This story on Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally made it all the way to paragraph 6 before laying on the sort of tone you’d expect from The Washington Post:

On the Mall, an overwhelmingly white crowd of tens of thousands stood quietly during an opening prayer, the silence broken only by an occasional “amen.” The dense assembly , which contained few young people, stretched from the Lincoln Memorial, past the reflecting pool, to the World War II Memorial and spilled onto the grounds of the Washington Monument.

The crowd, consisting of many from the Midwest and the South, was not visibly angry. Rather, they said they had come to express their fear that the country was at a perilous moment.

Emphasis mine. The crowd’s not primarily or predominantly white, but overwhelmingly so. And the hillbillies aren’t visibly angry – should we expect them to be? – but they are afraid. This endless focus on the race and fear of Tea Party types represents a naked attempt by the “mainstream” media to paint anyone who agrees with Beck, Palin, et al. as a bigoted yokel. It also helps explain why Beck and other Fox News programming generally pulls more viewers than the three top competitors combined.

I’m a News Corp. shareholder, but I watch almost no TV news because I tire quickly of all the networks’ theatrics. For millions of Americans, however, Fox News provides a distinct option in a sea of leftward slanted reporting. That the other fish use every opportunity to whine about the racism and ignorance of anyone who disagrees with them reflects poorly on somebody… and that “somebody” is not Glenn Beck. Charles Krauthammer sums it up perfectly.

As for concerns about Beck co-opting the time and place of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, these seem completely misplaced. Red or yellow, black or white, it’d be difficult to find worse representatives of King’s dream than the professional victims who get away with acting in his name simply because of the color of their skin. I’ll take a speech about what makes America great over a speech about how much we owe the Al Sharptons of the world any day, even if the audience is “overwhelmingly white.”

It’s been a busy weekend for our most important Middle Eastern partners for peace, the Iranians. Friday, 08/20/2010:

Iran’s defense minister says military forces have successfully test-fired a missile with enhanced guidance systems to hit ground targets.

Saturday, 08/21/2010:

Iran has crossed a new nuclear threshold, but it’s one the Obama administration isn’t worried about.

[...]

“Because the Bush administration did such a good job of neutralizing the Bushehr reactor, we don’t view it as a proliferation threat,” said a White House official, who requested anonymity to discuss the issue freely.

Some experts, however, disagree. They warn that Iran could still use Bushehr to enhance its uranium enrichment program – located some 300 miles away at Natanz – that the U.N. Security Council is demanding be halted amid charges that it is part of a secret nuclear arms development project. Iran denies the allegation.

Sunday, 08/22/2010:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is hailing the country’s first domestically built drone bomber.  The unmanned aircraft, unveiled Sunday, is the latest in a series of Iranian announcements of military advances.

Somehow I doubt President Obama’s assurances are having much impact on Israeli planning. Israel doesn’t have the luxury of being that stupid.

Alternate title: Zero Legs to Stand On. From the NAACP convention, on Tuesday:

Late this afternoon the NAACP passed a resolution calling on all people – including tea party leaders – to condemn racism within the tea party movement.

Passed on the fourth day of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s annual convention in Kansas City, the resolution also urged people to oppose what it said was the tea party’s drive “to push our country back to the pre-civil rights era.”

From the NAACP convention, on Wednesday:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson told reporters in Kansas City that the focus on the tea party was a “diversion” from more important issues, while NAACP president Ben Jealous said the resolution was just a small part of a bigger agenda and blamed the media for focusing too much on the tea party.

…

An NAACP spokesman said the exact words of the tea party resolution were not available Wednesday evening, and may not be available until this October, when the NAACP board meets to consider ratifying the language.

But spokesman Chris Fleming said, “We’re not condemning the tea party at all…We’re condemning some racist elements within the movement.”

You’re condemning the tea party a little, if you mention the movement only to say it’s populated by racists. If I make a 40 minute speech and take 14 seconds to say, “And we should keep an eye on Columbus, Ohio, because there are some scary racists in Columbus,” it doesn’t take a Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton level of intellect to see that as critical of Columbus.

This is a simple story – the NAACP resorted to debunked nonsense for a particularly noxious bit of race-baiting, and they got called on it.

In my last post about Franklin County Clerk of Courts Maryellen O’Shaughnessy, the Democrats’ candidate for Ohio Secretary of State, I touched briefly on an important question: What kind of raises were low-level Clerk’s office staffers receiving while O’Shaughnessy was cranking her Chief Deputy’s salary up to $105,000? You may want to get caught up if you’re going to be voting in Ohio this November.

I mentioned how strange it was for a candidate endorsed by boatloads of unions to devote such a huge portion of her salary budget to a single administrator. “Strange” was, of course, sarcasm: it’s not uncommon for Democrats to talk in heated tones about the avarice of private employers and the wonder of workers’ unions while ignoring their own low-level employees. Think of the hypocrisy you get when a socially conservative Republican is caught in an affair, except with taxpayers as the saps getting screwed.

O’Shaughnessy’s campaign site lists sixty-nine endorsements as of earlier this evening (PDF screen cap; Excel spreadsheet). Thirty-five of those endorsements are from union groups. Of the 50% of O’Shaughnessy’s endorsements not from union groups, one is from the far-left Secretary of State Project, a PAC that hearts ACORN and Secretary of State Brunner and hates anything in the same neighborhood as responsible voter identification. Keep the union endorsements in mind while we take another look at salary data from the Franklin County Auditor (2007-2010 spreadsheet; March – June 2010 spreadsheet).

Clerk of Courts staff compensation, March 26, 2008 to March 17, 2009:

Clerk of Courts staff compensation, March 17, 2009 to March 16, 2010:

* Update, 07/21/10: Mary Austin-Palmer was hired 04/20/09 at $40.87 an hour, which means her first raise was $5 / hour, or 12.2%

March 17, 2009 to March 16, 2010, the first 1-year period when O’Shaughnessy was Clerk from beginning to end, was marked by a smaller increase in the average salaries of low-level employees and a sharp increase in the Chief Deputy’s salary. This doesn’t even account for the enormous additional 10.9% raise Chief Deputy Mary Austin-Palmer received at some point between 03/16/2010 and 06/09/2010, or the $140,000 in new Admin positions created since O’Shaughnessy took office.

The Franklin County Clerk of Courts , one of the largest County government offices, is not currently unionized. Based on a simple search (view Excel source) at the Ohio Secretary of State’s website, “O’Shaughnessy for Ohio” has received more than $87,000 from various arms of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and their parent, the AFL-CIO, since January 1. Why such generosity from the unions to a candidate who, in her capacity as a public official, follows plainly inequitable compensation practices? Refer to the first sentence of this paragraph.

Politicians like Maryellen O’Shaughnessy are deeply concerned about the working class when the working class is represented by a union with a deep campaign fund. It’s a great racket, when you think about it: unions indoctrinate the uninformed among their members in the importance of voting Democrat, while steering members’ dues to Democrats who make it easier for unions to slip their feet in more doors. Democrats get to pose as heroes of the little guy, happily running hand-in-hand with unions as budgets tumble over a cliff… and private investors get the blame when everything hits the ground.

Unions – especially public unions – add an extra layer of bureaucracy that hampers productive activity, while siphoning their constituents of dues that mostly benefit union bosses and politicians. Maryellen O’Shaughnessy’s union associations and flagrant disinterest in the workers they claim to represent are two additional reasons to oppose any attempt she makes to move up Ohio’s political ladder.

[Update: Increased precision of percent changes so they're all as accurate as the Chief Deputy figures; tweaked clunky phrasing of the opening sentence after the tables-o-numbers.]

Have you watched the video of Congressman Bob Etheridge (D-NC) calmly and patiently responding to a question from a presumed conservative activist?

In response to an ambush question on a Washington sidewalk, an elected representative of the United States slaps the camera out of a citizen’s hand, grabs his wrist and holds it despite repeated pleas to let go, and briefly pulls the guy around by the neck. No, a quick verbal brush-off or annoyed silence doesn’t suit Rep. Etheridge – only asking, “Who are you” like a drunken, entitled old record player while physically attacking his questioner will suffice. Treat a professed terrorist that way, and you’ll have the ACLU all over your junk. It’s okay if it’s a conservative, though, because those guys are asking for it.

Etheridge responded soon after the video was posted at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government. Despite his weak apology and the undeniable draw of a congressman attacking someone on film, there’s hardly been an outcry from the brave, self-important press corps that rabidly dissects far less serious mistakes made by Republicans. Representative Etheridge was caught on camera committing criminal assault against a nobody whose offense was daring to address a congressman in an unacceptable tone… and the Washington media’s response is to shrug.

Nonetheless, it’s a campaign year and Etheridge’s opponent has a few months to come up with a snappy tag line she can play on top of that video. In the interest of fairness (Democrats like “fairness,” right?), I’ve put together some materials that will help the Etheridge team with damage control:

Bob Etheridge is one entitled old coot.

This is a totally reasonable response to a simple question.

Bob Etheridge learnin' a young American some character.

[Update: Thanks for the link, Harvey! IMAO readers may also enjoy my brilliant box art for an Islam-based Mario knockoff or the classic Fun With the Ayatollah.]

Back in April, I submitted a public records request to the Franklin County Auditor and looked at recent raises given to County administrators. Most of what I saw was only remarkable in that it revealed bureaucratic restraint during a recession. But, as a past employee of the Clerk of Courts, I was disappointed to find that Clerk O’Shaughnessy had made some transparently bad decisions: hiring additional staff in her Administration office while giving hefty raises to the Chief Deputy.

Now that two months have passed, I thought I’d follow up with the Auditor for any recent Clerk of Courts staffing changes. Check out the Excel file from the Auditor, if you’d like. Even given what I saw in April (view Excel source), I was a little disgusted.

The “Dealer Services Liaison” is a second new Admin position created since Maryellen O’Shaughnessy took office roughly 18 months ago. Combined with the “Director of Business Operations” role added earlier this year, that’s $140,000 annually in new administrative salaries. During the same period, the salary of the Clerk’s top administrator has skyrocketed: it’s 20.63% higher than it was last March.

The current Chief Deputy has worked for the Clerk since April 20, 2009. What’s the biggest pay increase you’ve ever received after one year at a job? When was the last time you got a ten percent raise? This, in an industry where there is no competition… unless you count the more than 100 front counter, file room, and data-entry clerks paid less than $30,000 a year whose raises (or lack of raises) come out of the same pot. Strange behavior for a Secretary of State candidate endorsed by every union in the book.

From late 2005 to late 2007, I was an employee in the Clerk’s IT department. I got along with nearly everyone (as far as I know). I have no desire to drag the office through the mud, but one of the awful things about creeping bureaucracy is that it’s tough for outsiders to know what elected officials and the big-shots who follow them around actually do. How can you criticize administrator salaries when you don’t know who’s pulling the weight in an agency?

I know who’s pulling the weight at the Clerk of Courts, and it’s not the Clerk. This is generally acceptable, with an understanding that the Chief Deputy oversees day-to-day operations and coordinates inter-agency projects. Really, elected officials need only achieve a few things: hire competent administrators, make a handful of important decisions, and speak clearly to the public about what they’re up to. If an elected official bumps an unelected administrator to a six-figure salary while creating new positions which insulate said administrator from anything resembling $100,000 worth of work, the elected official has failed.

This November I’ll almost certainly be voting for Maryellen O’Shaughnessy’s Republican opponent, Jon Husted, for Secretary of State. This would have been the case even if I hadn’t seen the irresponsible way Clerk O’Shaughnessy rewards her administrative staff. But, having never met O’Shaughnessy, the data from the Auditor tell us two things:

1. Clerk O’Shaughnessy doesn’t hold taxpayers in very high esteem.
2. Clerk O’Shaughnessy is not especially conscientious.

I can only assume O’Shaughnessy thought nobody would notice. So much for that.

[Update: It gets worse.]

Media coverage of Israel’s refusal to let a stunt backed by Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood break its blockade of Gaza is standard fare, when you consider that most news outlets employ people who hate Israel. Take, for instance, an AP story today about another “aid” ship seized by Israel, “Israel remains defiant, seizes Gaza-bound aid ship:”

A defiant Israel enforced its 3-year-old blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza on Saturday, with naval commandos swiftly commandeering a Gaza-bound aid vessel carrying an Irish Nobel laureate and other activists and forcing it to head to an Israeli port instead.

The bloodless takeover stood in marked contrast to a deadly raid of another Gaza aid ship this week. However, it was unlikely to halt snowballing international outrage and demands that Israel lift or at least loosen the devastating closure that confines 1.5 million Palestinians to a small sliver of land and only allows in basic humanitarian goods.

Israel’s blockade is the only defense of a nation beset on all sides by enemies who want to push them into the sea. Wouldn’t it be more intuitive to label the continued “aid vessel” traffic as “defiant,” instead of the Israeli government? Hamas - the elected governing party of Gaza – is dedicated to Israel’s destruction. The useful idiots crying about Israel’s blockade have no excuse save ignorance for siding with genocidal maniacs, but they do so proudly.

As for those truly suffering in Gaza – how is it that Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Hamas escape blame? Why is Israel the only nation demonized for the suffering of people used as pawns in an ongoing effort to destroy the Jewish state? To read the Associated Press take on the situation, you’d think enforcing a blockade was worse than regularly launching rockets at Israeli civilians. Don’t worry, the AP mentions that pesky “rockets and mortars” issue… in paragraph 28.

Charles Krauthammer’s weekend article at National Review provides invaluable context. A highlight that I found more than a little shocking:

Oh, but weren’t the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief? No. Otherwise they would have accepted Israel’s offer to bring their supplies to an Israeli port, be inspected for military materiel, and have the rest trucked by Israel into Gaza – as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza.

The plight of Gaza’s people can be blamed on many parties. Israel may be on the list, but they’re definitely not at the top. Nonetheless, the Associated Press continues reporting as if Israel is the root cause of every problem in the Middle East. Who will clueless Westerners blame if Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran (but I repeat myself) have their way?

The Washington Post reports on President Obama’s West Point graduation speech:

President Obama on Saturday offered a glimpse of a new national security doctrine that distances his administration from George W. Bush’s policy of preemptive war, emphasizing global institutions and America’s role in promoting democratic values.

That’s the first paragraph of the Post summary, and already it’s clear Obama’s national security doctrine stretches no further than whatever was programmed into the teleprompter yesterday. How has America promoted democratic values on Obama’s watch? By waiting months before even paying lip service to Iranian dissidents dying in the streets? By criticizing Arizona to the hapless Mexican president, the Communist government in China, and anyone else who will listen? By betraying the Poles, Czechs, and Israelis at every opportunity?

“Yes, we are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system. But America has not succeeded by stepping outside the currents of international cooperation,” he said. “We have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice — so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities, and face consequences when they don’t.”

This is, to apply my favorite British phrase, bollocks on stilts. The currents of international cooperation are flowing nicely for anyone President Obama fears may not support toothless UN sanctions against Iran. If you’re wondering what sort of consequences nations face for failing to meet their responsibilities, just ask the Iranian mullahs.

And yet, as he calls for global cooperation, Obama has intensified the U.S. war in Afghanistan. And his administration has repeatedly confronted the dangers of Islamic terrorism on U.S. soil, including unsuccessful attempts to down a Detroit-bound airliner and explode a car bomb in New York’s Times Square.

Emphasis mine. The Obama administration has done everything in its power to avoid confronting the danger of Islamic terrorism. The Attorney General is scarcely willing to utter the phrase “radical Islam.” Based on the Post’s summary, Obama’s West Point speech was an exercise in revisionist history and empty rhetoric.

Turning to the full transcript, one sentence in particular stands out:

“But more than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades — a time that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, and markets open, and billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress and advancing frontiers of human liberty.”

This is absolutely true, and incredibly important. And President Obama, whose domestic goals guarantee America will no longer be able to afford anywhere near the military might necessary to assist allies and deter enemies, does not care.

Finally, a border state takes serious action to turn back the tide of illegal immigration:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday signed into law a controversial bill that seeks to crack down on illegal immigration.

The sweeping measure will make it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally. It will also require local police officers to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are in the country illegally.

Requiring police to question potentially illegal immigrants sounds harsh even to my ears, but it depends on how “a reason to suspect they are in the country illegally” is defined. With the assumption that Arizona’s local authorities will behave rationally, this bill marks a big improvement over the leftist approach of making it nearly impossible for police to identify illegal immigrants.

Predictably, leftists are in an uproar over Arizona’s legislature tackling Arizona’s problem like adults:

“Our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others,” Obama said. “That includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona, which threatened to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.”

Yes, that is the President of the United States, whining like an ACLU lawyer about how enforcing laws will ruin our trust in the authorities. Illegal immigrants are breaking the law by being in Arizona – right? Isn’t that what it means when you put the words “illegal” and “immigrant” side by side?

As far as President Obama is concerned, dealing with illegal immigration in any manner that doesn’t convert a lawbreaking interest group into permanent Democrat voters is irresponsible. Given Obama’s definition of what’s not irresponsible, it’s tough to share his concern. Federalism: sorry D.C. hippies, but we’ve still got some.

Friday, April 9^th is Tax Freedom Day, when the average American has earned enough to pay Uncle Sam and Uncle Sam’s various relatives what they demand. Ohio is somehow a day ahead of the average, so in honor of the big day tomorrow I thought I’d dig through some salary info for public administrators here in Franklin County. As boring as I am, I ought to make an effort to avoid any talk of numbers or statistics. As stubborn as I am, I won’t!

With employment and the economy in general down for the past year and a half, I wanted to see how the smallest of government big-shots were rewarding themselves relative to 2007 and 2008. Despite widespread populist railing against private industry salaries and bonuses, I expected to see pay increases for the insulated local bureaucrats our tax dollars keep employed. Given some of the things I’ve read recently, I was pleasantly surprised by the data.

A helpful CPA in the Franklin County Auditor’s office responded to my public records request promptly, with salary data on all Franklin County employees from 2007-2010. Download the Excel file if you’d like to check my numbers or do some analysis of your own. I’ll list hourly rates instead of annual salaries, as 2009 contained 27 pay periods instead of the usual 26. Let’s start with the highest branch on the Franklin County tree, shall we?

Commissioner’s Office

Commendably, the two highest-paid administrators in the Commissioner’s office received no pay raises this year. That makes 2008′s 6% increases in their six-figure salaries a little easier to swallow.

Department of Job and Family Services

Job and Family Services (which you’ll notice is under the Commissioner’s office on the county org chart) is more complicated because of new hires, departures, and title changes. I should also note that David Migliore, who was Chief Deputy in the Clerk of Courts office while I was employed there from 2005-2007, is hardly my favorite person. I spent my last 6 months – as a Programmer Analyst 1 doing Programmer Analyst 2 work – waiting to hear back about a pay raise request that Migliore ignored literally until the day I resigned.

⁽¹⁾ – Drop in Director’s pay from 2008-2009 reflects a change from Douglas E. Lumpkin to David E. Migliore. I don’t know who decided Migliore should be making around $130,000, but it’s nice that he started at a lower salary than the outgoing Director and didn’t get a raise in 2010.

⁽²⁾ – In 2008 the Department of Job & Family Services added a new Assistant Director, Anthony S. Trotman. The 2009 data list Trotman as a second Director, salaried at $62.37 – equivalent to a 27.86% raise. Trotman isn’t listed at all for 2010, but the additional Assistant Director position remains.

As I said, this is more complicated than the Commissioner’s Office, where the two highest-paid employees were the same guys with the same titles from 2007-2010. I won’t pretend to understand why a second Assistant Director was added to the Department of Job and Family Services in 2008, but I’ll assume Trotman served as some sort of Interim Director in 2009.

Clerk of Courts

⁽³⁾ – In 2008, Maryellen O’Shaughnessy was elected Clerk of Courts. When David Migliore departed for the Department of Job and Family Services, O’Shaughnessy brought in Mary Austin Palmer – and immediately gave her a huge raise in a poor economy. Either Mary Austin Palmer is some kind of management wiz, or Maryellen O’Shaughnessy doesn’t think much of the taxpayers’ money. See (4).

⁽⁴⁾ – Yes, I skipped down the list of Clerk’s office employees; this observation is too ridiculous to exclude. In 2007, before he departed for Columbus City Council, Hearcel Craig was paid $25.49 an hour as the Clerk’s Director of Customer Service. The position remained unfilled (to no ill effect, so far as I could tell) until David E. Black was hired. In 2009, Black’s salary as Director of Customer Service was $24.96. In 2010, Black’s title changed to Director of Business Operations and his salary increased by nearly 50%. Why, all of a sudden, is it necessary for the Franklin County Clerk of Courts to employ a Director of Business Operations? Isn’t that what the Chief Deputy is for? How does O’Shaughnessy justify creating a $77,625.60 business operations role while also paying her Chief Deputy $95,409.60?

Skimming through the other Franklin County salary information, it looks like our highly-paid bureaucrats are at least politically intelligent enough not to give themselves raises when unemployment in the Columbus metro area is somewhere between 9 and 10 percent. Except for the Clerk of Courts office, which seems to have suffered from John O’Grady’s move to the Commissioner’s office.

Happy Tax Freedom Day!

[Update: Additional follow-up on the Clerk of Courts available here and here.]