† Obama Is Just About Every U.S. President All Rolled Into One!: The New York Times' Peter Baker analyzes the propensity of journos and pundits to compare President Barack Hussein Obama to, well, just about every president who preceded him:

What makes us so eager to find historical parallels for Mr. Obama? Why do we take one president and try to fit him into the mold of another? Maybe it is because more than halfway through his term, we just cannot agree on who Mr. Obama really is. Or maybe it is the same public fascination with historical personalities that lately has filled best-seller lists with presidential biographies. Or maybe it is just a surplus of shallow punditry in an era with endless hours of airtime and Internet space to fill.

“Sometimes I think the only president we haven’t been compared to is Franklin Pierce,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director. “But I am not ruling out the possibility of that comparison sometime in the next couple of years.” [Editorial Note: Pfeiffer is wrong.] …

Mark K. Updegrove, director of the Johnson presidential library, points to the proliferation of news media. “In my view,” he said, “pundits often make comparisons to previous presidents because it allows them to sound authoritative without putting forth a great deal of thought.” He added that he has been among those who have made such comparisons.  …

But the eagerness to categorize seems to have hit new extremes with Mr. Obama, who has been compared to a dozen predecessors. [Editorial Note: Baker is wrong. As far as The Stiletto can tell, Obama has been compared to all but 4 of his predecessors. Since The Stiletto originally wrote this post, Obama has also been compared at least once with James K. Polk, Andrew Johnson and William McKinley.] …

Ronald Brownstein, the editorial director of the National Journal Group, who recently wrote that Mr. Obama was actually most like Dwight D. Eisenhower for his “hidden hand” leadership style, said such analogies are natural because there are so few archetypes for presidents to follow.

“At its worst, that effort becomes like the parody of Hollywood pitch meetings - you know, this is like ‘Miami Vice’ meets ‘The Smurfs,’ or something. It’s Lincoln meets Reagan with a smidge of Harding,” he said. “But over all, I don’t think it’s illegitimate to try to understand the patterns of leadership each president applies, and to try to do some archaeology on its roots.”

Others said that times change, rendering past-is-prologue analysis problematic. “The comparisons are useful for those who believe history repeats itself,” said Nicolle Wallace, a top adviser to George W. Bush. “But my sense is that Bush 43 and Obama are the first modern presidents for whom the historical comparisons are less significant than the events that occur during their presidencies.”

† The Natural Progression – In Reverse (last item): A new Marist College poll suggests that high cost of living, taxes and a lack of jobs will drive one in four adults from the state, reports New York Daily News:  

The New York City suburbs, with their high property values and taxes, are leading the exodus, the poll found. …

"A lot of people are questioning the affordability of the state," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. …

A full 53% think the worst is yet to come for the state's economy, while 44% say things should start improving.

† All The News That’s Fart To Print: The NM Land Commissioner Ray Powell said nine piles of chicken manure equal to about 8,900 cubic yards were dumped on a five-acre parcel of state trust land in the desert, The Associated Press reports:

The state Land Office is investigating the crime, but preliminary indications are the waste was generated at an egg production plant that has closed.

The mounds are 100 to 500 foot long and 20 to 75 feet wide. The depth averages about 18 inches, but it's as much as 6 feet deep in places. …

"That is a huge amount of highly concentrated manure, high in nitrates and other chemicals," he said. …

The manure is so concentrated "it actually scalds the plants that are in proximity to it," Powell said.

Powell said his office was concerned about groundwater and run-off water contamination.

[Hat Tip: OpinionJournal]

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, Prediction: Christians Will Be “Extinct” In The Holy Land Within 60 Years): Christians holding a sit-in outside the state television building in Cairo over the past few days for several to protest last week’s sectarian violence in which 15 people were killed and a church was torched were attacked by a mob of more than 100 Muslims who hurled rocks and firebombs at them as they slept, The Associated Press reports:

[A] security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the attackers had returned to avenge an earlier scuffle with the protesters who prevented a motorist from going through the area. A fight ensued, and the motorists fired blank rounds. The protesters chased the motorist and beat him badly.

Marc Mino, a protest organizer, told state TV the motorists had provoked the fight after refusing to be searched before entering the protest area, then provoking the protesters. …

Just hours before the Cairo violence, several suspected Islamic extremists bombed the tomb of a Muslim saint in the northern Sinai town of Sheik Zweid, said a security official, also declining to be identified because he wasn't authorized to release the information. The official said the eight or nine attackers fled the area. Muslim radicals have blown up at least five other Muslim shrines, because they believe the veneration of saints as a violation of Islam.

† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, The Keystone Kops Are Enforcing U.S. Immigration Laws): The residents of the Chiricahua-Peloncillo drug and human smuggling corridor that runs from the Mexican border north through eastern Arizona and western New Mexico have written an open letter to President Barack Hussein Obama protesting his jokey immigration speech in El Paso:

It is with great wonderment and sadness that we listened to your May 10 speech on immigration issues. All of the joking about moats and alligators cut residents of Portal, AZ, to the core as we sheltered with friends or at a Red Cross evacuation site, to survive a terrible fire that still threatens our lives and property, as well as our ecotourism-based economy.

Like last spring’s ‘Horseshoe Fire’, fought in SE Arizona at a cost of more than $10 million, ‘Horseshoe Fire 2’ was ignited by humans along a well-established route used by human and drug smugglers high in Horseshoe Canyon, about 50 miles north of Mexico.

The letter also petitions Obama to inform them of his plans to “to protect our constitutional right (Article IV, section IV) to defense from foreign invasions, especially as this regards fires set by Mexican drug and human smugglers,” and has been posted at post offices in the border towns of Portal, AZ and Rodeo, NM, for signatures to be added.

† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, There’s Many A Slip ‘Twixt The Cup And Lip): Only 25 percent of those who work in nursing homes and home care agencies have health insurance, and just 33 percent of those who provide home-based care to patients have coverage, The New York Times reports:

Mark Parkinson, president of the American Health Care Association, the largest trade group for nursing homes, says the problem is that reimbursement rates for Medicaid and Medicare, set by government agencies, do not pay them enough to offer their employees medical coverage. “We do not have much ability to increase prices because we are so dependent on Medicaid and Medicare” for revenue, he said.

Mr. Parkinson acknowledged that when nursing homes do offer health insurance to employees, the benefits are often limited. The coverage “is probably not up to what will be required” by the federal law, he said.

Medicaid covers about two-thirds of nursing home residents. States set Medicaid rates, and many states, facing severe budget problems, have reduced payments for nursing homes.

Starting in 2014, the law will require employers with 50 or more full-time employees to offer affordable coverage or risk paying a penalty. For a midsize nursing home, that penalty could easily exceed $200,000 a year. Nursing home executives are urging Congress and the Obama administration to spare them from the penalties.

In a post on Townhall.com Alex Cortes, Executive Director of Let Freedom Ring, notes that the Department of Health and Human Services granted 221 additional waivers from various provisions of ObamaCare last month, and that “1,372 businesses and 7 entire states that have now received exemptions from the law”:

 [A] Pulse Opinion Research conducted a survey of 1,000 likely voters for my organization Let Freedom Ring that found significant public opposition to how waivers are being doled out by the Obama Administration.

Specifically, 62% of those surveyed, including 50% of self-identified Democrats, believe average Americans should be permitted to apply for similar waivers from the law's provisions. They are currently restricted from doing so, as our Health and Human Services Secretary has arbitrarily decided that only businesses and states can apply for waivers.  …

We also asked respondents whether unelected Executive Branch officials, like Secretary Sebelius, should have the power to grant waivers from a law, or whether this should be the sole responsibility of an elected Congress. 67% of those surveyed, including 60% of Democrats, responded that the Congress should be the entity that issues waivers from one of its laws, not political appointees or bureaucrats.

Voters can hold an elected Congress directly responsible at the ballot box for their actions and, as our survey demonstrates, they aren’t keen on the questionable actions of powerful, unelected bureaucrats escaping their purview, such as the present waiver fiasco.

Cortes suggests that either Secretary Sebelius grants a waiver to any individual who asks, or stops granting them altogether.

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, How Did We Get From A Knowledge Economy To An Unskilled And Illiterate Economy?: Part II): In this Wall Street Journal op-ed Yale Law School professor Peter Schuck and John Tyler, general counsel of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, make the case that President Barack Hussein Obama should have spent more time talking about how to attract more high-skilled immigrants in El Paso (“Attracting more of the world's best talent should be a no-brainer. It should not be held hostage to the much harder problem of illegal migration.”):

Our current policy is plain stupid. Of the more than one million permanent admissions to the U.S. in 2010, fewer than 15% were admitted specifically for their employment skills. And most of those spots weren't going to the high-skilled immigrants themselves, but to their dependents. …

Many high-skilled workers prefer to go to more welcoming countries, like Canada and Australia, or to stay home where their economies are now often growing faster than ours. The U.S. does have a program to attract job-creating investors, but it is more limited than some of our competitors' investor programs. In 2010, we granted fewer than 2,500 such visas, down from the 2009 total although higher than in earlier years.

We're shooting ourselves in the foot. Research shows that high-skilled immigrants, particularly those in the so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields, enrich American society in many ways. These workers are notably innovative at a time when the U.S. is in some danger of losing its competitive edge. Not only do they apply for patents at a disproportionate rate, but the government grants their applications two to three times as often as with comparably educated Americans. Even if we limit the comparison to scientists and engineers, high-skilled immigrants in those fields still receive 20% more patents than their American counterparts.

In addition to being more innovative, high-skilled immigrants tend to be more entrepreneurial. They start and grow the kinds of new firms, such as Google, that account for the bulk of job creation.

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador focuses on Shaun Stokes, who helped launch Grow to Share, a community garden program that provides fresh produce to food pantries in shelves in western WI. The Pioneer Press reports:

"We had so much this past year that two food shelves in River Falls couldn't handle it," said Stokes, now 18. "So we went to surrounding communities."

"He's actually been a very important part of our organization, especially for a young man his age," Grow to Share founder and President Josh Hudek said of Stokes. "He's very mature and he brings a lot to the table." …

Grow to Share plants on two plots made available by the city of River Falls and St. Bridget Catholic Church. Last year, crews harvested from about 1.5 acres, Hudek said.

But the organization is growing and looking to acquire its own land. This season, Grow to Share is also considering taking its produce to Minnesota food shelves.

"Each year we've managed to broaden our distribution," Hudek said. "The more outlets that we have for our produce, the better off we are."

At River Falls Community Food pantry, about 75 percent of the fresh produce comes from Grow to Share, said Executive Director Janna Carl. Without the organization, the pantry would have to rely on food from small gardens or produce at the end of its shelf life from grocery stores.

In 2010, Grow to Share donated more than 15 tons of produce.