Oh, Arizona, how you do disappoint. Or not. Actually, you really just rise to my diminished expectations on a near-daily basis, and today is no exception. While Sheriff Joe's alleged corruption spills onto the front pages, the back page carries news of how Arizona courts fail to protect election integrity.

Recently I wrote about how Jan Brewer permitted Maricopa County -- the most populous county in Arizona and home to the worlds' most evil sheriff -- to break their own election laws in order to rush-report the vote counts to eagerly awaiting media outlets and viewers across the nation.

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Our nation's founders came here to escape religious persecution. They made sure that our Constitution prohibited the formation of a national religion, but to this teabagger from California, forcing Christmas music on children is patriotic. More from The Huffington Post:

The Tea Party movement is supposed to be all about keeping the government out of your business. But if some California members get their way, the state will force public school children to sing Christmas carols.

It's called the "Freedom to Present Christmas Music in Public School Classrooms or Assemblies" initiative.

Merry Hyatt, a substitute teacher and member of the Redding Tea Party Patriots, is behind the push. The Record Searchlight reports:

The initiative would require schools to provide children the opportunity to listen to or perform Christmas carols, and would subject the schools to litigation if the rule isn't followed.

"Bottom line is Christmas is about Christmas," said Erin Ryan, president of the Redding Tea Party Patriots. "That's why we have it. It's not about winter solstice or Kwanzaa. It's like, 'Wow you guys, it's called Christmas for a reason.' " Read on...

This goes against the Tea Party movement's anti-government intrusion platform, but consistency or historical accuracy has never been their strong suit. Hanukkah-Shmanukkah, there is only one REAL American holiday, don't ya' know? /snark off

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When a group of conservatives -- angered by a video showing kindergartners singing a song praising President Obama -- announced last week that they'd be protesting outside a Burlington Township, N.J., school today, school officials asked them to reconsider, since the school -- which houses kindergartners to second-graders -- would be in session:

The planned rally has school district officials planning to beef up security at the B. Bernice Young School in Burlington Township, which houses kindergartners through second-graders.

The song drew national attention last month after a video of the performance was posted on YouTube. Conservatives say it shows how schoolchildren are being indoctrinated to idolize Obama, allegations school officials have denied.

The Obama song initially was performed during a Black History Month assembly in February and was repeated in March when author Charisse Carney-Nunes, who wrote the children's book "I Am Barack Obama," visited the school.

Someone apparently with Carney-Nunes videotaped that performance and posted it at the author's Web site without the approval of school officials. A copy of that video appeared in September on YouTube, titled "School Kids Taught to Praise Obama."

Citing concerns for the safety of students and staff, Superintendent Christopher Manno has asked organizers to reconsider the protest because classes will be held that day. Manno said protesters will not be allowed on school property and additional district staffers will be on hand.

The protesters refused, of course, to reconsider:

Bill Haney, a rally organizer, said members of several groups would take part in the protest, although it was not clear Sunday how many people would be involved.

"Consider this a protest to squelch this trend to politicize our youth," organizers said in a prepared statement. "We are supporting the constitutional rights of our children and protest against the progressive social agenda promoted by the New Jersey Education Association and the National Education Association."

So there they were today, frightening children and their parents needlessly. Of course, rather than harass schoolkids, these protesters would have been more effective if they had gone, say, to a school-board meeting where decisions like these are dealt with.

At least one of the parents whose 7-year-old daughter was in the video spoke to Fox reporter Laura Ingle at the scene, and relayed her thoughts in a brief snippet:

My child's image has been hijacked, to produce -- I'm sorry, to promote a political agenda.

Now, Ingle makes this sound as if the parent is concerned about the school "indoctrinating" her child, which was what the protesters were there about. But what's clear from reading news accounts -- as well as Ingle's own reportage -- is that the parents were upset that the right-wingers had transformed a harmless school song into a cause celebre promoting the right-wing anti-Obama agenda.

This cropped up in local news accounts too:

The school district, in a statement, said that it "does not believe that protesting in front of an elementary school in session with four to seven year old children is appropriate."

The statement says that on Oct. 8, Manno contacted one of the protest's organizers personally and offered to meet with this person, who declined to meet. "It is unfortunate," the statement continued, "that an innocent, well-intentioned classroom activity by a well-respected teacher has become the object of so much debate."

Well, who were these protesters? Local parents upset with the district? -- You know, people who actually have something at stake with the conduct of their local schools?

Erm, largely no. The Courier-Post was only able to find one local couple who actually had a child at the school among the protesters (and they were more concerned with the video's release than with its content). According to the NY Daily News, they were a bunch of Glennbeckians who arrived at the school from elsewhere:

Haney's group, the 912 Project Burlington Group, is an offshoot [of] the national 912 Project founded by conservative radio and TV host Glenn Beck.

Haney said he hopes the rally will force the reassignment of school principal Denise King and will result in a reprimand of Schools Superintendent Christopher Manno by the state Board of Education.

Classy bunch, these folks.

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Without a doubt the silliest "scandal" raised by right-wingers in many weeks has been the foofara over the supposed video showing schoolkids being "indoctrinated" with pro-Obama "propaganda" -- which is, of course, actually an innocuous video of a class of schoolkids singing as part of a Black History Month program.

The silliness would be funny, in fact, if the right-wing media's (particularly Fox's) coverage hadn't inspired death threats, whose existence were quickly airbrushed out of Fox News accounts.

But evidently these people weren't around during the Reagan or Bush years, when such encomia to the sitting president were fairly common. Indeed, as Blue Texan pointed out, they even named schools after Bush when he was president.

And you want to talk about indoctrination? How about the Texas schoolchildren whose curricula have now been revised to be explicitly creationist and anti-evolutionist?

Mike Stark brought this up on MSNBC yesterday, debating the issue with Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner, who was more interested in playing "gotcha" with Stark than actually, you know, discussing the issue. Like all good Republicans. This, of course, was because he really didn't have a good answer.

While I have many problems with Obama's leadership on certain issues, there is one area where I won't fault him a bit: He's doing a wonderful job as a role model to kids everywhere.

The President of the United States has a lot in common with Philadelphia schoolchildren, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a classroom full of them.

"He didn't know his dad," Sebelius, former governor of Kansas, said of President Obama. "He moved a lot. But he knew how important school was."

Sebelius, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Phila.) and Mayor Nutter watched the president's address to schoolchildren this afternoon at Thurgood Marshall Elementary, a K-8 school in Olney.

Sitting in a classroom with all the dignitaries was Teasia Squire, 12, a 7th grader. She sat up straight and never took her eyes off the big screen that projected the president's image into the room.

She was wowed by the speech, Teasia said.

"It was a wake up call," she said. "It was really good."

Her take away?

"We need to be in school, and we need to be our best," Teasia said.

Her social studies teacher, Crystal Gary-Nelson, was inspired by the message.

"I wrote down key quotes, and I'm going to post them throughout the year," Gary-Nelson said. "We're going to discuss this, and they'll have to take a pledge - 'This is what I pledge to do to help my nation.'"

At 2:10: "God forbid, that while talking to sixty-thousand public school students, the President should appear smart."

Open Thread below...