Once Upon A Time

... When government actually tried to ameliorate what was wrong in the country.

Doorway, Cincinnati, Ohio. 1939
Photographer: John Vachon
Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Archive

...Instead of proposing a budget gimmick that will punish middle-class workers and serve only as an anti-stimulus.

Reducing government workers to a sub-minimum wage would save ever so much more than a paltry $2 billion.

And it would be ever so much more faithful to the Republican policies being pursued here.

Despite this insanity, one group of government workers has a winning formula:

• Take one worried parent who seeks help for his troubled teenager.
• Invest time and money to groom the teen until he can be tried as an adult.
• Make high-profile arrest, having foiled the plot that you created in the first place.

Voilà: the FBI has itself a make-work goldmine.

A family is devastated because Mohamed Osman Mohamud's father asked government agents for help.

Following Mohamud's arrest, some for-real terrorists are successful: in torching the mosque he attended—

Most of the Mosque was destroyed and the FBI has issued a $10,000 reward for leads... Area Somali Americans are planning a peace and unity rally outside Portland City Hall today at 5pm. In their statement they say "The Somali American community strongly condemns any type of violence. We left Somalia because of violence."

In other events that will not make headlines: Boehner's Staff Meets With Terrorists.