† A Slow Learner (second item): Back in 2010, an exasperated Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman called President Barack Hussein Obama "a real slow learner." Well, he hasn’t gotten any quicker on the draw since then, as evidenced by yesterday’s remarks on the debt ceiling deal. Talking out of one side of his mouth, he continues to contend that the key to job creation is “investments in things like education and research” and that the key to deficit reduction is “a balanced approach where everything’s on the table” and “reforming our tax code so that the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations pay their fair share” and “getting rid of taxpayer subsidies to oil and gas companies and tax loopholes that help billionaires pay a lower tax rate than teachers and nurses.” And then talking out of the other side of his mouth, he promises to “continue also to fight for what the American people care most about: new jobs, higher wages, and faster economic growth.” And he see-saws back and forth contradicting himself (“while deficit reduction is part of that agenda, it is not the whole agenda”).

 

So you have an incoherent agenda: “it’s not about rolling back regulations” vs. “create a climate where businesses can hire”; “create a climate where businesses can hire” vs. “millions of workers … looking for jobs to support their families are not denied needed unemployment benefits”; “We’ve got to do everything in our power to grow this economy and put America back to work” vs. an “infrastructure bank” to award government loans and contracts to “private companies that want to repair our roads and our bridges and our airports, rebuilding our infrastructure.”  

 

On second thought, if one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, then perhaps Obama isn’t as much a dullard as he is dissociative.

 

† Is Obama Already A Lame Duck?: The Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn makes the case that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) pulled off “a striking achievement” with the debt-ceiling deal, “especially if you remember how this year started. We began the debt-ceiling debate on Democratic terms, with President Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner insisting on a "clean bill" that had no conditions attached”: 

 

Mr. Boehner comes away with most of what he wanted. He comes away with even more once you recognize that these negotiations typically are less about balancing the budget than about getting Republicans to agree to discredit themselves on taxes, usually in exchange for promises of spending restraint that never materialize. Ask George H.W. Bush.

 

This time the Democrats miscalculated. One mistake was thinking they were forcing the GOP into a rerun of 1995-96, when a Republican House overplayed its hand and ended up being blamed for shutting down the government. This time Republicans showed they had learned their lesson.

 

First, Mr. Boehner said he was against a shutdown, and put forth different solutions that would raise the debt ceiling without raising taxes. Second, by rejecting everyone else's plan while offering no plan of his own, the president effectively took himself out of the game. This curious exercise of presidential "leadership" transformed Mr. Obama into the Newt Gingrich of this debate, while Mr. Boehner looked serious and reasonable.

 

But The Washington Times complains that “many provisions of the compromise debt deal, such as postponing nearly all spending cuts until 2013 and boosting student aid next year, are tailor-made for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign”:

 

“Politically, I actually think the president did very well here,” said former Sen. Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican, adding that the deal should affect the president’s re-election chances “hugely.”

 

Prior to the agreement, Republicans had four main points of attack against Mr. Obama — jobs, debt, deficits and spending, Mr. Gregg said. The deal, which would trim future spending by at least $917 billion, gives Mr. Obama room to argue that he is fiscally responsible.

 

“He’s taken three of those four issues off the table, or at least muted them,” said Mr. Gregg, who proposed a debt-reduction commission with Sen. Kent Conrad, North Dakota Democrat, in 2009. “He’s gotten a political win.”

 

But as McGurn notes:

 

Yes, Mr. Obama got a deal that takes him past next year's election, and can play himself up as the greater compromiser. The price, however, was high. Effectively he has surrendered to the Republican framework for debate on taxes and spending.

 

That puts 2012 on terms much friendlier to the argument that Republicans need to make to the American people. It runs like this: If you are want a government in Washington that spends less, that taxes less, and encourages our private sector to grow, you need a Republican in the White House.

 

And even Gregg praised Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for “playing their hands extremely well,” calling the deal “the first really substantive step down the road to fiscal responsibility.”

 

The Stiletto remains an agnostic on this point, and agrees with The Washington Post that, “[t]he political crisis may be averted for the moment. The fiscal crisis continues.” Time will tell who rolled whom - or whether voters were flimflammed once again by the Washington elites. Either Boehner and McConnell are Obama’s dupes or Boehner is a masterful negotiator or the Tea Partiers will have to keep everyone’s feet to the fire as the details of this deal play out to make sure that voters have a very clear choice in the 2012 election between liberal and conservative philosophies of governance.   

 

† Have You Seen The Price Of Arugula Lately?: NYers strolling through the city's parks are used to seeing signs ordering them to "Keep Off Grass" or "Curb Your Dog," but with food prices skyrocketing, the local denizens have taken to extreme locavorism - eating the daisies and anything else edible they can glean from the shrubs and bushes - and the Parks Department wants to nip the practice in the bud, The New York Times reports:

 

In recent months, the city has stepped up training of park rangers and enforcement-patrol officers, directing them to keep an eye out for foragers and chase them off. …

 

Plants are not the only things people are taking. In Prospect Park in Brooklyn last week, park rangers issued four summonses to two people for illegal fishing. Although officials say such poaching is not widespread, park advocates say taking fish and turtles for food is not uncommon, and some have reported evidence of traps designed to snare wildfowl.

 

Foraging used to be a quirky niche, filled most notably by “Wildman” Steve Brill, who for years has led foraging tours in the Northeast, including in Central Park. (He now sells a foraging app, too.) But foragers today are an eclectic bunch, including downtown hipsters, recent immigrants, vegans and people who do not believe in paying for food. …

 

While it has long been against the rules to collect or destroy plants in the city’s parks, with potential fines of $250, the city has preferred education to enforcement. “It’s listed in the prohibited uses of the parks, and the simple reason is that if everyone went out and collected whatever it is - a blackberry or wildflower - the parks couldn’t sustain that,” said Sarah Aucoin, director of urban park rangers for the Department of Parks and Recreation.

 

Officials have not gone as far as posting signs in Central Park that foraging is prohibited, for fear they would serve as arrows pointing to the most delectable areas.

 

† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: To a teenager, there’s only one thing worse than walking down the street next to your mother when she’s wearing her “Mom jeans.” That would be walking down the street next to your mother wearing last year’s Mom jeans. But Moms (and Dads) plan to make do with whatever rags they have in their closets so they can buy their kids the most on-trend duds for the start of the new school season, according to the latest American Express Spending & Saving Tracker survey of more than 800 parents of school-age children. MarkedtingDaily reports:

 

[W]hile parents say they will not scrimp on what kids need to start the school year, it won't be painless: They'll cut back on restaurant spending, entertaining, and their own clothing.

 

The average family of four expects to spend $800 on back-to-school shopping. But 67% say they will make financial trade-offs to cover it, including dining out less (53%), spending less on entertainment (39%), and buying less clothes for themselves (37%). …

 

Clothing is expected to be the largest expense, at $290, with another $110 for shoes and $100 for school supplies. …

 

Unlike last year, the survey also shows a slight uptick in spending on designer clothes, with 68% of parents planning to buy big-brand sneakers, 66% buying designer jeans, and 53% buying high-end shoes.

 

Meanwhile, another back-to-school spending survey by Accenture, this one of 624 parents of school-aged kids, finds that 29 percent of parents are “dreading” the shopping trip and that they are not planning to splurge on electronics, MarketingDaily reports:

 

Only 25% of parents in its survey say they plan to purchase computers, cell phones and other electronic items for kids this year, down from 36% last year. And only 18% plan to shop at electronics stores, such as Best Buy, a big drop from 24% in 2010.

 

† Look Before You Leap: Part II (second item): Kansas federal judge J. Thomas Marten  Thomas Marten ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood in its suit to block a state law in KS that bans it and other organizations that perform abortions from receiving Medicaid funds, The Associated Press reports:

 

Marten's order handed the state its second major setback after abortion foes succeeded in pushing through the Republican-controlled Legislature a slew of anti-abortion legislation, only to see federal judges quickly block their enforcement. Last month in a separate lawsuit, a federal judge in Kansas City, Kan., also temporarily blocked stringent new abortion clinic regulations.

 

Planned Parenthood argued the Kansas statute is part of a national campaign to cut off the entity's federal family planning money because of its advocacy of abortion rights. …

 

In Kansas, Marten agreed with Planned Parenthood's argument that that state's law is unconstitutional because it would impose additional restrictions on a federally-funded program, thereby violating the Supremacy Clause. He also agreed with the group's contention that the law was intended to punish Planned Parenthood for advocating abortion rights and therefore infringes on its rights of association guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth amendments.

 

"The purpose of the statute was to single out, punish and exclude Planned Parenthood," Marten said.

 

KS Attorney General Derek Schmidt took issue with the ruling (“It appears that the Court declared a duly-enacted Kansas statute unconstitutional without engaging in the fact-finding one would expect before reaching such a conclusion)” and said the state will appeal, The Wall Street Journal reports.

 

† All The News That’s Fart To Print: Toilet paper giants Georgia-Pacific (Northern Quilted) sued Kimberly-Clark (Cottonelle) for trademark infringement and unfair competition for allegedly violating its “Quilted Diamond Design,” Chicago Tribune reports:

 

Despite the mundane subject, the stakes were high. As the opinion pointed out, the toilet paper industry is a $4 billion-a-year business.

 

And with lawyers being lawyers, the case produced a staggering 675,000 pages of evidence - enough paper, printed out and laid end-to-end, to stretch from Chicago to Michigan City, Ind., and back. (We have no idea how many rolls of toilet paper that would equal.) The lawyers also cited almost 120 cases and 20 federal statutes in arguing the legal issues.

 

In a 17 ply page ruling that made ample use of the sorts of puns you would expect the topic of TP would inspire, Judge Terence Evans of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago wrote that though the lower-court judge "dutifully plied her opinion, we now wipe the slate clean and address Georgia-Pacific's claims." Evans let stand the lower court ruling that Georgia-Pacific had been so flush with pride over its "Quilted Diamond Design" that the company claimed it was "functional" patented it, and so “must now live with that choice and can benefit only under the protection of a patent, not that of a trademark." 

 

[Hat Tip: OpinionJournal]

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II): In what has become an annual operation, law enforcement officials spent the last two weeks uprooting 460,000 pot plants and arrested more than 100 people for illegal marijuana cultivation in Northern CA’s Mendocino National Forest, The Associated Press reports:

 

About 1,500 pounds (680 kilograms) of processed marijuana, 27 guns and 11 vehicles were also seized.

 

The 900,000-acre (364,225-hectare) forest - larger than Rhode Island - spans six counties in a region of mountains and forests known as the Emerald Triangle for its high concentration of pot farms. Agents raided more than 50 gardens teeming with trash, irrigation pipes and chemicals that damage forestland and waterways, authorities said. …

 

Six sheriff's departments, the state anti-narcotics bureau and at least a half-dozen federal agencies took part in the effort in the forest. …

 

Each summer for the past several years, authorities report seizing millions of pot plants from local, state and national parks, forests and other wilderness areas. Public lands are often favored by clandestine growers for their remote locations and rugged terrain.

 

Honestly, aren’t you glad you can have your handgun with you when you recreate in a national park just in case you accidentally come across a deep-woods pot farm that’s being guarded by armed drug dealers?

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (eighth item, Restorative Capital Punishment): Despite testimony from Dr. David Waisel, an anesthesiologist at Children's Hospital in Boston, that using pentobarbital (Nembutal) to replace sodium thiopental in lethal injection executions "exposes the inmate to extraordinary risk" of feeling the “incredibly burning pain" of potassium chloride, which stops the heart, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jacqueline Hogan Scola ruled that FL corrections officials can make the substitution. The state's medical expert, Dr. Mark Dershwitz, said that the 5-gram dose of pentobarbital to be used in FL’s new execution protocol was enough to kill by itself and would easily induce a coma and cut brain activity to near flat-line levels, The Palm Beach Post reports. The ruling brings cop-killer Manuel Valle closer to his September 1^st execution date. The state supreme court issued a stay of execution to allow it time to review Scola’s ruling.

 

[Hat Tip: OpinionJournal]

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (seventh item, A To Z Approach On Illegal Immigration In AZ): The U.S. Justice Department has filed a lawsuit to stop an anti-illegal immigration law enacted in June from going into effect on September 1^st, The Birmingham News reports:

 

[T]he Justice Department says Alabama's law unconstitutionally interferes with the federal government's authority over immigration. …

 

Justice Department lawyers write in the lawsuit that the department is filing the action "to declare invalid and preliminarily and permanently enjoin the enforcement of various provisions" of the state law, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Birmingham this afternoon. Provisions within the state's immigration law "are preempted by federal law and therefore violate the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution."

 

Parts of the state law also undermine the federal government's careful balance of immigration enforcement priorities and objectives, according to a U.S. Justice Department joint statement from federal and local officials about the lawsuit. …

 

Alabama's new immigration law targets unauthorized immigrants, those who don't have federal alien registration or other proof of legal presence in the United States. If it takes effect, the law would criminalize their presence in Alabama and make it a crime for them to work here, among other things.

 

An estimated 120,000 unauthorized immigrants lived in Alabama in 2009 and 2010, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington.

 

† 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 8½-year-old Ishaan Singh, who “just jumped in” a pool to help rescue a friend's 3-year-old sister from drowning while others rescued the girl's grandfather. San Jose Mercury News reports:

 

Grandpa was giving the girl a piggy back in the shallow end of the pool, when he was suddenly stricken by a medical problem. … Ishaan was on his way out of the swim area; his mother, Manjit Kaur, had come to tell him it was time to wrap it up and come home. …

 

Kaur said she had just looked over her shoulder to say, "Bye, uncle" to her elderly family friend, when she spotted him face down in the pool, drifting toward the deep end. His granddaughter was floating, face up on her back. …

 

The 32-year-old Kaur, who doesn't know how to swim herself, urged her son to help.

 

"I just pulled her to the side," Ishaan said. "She was heavy." …

 

Someone called 911. Before crews at Station 14 and firefighters from Santa Clara arrived, Kaur and other neighbors pumped on the pair's chests, remembering bits and pieces from what they've heard before about the importance of blood circulation.

 

The little girl is OK, but 69-year-old grandfather is still hospitalized.