Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

The Cons are out to destroy America:

It hasn't gotten too much attention -- all things considered, that's probably a good thing -- but MSNBC picked up on the calls from some conservatives for a boycott of General Motors. (The idea also got some airtime recently on "The Colbert Report.")

A sizable share of Americans, recent surveys show, are reluctant to buy from a bankrupt automaker. Complicating matters, the bailout is triggering a harsh reaction from the conservative end of the political spectrum, with some high-profile pundits calling for an outright boycott of what many are calling "Government Motors."

Among the most vocal is Hugh Hewitt, who has frequently called for a boycott to protest the "Obamaization of the American car business," both on his syndicated radio show and on his blog.

Hewitt insists that "individual Americans" must resist buying the automaker's products because, as he wrote in one blog entry, "every dollar spent with GM is a dollar spent against free enterprise."

I rarely agree with Joe Scarborough, but two weeks ago, he described the idea of a GM boycott as "stupid," and the conservative proponents of the boycott "morons."

It's simple, really. The government stepped in because an enormous American employer was about to go belly-up. The government can't step out until Americans start buying GM's cars. Boycotting GM will either lead to indefinite government intervention or the total collapse of a major American employer. And here are the Cons, calling for a fucking boycott.

Way to go, fucktards.

While we're on the topic of raging stupidity, let's check in with Pat Buchanan on the recently-passed Clean Energy and Security Act. Some people think it will lead to a cleaner environment, green jobs, and a chance to nip climate change in the bud. Some others whine about higher taxes and so forth. But Pat's thinking world domination:

Pat Buchanan on MSNBC during a break in their wall to wall Michael Jackson coverage fear mongering over the energy bill that just passed the House.

Witt: Why doesn't anyone want to call it a climate bill?

Buchanan: Well, because the science is suggesting that maybe all of this isn't really happening or it's not really dangerous or it's not really man made. Barack Obama, the President is right when he said we shouldn't be afraid of the future. That is how this bill got passed through fear. We're all going to change. The climate's going to change. The oceans are going to rise. Our cities are going to be under water.

But more and more scientists are coming forward to say this is a hoax and a scam which is designed to transfer wealth and power from the private sector to the government sector and from the government of the United States to a world government. Which is what we're going to get in Copenhagen when we get this Kyoto two agreement.

OMFG, what a remarkable doofus. Only Pat Buchanan (along with other right-wing paranoid delusionals) can look into his tea leaves and see a world government in cap-and-trade legislation. As for those "scientists" he mentions, bet you a dollar he's talking about Inhofe's list. These people wouldn't know a scientist if one personally shoved a beaker up their bottoms.

Cons have been rather unhinged of late, but this energy bill seems to have really brought out the inanity in them. Just take the Con party's very own sad crying clown:

Irony just called and is more than a little pissed off it keeps getting abused by Republicans:

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) had a few choice words about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) landmark climate-change bill after its passage Friday.

When asked why he read portions of the cap-and-trade bill on the floor Friday night, Boehner told The Hill, "Hey, people deserve to know what's in this pile of s--t."

[snip]

AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Don't get me wrong -- the bill that was passed on Friday night leaves a metric assload to be desired. But this pretty much sums up Boehner's position:

[O]ne Democratic aide quipped, "What do you expect from a guy who thinks global warming is caused by cow manure?"

What, indeed?

One could wish stupidity could be limited to the occasional outrageous dumbfuckery over boycotts and bills, but alas, tisn't. And nothing exemplifies the lack-of-quality of our right-wing punditry so well as this little gem (h/t):

STEYN: SOUTH CAROLINA HAS A CHEATING, SELF-DESTRUCTIVE GOVERNOR BECAUSE OF LIBERALISM

Yup, that's the message from the insufferable Mark Steyn, along with (as I suggested a few days ago) the talking point that governors should be able to go AWOL for days and days, and the only reason we don't think so is that we're zombified addicts of Big Government:

...At the news conference, the governor rationalized his unfaithfulness to Mrs. Sanford by saying that he needed to get out of "the bubble." ...

Although staffers kept up his ghostwritten tweet of the day on Twitter, by Monday state senators were revealing that they hadn't heard from the Governor since Thursday.

And we can't have that, can we? ...

In a republic of limited government, the governor, two-thirds of the state legislature and the heads of every regulatory agency should be able to go "hiking the Appalachian Trail" for a lot longer than five days, and nobody would notice....

... The real bubble is a consequence of big government. The more the citizenry expect from the state, the more our political class will depend on ever more swollen Gulf Emir-size retinues of staffers hovering at the elbow to steer you from one corner of the fishbowl to another 24/7.

Yup, that's right -- it's not a problem that he was gone and incommunicado -- it's a problem that we think that's a problem.

The only thing more pathetic than Mark Sanford's sexcapades has been the plethora of right-wing justifications for said sexcapades.

Continuing with the media-lackwit theme, here's a little item you might want to show folks who think they're getting actual news at Faux News (h/t):

Yes, Fox News has won a court ruling that holds that broadcasters have a 1st Amendment right to deliberately distort news or outright lie on the air. This is a ruling that Fox News sought, and that their lawyers fought for:

A Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.

Hey, at least they're being honest about their dishonesty.

No, this cuts to the chase on the old, tired argument I get when I try to trash Faux News to true believers: 'Oh, but all the news lies, it's just a matter of their view.'

Yes, it is true, in the simplest sense of true, that all news is by definition biased. There can be no truly objective news, because it is presented by humans, who have biases. However, this court ruling shows that Fox News, and Fox News alone, as far as I know, deliberately sets out to distort the truth as a matter of course.

And will go to court to defend their lies, distortions and hackery as "free speech." In-fucking-credible.

I think all of the above fuckery calls for a song: