News is not a real news outlet, but is merely another entertainment outlet of the same caliber as the Comedy Channel.

Sadly, the same thing is true of the other cable news channels, MSNBC and CNN, and most local news broadcasts. But the truth is, if you want real news you don't watch television. There are quality news shows on TV (mostly on public television), but something about the commercial medium aimed at the broad public has in recent years diminished TV news to the level of tabloid journalism or worse.

The network evening news broadcasts used to be quality journalism, similar to what you get these days in public broadcasting, but now they're about puppies and grandchildren and only the elderly watch them (you only need to watch one commercial break to become acutely aware of that). Most everyone else gets their news and opinions from cable channel food-fights, right-wing talk radio, and Internet blogs. A few odd ducks like myself read newspapers and listen to public radio.

The common thread in the satire that Jon Stewart and the Daily Show have been doing for the last decade has been the devolution of news broadcasting to infotainment and propaganda factories. It's crazy, but the few million Americans who watch the "fake" news on the Daily Show are better informed than the several million who watch "real" news on Fox.

The reason is simple: the Daily Show is about satire and questioning authority, while Fox News is the official propaganda organ of the Republican Party, run by the former head of the RNC.

The core of this truth was revealed accidentally by Ann Coulter in a frustrated outburst of spite and venom during an appearance on Sean Hannity's show last month. (This was brought to my attention by the Daily Show, of course.) Coulter was tearing into Andrea Saul, a Romney spokeswoman who was responding to an attack ad about a steelworker fired by Bain:

Her response was not that it was despicable, not that Bain… that Romney had left Bain five years earlier or the woman died five years after the plant closed and didn’t even get her insurance from her husband, her response was, ‘Well, if she had lived in Massachusetts with Mitt Romney’s health care plan, she would have had health insurance.’ Anyone who donates to Mitt Romney, and I mean the big donors, ought to say if Andrea Saul isn’t fired and off the campaign tomorrow, they are not giving another dime, because it is not worth fighting for this man if this is the kind of spokesman he has… 

There’s no point in you doing your show, there’s no point in going to the convention and pushing for this man if he’s employing morons like this. This ad is the turning point and she has nearly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat! She should be off the campaign.

Yes, Ann Coulter is telling us that the entire purpose of Hannity's show is to push Republican candidates for office and that the people who really control Romney's campaign are the "big donors."

Mittie the Moocher?

So, Mitt Romney believes that half the people in the country are lazy worthless unmotivated scum who will never vote for him. Exactly where do those people live? Mostly in states that are solidly Republican.

According to a story in the Washington Post, Romney will probably get 95 electoral votes from moocher states and Obama will only get 5.

As the original article points out:

According to the latest IRS figures for 2008, a record 52 million filers—36 percent of the 143 million who filed a tax return—had no tax liability because their credits and deductions reduced their liability to zero. Indeed, tax credits such as the child tax credit and earned income tax credit have become so generous that a family of four earning up to about $52,000 can expect to have their income tax liability erased entirely.

So, according to Mitt, the biggest moochers in this country are people with lots of kids. That is, Mormons and Catholics he's hoping will vote for him.

No wonder he's not being specific about what he'll cut to make up for those gigantic tax cuts for the rich.

A Complete Ignorance of Facts

Well, Mitt Romney has really stepped in it now. Take a look at this video.



There are many levels in which his statement is completely wrong.

The 47 percent of which he speaks (it's actually 46.4 percent) has to be examined more closely. Of those 46.4 percent, 28.3 percent pay a payroll tax while 18.1 percent pay no payroll tax. This remaining 18.1 percent does pay other taxes (sales tax, state tax, city and local taxes) so to intimate that they aren't paying taxes and are freeloading/dependent is ridiculous.

It's also important to note here that the majority in the 18.1 percent are on EITC are on it for less than two years. This is not a permanent situation for these people as many of them are working. In fact, Mitt here (along with the many others on the Right) are under the mistaken impression that people on government assistance aren't working. Most are. In fact, the working poor rate (calculated through 2010) is at its highest since 1987.

It's also very dishonest to place so much emphasis on poor people which brings me to a recent conversation at the gym with a very wealthy (and very conservative) acquaintance of mine. He owns a manufacturing concern in Minnesota that supplies equipment for people with disabilities. He corners me constantly to yell about Obama and how he is __________ (you can fill in whatever you like here). Yet a few simple questions put to him reveal that he himself is a massive rent seeker who pays very little in the way of income tax or corporate tax due to the amount of money he makes and the nature of his business (obviously, heavily subsidized by the government).

Ironically, he is part of the 47 percent of which Mitt speaks! He made $2, 178, 866 in 2011 so he paid no federal income taxes. And he's certainly not going to vote for the president. In looking at who else comprises Mitt's 47 percent, we see the other main reasons why Mitt's comment is completely wrong (and, politically, very dangerous for him).

Many of these dependents are elderly who worked their whole lives (paying into Social Security and Medicare) and are now collecting their benefits. In addition to not being freeloaders, many of them are going to vote for Mitt Romney. At least they were:)

Many of the very poor in Mitt's 47 percent hail from red states.Of the 10 states with the highest percentage of people who pay no income tax, eight are solid red states. In fact, blue states like Connecticut, Vermont, Maryland, Massechussits, and my home state of Minnesota that are on the bottom of the list have taxpayers that are essentially paying for those folks in red states. That's OK with us, though, we don't have a problem with social welfare programs:) Here's that study from the Times again that backs this up.

Are the people in these eight red states going to vote for the President? Some will, obviously, but some won't because of abortion or other faith issues. Again, I wonder how many of these folks will change their vote based on this comment.

One can also look at government employees, soldiers, veterans, people who have gotten Small Business Administration loans, people who work for government contractors or companies the government bailed out (like banks and GM) are at least somewhat dependent on government. GE paid no taxes in 2010. Are they part of the 47 percent? How about defense contractors? How about oil? They get subsidies and are obviously dependent on the government for increase profit yet no one complains about them. Nope, it's just the poor people who are all lazy, don't work and sit around playing Xbox and eating Cheetos all day long.

Now, ol' Mittens was obviously trying to convince some fairly deep pocketed folks that he can win so maybe we should give him a break.  After all, he was telling them what they wanted to hear. No one really knows if he believes what he is saying but what he is saying is a complete a total myth. There are not 47 percent of Americans who pay no income tax and those 47 percent are not all going to vote for Barack Obama.

To me, the larger discussion is much more interesting. In breaking apart this myth, we can clearly see the integral role that government plays in our society. Those who want to lessen the role of it seem to completely ignore the clear benefits that it provides, not only in their lives but the lives of millions of Americans. The practical application of such an exercise (shrinking government) seems much more unrealistic given the facts listed above.

Simply put, our economy is bigger than it was at its founding so our government has to be big as well. There's nothing wrong with this and it's certainly not communism, fascism or socialism. It's what we have always done and done very well, given the challenges.

Welfare capitalism.

Uh Oh

What Are They Going To Think About This?

Nearly everyone thought that Mitt Romney's religion was not going to be an issue. But then he went and defended the "values" of the people who made the trailer for a film that may not even have been completed which set the Middle East in an uproar and now he might be screwed.

Remember, that we originally thought the film was produced by an Israeli named Sam Bacile but then the Israeli Foreign Ministry said no person exists. Now we find out that the film was made by a Coptic Christian named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula who has been convicted of fraud and drug distribution. His spokesman is a guy named Steven Klein who founded Courageous Christians United, which holds protests outside abortion clinics but also outside Mormon temples.

When asked whether he had any regrets about participating in a film that led to the death of an American ambassador, Klein replied: "Do I have blood on my hands? No. Did I kill this guy? No. Do I feel guilty that these people were incited? Guess what? I didn't incite them. They're pre-incited, they're pre-programmed to do this."

Check out their page for their views on Mormonism. Here are a few sample questions from their table.

Question: Did Christ die for all sins? Mormonism: Christ did not die for all sins. Christianity: Christ did die for all sins

Question: Baptism for the dead? Mormonism: Baptism for the dead is required. Christianity: Baptism for the dead is not required

Question: Are there other Gods? Mormonism: There are many Gods for worlds and each God is equal to the God of this world. Christianity: There is only one God for all worlds

Question: Can humans become Gods for other worlds as God is God for this world? Mormonism: Humans may become Gods for other worlds as God is God for this world. Christianity: Humans cannot become Gods for other worlds as God is God for all worlds

Question: Does God need a wife to become God? Mormonism: God needs a wife to become God Christianity: God does not need a wife to become God.

None of this bothers me as people can think and believe whatever they want to believe. But I have to wonder how the majority of conservative Americans would feel about this stuff if they knew it. After all, they are the one who think the Barack Obama is in some sort of kooky religion.

What would they think about this?

Nice

Get used to seeing more of this..

.

Irate Republicans and Muslims: Not So Different after All

These days Mitt Romney and the Republican spin machine are sanctimoniously defending the right of some idiot to make a slanderous film about Mohammed, a film that ultimately cost the lives of four American diplomats and has launched attacks against American and other western embassies across the Middle East.

And most every conservative complaining about the attacks goes out of their way to mention that these protesters are also burning the American flag!, an act which seems to anger them even more than the killing of Americans.

But for decades Republicans have been fighting to amend the constitution to ban flag "desecration," using it as a hammer against Democrats. The House and Senate have voted on such an amendment numerous times in the last 20 years, the most recent of which failed by only one vote in the Senate in 2006.

Conservative outrage against flag burning is every bit as primitive and wrong-headed as Muslim rage against America for a video that an expatriate Egyptian Copt is apparently responsible for creating.

Why are people so completely unhinged by satire or criticism of religious figures like Joe Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, Mohammed, Christ and God? Are the egos of these supposedly supreme and immortal beings really that fragile? How could the creator of the entire universe be harmed by a mere mortal taking His name in vain? How could God's one true Prophet be diminished in any way by some dork with a video camera?

How can the institutions of United States, our Constitution and our way of life possibly be threatened by some moron burning a flag in the streets of Cairo or Benghazi, or even Washington or New York? And how can you possibly call it flag "desecration" when the American flag is not the sacred symbol of a religion, but the physical banner of a temporal government? A banner that we plaster liberally on cakes, cars, towels, t-shirts, sweatshirts, and even underwear?

Every time the nitwits at Fox News rail about the "War on Christmas" they prove that they are just as intolerant, socially stunted and civically underdeveloped as they view the protesters around the American embassies in the Middle East.