IRSHAD MANJI: “Growing up in Vancouver, I attended an Islamic school every Saturday. There, I learned that Jews can’t be trusted because they worship ‘moolah, not Allah’, meaning money, not God. According to my teacher, every last Jew is consumed with business.”

AN IMMIGRATION SOLUTION THAT MIGHT FLY: Deport Congress!

IN LIGHT OF MY EARLIER POST ON VIDEOTAPING POLICE, it’s worth once again recommending David Brin’s excellent book on surveillance, etc., The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? It just keeps seeming more and more prophetic. And sensible.

AMERICA’S POLITICAL CLASS faces a crisis of confidence. Mark Tapscott comments on the latest plummeting polls:

Consider the latest Gallup Poll, which finds only 14 percent of the American people have “a great deal of” confidence in Congress or “quite a lot,” compared to 19 percent a year ago. That is lowest confidence rating Gallup has ever recorded for Congress since the survey firm began measuring public confidence in major American institutions in 1973.

Congress is far from alone in suffering plummeting confidence ratings. The presidency dropped from 33 percent to 25 percent and the Supreme Court from 40 percent to 34 percent. The “fourth branch” of government, the mainstream media, also has declining public confidence ratings. Television news dropped from 31 percent to 23 percent, while newspapers were down to 22 percent, compared to 30 percent a year ago.

The highest confidence levels were for the military at 69 percent, small business at 59 percent, and the police at 54 percent. Organized labor remained among the lowest at 19 percent, along with HMOs at 15 percent and Big Business at 18 percent.

If we define America’s political class as consisting of the three branches of the federal government, plus the mainstream news media, some tentative conclusions are suggested:

First, the dramatic reversal of partisan political power seen in the November 2006 election was either a fluke or an inevitably lost opportunity for the winning Democrats. Short of an historically unprecedented philosophical reversal of course by the majority, it is hard to see Congress regaining public respect any time soon.

Seen in this light, Rep. Rahm Emanuel’s recent declaration that the American people “are very happy with the things we have done” seems especially out of touch.

In fact, having raised and then frustrated public hopes for a change in Washington, the Democrats lost opportunity could well end up accelerating the crisis of confidence seen as the previous GOP congressional majority frittered away the support that had kept it in power for a dozen years.

Second, Republicans should take no comfort in the Democrats’ declining ratings.

I agree. There’s much more and you should read it all. This is much more important than the political horse-race business. And I agree with this part, too: “The root problem is a bipartisan inability – or refusal – to adopt policies supported by clear majorities of the American people. Those policies for the most part involve a significantly lower level of government activism, whereas the political class for the most part seeks only a higher level.”

UPDATE: More thoughts from Sean Hackbarth. And Tammy Bruce wants a constitutional amendment to fire Congress when its approval gets this low.

MORE: Thoughts on burning bridges.

STILL MORE: Apparently Congress doesn’t think much of America, either. Well, that would explain a lot . . . .

HOWARD KURTZ NOTES that the Bloomberg-boomlet has its limits: “Funny–the networks don’t seem to be running as many pictures of Bloomberg as they did with Paris.”

SOME ADVICE on how to keep computers from damaging your spine. Yeah, I’ve mentioned this repeatedly, but really, pay attention: This stuff is no joke.

RYAN LIZZA CHARGES BILL RICHARDSON with flipflopping and airbrushing on the war. I like Richardson, except for his war positions, but this doesn’t inspire confidence.

TYLER COWEN IS PROMOTING HIS NEW BOOK by using a secret blog. Clever.

RALPH NADER CALLS HILLARY A COWARD. Plus, exciting news for Democrats:

Ralph Nader says he is seriously considering running for president in 2008 because he foresees another Tweedledum-Tweedledee election that offers little real choice to voters.

Bloomberg/Nader 2008!

IF BOYS DO IT, IT’S SEXIST. If girls do it, it’s liberating!

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Hmm. This transcript from CNN suggests one reason why Congress’s approval ratings are in freefall:

ANDERSON COOPER: Drew, it’s just amazing that nothing has changed. What happened to all those promises about transparency, about having this whole process be open? I can’t believe you had all those interns calling for days and some 330 lawmakers said they just wouldn’t even give out the information.

GRIFFIN: Anderson it’s mind-boggling. One congressional aide even sent us an e-mail saying, listen, my congressman is an advocate of the open process and at the same time said we’re not going to release our earmark requests.

It’s just been an eye-opening experience, but quite frankly the more we’re doing this, the more we’re keeping them honest and other groups are, the more open they are grudgingly becoming so tonight we have posted at cnn.com the results of our surveys. We’re going to show you who did send us the earmarks and their earmark requests, who said no, who wouldn’t respond and even, Anderson, who was rude to those poor little interns when they called asking what Congress wants to do with our money.

COOPER: The fact that people would be rude, that is really annoying, you know. This is — this is, A, what journalists are supposed to be doing but it’s also what citizens should be able to do, you know, to the people who represent them.

GRIFFIN: Clearly it’s annoying to them. They don’t like to be called on the carpet, especially, I mean, I hate to get political here, but have you to. The Democrats promised in December open, transparent process. Now they are being called to come up with that open, transparent process and it’s been difficult because for so many years and decades, quite frankly, business as usual has been slipped in those earmark requests and we’ll continue to pay for them.

Broken promises are worse than no promises at all.

I AGREE:

There’s been a rash of arrests of late for videotaping police, and it’s a disturbing development. . . . As noted, police are public servants, paid with taxpayer dollars. Not only that, but they’re given extraordinary power and authority we don’t give to other public servants: They’re armed; they can make arrests; they’re allowed to break the very laws they’re paid to enforce; they can use lethal force for reasons other than self-defense; and, of course, the police are permitted to videotape us without our consent.

It’s critical that we retain the right to record, videotape or photograph the police while they’re on duty. Not only for symbolic reasons (when agents of the state can confiscate evidence of their own wrongdoing, you’re treading on seriously perilous ground), but as an important check on police excesses. In the age of YouTube, video of police misconduct captured by private citizens can have an enormous impact.

That’s why they’re making (futile) efforts to shut it down. But suggesting that the police have a right to “privacy” while performing a public duty in public is ridiculous. In fact, it’s worse than ridiculous — it’s an effort to place the police above the law that applies to the citizenry, their employers.

THE DRIP, DRIP, DRIP ON OBAMA: It’s as if his real purpose were to get some people excited about a Democrat, then fade just in time for Hillary to win the nomination.

OH, GOOD, SOMETHING ELSE TO WORRY ABOUT:

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world.

So we’ll either be roasting, or freezing. I guess either way, more insulation in my attic is a good idea.

HERE, IN CASE YOU WANT IT FOR ANYTHING, is a list of contact information for U.S. Senators.

HOW BAD IS THE IMMIGRATION BILL? This bad: “In fact, even a National Journal columnist with no apparent qualifications could write a better bill. . . . Suffice it to say that writing a perfect immigration bill is impossible, but writing a better one than the Senate’s is a piece of cake.”

THIS SEEMS LAME: No more food for returning troops at Bangor International Airport, unless they buy it from an airport vendor.

More here.

CONGRESS AT 14% APPROVAL:

This 14% Congressional confidence rating is the all-time low for this measure, which Gallup initiated in 1973. The previous low point for Congress was 18% at several points in the period of time 1991 to 1994.

Congress is now nestled at the bottom of the list of Gallup’s annual Confidence in Institutions rankings, along with HMOs. Just 15% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in HMOs. (By way of contrast, 69% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the military, which tops the list. More on this at galluppoll.com on Thursday). . . .

Generally speaking, Americans have been skeptical about Congress for decades now. But the current 14% confidence rating for Congress is down from 19% last year and is the lowest in Gallup’s history, surpassing the 18% confidence in Congress measured in 1991, 1993 and 1994.

Ouch: Worse than HMOs. It’s well-earned. Nonetheless, this is troubling, and not just for the Democrats, who are only doing somewhat worse than the GOP Congress did. How long can we have a free and successful nation with such an unpopular — and deservedly so — political class.

UPDATE: Reader Christopher Grayce emails:

C’mon, now, this is GOOD news. Surely Americans are better off learning to be more deeply and consistently skeptical about what government can actually accomplish. That way lies greater citizen self-reliance, and a decreased tendency to look to government to solve big complex problems like protecting us all from bad weather and bad luck.

Well, there’s some of that. But the problem is, 14% is an awfully low number, and while we’re in no danger of a military coup, the contrast with the military’s much higher approval explains why this is iffy as a long-term proposition. (And lowering the military’s numbers isn’t a good response, either.)

You need a certain amount of confidence for a nation to operate as a nation. Worse yet, I think this low approval number is justified, which illustrates that we’re being pretty badly governed. That’s a problem, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This doesn’t help much:

Americans give both President Bush and the Congress failing marks on their handling of immigration, according to a new UPI/Zogby poll on the topic.

The Zogby Interactive poll of 8,300 adults nationwide finds just 3% of Americans viewing Congress’s handling of the immigration issue in favorable terms, while 9% say the same of the President-even as respondents in the survey rated it the second most important issue facing the country, after the war in Iraq.

Three percent? That doesn’t quite put the possibility that no one approves within the margin of error, but . . . .

MORE: Reader Bruce Goldston emails:

I think there is a greater disconnect between the Political Class and the Public than ever before — and, to quote a phrase — deservedly so. The most liberal senator has more in common with the most conservative senator than either has in common with you or me, and we know it.

Indeed.

STILL MORE: Jim Norman of USA Today emails to note that this isn’t an “approval” number, but a “confidence” number:

The 14% number for Congress is not really an approval rating. It’s actually a measure of confidence in the institution of Congress. Of course the two (approval, confidence) aren’t that much different, but Gallup does have a specific question to measure Congressional approval — the very straightforward “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job?”

That question was also asked in Gallup’s poll this month, and the approval rating was 24%. That’s not the lowest (18% in 1992), but it’s among the 10 lowest measured in the 150+ times Gallup has asked the Congressional approval question, going back to 1980.

Worth keeping that in mind — mixing the two up isn’t apples and oranges, but it’s at least winesaps vs. Granny Smiths. Er, or choose the apple-related metaphor of your choice.