My apologies for there being no Miscellany last weekend – I was enjoying a brief vacation visit with my family in Arizona. (I did briefly consider doing a post saying there would be no post).

More importantly, we should take a moment before engaging in rants and snark, to remember the reason for the holiday and to thank those who ‘gave the last full measure of devotion.’

Illinois Has the Highest Taxes in the World

Okay, in the interests of a grabber headline, I’ve stretched the truth a bit. It’s just the highest corporate income tax in the developed world. Still terrifying.

… the corporate income tax will rise 49% to 10.9% from 7.3%, “making Illinois’ the highest state corporate income tax in the United States and the highest combined national-local corporate income tax in the industrialized world.”

Even before this most recent tax increase, Illinois ranked 47^th among the states in private sector job growth for the years 2001-2011 (net loss of 363,000 jobs). Do you think things will improve much? I’m getting out of this state at my first opportunity, and so will every business that can. More importantly, no new businesses will come in.

Related: I came across this in Instapundit.

The man in the aisle seat is trying to tell me why he refuses to hire anybody. His business is successful, he says, as the 737 cruises smoothly eastward. Demand for his product is up. But he still won’t hire.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know how much it will cost,” he explains. “How can I hire new workers today, when I don’t know how much they will cost me tomorrow?”

He’s referring not to wages, but to regulation: He has no way of telling what new rules will go into effect when. His business, although it covers several states, operates on low margins. He can’t afford to take the chance of losing what little profit there is to the next round of regulatory changes. And so he’s hiring nobody until he has some certainty about cost.

The Ultimate Government Job Story

While on the subject of jobs, we can’t pass up this one:

A mail carrier who was caught using a yard as his personal toilet will not be fired.

The incident happened last month at a home in southeast Portland and a neighbor, Don Derfler, captured the man in the act with his camera.

Derfler had been waiting for his babysitter when he saw his mailman acting odd at his neighbor’s house across the street. The postal worker then pulled down his pants and that’s when Derfler began snapping pictures.

His punishment? After a short suspension, he was transferred to another route.

Consider what would happen if an employee of a private company had done this. I feel absolutely confident in saying that there is no private company on earth where that person would not be fired. This is the final proof, if proof were required, that government employees can do absolutely anything with no fear of being fired.

The Last Weekly Mitch Pitch

I was, of course, very disappointed, though not terribly surprised, when Mitch Daniels decided to pass up his shot at the White House. Mark Salter offers a good explanation of why this is a problem for America (beyond the loss of a good candidate). Daniels decided not to run because his family would be torn to pieces by opponents and the media. Discussing Daniels’ marriage, he notes:

It really was none of our business. No one believes the matter reflected poorly on Daniels’ character or leadership qualities. And the fact we believe such intimate truths are our business will probably dissuade other talented Americans from subjecting their families to vivisection by a gossip-hungry press and public.

In any case, I’m searching for a replacement candidate. The Chicago Tribune, in an editorial lamenting Daniels’ withdrawal, has a good take on what we should be looking for – ‘Midwestern virtues’:

His fiscal conservatism has transformed Indiana’s state budget without the raucous spectacle seen in Wisconsin. His call for a truce on social issues reflected his sensible view that the budget and the economy are more urgent. Rich Lowry, editor of the conservative magazine National Review, marvels that he “seems temperamentally incapable of unseriousness; he is the anti-panderer.”

Such virtues are hardly unique to the heartland states, but they tend to be valued more here than on the coasts. We can’t help but notice that many of the other actual and possible candidates who have emerged include some oversized egos and brash manners that clash with the modest ethos of our region.

Newt Gingrich would fit in fine in a grand opera — or a comic one — but not so well on the Decatur City Council. Sarah Palin’s showy style and refusal to finish what she started as governor of Alaska are the opposite of what wins respect in these parts.

Eager-to-please Mitt Romney is not what you’d call an anti-panderer. Ron Paul’s uncompromising libertarianism is a much better fit with Houston than Des Moines. Is it something about salt water that induces these extremes?

They go on to express slightly higher opinions of Pawlenty and Huntsman. Since I have stated often that I think the race will be won in the Midwest, and more specifically in Midwestern suburbs, I find their opinions (though flawed) interesting – I do think the virtues of seriousness and sobriety that Daniels personified are what we need in our candidate.

In Which I Shock Myself by Defending John Edwards

I have a contemptuous attitude toward politicians as a class, but it is not evenly spread, and there are few for whom my contempt is deeper than John Edwards. I can think of nothing about him – political or personal – of which I approve.

And yet, I find his current legal situation troubling. It is tempting to say that anything nasty that happens to Edwards is thoroughly deserved, but do we really want to set precedents in which failed politicians are witch-hunted into jail on dubious interpretations of byzantine regulations?

As Kevin Williamson puts it, Edwards’ actions of getting his pals to pay off his mistress might be “unethical, distasteful, dishonest, vulgar, etc., but illegal as a matter of campaign finance?”

Being a cad is, in most jurisdictions, perfectly legal. Conning your gullible rich pals into underwriting your fling (and conning one of your sycophants into temporarily claiming paternity of the resulting offspring) is pretty awful behavior (though probably indicative of why Edwards was a wildly successful lawyer and probably would have been twice as dangerous as Barack Obama in the White House), but I do not see which part of that contains an element of what we now think of as a crime.

At EspressoPundit, Greg Patterson moves the argument forward:

Someone gave Edwards a bunch of money so that he could hide his mistress…and those funds “arguably aided” his presidential bid? That means that every dime that any candidate has ever received could later be classified as a political contribution because it “arguably aided” his candidacy.

The laws around campaign finance are incredibly complex – such that it is quite common for campaigns to be required to pay fines for multiple violations (some intentional, others not). Edwards is an easy target because he is so thoroughly despised by virtually everybody (and liberals can assuage their guilt over covering for him when it mattered by stoning him in the public square now that he’s no longer useful). But who will be next?

Quickly Noted

Ban on Circumcision Could Become Law in Santa Monica: Because we know what’s best for everybody. I love the term ‘male genital mutilation’.

Gary Johnson vs. Ron Paul: Ilya Somin on why Gary Johnson is a better libertarian and a better candidate (the latter is irrefutable, in my opinion) than Ron Paul.

Racism to Blame for Obama’s Problems, Key Democrat Says: Well of course. What else could it be?

47% See Major Changes in Defense, Social Security, Medicare As Necessary to Big Budget Cuts, 36% Don’t: Rasmussen presents this as a problem, because most are still in denial. But I think it shows that we’ve moved a long way toward recognizing reality.

Add your own miscellany in the comments.