Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

So much flaming stupid... so little time...

Let us begin with Cons demanding today what they kicked up a screaming tantrum over yesterday:

Today, Roll Call reports that conservatives’ newest line of attack will be on housing — specifically, that there isn’t enough addressing this crisis in the economic recovery package:

Republicans now appear set to draw their line in the sand over the issue. One senior Senate GOP aide said Republicans were coalescing Monday evening around a plan to demand that Obama and Congressional Democrats reconfigure the stimulus to help mitigate foreclosures and spur buyers to invest in new homes.

“Republicans are increasingly concerned that the stimulus bill is leaving the housing crisis out of the equation,” the aide said.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is not supposed to focus on housing. Instead, its key areas are: energy, science and technology, health care, education, infrastructure, tax cuts, and helping workers hurt by the recession.

The Obama administration and Democratic leaders aren’t planning to ignore housing, however; they are attempting to address the foreclosure crisis through separate legislation. Last Wednesday, the House passed Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) legislation. As the Gavel pointed out, a key part of this legislation — in addition to stabilizing the financial markets — was helping Americans stay in their homes.

[snip]

Conservatives seem to be the ones actually “leaving the housing crisis out of the equation.” Only 18 Republicans voted for the TARP legislation; 156 voted against it. Last summer, conservatives also put up a vicious fight against Democratic-sponsored housing legislation.
You can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but there's not one single fucking thing you can do to please a bunch of batshit insane Cons. I hope Obama stops trying soon.

Their antics lend credence to the rumor that there's a new addition to the Bill of Rights:

An additional amendment has been added to the Bill of Rights.

It's called The Republican Hissy Fit Exception.

No matter what harm has been caused by the Republican party to our country and applies especially when they have been voted out of office because of that harm, any piece of Democratic legislation being discussed may be attacked with the intent of watering it down or destroying it completely (voided) at any time as long as one conservative in Congress has a hissy fit.

The traditional media must immediately validate their hissy fit by repeating said hissy fit talking points over and over again in print, on the Internets, on radio and on TV as many times as necessary to accomplish said goal of compromising the legislation that the hissy fit is applicable to.

False information is also allowed to be transmitted by the hissy fitter and the media in an effort to implement the Conservative Hissy Fit exception. An alternative name that may be used is the Republican Hissy Fit exception.

Many people feel that this amendment has been As Predictable As The Rising Sun.

At least Steny Hoyer's trying to educate these fucktards:

Today, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) had a message for Republicans complaining about the stimulus bill: “Being bipartisan does not mean having to lay down and say we’ll do whatever you want.” His comments came after President Obama met earlier with congressional Republicans to discuss their concerns about the package, which is scheduled to be voted on in the House tomorrow. Hours before that meeting, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) urged Republicans to oppose the bill unless Democrats make significant concessions. Hoyer called it “very unfortunate” that Boehner “set the stage [by saying], ‘Yeah, you’re coming up here, but we’re voting against you.’” He added, “It takes two parties and two groups to be bipartisan. Bi means two.”

Good luck with that, Steny. Nothing I've seen convinces me these idiots can understand a concept as simple as bi meaning two, but maybe if you illustrate it with pictures from a Dick and Jane book, it'll start to sink in.

The Dems need to follow Steny's lead and develop a spine (I know, forlorn hope), because these dumbfucks aren't getting the idea:

President Obama was on the Hill today, meeting with House Republicans on the economic stimulus package. When asked if the president was winning any GOP votes, one conservative House Republican who was in the room told the Politico, "Nope," adding that Obama "won't compromise on more tax cuts."

I'm not sure what definition of "compromise" the lawmaker was using, but the bottom line remains the same: the president's efforts to garner Republican support aren't working.

Obama seemed ready for the House Republicans to pounce, reportedly telling the gathered GOP lawmakers: "feel free to whack me over the head because I probably will not compromise on that part [tax cuts]," according to two sources in the room.

That's basically what they did, hitting Obama for more than 30 minutes with questions about deficits, taxes and spending. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), won applause from his GOP colleagues when he asked the president whether he would promise that the stimulus would not be an excuse to raise taxes or increase spending.

Obama responded, according to sources in the room, that he was worried about the deficit and debt, and promised that his fiscal 2010 budget -- coming out next month -- would make hard choices in terms of spending cuts in an effort to reduce the deficit.

The Politico report noted that the "out of power minority party" seems to be "finding its voice as a stout opposition party instead of the party of compromise." Perhaps, but I'm not entirely sure when, exactly, House Republicans were ever positioned as the "party of compromise."

It's time for Obama to stop making the bipartisan noises. These are people who hear no as maybe. Like date rapists, it's best just to let them know in no uncertain terms that no means no - a sharp kick to the nads and a poke to the eyes might do it.

They're going to need something a little more definite than compromise, because no compromise in the world is going to get them on board:

Caving to right-wing flailing and conservatives’ anti-abortion fear machine, President Obama is reportedly pressuring House Democrats to strip family planning funding from its economic recovery proposal — even though it would potentially save $700 million over 10 years.

This afternoon, MSNBC’s David Shuster pressed Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) about the provision, pointing out that it would help relieve states of some health care costs. Apparently unable to respond, Hutchinson launched a reflexive and knee-jerk attack on the recovery plan, defaulting to the first opposition point she could think of:

SHUSTER: When you give them [states] money to help with Medicare, it means that the states that have to balance their own budgets won’t have to spend as much of their own money to try to pour into Medicare because people are hurting.

HUTCHISON: Well, one of the big problems I have with this bill is that you don’t know which states it’s going to, there’s no allocation, it’s just going to be in the agencies and the bureaucracies to make these decisions.

This is a woman who is either too obstinate or too stupid to read a map showing exactly where these allocations would go.

President Obama: time to stop compromising. Reach for a stick. If you'd like to borrow the Smack-o-Matic, I'm sure arrangements could be made.