Political cartoonist John Cole offers a nice perspective on the Presidential-school-address hysterics coming from the right-wing drama queens:

Both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush gave similar speeches and, like Obama, were attacked by opponents for inappropriately mixing official duties with politics.

But the note being struck by far-right Obama-hater wing of the GOP is abrasive at best. They claim is sounding off about the president’s plans to “indoctrinate” America’s children with his “socialist philosophy,” and that parents should be given the right to inspect his speech beforehand, as if listening to the elected leader of the free world were the equivalent of reading “Catcher in the Rye” or taking a course in sex education.

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Attention!

Senior Americans who hate socialism: Please mail me your social security income that’s currently being leached from my hard-earned paycheck.

Also, please send me any Medicaid or Medicare funds you receive.

Remember: This is no time to be a hypocrite moocher. Don’t be a freeloader. I want my money back.

Cash and major credit cards welcome. ;-)

The following is a presentation of ABCBSNBESPN Sports.

Jim: Here we are at halftime, and billions of people across the world have tuned in to the Gaza Strip.

Walter: Not an Olympic-sized venue by any means.

Jim: It’s about six-miles wide on average; runs for 25 miles along the Mediterranean Sea. It’s claimed by Palestine. And what we’re witnessing today is a rout.

Walter: Coming into the game, Palestine considered the Gaza Strip their turf, but honestly, I’m not seeing evidence of a home-field advantage. Israel is pounding them to dust.

Jim: If this continues, the Israel Zionists may hand the Palestine Islamists one of the worst defeats in Super Gaza Bowl history.

Walter: This game is even more surprising after Israel’s anemic offensive performance against Lebanon in the playoffs.

Jim: The Zionists have clearly worked out the kinks. Where Lebanon’s defense — led by veteran Coach Hezbollah — showed the Zionists a lot of different formations, that’s not the case today. In fact, we’ve yet to see much of a defensive strategy at all out of the Palestine Islamists.

Walter: I’m guessing Coach Hamas is trying to come up with one in the locker room right now.

Jim: As well he should. Otherwise the Zionists are going to come out in the third quarter and continue to punish Palestine with a crushing ground game, while firing bombs at will deep into Islamist territory.

Walter: That being said, we do have two more quarters, and in the Super Gaza Bowl, anything can happen!

Jim: Some people may not realize how lucky we are to get to see this game at all. Earlier this week, a large group of left-wing protesters tried to stop the game. They were pleading their case to league officials right up to the kickoff.

Walter: I’m guessing they didn’t have much luck stopping the game?

Jim: Not a chance. When it comes to fans who’ve made it here to the Super Gaza Bowl, football truly is a religion.

Walter: For more about that, along with a brief history of the Super Gaza Bowl, let’s take it to Melissa who’s made it down to the field…

Melissa: Thanks, Walter. This series between the Islamists and Zionists is considered one of the best and most hard-fought rivalries in all of sports. Overall, the Zionists own a sizeable lead in the series, but when it comes to this game all bets are off. The coaches have no problem getting their players fired up for this contest and, as we’ve seen today, the fans are equally fanatical.

To understand why this game is so important to Israel and Palestine, you need to go back to the beginning.

The original Super Gaza Bowl was played in ancient times, but back then the Palestine Islamists were known as the Arab Sheiks. Likewise, the Israeli Zionists were known by a different name: God’s Jews.

Believe it or not, the God’s Jews franchise was located in…Palestine of all places! But that was a long, long time ago — back before the original American Redskins moved out of Washington DC, before the Mexico Stampede moved out of Texas, even before the Spanish Conquistadors left Florida.

For thousands of years Palestine was home to one team: the Arab Sheiks. Their games with God’s Jews took place during the regular season. But all that changed when the Britain Monarchs came to town.

Ever since God’s Jews left Palestine, they were forced to play their games in other teams’ stadiums. By 1917, the Britain Monarchs had grown tired of sharing their stadium with God’s Jews, and that’s when they struck a deal with the International Football League (IFL) so that God’s Jews had to play all their games in the Arab Sheiks’ home stadium. The Arab Sheiks protested, and then the IFL decided to move the games with God’s Jews back to other stadiums across Europe.

But the big problem remained: God’s Jews wanted their own stadium. And after playing in Palestine, they really liked the facilities of the Arab Sheiks.

It all came to a head mid-century when God’s Jews suffered a series of devastating losses to a relatively new franchise: the German Storm Troopers.

The Jews-Storm Troopers games weren’t so much competitions as they were one-sided blowouts. In fact, the games grew so one-sided that sports fans stopped tuning in at all, and for a while, many people didn’t know the games were still being played. This resulted in huge revenue losses, and the IFL decided if it didn’t take action soon, there might not be any future games at all.

So, in 1947, God’s Jews changed the name of their franchise to the Israel Zionists, and the IFL moved them into the home stadium of the Arab Sheiks, forcing the Sheiks to give up half their locker room. This was the same year the Sheiks changed their name to the Palestine Radical Jihad Islamists, or simply “Islamists” as most fans refer to them today.

Now, you might ask: Why would the IFL move God’s Jews into the Arab Sheiks’ stadium? Why not make them share a stadium with the Britain Monarchs? Or the Turkey Turkeys? Or the Russia Mos Cows? If you ask the Islamists, they’ll tell you the other IFL members ganged up on them. However, the chairman of the IFL maintains it was because the Arab Sheiks already had the biggest locker room of any team in the league.

Whatever the case may be, sports fanatics can’t argue with the results: a quintessential intrastate rivalry with intensely loyal fans on both sides. You’d be hard pressed to find a contention with a better combination of history, tradition, and championship implications. And the fire, passion and hate between these two teams is unlike any other. This game literally stops the world.

Back to you, Walter!

Walter: Thanks, Melissa. And just to let you know how big a rivalry this game has become, the United States — the world’s largest football equipment manufacturer — donates $2.5 billion annually to the Israel Zionist franchise.

Jim: Two and a half billion dollars! My goodness. What do you think the Zionists buy with all that money?

Walter: I don’t know Jim, but made-in-the-USA “football equipment” would be my guess.

Jim: Heh-heh. Me too, Walter. And it looks like the two teams are coming back on the field? All we can say for sure is, blowout or not, all the rabid sports fanatics are in for a treat this second half. And you can watch it all, right here on ABCBSNBESPN Sports…

What happens now that the Big 3 Auto Bailout is dead? Often, a look at our own history can shed light on the future…

Let’s take a look back at the turn of the last century, when Teddy Roosevelt tried — but couldn’t quite convince Congress and taxpayers — to hand a billion dollar bailout to the wagon and horse-drawn carriage industry.

Blacksmiths and Equestrian Real Estate Decimated

Without the bailout, thousands of blacksmiths in Cleveland alone were booted out of their shops, into the streets.

While Teddy Roosevelt tried to convince John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil to loan $2 billion to Cleveland’s struggling buggy industry, Rockefeller accused the industry of being short-sighted for too long, and resistant to change:

Everybody saw this coming. Why did not the horse-drawn industry adjust to the changing economic landscape? Because they’re content to be fat, dumb, and happy — resistant to innovation and reluctant to change. If, instead, the bankrupt buggy industry had any responsible leadership, they could have been producing horses that run on gasoline ten years ago!

Without Rockefeller’s support, Roosevelt let the bailout die.

Soon, the demise of horse-drawn carriages rippled through the rest of America. Blacksmiths everywhere closed up shop. Hundreds of thousands of acres of equestrian real estate were sold and turned into parking lots (save for a few counties in Kentucky.)

A Bleak America Without Buggies

In a matter of years, only a few horse-drawn carriage makers remained. With Cleveland’s great buggy assembly lines gone, only a few Amish in Pennsylvania had any horse-drawn vehicles at all. Perhaps a handful of Tennessee Mennonites, too. But, everbody else, my grandparents have told me, was soon left to walking 10 miles in the snow just to get to school.

I’m certain if Teddy Roosevelt could have seen this country’s bleak future without streets filled with horse-drawn buggies, he would have put up a tougher fight to convince the Congress to bailout the wagon and horse-drawn carriage industry. Let’s hope today’s leaders don’t make the same mistake.

Read More: Great Buggy Bailout, Teddy Roosevelt, Standard Oil, John D. Rockefeller, horseless carriages, buggies, auto bailout, big 3 auto bailout