THE NEW CIVILITY IN NEW JERSEY: “I want to punch him in his head.” You’ll just break a knuckle, dude. But maybe he’s responding to suggestions from Wisconsin Democrats.

JAMES JOYNER: “Leon Panetta has been brought in to oversee significant cuts to the U.S. Defense budget. Meanwhile, we’re in six wars. . . . But it’s shocking that we’re in half a dozen kinetic military operations and your average American would be doing well to name three. Something’s not quite democratic about that.”

TOBY HARNDEN: Down On The Fourth of July: The United States Of Gloom. “The last comparable Fourth of July was probably in 1980, when there was a recession, skyrocketing petrol prices and an Iranian hostage crisis, with 53 Americans being held in Tehran. . . . Obama’s promise of a national transformation after the Bush years, moreover, means that the thud of coming back down to earth has been that much harder.”

So much for all the hope-and-change talk.

AT AMAZON, markdowns in Home & Garden.

WISCONSIN DEMOCRATS: Spokesman Calls For Violence Against Republicans.

ROGER KIMBALL: Annie Sprinkle Does The Times.

STACY MCCAIN BOASTS: “Satan Reads This Blog.” Well, a rather minor imp, at best.

A TALE OF Two Shutdowns. “Minnesota’s government shutdown has made national news, in part because it foreshadows, in some respects, the battle that will play out in Washington over the next month on the debt ceiling. What has happened in Minnesota is clearcut: our Republican legislature passed a budget for the next two years, consisting of nine spending bills. Our Democratic governor, Mark Dayton, didn’t think the legislature spent enough money, so he vetoed them. As a result of Dayton’s vetoes, state agencies ran out of funding as of July 1 and, with the exception of certain critical functions, the state’s government shut down. . . . This is not the first time Minnesota has experienced a government shutdown. In 2005, during Tim Pawlenty’s first term as governor, there was a partial shutdown that lasted for nine days. It is instructive to compare the events that led to the shutdowns of 2005 and 2011.”

JEFF DUNETZ on Eric Boehlert and Jew-Bashing.

SUSANNAH BRESLIN: How To Be An Award-Winning Blogger.

STEVE CHAPMAN: “After repeatedly saying President Obama had taken over during a recession and made it worse, Mitt Romney now denies making that statement, which makes him look silly. He’d have been better off sticking to his original claim — which by one important measure is actually true. Under Obama, the economy has stopped contracting and resumed growing. So the recession is officially over. But most people judge the economy by how many people are working. And that number is pitifully low — far lower than when Obama took office.”

A REVIEW OF THE HP TOUCHPAD TABLET. “With its stellar software hobbled by bugs and appealing hardware dogged by bloat, the TouchPad poses the question: What’s it worth to be second place to the iPad?” I saw on Facebook that Dana Loesch was excited by the TouchPad until she actually tried one. Then, kind of disappointed. Bummer.

PERHAPS NANNY BLOOMBERG SHOULD TURN HIS ATTENTION FROM TRANS-FATS FOR A MOMENT AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS: Chaos on Christopher: Iconic Village stretch overrun by drug dealers, prostitutes, violent youths. “I’ve never seen it like this. Fifteen years ago, you could walk down the street and you wouldn’t have to worry about getting mugged on your way home.”

Meh, who am I kidding? He can’t even deal with the bedbug problem.

THE MASSACHUSETTS WAY: “Just because you flunk the bar exam seven times doesn’t mean you can’t become a judge. At least not in Massachusetts, and not if one of your brothers is already a (Jane Swift-appointed) judge and another one is a big-time lobbyist who donated more than $100,000 to Beacon Hill pols. It also doesn’t hurt if you were hired into the hackerama by none other than Jailbird Jackie Bulger, Whitey’s ex-con brother.”

GEORGE LUCAS VS. GREENPEACE: “Obviously, George Lucas’s concern about protecting his copyright overrides his concern about offending treehuggers. Is he just being a big Jabba? Is this yet another sign that the global-warming fad is over? Both?”

SOME ADVICE TO BLOGGERS.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, we’d see an environmental nightmare, with oil spills from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to . . . Montana? I scoffed at such fear-mongering, but once again, they were right! “An undetermined amount of crude oil spilled from an ExxonMobil pipeline into the Yellowstone River in Montana, prompting evacuations of nearby residents on Saturday, authorities said.”

HMM: Big Banks Easing Terms on Loans Deemed as Risks. “Two of the nation’s biggest lenders, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, are quietly modifying loans for tens of thousands of borrowers who have not asked for help but whom the banks deem to be at special risk.”

MARKDOWNS IN Home Audio And Video.

PROF. JACOBSON: “The New York Times and New York Magazine have the long knives out for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. But tell me, what precisely is it the DA’s office did wrong in the Strauss-Kahn case?”

My question: Shouldn’t we know the accuser’s name now?

IS OPEC HEADED FOR COLLAPSE?

MICHELE BACHMANN PRAISES ONE-YEAR INCOME TAX MORATORIUM. Okay, she’s the one with the LLM in Tax, not me, but this seems like a bad idea.

The weakness of our stumblebum “recovery” is largely based on regime uncertainty, not a lack of liquidity. Yeah, a year of no income tax would gin up spending, but only temporarily. If I were a business, I’d feel safer with a long-term ceiling on tax rates — and, better still, a moratorium on new regulations — than a one-year tax suspension. To me this just seems like “cash for clunkers” writ large.

The one argument I can see is that if Americans get used to a year without paying income tax, they’ll be much, much more resistant to tax increases in the future. I remember Harry Browne telling people to imagine how they could save for retirement, educate their children, etc. if they didn’t have to pay federal income tax. With this approach, people wouldn’t have to imagine. But if that’s Bachmann’s intent, I haven’t heard that.

Meanwhile, a commenter at the link (who claims to be a “tax guy”) thinks there would be no revenues if we had a moratorium on the income tax, but in fact I think it’s only about a third of federal revenue. Could we cut the budget by a third? Undoubtedly. Is there the political will to do so? Not now, but maybe if people got used to not paying. . . .

Still, I think this is a bad idea and my speculation about political effects is just after-the-fact cogitation, with no evidence that this is what Bachmann intends.

UPDATE: According to this it’s more like 45%. Still, not the only source or even the majority source of revenue, though it is the largest.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Fran Akridge writes:

First, I think Bachmann is saying some things that will keep her from being taken seriously among old-line Republicans. I am a Libertarian Republican but I can add and subtract and even multiply and divide.

However, someone (Goldwater?) used to suggest doing away with withholding so that we would “feel” exactly how much we are paying.

I do (and you may) remember the horror of paying both sides of Social Security when I was doing almost full-time consulting work.

And I remember the horror of small business people paying both sides of Social Security when I did taxes one year – many had lost withholding jobs and were doing anything to feed their families – they had figured they would owe no income tax and had forgotten about both sides of Social Security.

Ouch.

WHY IS EUROPEAN BROADBAND FASTER AND CHEAPER? More competition. Could we get some of that here, please?

AN UPSIDE OF THE DOWNSIDE: “Housing is more affordable than it’s been in a generation!”

ECHOES: Should We Blame Grandpa For Teen Joblessness? “As this graphic shows, the labor-force participation rate for those 65 and older has nearly doubled since reaching a low of about 10 percent in the mid-1980s. It peaked earlier this year at 18 percent. The last time senior participation rates were this high was in the late 1960s.”

I suspect that more older people are working because they have to in light of lousy-to-nonexistent returns on CDs and bonds — something that would be producing a lot of tear-jerker media coverage if we had a Republican president, but that goes largely unmentioned under Obama. If CDs were returning 5%, a lot more of them would be staying home. But if I were an employer looking for part-time workers, if I had the choice of a 68-year-old with extensive work history who needed the money to live, and a 17-year-old with none who was working for “extra” money, I’d pick the 68-year-old every time.

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Brown writes: “Don’t forget, a 68-yr old who by law cannot become an Obamacare burden to the business. Look at the jobless recovery among those over 45 that flips once the magical 65 is achieved.” Hmm.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails:

As a business owner, I maintain a policy of hiring grandpa over teeney, twenty, and definitely 30-ish. For our Nanny State (thank you Mayor Bloomberg, etc.), and although there is an ocean between abuse and discipline, somehow all these kids who were never told “no,” had their butts swatted, or received any harsher punishement than having their iphones removed, cannot show up on time, take direction, t-h-i-n-k (duh) or process through random challenges. There seems to be this prevailing concept that they granted me the privilege of paying them, wee socialists. Gone are the 80’s wiz kids. And, therefore today’s 20-year-olds also from working in my business. That leaves 30-year-olds with a sense of entitlement and kids of their own. Fat chance: Those are the ones who act pious for being stupid, irresponsible, not showing up (my child (who is 14) needed a ride to play practice) or otherwise not doing their job (“I am on the phone. Now, Brenda, Mommy is sorry School wasn’t fun today…”). I never hire illegals. So, if that means sending a recruiter to a nursing home, so be it. Business is business.

Well, given that old folks can’t afford to retire nowadays, at least they have that work ethic to fall back on.