Editorial cartoonists know it, too. Here are a few of their visual commentaries on the Benghazi brouhaha:

Activist and academic Lawrence Lessig has determined that 144,000 people are rigging our elections and our political process for their own private interests. To Lessig, this is the root of our problems.

Today, however, that meme was upended by one courageous survivor of the huge tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma yesterday [May 20, 2012].  Watch the video clip, as Wolf Blitzer tries to cajole a woman into thanking god for her survival. She hesitates and then–pow!–she tells Blitzer that she’s an atheist. In my book, that statement makes her a hero.

That got me to wondering about the definition of bleeding-heart liberal. Dictionary.com characterizes a bleeding heart as “a person who makes an ostentatious or excessive display of pity or concern for others.”  Even worse was “an individual and idealist who at times espouses very reasonable, perhaps even thoughtful, political inclinations but whose lack of character and unsubstantiated smugness make any discourse they may embrace largely unpalatable to any self-respecting citizen.”  I found those descriptions unpalatable, so I searched further.

My hunt ended with a definition I can cheerfully accept.

From Urbandictionary.com – Bleeding-Heart Liberal:

A person whose political view lies generally along the lines of the founding fathers, in that they believe that what unites Americans is a love of freedom, and they tend to vote that way. They prefer to allow others to believe as they like, since this is what the country is founded on, and generally resist any effort to remove rights simply because of who someone is, such as gay, or black, or poor. They believe in the ideal of ‘treating your neighbor as you would like to be treated’, believe that we all have a certain responsibility to support each other, rather than corporations, and believe that the safety and dreams of people come before the earnings of CEO’s. They believe that everyone’s point of view has something to contribute to our political discourse.

Yes!  A love of freedom  I believe in our freedoms, including the rights of women to make their own decisions regarding contraception. I believe in the freedom of religion – the right guaranteed by the First Amendment to choose a religion, or no religion, without interference from the government.

Yes!   …Allow others to believe as they like and generally resist any effort to remove rights simply because of who someone is, such as gay, or black, or poor. I support marriage equality and celebrate each new community that passes a non-discrimination ordinance.

Yes!  ..Treating your neighbor as you would like to be treated.  I believe in fairness; what is right for me should be right for everyone. I believe that a just society is one where all our children can enjoy an education in safe, healthy communities.

Yes!  …Believe that the safety and dreams of people come before the earnings of CEO’s. To see the rubble of the collapsed factory and the faces of families in Bangladesh is to be convinced that corporations disregard the safety of workers in the rush for profit. The accident and explosion of the fertilizer plant in Texas, due to indifference to employee safety, that caused loss of life and the destruction of the town of West, was the direct result of corrupt, corporate greed. I speak up for equal pay for equal work and a stand with our low income workers who demand a livable wage.

But maybe, given the current politics of the country and Missouri, the new definition of bleeding-heart liberal should be more cynical.

Bleeding-Heart Liberal:  a dreamer, someone who envisions liberty and justice for all, a person who faces repeated defeat but doesn’t accept failure, doesn’t shut up, doesn’t bow down, doesn’t stop trying and never stops caring.

Right now, the Obama Administration is mired in at least three difficult quagmires. They all have political components to them, but two of the three raise serious questions about the conduct of the Administration. The third one, the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya last September 11, cannot be analyzed with logic because while some facts are clear, far too many are not. Despite the sniping of Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, the incident is not a scandal. Instead it falls into the “shit-happens bucket.” It is extremely sad that four Americans were killed, not only because they lost their lives but also because they most likely were the only people who really knew what happened on the ground that night. But that’s what happened, and we’ll have to settle for an imperfect understanding the events of that evening.

The two quagmires about which serious concern is  warranted are (a) the I.R.S. singling out for special scrutiny certain right wing organizations that are applying for tax-exempt status under the new 501(c)4 designation, and (b) the Justice Department listening in on the conversations of over two hundred reporters working for the Associated Press who had information on terrorist attacks in the planning stage against the United States.

The IRS issue is one in which no party involved in the dispute is pure in motive and actions. Of the transgressions that have occurred, it’s clear that some were motivated to gain a political advantage and others were in order to ensure better working of our government. The key to proceeding from here is for each side to admit its mistakes, apologize to those whom they have violated, and propose realistic solutions that do not provide a political advantage to either side.

It’s clear that with the current rules for achieving a 501©4 tax-exempt status, the I.R.S. was way out of line in singling out conservative organizations for more intense scrutiny. However, a fair-minded individual who has the best interests of strengthening American democracy at heart may have seen the actions of the I.R.S. as being at least somewhat justified.

First, the conservative organizations that were applying for 501©4 status were driving Mack trucks through the gaping hole that the Supreme Court left with its 2010 ruling on the Citizens United case. That decision essentially allowed unlimited contributions to political campaigns. And if the donations were made through a 501©4 organization, the donors could remain as anonymous, thus side-stepping transparency regulations long ago established by the Federal Elections Commission.

It’s a very difficult line to draw when a 501©4 organization claims that it is advocating policy and lobbying for it, but not supporting or opposing a specific candidate. Because this line is so unclear, and because advocacy groups on both the conservative and liberals wings of the political spectrum have blatantly trashed opponent candidates, the IRS is justified in examining their 501©4 status. It also is justified in giving special scrutiny to new applications from organizations seeking 501©4 status.

The evidence that we have now is that the IRS has focused on right-wing organization with names that include such search terms as “Tea Party,” “Patriot,” or “Constitutional.” Is there any justifiable reason to focus on the right-wing applicants? With trepidation, one could argue that right-wing organizations pose more of a threat to our political system. These are the organizations and people who oppose reasonable gun control legislation, support specious wars, and blatantly support expanding the rights and privileges of the wealthy rather than the disenfranchised. Were they to gain control of the government, they could well impose policies that would be very harmful to the vast preponderance of American citizens, as well as the citizens of other countries.

There may have been a time in the 1960s and 1970s when the left posed more of a threat of civil unrest and violence than the right did. However, since right-wing acts of violence in the 1990s such as Oklahoma City, Waco, and Ruby Ridge and their concurrent stridency about guns, the right has come to pose far more of a threat. For that reason, it could be argued that the IRS had reason to scrutinize them more closely than the left. While this does not excuse the discriminatory action on the part of the IRS, it may in part provide an explanation.

This is not the time for us to retract the powers of the IRS to thoroughly investigate the conduct of 501©4 organizations and others seeking to receive 501©4 status. They are doing more to corrupt politics with excessive and untraceable money than any other organizations or individuals. They must be tightly regulated.

The Republicans in the 113^th Congress have clearly exhibited that they have no interest in operating in a fact-based and fair manner. They have also shown no interest in governing; they oppose virtually everything that Democrats propose, including funding for entitlements, for social welfare, even for defense. They also stymie efforts to appoint judges and cabinet officials. Essentially, they have no interest in governing. For that reason, they have forfeited the right to be involved in investigating how our government works and what reforms are needed. If they want in on the process, they have to take interest in and action regarding the real governance of the country, not just the politics. We cannot let them have the leadership role in investigating the IRS. Yes, there are some Democrats who are no more logical than Republicans. But within the ranks of the Democrats, there is a clear majority who provide the necessary reason to clean up this mess. As progressives, our role is not to further demonize the Republicans; rather it is to act as honest servants of the people and reform what has gone wrong. Republicans are always welcome to join the cause when they accept a few basic fundamentals of governance as they have until recent history. Regrettably, the Republicans currently control the House and have filibuster powers in the Senate. It’s up to the American people of reason to seek reason in the solution to these current problems.

Earlier this week [May 2013], the Heritage Foundation’s executive director sent a letter to Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, urging them to avoid introducing legislation and to, instead, focus attention on White House “scandals.”

…we urge you to avoid bringing any legislation to the House Floor that could expose or highlight major schisms within the conference. Legislation such as the internet sales tax or the FARRM Act, which contains nearly $800 billion in food stamp spending, would give the press a reason to shift their attention away from the failures of the Obama administration to write another “circular firing squad” article.

…Rather than scheduling such legislation for consideration, we urge you to keep the attention focused squarely on the Obama administration. As the public’s trust in their government continues to erode, it is incumbent upon those of us who support a smaller, less intrusive government to lead.”

There it is: the naked truth about the Republican Congressional “agenda,” brought to you straight from the “heart” of the Republican strategy machine: Don’t waste time on actual legislation. Don’t discuss issues. Pay no attention to your job description. Don’t do anything that might be construed as “governing.” Don’t talk about the merits of any issues. Instead: Create scandals. Hold hearings. Investigate. Investigate again. Point fingers. Distract the public from the issues that really matter to them. Destroy Obama. Wreck government. But for gawd’s sake, don’t deviate from the party line, don’t reveal any differences of opinions among yourselves, and don’t legislate. That could be dangerous.

You can read the full letter here.

The “starve the beast” strategy we’ve become most familiar with is the one where you cut appropriations for regulatory agencies. No money, no enforcement. We’ve seen that at work with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and so many others. That tactic has been in play since the Ronald Reagan years. [Later recanted by one of its primary proponents--Regan's budget director, David Stockman.]

The newer game–which has escalated with the arrival of President Obama–is to obstruct agency appointments by hyper-investigating [see: Susan Rice], putting politically motivated holds on appointments, holding appointments for political ransom [see: Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt's hold on Obama's appointment of Gina McCarthy to head EPA], delaying hearings, not showing up for hearings, and issuing pre-emptive strikes against anybody nominated by the President [such as Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Agency]. According to Pro Publica, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services haven’t had a Senate-confirmed administrator since 2006. The Federal Labor Relations Authority has had only a single member since January 2013 and can’t issue decisions. And the Election Assistance Commission hasn’t had any commissioners at all since 2011.

In the meantime, the director’s office in key government agencies is occupied by a deputy or interim director, or by nobody at all. And that’s a big problem.

The job of the head of a government agency–or the head of any organization, for that matter–is to make sure that the mission of the agency is being properly pursued. It’s his or her responsibility to make the gears turn so that the job gets done. The agency director sets the tone, establishes and reinforces the culture of the organization, and is the ultimate enforcer.

So, when an agency is led by someone who everyone knows is a temporary placeholder–which has been the case with the IRS–the mission can get lost, the culture can be in flux, and enforcement can go all squishy. An interim or deputy director doesn’t have the clout–and may not have the nerve– to take tough stands and institute innovations. And lower-level employees may not bother to report issues up the line to a temporary director. So, what you can get is a wishy-washy organization where front-line workers don’t feel part of an overall mission and may feel that what they do doesn’t really matter.  And that’s where mistakes and misguided  decisions come in and can run amok.

But that’s just fine with the current crop of Congressional Republicans. Having created the situation themselves–by stonewalling just about every appointment the Obama Administration has sent up to the Hill–they gleefully pounce on every misstep of the agencies they are intent on destroying. Then, they disguise their cynical, self-fulfilling strategy with outrage expressed on the floor of Congress and in a press that’s oh-so-willing to jump on anything that looks remotely like a “scandal.”

Congressional Republicans are also undoubtedly happy to keep the Obama Administration busy scrambling to find second- or third-choice nominees, fending off hypberbolic attacks on nominees, and defending the actions of lower-level employees in the leaderless agencies Republicans have cynically created. For obvious reasons,  the anti-taxers have got to be  delighted that their outrage du jour comes from the IRS.

The obstructionism and cynicism is escalating in President Obama’s second term.  And, unfortunately for our country, it’s working. The unceasing effort to block anything from happening distracts the administration from accomplishing important goals, makes President Obama look inept [except when Republicans call him a dictator, of course], and keeps the public and the press entertained with ersatz scandals, rather than engaged in real issues.

And there is no end in sight.

Contrary to the focus of educational reform since the explosion of standardized testing, there’s more to education than rote learning and mandated benchmarks. With all the focus on testing and tough teacher evaluation swirling around the teaching profession, there is one vital skill that’s not easily quantified and isn’t much talked about. That’s the skill of forging relationships.

For former teacher Rita Pierson, recognizing the power of relationship is essential. As she says, “strong relationships encourage exploration, dialogue, confidence, and mutual respect.” Unfortunately, during her long career, Ms. Pierson’s seen that all too often the “value of relationships is downplayed or ignored completely in teacher preparation.”

In 2011 (the last year for which statistics are available), there were 3.3 million public school teachers and .4 million private school teachers. That massive army of educators shows up to work five days a week with the knowledge that each and every one of them needs a bag of skills and tricks more complex than most of us can imagine. They know that no matter what’s going on in their own lives or the difficult challenges of the classroom, they’ve got to bring their best to their jobs each and every day or they’ll lose the trust and attention of their students.

Teachers today also know that the challenging job they’ve taken on has become even more difficult. Competition for students’ attention is fierce. Kids are watching on average more than 28 hours of television a week. Teens are playing video games about 53 hours per week. According to a study recently completed by the Nielsen Company, electronic media (television, video games, computers, and social media) eats up on average 7.5 hours of a kid’s attention span in a single day.

This is one heck of a competitive climate.  If teachers are going to duke it out with the electronic world sucking up kids’ time and attention, they’re going to need something that can’t be found in the cloud. That something, according to Rita Pierson, are flesh-and-blood relationships.

Rita Pierson leaves you with no doubts. She is a believer in the transformative power of relationships.  She’s out there right now crusading for her fellow teachers to focus on what she believes to be the single most important, but neglected, tool in the teacher’s toolbox.

In April 2013, Pierson gave a moving TED Talk in New York City, entitled “Every Kid Needs a Champion.” Finding inspiration in the words of her mentor, veteran educator Dr. James Comer, Pierson’s talk focused on her experiences putting into practice Dr. Comer’s dictum that “no significant learning occurs without a significant relationship.” Pierson is passionate, funny, wise, and, above all, determined. The video below of her presentation might be one of the most insightful takes on the teaching profession you may ever see or hear. Listen up and learn. I believe you’ll feel privileged, as I did, to make the acquaintance of this great lady. She’s got something big to teach teachers and, by the way, the rest of us.

However, this change has had complex environmental, economic, and political ramifications.  In general, the livestock sector affects many natural resources and the increased intensity of hog farming in specific geographic regions amplifies these effects.  The increasingly concentrated levels of hog waste pollute surrounding regions and emit dangerous greenhouse gasses, such as methane, that contribute to ozone depletion. Further, many of the industry leaders in large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have significant financial clout and political connections. This power, coupled with particular financial interest in a loosely regulated pork industry, makes impartial public policy improbable, as industry interests directly compete with those of small, low-income communities and comparatively weak environmental advocacy groups.

North Carolina’s pork farming and processing industry illustrates this common struggle.

Although hog farming has always had a presence in North Carolina, the industry experienced exponential growth in the 1990s. The hog population increased from 2.6 million to 8 million from 1988 to 1998 and North Carolina’s pork production rapidly surpassed the Corn Belt’s, as it became the nation’s second-largest hog farming state after Iowa. Following the nation-wide pattern of increased concentration of large operations, from 1983 to 1997, the number of hog farms in North Carolina decreased by 78 percent, despite a five-fold increase in hog population. Nearly all of the state’s pork industry’s growth was from industrial-scale enterprise, and resulted in a critical reduction of the number of independent farmers.

However, the explosion of the North Carolina pork industry also brought a welcome economic stimulus and remains a crucial part of the state’s economy, as the industry employs many farmers who lost their livelihood in the struggling tobacco industry. And despite the reduction of independent farmers, total employment in the state’s hog farming industry increased by 16% from 2001 to 2006. The industry provides a windfall of approximately $1 billion annually for North Carolina in the form of tax revenue.

When the community of Tillery in Halifax County, N.C. was told that they should expect to see 410 new hog farms in NC by the end of 1997, they decided to act. Citizens mobilized a grass-roots movement called HELP [Halifax Environmental Loss Prevention], and began their fight for environmental justice.

Tillery is a poor, black, and rural area and is a “prime target for hog expansion.  Traditionally, poor marginalized citizens are less prone to voting, and corporations that open in those areas are less likely to suffer political consequences from constituent backlash. Nonetheless, the movement gained momentum and attracted the support of environmental advocacy groups to make their voices heard in legislation.

Even with the support of local organizations, citizens were still weak compared to powerful pork producers. The NC Pork Producers political action committee, the Pork PAC, spent significant amounts of money to fight industry regulation. In 1994, 92 out of 170 state representatives received campaign contributions from the committee. Wendell Murphy, owner of Murphy Farms, contributed $150,000 to candidates. The revolving door between North Carolina legislators and pork executives is substantial; many legislators are or were hog producers.  Wendell Murphy was a state representative for five years and a senator for three. Former Senator Lauch Faircloth, who served on the congressional Environment and Public Works Committee from 1993 to 1996, was once also a wealthy hog farmer.

However, citizens had their own way of giving legislators an incentive to favor environmental protection.  Organizations such as HELP, environmental advocacy groups, and the media informed constituents of the industry’s detrimental effects. Thanks to the democratic process, large campaign contributions are not what ultimately keep legislators employed, and eventually enough angry constituents reached state congressmen.

Significant numbers of letters to representatives prompted legislators to pass stricter regulation and to budget $1.5 million to fight hog pollution. The citizens also successfully convinced commissioners to establish a committee to analyze the health consequences in the region. Soon thereafter, the committee passed a livestock ordinance that stopped three out of the seven hog farms who previously had plans to open in Halifax County. HELP continues to inform other communities of the environmental injustice practiced by hog farms and has done so through town meetings and  “hog roundtables.”

Halifax County was the first local government to increase hog farm regulation. By the late 1990s 14 North Carolina counties followed suit.  In 1997, a state statute was modified by North Carolina House Bill 515 to give counties the power to pass zoning amendments to control hog farm location, giving counties the ability to create large buffer zones between farms and communities to protect citizens from local water and air pollution.

Ultimately, HELP won the hog farm fight in Eastern North Carolina.  HELP’s efforts remain a best practice for instilling a citizenry lobby that is powerful enough to fight big-business interests. Their success cannot be understated, as a successful citizenry lobby may be the only force strong enough to give environmental interests a fighting chance.

The real story of how Barack Obama became president

Hyatt hotel heiress Penny Pritzker and Wall Street billionaire Robert Rubin, and their wealthy friends, made him president. After the debacle of the Bush presidency, it was clear a Democrat had a better chance of winning. They needed a youthful candidate who had the charisma to get elected and who would be willing to enact policies beneficial to them—policies that would ensure the growth of their obscene fortunes. He needed to be sympathetic to their self-serving “free market” philosophy and to financial deregulation—in other words, he had to be someone who would let them continue to run amuck. They picked Obama over Clinton, and then Obama over McCain.

At the very least, they wanted to make sure they were not prosecuted for the financial crimes they committed, and they needed their banks protected from prosecution in the foreclosure scandals. Any reforms of the financial industry were to be lightweight. And when the bill passed, they would unleash their lobbyists to strip Dodd-Frank like hyenas on a dead carcass. Of course, they wanted the FED spigot to continue to flow, giving them trillions in practically free money with which to gamble. Any healthcare “reform” would have to protect and preserve Big Pharma and the health insurance industry. If not privatized (so-called Democrat Bob Rubin floated that idea before 2008) social safety nets were to be weakened in preparation for future privatization. While the vast majority of voters, Democrats and Republicans, strongly support Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the billionaires who finance campaigns do not.

Obama has dutifully delivered on much of their agenda, and he’s trying his best on Social Security by insisting that chained CPI be on the table. For his efforts, after his presidency, he will be rewarded with hundreds of millions in speaking fees, making $250,000 a pop at Citibank and JP Morgan Chase. They will fund his foundation, and build him a big, honking presidential library somewhere on the south side of Chicago.

Obama agreed to do the bidding of billionaires, not because, as some believe, he wanted to position himself as a progressive Trojan Horse, but because he identifies with them—the “savvy businessmen of Wall Street.” He proudly identifies himself a a “free-market guy,” at his 2006 inaugural speech at Robert Rubin’s neoliberal think tank, the Hamilton Project. At that meeting, it was obvious he no longer identified with his role as community organizer—if he ever did. Obama referred to those displaced by globalization and outsourcing of jobs as the “losers” in the new economy—a very telling choice of words. It was clear: he wanted to be a part of the billionaire’s club where the real movers and shakers of the world—”the winners”—operate. The young junior senator from Illinois was already tapped to be president by Rubin and others.

Being a Wall Street sympathizer, Obama had to lie about his policies to get elected, especially about his plans to cut Social Security and his never-really-real public option. When elected, in return for Robert Rubin’s support, he hired Rubin acolytes and Wall Street surrogates Timothy Geithner and  Lawrence Summers. He then proceeded to hire every Wall Street person he could find to fill his cabinet. So, now, in his second term, when his true progressive self was supposed to be unleashed, at a time when most Americans are struggling and losing economic ground, he appoints his union hating, subprime-mortgage bank fraudster, billionaire, campaign bundler, Penny Pritzker to be Commerce Secretary.

I would say, simply, that Obama is not your friend—just like Penny Pritzker is not your friend. In their world, corporate and banking interests will always trump yours. Pritzker, as Secretary of Commerce, will not be working for you; she will be working for her friends.

How did Obama get on billionaire Penny Pritzker’s radar?

Ever on the lookout for a winning politician to buy, Penny Pritzker plucked Obama out of the Illinois state legislature and introduced him to her influential “Ladies Who Lunch” group. Then, she, her family, Barack, Michelle and the kids spent many weekends at the Pritzger mansion getting to know one another. They bonded. She liked his ideas and had plans for him—senator then president. She introduced him to her buddy, Robert Rubin. The rest, as they say, is history.

In 2008, Obama promised Pritzker the Commerce Secretary position if he were elected. He appointed her, then Superior Bank, the Chicago bank she owned and ran, which was heavily involved in subprime lending, imploded.  Thanks to Pritzker, a lot people in Chicago lost their homes. Then, unhappy workers from the lucrative nursing homes her family owns through a string of complex offshore trusts, marched in protest in Washington, D.C.  Truthdig writes about the Pritzker bank failure:

At the time of its collapse, Superior was the costliest bank failure ever and “the first of the deregulated go-go-banks to go bust.” Taxpayers lost nearly half a billion dollars. Depositors lost millions and many poor residents of state Sen. Obama’s South Side of Chicago lost their homes.

Because it all looked so unseemly, Pritzker removed her name from consideration. So, now four years later, Obama is trying. once again, to give his billionaire backer and best buddy, Penny Pritzker, the Commerce Secretary position. Her nomination will most likely be approved.

But, in the end, this is not a story about Barack Obama. It’s about billionaires owning our government, choosing who will run for office, and then buying legislation that enriches them at our expense. It’s about billionaire-backed candidates who get elected by manipulating voters with slick, faux-progressive campaigns hatched on Madison Avenue. The question is, how long will the American people tolerate this charade that passes for democracy?