The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.– Amendment IV, United States Constitution

Barack Obama has called the wholesale collection of Americans’ telephone records and Internet traffic only “modest encroachments” on our rights.

He justifies such violations as necessary in the War on Terror, which is odd, because he doesn’t believe in the War on Terror.

As happens frequently when government wrongdoing is brought to light, last week saw an evolution in its justification. National security topped the rationalization, of course, with the explanation that revealing the data collection would tip off terrorists.

I first heard this explanation when covering the police beat many years ago. In those days the rationale was, “We don’t want the suspect to know we’re after him.” It’s silly, of course, because all suspects – including terrorists – know the authorities are after them.

Next came the claim that reaping the data had thwarted a couple of terrorist plots. Still later in the week we learned we had no right to our electronic communications because we didn’t own the mediums of transmission. Apparently, then, the content of phone calls and e-mails wouldn’t fit under the broad category of “effects” in the Fourth Amendment.

Finally, we were told the government never would abuse Americans by misusing the data collected, basically telling citizens, “You can trust us.” This may have rung false, given admitted abuses by the Internal Revenue service. You can put me in the “doesn’t trust ‘em” category, where I have resided through five Republican and four Democratic administrations.

Anyway, the situation allows us to imagine future, “modest encroachments,” like:

How about your bank records? Why should the feds need a search warrant to look at your checking and savings accounts? After all, you aren’t their custodian, and crooks use banks. Why not allow this modest encroachment.

Keeping us safe from terror? Sweeping up phone and Internet records – a modest encroachment – didn’t keep Boston safe from the Tsarnaev brothers, did it?

What’s next? Certainly you’re aware of periodic efforts to put GPS units in every automobile, ostensibly to enable the government to tax us based on our highway mileage. Of course, it would also help keep track of potential terrorists, entailing just a modest encroachment on the privacy of the rest of us. Watch for Big Bro to make another run at this.

Meanwhile, in California: Assemblyman Isadore Hall III, D-Compton, has introduced a resolution to name the western span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge the Willie L. Brown Jr. Bridge, after the storied former Assembly speaker.

Non-Californians may not know the bridge is bisected by Yerba Buena Island, with a new, eastern span under construction to replace the section damaged in the 1989 “World Series” earthquake. It seems a shame to leave this section out of the renaming, as it has been plagued by materials and procedures that are at least questionable – just like Willie B. during his tenure in the state Capitol.

Trickle-up economics? The Assembly’s current speaker, John Perez, D-Los Angeles, has a plan to make “middle-class” students at the state’s universities as dependent on government as their less affluent brethren.

Mind you, the University of California system already waives tuition for students from families with annual incomes less than $80,000. The waiver line is $70,000 for families with offspring in the California State University system. Under Perez’ plan, tuition discounts of up to 40 percent would help students from families making $150,000 a year or less.

Middle-class students, naturally, think this is a swell idea, having grown up in a world where the cost of education never declines. The cost could go down, of course, if universities’ overstuffed bureaucracies – and salaries – were brought to heel.

Costs would be further reduced if thousands of students lacking the mental capacity for true, college-level scholarship were not enrolled in the CSU system.

Every presidential press office is like a house of ill repute. Its occupants are like ladies of the evening because they are paid to shout the equivalent of “I love you!” even when they don’t mean it. They are handsomely paid to fake passion for the chief executive and his actions. If the president demands that they exclaim, “Oh! You’re the best!” they will do so.

Of course, there can be some acts a press secretary – like some hookers – just won’t perform. In this case, his only option is to resign, enabling the president to hire somebody of more flexible virtue.

I can think of just one president’s press secretary who couldn’t overcome his differences with his boss. That was Jerald terHorst, Gerald Ford’s spokesman. He quit in protest when Ford pardoned Richard Nixon.

Usually, when presidential mouthpieces – or high-level staffers in general – depart, they just slide into one cushy job or another. They are taken care of. Often, they slip into top media jobs. Lyndon Johnson’s press secretary/chief of staff, Bill Moyers, left the administration in 1967 to become publisher of Long Island Newsday. (His record shows he did an excellent job.) Pierre Salinger, who also carried the water for Johnson, got himself appointed U.S. senator from California, to fill the term of the deceased Sen. Claire Engle. He lost the general election a couple of months later and then went to work as a news correspondent in Paris. Later, he did a number of jobs for ABC.

There are other examples of White House spokesmen moving into media. George Stephanopoulos, for example, was White House communications director for Bill Clinton. He oozed into an anchorman’s job at ABC TV. (However, his performance during last fall’s presidential debates showed he’s still a mattressback for the Democratic Party.)

And this brings us to Jay Carney, who has had to fake more orgasms for Barack Obama than Ron Ziegler did for Nixon. Things have been even worse for Carney than they were for his predecessor, Robert Gibbs.

Gibbs had the burden of a surname that rhymed with “fibs.” Carney’s name has no fortuitous rhyme, but it’s a word directly associated with hucksterism, as it is a term for the carnival barkers who work so hard to lure in the suckers.

But what will Carney do when he finally has to leave Obama’s service? He had better-than-decent journalistic credentials before he began explaining, re-explaining and re-re-explaining that administration scandals weren’t actually scandals and that lies weren’t actually lies.

Still, it’s hard to picture him as a talking head on network television. He has all the on-camera sparkle of a three-day-old cadaver.

No, he’ll wind up in media management, perhaps as an executive producer for a second-tier investigative TV show, or as managing editor for one of the shrinking number of national news magazines. If worse comes to worst, he can always go to work for former Obama hatchet man David Axelrod in Chicago.

Regardless, until the day of his departure from Obama’s team, he will continue to draw his $172,000 annual salary, and he will continue to explain that the Benghazi “offensive video” story was not a lie, that Attorney General Eric Holder is not a liar (or a perjurer), that the White House was ignorant – mainly – of IRS abuses, and that his boss is on top of his job, even though Obama knows little or nothing about anything.

Carney will do this because he has hitched his wagon to Obama’s political star, and is confident that when his press secretary tenure ends, he will be taken care of. After all, he need look no further than the Oval Office for proof. He’ll find Susan Rice visiting there.

Hackers got into the Pentagon data base last week and downloaded plans for the United States’ most sophisticated weapons systems.

Aggressive Washington, D.C., reporter: (For purposes of this column, imagine such a person exists.) Mr. Holder, are you investigating to see if any government employees were involved in the Pentagon computer hacking?

Attorney General Eric Holder: We’re going to make it our top priority – as soon as we figure out if Fox News’ James Rosen was a criminal aider and abettor in the leak of sensitive information three years ago.

Reporter: But … our weapons systems …

Holder: That Fox News leak was one of the two or three worst threats to national security in the last 40 years! That and the Associated Press matter.

Reporter: But … our weapons systems … Why were the plans accessible over the Internet in the first place?

Holder: Well, look. That ship has sailed, hasn’t it? As Mrs. Clinton would say, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” The important thing is to make sure we fix it so it doesn’t happen again.

The assertion that political misuse of the Internal Revenue could be laid at the feet of a couple of “rogue agents” in Cincinnati continued to unravel.

Aggressive Washington, D.C., reporter: (Remember, we’re pretending!) Mr. Carney, how many “rogue IRS agents” are we up to now?

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney: At latest count, I think it’s about five.

Reporter: Five, huh? How high in the administration are they?

Carney: We think one might have been a supervisor, but that’s as high as it goes.

Reporter: (Reverting to D.C. form) Thanks. That should settle the matter.

Sen. John McCain visited Syria last week and chatted with some rebels.

Sen. McCain: Say, you guys aren’t Muslim extremists, are you?

Anti-Assad rebel leader: Whoa! Are you kidding? We’re (whispers to an aide, “What’s that word?” The aide whispers something back.) As I was saying, we’re moderates, man.

Sen. McCain: Do I have your word on it?

Anti-Assad rebel leader: You got it, man. We’re moderate to the core.

Sen. McCain: And you aren’t in league with Iran and the Revolutionary Guard – or the Quds Force?

Anti-Assad rebel leader: Nope and nope. Not taking weapons from them, either.

Sen. McCain: And you don’t go in for radical Shariah law?

Anti-Assad rebel leader: No way, man! We only go in for moderate  Shariah law – hardly ever stone anybody.

Sen. McCain: OK, then. I’ll see what I can do about getting you some military support.

Anti-Assad rebel leader: Thanks, man! (Aside to aide: There’s one born every minute!)

Live! From the Oval Office!

Aggressive Washington, D.C., reporter:</b> (Yes, we’re back to that.) Mr. President, when did you first learn about the IRS’ abuse of power?

President Barack Obama: I learned about it when you did, when it came out in the media. I think I was eating popcorn and watching Fox News.

Reporter: So, it was like how you learned about Benghazi?

President Obama: I still don’t know anything about that, but we’re working hard to get to the bottom of it … and to make sure those responsible are brought to justice.

Reporter: So, it was like how you found out about “Fast and Furious?”

Obama: “The Fast and the Furious?” I haven’t seen No. 6 yet, but I understand it’s quite exciting. Of course, we wouldn’t let the girls watch it.

Reporter: I’m sorry, Mr. President, I meant your Justice Department’s gun-running scandal – that “Fast and Furious.”

Obama: Well, as you know – and let me be clear about this – we’re still working hard to get to the bottom of that, which I only learned about after it was over.

Reporter: Well, maybe it was like how you found out about your Justice Department’s probes of various reporters.

Obama: What an outrage! Nobody is a greater champion of the First Amendment than I am. And I wish you’d stop saying my Justice Department. Isn’t it really our Justice Department? It’s not like I’m in charge of Justice, or the IRS or the State Department, is it?

Oh, wait. Didn’t that last one really happen?

Sarah Hall Ingram, the “superb public servant” who ran the IRS’ tax exemption division when it started harassing conservative organizations with odd questionnaires, is getting settled in as IRS Obamacare executive.

She must be “superb.” Her former boss, fired IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, said she was, and we taxpayers shelled out $103,390 in bonuses for her from 2009 through 2012, as her salary climbed from $172,500 to $177,000.

Anyway, she is already drafting a questionnaire for the citizens who will come under her purview, and we have obtained an advance copy. It follows:

You and ‘Affordable Care’

Please understand that the IRS may not collect medical information about you. However, the agency must collect data deemed pertinent to your participation in the programs of the Affordable Care Act. Please fill out the following questionnaire, which seeks only basic and essential physical and psychological information. It must be completed and attested to by you, under penalty of perjury

Physical issues

1. When did you last engage in sexual intercourse?

a) With whom?

b) How?

c) Name all other sexual partners you have ever had, ever intend to have or ever hope to have.

d) Provide their addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and social media addresses.

e) Did you employ any “marital aids”? If so, what kind?

f) Provide quarterly updates to all the questions above.

2. Do you employ any kind of conception control? (To protect their privacy, women who have had children out of wedlock or who have had convenience abortions may omit this question.)

a) What kind?

b) Are you some kind of pervert?

c) What kind of pervert?

d) Didn’t we meet at the “Smiths’” New Year’s party?

3. What’s your sign?

a) Have you had your star chart done?

b) By whom?

c) Provide contact information (as in 1d above).

d) What does your chart say about you?

4. How many teeth do you have?

a) Is any one of these teeth a radio receiver?

b) Do you use it to contact extraterrestrial beings?

c) What are the names of the beings you contacted?

d) List their planets, addresses, phone numbers, etc. (as in 1d above).

e) Have you been to the mother ship? (Provide dates and times.)

f)  Is “The Force” with you?

Psychological matters

5. Do you own any Barbra Streisand recordings (in any medium)?

a) How often have you listened to them in the past year?

b) List dates, times and places.

c) Did you listen to Barbra Streisand with anybody else?

d) Who? Provide contact information (as in 1d above).

e) List dates, times and places.

(If you answered “yes” to question 5, you need not complete the rest of the questionnaire.)

6. Do you own any Ted Nugent recordings (in any medium)?

a) Do you know that Ted owns guns?

b) Do you own guns?

c) If yes, what brand, model and caliber?

d) Write a brief essay about people you would like to kill.

(Omitting this information could subject you to prosecution for perjury, so don’t tell us you haven’t contemplated killing anybody.)

7. Have you read Jonah Goldberg’s book, “Liberal Fascism”?

a) Why?

b) Provide us with your views about the book, in no less than 500 words.

c) Have you read any books by writers whose work appears in National Review, The American Spectator, The American Conservative, Front Page Magazine, Human Events or WND?

d) List the books and summarize the contents of each of these books in at least 500 words.

e) List the names and contact information (as in 1d above) for each person with whom you discussed these books.

8. Do you believe in extra-sensory perception?

a) Are you psychic yourself?

b) Have you undergone past-life regression?

c) List your names and contact information from your previous incarnations (as in 1d above).

d) Have you ever tried to read President Obama’s mind?

e) Don’t deny it! Do you think we were born yesterday?

9. If you had been the object of an abortion, don’t you think your mother would have been better off without you? Explain in at least 500 words. (To protect their privacy, women who  have had abortions may omit this question.)

10. Do you pray to a “higher being” or power?

a) Whatever for?

b) What is the content of your prayers? Provide the exact wording for each prayer on each day of the past year.

c) Do you really think prayer will protect you from the Internal Revenue Service?

d) When did you start having these negative feelings about the IRS?

e) With whom did you share these feelings? Provide names, dates and contact information (as in 1d above).

11. Would you object if we examined all of your telephone, e-mail and social media records?

a) If “no,” provide the telephone numbers ISP and social media addresses and passwords of all contacts made through these media for the past year. List the names of all your contacts and their contact information (as in 1d above).

b) If “yes,” provide the telephone numbers ISP and social media addresses and passwords of all contacts made through these media for the past year. List the names of all your contacts and their contact information (as in 1d above).

12. You actually believe the federal government and the IRS really are your friends, don’t you?

a) We thought so.

Remember, failure to provide truthful answers and the data sought for all the questions above will subject you to federal prosecution for perjury.

Have a nice day!

Don’t be surprised if President Obama announces this week that he “had no idea” his press secretary, Jay Carney, was telling whoppers in media briefings.

This would be in keeping with his ignorance about the Fast & Furious gun running, which enabled him to go to Mexico and say how terrible it was that drug cartel guns came from the U.S.

Remember, he also was in the dark about the failure to protect our ambassador and his staff in Libya; he didn’t know the IRS was targeting conservative political organizations or that his Justice Department was checking reporters’ telephone records.

If you believe any of this – as Justice Department and IRS personnel are donning Mussolini’s black shirts for a parade on Pennsylvania Avenue – you probably believe that in the Watergate scandal Richard Nixon was simply ill served by his underlings.

The fascist impulse always exists among true believers, and Obama only hires true believers. For such fascists, the end always justifies the means. Therefore, an inconvenient truth justifies a lie, a distortion, a cover-up.

The past year’s crop of administration lies is undergoing a familiar evolution.

First you have the initial lie, like the attribution of the Benghazi murders to an anti-Islam video. This is followed by “we were doing the best we could,” as in, “the situation was fluid and data were hard to come by.” (This is a real stinker in the Benghazi cover-up, as the nature of the Benghazi attack was known from the get-go.)

Next comes a desperate defense, which we may call “what you heard me say is not what I meant.” See Carney’s revision of his statements regarding the notorious Benghazi “talking points.”

As the net of truth draws tighter, agents are dispatched to declare that only low-level employees were involved. When that fails, they declare that so many persons and interests were involved that culpability is too diffused to pin down.

These ploys generally work pretty well, given the partisan, lazy and craven Washington, D.C., press corps. These are the “journalists” who were comfortable giving the Justice Department a pass on Fast & Furious and happy with the original Benghazi lie.

The media finally began to stir a bit when the IRS criminality came to light, and they actually awakened when their own ox was gored with the Justice Department’s Associated Press subpoenas.

There are variations in the evolution of lies and their defenses. We saw the “it’s not important” defense when Hillary Clinton asked of the talking points lie, “What difference … does it make?” And Carney even tried, “It was a long time ago.” (Please don’t tell me everybody in politics does this sort of thing. That places abuse of power on the same plane as minor venality or the denial of marital infidelity.)

Now that we have inescapable evidence of true abuse of power, we arrive at the liar’s last refuge: “I take responsibility, but I didn’t know.” (Add sotto voce, “And I won’t take the consequences.”)

It’s difficult to swallow the idea that Obama didn’t know about his administration’s abuses, or that he is determined to “get to the bottom” of them. However, let us exercise some mental discipline and assume for the sake of discussion that he really didn’t know.

It then must be asked: If the president was truly ignorant of these abuses, how did his administrators, who worship him, come to think they could get away with them?

The answer is simple, and if you examine your own experience you will see it is true. A chief executive’s staff – in business or government – reflects the attitudes of the chief. If the chief executive is open and honest, those who execute his program will be, too. If he’s covert and dishonest, his staff will assume that should go for them as well.

If the chief executive demonstrates contempt for the law and the Constitution, why should we expect anything different from the people he hires?

Obama’s fascists reflect his own fascist tendencies, which we have pointed out from the beginning of his administration. Lately, you could hear his statist proclivities in his commencement speech at Ohio State, when he said the loyal opposition was just trying to “gum up the works.”

To him, opposing views not only are wrong; they are intolerable. To suppress them, his staff has gotten the message: “Do anything you think you can get away with.”

The White House last week sent Howard Bashford to rebut the inflammatory testimony of the Benghazi whistleblowers.

Bashford, President Obama’s deputy associate undersecretary for media affairs, appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He led off by explaining the administration’s initial – and continued – assertion that the assault on our consulate was the result of a spontaneous protest about an offensive, anti-Islam video. A  transcript of his testimony follows:

Bashford: “We once – at one time we really thought – I mean we believed at one point during the incident that it was a spontaneous demonstration about an offensive video. And let me say as an aside that anybody viewing that video would recognize that it should have been offensive to Muslims and it was natural for us to conclude that Muslims in Cairo and later in Benghazi were offended, or would have been offended had they actually seen it.

“We were sure some Muslims were offended, and probably were offended to the extent that they would have demonstrated against the video, given the chance to see it. And somebody in a position to know – in the CIA, I think – said the Benghazi assault was such a demonstration. That authoritative surmise made our position true, as far as we were concerned – and we were concerned, deeply concerned, about the whole thing.

“Because at the time we thought it was true, it’s logical that it should have been true five days later, when Ambassador Susan Rice went on all those television shows and asserted it as fact, and if it was true five days later, it must have been true 14 days later when President Obama repeated the offensive video story – that is, the video was offensive, not that the story was offensive – repeated the story at the United Nations.

“You ask if it wasn’t a lie? I find the very idea mean-spirited. We know some people in right-wing talk radio have said the offensive video story was a lie, and that is a characterization we find unduly harsh. It may have been that the story wasn’t currently true when the president repeated it, but remember, it was in our view true at one time, so the president was merely telling an outdated version of the truth.

“Later, other facts became true, in the sense that they were facts that were unavoidable, and I think it only fair to point out that we have since endorsed the later version of the truth, so to say we lied when in fact we are current with the truth is logically impossible.

“What’s that, Mr. Chairman? Stand down? Who ordered the Tripoli relief team to stand down? Now, how much sense does that make? You stand up; you don’t stand down.

“You say somebody gave the team a ‘don’t go’ order when it was already at the airport? We’ve heard that allegation and we’ve looked at the matter from every possible angle, and all we can figure is somebody in the team asked if they should return to the airport terminal, and somebody else – we can’t imagine who – said, ‘Don’t! … Go!’ The team misinterpreted this as a don’t-go order.

“It was a natural misunderstanding and we’re very sorry about the confusion. But you have to understand: It was a very confusing situation.

“Excuse me? Oh, no, congressman. It had completely slipped our mind that it was Sept. 11. We – meaning President Obama and his entire senior staff, including the secretary of defense and the secretary of state – we were all so caught up in our drive to rebuild the middle class that nobody even looked at the calendar. You know, every day is Labor Day at the White House. We’re always laboring – yes we are – to serve the American people. Ha ha.

“No, Sir. How could we connect the assaults in Cairo and Benghazi with Sept. 11 if we didn’t know it was Sept. 11?

“Did we hinder the so-called whistleblowers’ testimony? Certainly not. Didn’t the president say he was unfamiliar with the entire idea? Even if somebody did hinder their testimony – and I’m sure nobody did – the president would be much too busy to know about it.

“What? No! Not ‘too busy fundraising.’ It’s clear you’re politicizing the whole issue.

“Besides, Benghazi was a long time ago. As Secretary of State Clinton said earlier, at this point in time, what difference does it make?

“I beg your pardon? The truth makes a difference to Americans? If that is true, how do you explain the last election?”

We’re sure it will be most comforting to President Obama that Robert Redford is trying to help rehabilitate the image of Obama friends Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

The old Weather Underground bombers remain the smug, self-righteous twits they were back in the ’60s and ’70s, when they were blowing up dozens of targets, including the Pentagon, banks and corporate offices, police stations, legislators’ offices and other symbols of the establishment.

Now comes Redford, starring in and directing “The Company You Keep.” I doubt the movie will make it to the lone motion picture theater in our mountain retreat. However, if reviews are to be believed, it portrays aging Weather Undergrounders as the same kind of smug, self-righteous twits they were back in the ’60s and ’70s – just like Ayers and Dohrn.

You remember this pair. They live in Obama’s Chicago neighborhood, and he hardly knew them, except when they launched his first electoral campaign from their home.

Anyway, the new film suggests opportunities for a number of sequels:

“The Company You Reap.” Robert Redford plays an elderly Jeffrey Skilling in a film showing that the disgraced Enron executive’s stock manipulations were done with the best of intentions.

“The Company, You Creep.” Robert Redford plays the grandfatherly Kim Jong-il, laboring manfully right up to his death to save the people of North Korea from the materialistic fate of his neighbors to the South.

“The Company You Weep.” Robert Redford rejoins “Company You Keep” costar Susan Sarandon in this tear-jerker examination of the Robin Hood-and-Marian-like career of bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.

It even is rumored that Sarandon’s agent is shopping the script of “The Company You Reich” around Hollywood. It’s the story of how the love of Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler for the Aryan race went a little over the top.

Jury of peers: Why are so many people upset that California’s state Assembly had passed a bill that would allow noncitizens to serve on juries?

A defendant is supposed to be tried by a jury of his peers. It seems to me the bill in question, by Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, merely recognizes the fact that so many of California’s criminals are noncitizens … illegal aliens, even.

In fact, Assembly John Perez, D-Los Angeles, said so explicitly. He declared, “This isn’t about affording someone who would come in as a juror something, but rather understanding that the importance of the jury selection process of affording justice to the person in that courtroom.”

OK. That quote from the Associated Press sounds like English-as-a-second-language, but you get the point.

However, if the Legislature is going to “expand the jury pool” by forcing the responsibilities of citizenship on alien residents, shouldn’t we expect it also to extend them the privileges of citizenship? Like voting?

Oh, wait. A lot of noncitizens already do that.

On top of things: President Obama told the assembled media this week, “I’m not familiar with this notion that anybody’s been blocked from testifying” about the Benghazi debacle.

Well, OK. Stuff from Fox News – the only agency that thinks the country should know the truth about this scandal – probably doesn’t make it into the chief executive’s daily news summary. And it’s unlikely that the folks at the CIA and State Department are going to bother him with such trivia.

As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton so aptly put it, “What difference does it make?!!!”

Filibusterer in Chief: Say what you will about our president, he’s a stem-winding talker. In last week’s entire news conference he took only about a dozen questions. He limited the number by chattering on at length, with his most prolix response totaling more than 1,300 words. A couple more approached and exceeded the 1,000-word mark.

It’s a good way to limit reporter access. The longer you talk, the less likely you’ll have to answer a really difficult query – not that the White House press corps is likely to make one.

Oh! California!

“Progressive” continues to gain new, boundary-breaking meaning in the state Legislature. Take Assembly Bill 5.

This bill, introduced by the ultra-compassionate Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, is titled “Homeless Persons Bill of Rights and Fairness Act.” While we have no quarrel either with rights or fairness, we must wonder whence such rights derive.

Without reference to the Declaration of Independence’s “Creator,” AB-5 declares that “everybody in the state” has a right to “access to income sufficient for survival, regardless of employment status or criminal justice background …”

You assume correctly that the latter background does not refer to persons who have passed muster under California Police Officer Standards and Training.

The proposed law would make it legal for bums (that heartless term!) to “rest” on public sidewalks, benches and the like. Just so there’s no confusion, “rest” is defined. It is “the state of not moving (including) but not limited to, sitting, standing, leaning, kneeling, squatting, sleeping or lying.” Somehow, Ammiano has neglected to include “hanging by the knees” and that ultimate state of not moving: dead.

Begging would be protected under the bill, too, although the practice should be called the less-judgmental “soliciting donations.” And AB-5 would make it illegal for cops, public or private security personnel to harass, arrest or “subject to criminal or civil sanctions” folks who are praying, meditating or generally “practicing religion” in “public spaces.” Clearly, Ammiano has fumbled here, for his bill omits the words “except Bible-believing and anti-abortion Christians.” But that can be amended later.

The act is meant to protect people who are homeless due to their low incomes. However, it is not explained why the bill says “low income” means having an income “at or lower than twice the federal poverty level.” This means a single citizen could knock down nearly $23,000 a year and still be impoverished under the bill. For a family of four, the figure would be slightly more than $47,000. You explain it.

AB-5 is long and ponderous. Its verbiage accords the homeless some “rights” you didn’t know you had, like the right to conceal your immigration status.

Nevertheless, Ammiano has shown his willingness to compromise by abridging his list of rights “to engage in life-sustaining activities” that “must be carried out in public spaces because of homelessness.” He has eliminated the right to urinate at will.

Not to be outdone by a San Francisco lawmaker, a state Senate Democrat, Bill Monning of Carmel, is advancing his party’s dogma that California (indeed, the entire country) can gain rights by giving up rights.

His Senate Bill 622 would impose a penny tax on every fluid ounce of sweetened beverage purveyed in the Golden State. The reason: We’re too fat.

Monning, who could himself stand to lose a few pounds, maintains the “obesity rate” in California is approaching 25 percent. (This certainly must be true in the Assembly, where Speaker John A. Perez accounts for that proportion all by himself.)

Monning’s bill would deposit the new tax revenues – minus administrative costs, of course – in a new “Children’s Health Promotion Fund.”

The reasoning is the same as in every “because-it’s-good-for-you” measure the state has adopted since 1992′s trend-setting motorcycle helmet law. It goes thus: You get fat; you get sick. You get sick; you drain public resources. So, we’re going to force you to be healthy. (The state will define “healthy.”)

Monning avers that “in 2006, overweight and obesity-related costs in California were estimated at almost $21 billion” and that “there is overwhelming evidence of the link between obesity and the consumption of sweetened beverages,” not to mention anything else containing calories.

California business is as unhappy with Monning as it is with Ammiano. Typically anti-progressive.

Of course, not all business is so reactionary. We find an article in the Baltimore Business Journal explaining that developers and real-estate agents nationwide are dropping the term “master suite” from home descriptions.

They say it’s too “male,” for one thing, and for some it conjures an image of a southern plantation slave holder. Now it’s to be “owner’s suite.” An “owner,” you see, could be a woman. On the other hand, owners also could be masters. Therefore, it remains residually objectionable. At least, some organization will make an effort to find it so.

Informed of the Boston bombings, President Obama immediately told his Secret Service guards, “Inform the foursome ahead of us! We have to play through!”

Oh! How mean spirited!

But we intend only to counterbalance the fawning over our chief executive in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

“We did not have to reach out to the president. The president reached out to us,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in words thematically like those that followed Obama’s stroll on the beach following Hurricane Sandy.

It’s as if praise is in order when he does what he ought to do. Let us remember that the Jersey shore is still a mess, and the billions of dollars allocated for cleanup and rehabilitation have been shamefully mismanaged.

Now he has pledged to bring the bomber or bombers to justice. We’ll see. With this administration, racial and ethnic factors seem to be weighed in the balance.

Let’s all be offended: Meanwhile, the National Association of Black Journalists is less concerned about the maiming of Boston Marathon spectators than it is by the description of a potential suspect as “dark skinned.”

NABJ called the words “offensive,” saying, the organization “in no way encourages censorship but does encourage news organizations to be responsible when reporting about race, to report on race only when relevant and a vital part of a story. Ultimately this helps to avoid mischaracterizations which might encourage potential bias or discrimination against a person or a group of people based on race or ethnicity.”

Very well. CNN called a suspect “dark skinned,” but CBS took pains the next day to describe him as “a white man.” Indeed, it turns out the suspects in question are as pale as a fish belly.

Now, almost everybody can be offended. However, Native and Asian Americans may be miffed at being left out.

On the positive side: We viewed the film “42″ last week and were reminded of Jackie Robinson’s greatness. Biographical stories that accompanied the movie’s release noted his leadership not only on the field of play but in business and society at large.

As a child in the ’50s, I had no idea what Robinson had to endure, but I learned during the World Series of 1956, from a neighbor up the street. I was a Little Leaguer who idolized the Brooklyn Dodgers’ center fielder, Duke Snider. I didn’t much care about the team’s light-hitting third baseman, playing out the last games of his baseball career.

A series game was on the radio at a friend’s house, and when I cheered a Dodgers’ run, my friend’s father told me sternly, “You don’t want to root for the Dodgers. They’re the (African-American’s) team.”

Of course, he didn’t say African-American. He unselfconsciously employed the “n-word,” a term that would have resulted in dire consequences if my parents ever heard me use it. When questioned about our neighbor’s epithet, Mom and Dad explained about the Dodgers and Jackie Robinson. It made an impression, though I was more interested in the series’ outcome, and devastated when Don Larsen threw his perfect game for the Yankees.

When I was more socially conscious, during the civil rights era, Robinson’s sacrifice came into sharper focus. “42″ does him justice. Go see it.

Economist Art Laffer said last week – regarding the “sequester” budget cuts (which aren’t really cuts) that he could not believe a federal administration would deliberately take actions to hurt the American people. What a sweet man!

Now, back to the real world:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement cut loose more than 2,200 “detainees” before sequestration, including many “Level One” offenders. (Let’s just call them felons.)

Still, ICE declared, “Priority for detention remains on serious criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety.”

We asked ICE official Howard Bashford why “detainees” were cut loose before budget cuts were made.

“Our top priority is public safety,” he said, “and we can’t assure public safety if we overrun our budget.”

Asked why not, he said, “Because.”

As for the freed felons, Bashford said, “They aren’t serious offenders. In fact, some of them are downright funny – if you get to know them.

“They don’t pose a significant threat – a threat maybe, but not a significant threat. Besides, they remain under supervision.”

Pressed to define “supervision,” the ICE functionary said, “We know the neighborhoods where they hang out. If they really need supervision, we’re fairly sure we can find them.”

The Bill Clinton test: California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, has a bill in the legislative hopper that would give homosexuals the right to insurance coverage for infertility.

Never mind that same-sex couples are inherently infertile. In fact, the homophile community implicitly recognizes this fact, as its cultural vernacular refers to heterosexuals as “breeders.”

Nevertheless, Ammiano’s Assembly Bill 460 declares, “Coverage for the treatment of infertility shall be offered and provided without discrimination on the basis of age, ancestry, color, disability, domestic partner status, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation.”

And just so there’s no confusion (no confusion?) the bill provides this definition: “…’infertility’ means either 1) the presence of a demonstrated condition recognized by a licensed physician and surgeon as a cause of infertility, or 2) the inability to conceive a pregnancy or to carry a pregnancy to a live birth after a year or more of regular sexual relations without contraception.”

It is not explained why a homosexual couple would use contraception in the first place, nor does it define “regular sexual relations.”

We are left with the image of Ed and Bill, weeping and wringing their hands as a compassionate physician, tells them, “Really, neither of you is to blame.”

Perhaps insurance companies will be able to avoid provision of such coverage by employing the Bill Clinton test. You know. What was going on wasn’t really sex. It was just an exercise involving the reproductive system.

Ammiano, as a “gay” San Franciscan, frequently submits bills to “protect” the LGBTQRSTUV community. Previously, he submitted legislation requiring public schools to assure that transgender students would be able to participate in sports and use the restrooms that fit their self-defined sexual identities.

Can you escape the image of Buck, a 220-pound linebacker, using the girls’ lavatory? Could happen.

More San Francisco brilliance: State Sen. Mark Leno, who competes with Ammiano in the drafting of hare-brained legislation, wants to enable cities and counties to extend that “last call” for booze by two hours, to 4 a.m.

He reasons this would make California more competitive with places like New York City and Las Vegas, where alcohol flows more freely. He says this would stimulate the economy.

He said, “Given that we compete, not only nationally but internationally, for conventions and visitors, we are at a disadvantage because our cities don’t have this option,” he said. “That’s all it is. It imposes nothing on anybody.”

Leno didn’t say so, but as California drunk drivers already kill 3,000 or 4,000 people annually, wouldn’t it be a boon to the funeral industry?

Smear? What smear? The Los Angeles Times headlined its analysis of the Mitch McConnell office bugging “Anatomy of a Smear.” The column by Robin Abcarian discussed the content of the illegally obtain discussion, which was a brainstorming session about actress Ashley Judd.

Judd, you will recall, was considering a run for McConnell’s U.S. Senate seat. She dropped the idea, probably concluding, like McConnell’s staff, that she was an easy target, based on her own pronouncements.

Although the Times’ headline mentioned “smear,” Abcarian never did. She merely noted – as did the McConnell people – the potential candidate’s vulnerability. Journalists are at the mercy of the copy desk once they let go of their stories. Headline writers are increasingly comfortable about inserting their own prejudices.

However, the episode merits an entry in the Blind Partisan’s Dictionary:

Smear: n. – as defined by the left wing, the use of a candidate’s own words or actions to impeach his qualifications for office. Also see, “mean-spirited.”