Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

I have rejoined the living, although I'm sitting in a chair in the corner wrapped in a blanket and dozing off between nose blows. I'm a total wuss when it comes to getting sick. But for you, my darlings, I have dragged myself from my sickbed (which is super-comfy now that The Stench has been conquered and the memory foam mattress topper's in place). I have put aside my convenient excuse to do nothing but lie about reading. I have perused the intertoobz, and discovered that no one has any consideration at all for sick bloggers on a Monday. The stupid, it is relentless.

Of course, most of teh stoopid's been concentrated around health care reform, but we've got some grade-a dumbfuckery out there on other fronts. Such as the dumbfuck who posted an assassination poll on Facebook:

The Secret Service is investigating the circumstances surrounding an eye-opening Facebook poll that asked whether Obama should be assassinated, a Secret Service spokesman confirms to us.

“We are taking the appropriate investigative steps,” the spokesman, Ed Donovan, told our reporter, Amanda Erickson. “We are aware of it.”

The poll asked: “Should Obama be killed?” It offered four choices: No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.

And you thought Faux News polls were outrageously stupid. I don't imagine the feckless idiot who posted this is a terribly serious threat, except to the nation's average intelligence. Even the most basic dumbshit should realize that posting a poll asking whether the President should be assassinated will attract the wrong sort of attention from the friendly folks at the Secret Service.

It's also a little hard to be sanguine about such things when you've got morons at right-wing conferences basically advocating armed insurgency against the government:

At the How To Take Back America Conference last weekend, conservative speaker Kitty Werthmann led a workshop called “How to recognize living under Nazis & Communists.” Announcing the panel in a column preceding the conference, talk show host Janet Porter gushed how Werthmann’s description of Austria in the 1930s is a “mirror to America” today — noting “They had Joseph Goebbels; we have Mark Lloyd, the diversity czar.” The room was packed over capacity to hear Werthmann, who grew up as a Christian in Austria and serves as Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum South Dakota President.

During her session, Werthmann went through a litany of examples of how President Obama is like Adolf Hitler. She noted that Hitler, who acted “like an American politician,” was “elected in a 100% Christian nation.” Although she failed to once mention Antisemitism or militarism, Werthmann explained how universal healthcare, an Equal Rights Amendment, and increased taxes were telltale signs of Nazism. Werthmann also warned the audience:

If we had our guns, we would have fought a bloody battle. So, keep your guns, and buy more guns, and buy ammunition. [...] Take back America. Don’t let them take the country into Socialism. And I refer again, Hitler’s party was National Socialism. [...] And that’s what we are having here right now, which is bordering on Marxism.

I'm too damned tired to unpack all of the stupidity contained therein. Let me just say: Marxism and fascism don't border each other, lots of countries manage things like equal rights, tax increases and universal healthcare without becoming Nazi Germany, and if this is the tone of the fucking conference, elected officials shouldn't be within a thousand miles of the thing - although several Cons were proud to be there. Fuck, if you visit the link, you'll even see Bachmann's autograph on that fucktard's CD.

And Rep. Trent Franks was up there happy to tell all and sundry that Obama hates America:

In an interview with the Washington Independent’s Dave Weigel at the How To Take Back America conference this weekend, Franks said that he believes Obama is American, “even if he acts un-American”:

FRANKS: That solved the issue for me. I said, you know, I can’t — I believe he’s a natural born citizen of the United States under the Constitution. And therefore, even if he acts un-American and he seems to go against American interests, I’d still believe he’s a natural-born American citizen.

Fantastic. Way to throw fuel on the fire, there, Trent. Word to my home state: kick this stupid fucker out of Washington.

And then we have right-wing fucktards smearing a dead man with no evidence at all:

I only wish I were kidding here, folks. From JLFinch at Daily Kos and Wonkette, we find out that Dan Riehl is pulling a Peggy Noonan It-Is-Irresponsible-Not-To-Speculate smear job on a dead guy who can't fight back:

Was Census Worker Bill Sparkman A Child Predator?

Update: Before any more people start going bonkers that I'm accusing Sparkman of anything, take a breath. ... . ...All I'm doing is looking at any and all possibilities. ... Why strip him naked and bind and gag him, which has serious sexual overtones?

I have no idea what happened, but from the reporting I've seen, neither does anyone else. If he adopted a boy as a single man, or was married and split with the wife and kids, who knows. But I never assume I know a story or motive until I know it. Right now we don't. I'm simply speculating on one possible alternative, however impolite.

Well, golly, Mr. Riehl, I'm sure Mr. Sparkman's wife and son must really enjoy your coy little efforts to smear their tortured-to-death husband and father...

If you think the ellipses in the above exonerate the fucktard, they don't. He's just trying to shore up his irresponsible, reprehensible bullshit by saying he's been a crime writer for a long time and besides, other people are speculating about meth labs, so his douchebaggery is totally okay.

It's not. But these assholes are too far gone to realize it.

And while the right wing gets ever more rabid, the Con 2012 hopefuls ratchet up the batshit insanity trying to win them over. Lessee, we have Huck wanting to chuck the UN in the river:

On Saturday, Mike Huckabee gave the keynote address at Phyllis Schlafly’s How To Take Back America conference. Huckabee praised Schafly, calling her book “Choice not an Echo” an inspiration when he was a teenager.

Huckabee spent a considerable amount of his address railing against the United Nations, calling it the “international equivalent of ACORN” and demanding that America should withdraw. As Dave Weigel noted, the crowd greeted Huckabee’s anti-UN rhetoric with a standing ovation:

HUCKABEE: It’s time to get a jackhammer and to simply chip that part of New York City. Let it float into the East River, never to be seen again. [STANDING OVATION] [...]

It’s time to say enough of the American taxpayer dollar being spent that may have had a noble idea, but it has become a disgrace. It has become the international equivalent of ACORN, and it’s time to say enough.

Oh, wait, Huck's had a better idea! Send the UN to Saudi instead!

But then Huckabee backpedaled from outright destruction of the U.N. to simply moving it to sunny Riyadh.

“Let’s end the diplomatic excesses that these people enjoy,” he said. “Let any country that is willing to spend the money that the United States is hosting–let them have it. Give it to the Saudis and let these diplomats suck the sand out of the Saudi desert for a few summers and see if that’s where they’d like to go, and make their ridiculous speeches."

Now this sophomoric, wingnut radio talk-show level of U.N. bashing is red-meat for the base, but this isn't how serious candidates for president talk. Either Huck's trying to out-flank Palin, or he knows he can't peel enough fundies away from her, and is just pumping up ad sales for his shitty show.

I don't doubt that this fucktard thinks he can do it all, including run for the presidency after proving what a right-wing jackass he is, because he's an amusing guest on The Daily Show. And people like him are oblivious to reality anyway - they're wrapped in their own little bubble of crazy, and they think nearly everybody's in there with them.

If you're expecting the hopefuls to distance themselves from fanatics, disabuse yourself of that notion. They're flocking around Bob "Women Should be Barefoot and Pregnant Just Like the Bible Intended" McDonnell:

Pretty interesting development: Despite the controversy over Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell’s master’s thesis pillorying women’s and gay rights (or perhaps partly because of it?) the 2012 GOP presidential hopefuls are falling all over themselves to be seen campaigning at his side.

[snip]

These days the top GOP wannabees for 2012 love being seen with the man:

* Bobby Jindal is headlinging a fundraiser tonight that’s expected to raise $250,000 for McDonnell.

* Newt Gingrich hosted a campaign breakfast with him this morning.

* Mitt Romney hosted a fundraiser that netted $100,000 for McDonnell last week.

* Tim Pawlenty stumped for McDonnell in Virginia earlier this month.

Pathetic and disgusting - par for the course with the GOP lately.

So where's Sarah Palin been? Mistaking a taste of Tehran for Anchorage:

Sarah Palin's trip to Hong Kong last week was promoted heavily, while her speech was kept as little reported as possible (well except for Rich Lowry's fapping). There were only sketchy reports of her appearance and attempt to acquire gravitas. However, as usual in Palin-land there was a big failing of plans. For who should show up for her speech last week but British professional bs detector Robert Fiske:

It was then we realised that whoever wrote the Palin sermon for her, they had – mercilessly – allowed some of the real Sarah to show through. Even husband Todd got a mention. He had flown with her into Hong Kong. And – here was a reference to the Alaska fish and caviar consumed in this "beautiful", "magnificent" and "libertarian" part of China – "some of the fruits of our labour, mine and Todd's, ended up on tables here". The caviar at the Hyatt, it should be added, comes from Iran.

Oh dear, looks like Sarah Palin is living the high life with terrorists.

Unless something really dramatic happens, these are the people the Cons will be resting their hopes for retaking the White House on. If my fellow Americans are dumbshit enough to elect one of these assclowns, I shall know we are beyond help.

Finally, an amusing tidbit, because I do so love it when Cons subside into embarrassed silence:

In July, a variety of conservative Republican lawmakers were outraged by the official U.S. government opposition to the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Honduras. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) officially endorsed the military-backed coup, and a variety of House Republicans organized a "congressional coup caucus" in support of the new, unelected government.

Oddly enough, we're not hearing much from this GOP crowd anymore. I wonder why that is.

The de facto government that's in power in Honduras closed down television and radio stations Monday morning that are aligned with ousted President Manuel Zelaya. [...]

The moves by interim President Roberto Micheletti came hours after the government announced a decree suspending constitutional civil liberties, an attempt to keep supporters of Zelaya off the streets Monday.

So much for all that freedom and democracy the coup was bringing to Honduras, eh? Oops.

I wish I knew what it was like to live in a country where the opposition isn't quite so frothing insane and spectacularly bloody stupid.