Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Ye gods... the stupid's so ripe and fruity today, I'm having a hard time deciding where to start. It's like having my pick of the orchard around harvest time.

And what stranger fruit is there than Michele Bachmann? So strange, in fact, that her fellow Cons have been forced to take her to the woodshed:

Now, in the latest rebuke of her off-the-wall claims about the Census, three out of the four House Republicans on the subcommittee that oversees the Census have released a statement calling her boycott plan “llogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country”:

“Boycotting the constitutionally mandated Census is illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country,” Reps. Patrick McHenry (N.C.), Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.) and John Mica (Fla.), members of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Achieves, said in a statement Wednesday.

“[A] boycott opens the door for partisans to statistically adjust Census results,” the trio’s statement said. “The partisan manipulation of census data would irreparably transform the Census from being the baseline of our entire statistical system into a tool used to wield political power in Washington.”

According to Roll Call, the three Republicans “approached Bachmann privately over the past few weeks and asked her to stop the boycott,” but “decided to go public because Bachmann appeared unfazed by their request.”

[snip]

Census officials have been meeting with Bachmann to try to talk her down from her illogical concerns. CongressDaily reports that McHenry even “showed her printed census materials in the attempt to dispel her fears.” But she remained skeptical.

She's a Creationist, isn't she? It doesn't matter how much evidence you present people like that - they just keep on spouting the crazy.

While we're on the subject of people spouting the crazy, let's check in with Glenn Beck, who's apparently so far gone he can't even remember the crazy he's spouted after 24 hours:

Yesterday on his Fox News show, Glenn Beck was conversing with Sen. Jim DeMint, and I guess he decided to get all respectable or something, because he uttered the following:

Beck: I will tell you that I -- we discussed this on the radio program earlier today, that, um, a lot of people are calling this, where was it? In the Washington Examiner today. That they -- that people are saying that "Cap and Trade" is "Cap and Traitor". They're actually -- people are starting to view people -- both Republicans and Democrat -- as traitors to the country. Which I think is over the top. That's a very specific definition.

Funny thing, because just 24 hours before, on the same program, Beck was running a reward poster on his show naming the eight Republicans who voted for the bill "Cap and Traitors." His guest, Kevin Mooney of the (you guessed it!) Washington Examiner, called them "traitors" too. Guess that wasn't "over the top" then.

Nope, cuz that was a different day! Obviously.

Schmuck.

Yesterday, Norm Coleman finally conceded to Al Franken, and thus we ended up with our 60th Dem senator. Today, the right has to face some cold, hard facts (h/t):

Here's a fun dose of schadenfreude.

Sen.-elect Al Franken's (D-MN) long-awaited victory in the 2008 Minnesota Senate race seems to have caused quite a lot of stress in the Murdoch-owned press. Remember, this is the same corporation that sued him for his Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them book back in 2003, with the unintended consequence of giving him tons of free publicity to sell books -- and elevating him into being a hero of liberal activists, without which he might never have become a politician!

They're not handling it well:

You know who's having a hard time adjusting to Al Franken's Senate victory in Minnesota? Fox News.

Glenn Beck said of the senator-elect, "[I]t shows how crazy our country has gone.... [I]t shows that we've lost our minds." Beck didn't seem to realize why these words, coming from him, are deeply amusing.

And where else shall they turn for fuel for their fires? Why, to made-up numbers, of course!

During the June 30 edition of his program, Hannity suggested vote fraud by claiming, "[Y]ou have counties as they did in Minnesota where you had more votes than you did people registered to vote on Election Day." While Hannity did not expand on his claim, a May 28 Minneapolis Star Tribune article reported that a conservative group, the Minnesota Majority, sued Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, claiming that "vote totals from [Minnesota election] canvassing boards exceed the stated number of registered voters by 406,398." The Star Tribune article stated that Minnesota Majority's report on registration listed one county as "having zero registered voters." The article also said that "Ritchie disputed the claims" in the lawsuit. From the article:

[snip]

Ritchie said he didn't know why some counties turned up with zero registered voters in Minnesota Majority's report. "Their number is so far different from the actual number in the database that it's not possible for me to speak to it," he said.

Aitkin County was listed in the report as having zero registered voters and 9,455 certified ballots. But Auditor Kirk Peysar said his county had reported its registered voters and that the number matched the ballots.

So either by outrageous idiocy or outrageous dishonesty, the Minnesota Majority (who begin lying with their name) came up with a list of registered voters that's completely fucking wrong. But, of course, Faux News personalities slurp up purest bullshit like it's ambrosia, and then regurgitate the bullshit for their eager audience (which is probably roughly 1/3 true believers and 2/3 people just watching for a good laugh). As long is it fits the Faux News narrative, it's considered gospel truth. Pretty pathetic for an ostensible news organization, innit?

And, of course, Sen. James Inhofe shows his typical class:

On the same day the Minnesota Supreme Court declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of the state’s U.S. Senate election, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) welcomed his newest colleague to the Senate by referring to him as a “clown.” In the course of predicting that the Waxman-Markey clean energy bill would be “dead in the water” upon its arrival in the Senate, Inhofe extended an unprofessional greeting to Franken. The Tulsa World reports:

“I’ll tell you what a lot of people are thinking, and that is it looks like things are going to be over and we are going to get the clown from Minnesota,’’ he said.

No, dickweed, you're getting the commedian from Minnesota. A man, in fact, with a scathing wit, who isn't afraid to flense folks verbally. I wouldn't be poking at him if I were you, bozo.

We've filled a bushel basket with stupid, and there's still plenty left on the trees. But the ripest, reddest, juciest stupid was just too perfect not to pick last. My darlings, clear your palettes, and prepare to taste stupid like you've never tasted before:

Former CIA official Michael Scheuer has taken some provocative policy positions over the years, but I never thought he'd go this far.

Talking with Fox News' Glenn Beck, Scheuer argues, "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama Bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States --- because it's gonna take a grassroots, bottom up pressure -- because these politicians prize their offices, prize the praise of the media, and the Europeans. It's an absurd situation again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary."

The context of this is a plan to send National Guard volunteers to the southern U.S. border to address the drug trade.

Instead of saying, "That's completely insane," Glenn Beck nodded along, in apparent approval of his guest's ridiculous argument.

I was trying to think of how best to describe how spectacularly offensive this lunacy really is, but it looks like Adam Serwer beat me to it: "[U]nderstand, this is not unpatriotic. You can wish all manner of horrors on this country, but as long as these horrors might serve a specific political agenda, you're not being unpatriotic. Unpatriotic is a public health care plan. Unpatriotic is a judge modifying subprime mortgage loans to keep a roof over someone's head. Unpatriotic is phosphate free detergent. Patriotic is wishing for a terrorist attack on the United States."

Is that not breathtaking?

Here's what I'm going to do. I shall print the above snippet on a card. I keep copies of that card with me at all times. And when people try to tell me that the Cons really do love America and want only the best for it, I shall wordlessly hand them the card.

Then they can explain to me why, exactly, I should take seriously a single damned word these fucktards ever say about patriotism.

Any Happy Hour Discurso stands as a testament as to why I don't take Cons seriously about anything else.