Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Wow, it's just like old times.  Cantor's back to riding a dead horse:

This week, Cantor hosted a job fair, during which he trashed the economic recovery efforts as an "utter failure." It's one of those attacks that's idiotic for a variety reasons -- we know the stimulus rescued the economy from the abyss; we know Cantor's alternative proposal (five-year spending freeze at the height of the crisis) was hopelessly insane and would have made things much worse; and we know the stimulus was needed to fix a crisis Cantor and his cohorts were responsible for creating in the first place.

But in this specific case, there's another problem with Cantor's nonsense, and it's an ironic one.

Nearly half of the 30 organizations participating in a job fair Cantor is holding Monday in Culpeper were recipients of the stimulus.

The list includes a slew of government agencies and schools that have directly benefited from the package and may be using stimulus money to hire people (as the money was originally designed to do), including the Orange County public schools, the Transportation Security Administration and Virginia Department of Labor, and some companies that may have indirectly benefited such as Comcast and Terremark.

In other words, the job fair at which Cantor trashed the stimulus wouldn't have been possible were it not for the stimulus.

Ladies and gentlemen, Eric Cantor thinks every single American is a helpless idiot.  This seems to be a Con pattern, although the last few election cycles have demonstrated that this is a questionable assumption.  I'm insulted.  Are you insulted?  My dear readers who are either in Virginia or know people in Virginia, here is your mission: ensure absolutely everyone you can notify is aware that Eric Cantor is pimping jobs created with funds that he desperately didn't want his state to get.  Then let's ensure he gets insulted at the ballot box.

Speaking of typical Con tricks, here's your manufactroversy o' the day:

With an Indian delegation, led by Prime Minister Singh, at the White House today, President Obama will host his first State Dinner this evening. The conservative media machine has already decided on its preferred angle.

The far-right Washington Times, with its few remaining staffers and editors, published a report this morning with this headline: "Top Republican lawmakers not invited to State Dinner." (The print edition said, "Obama's big tent leaves out GOP bigwigs.") Drudge, naturally, took the bait, telling readers, "Not invited: Republican lawmakers..." Fox News, not surprisingly, soon followed, republishing the Times piece.

All of this might be more compelling if it weren't for the leading Republicans who were, in fact, invited.

Poor babies.  They apparently don't know how to read invitations.  Either that, or they somehow believe their scheduling conflicts mean they were never invited at all.  Funny way they have at looking at the world, innit?

Let's move on to 2012 hopefuls for a bit.  Here we have brave Mike Huckabee, too chickenshit to speak ill of Rush.  That's real presidential, there, Mikey.

Sarah Palin's je ne sais quois, ladies and gentlemen.

Lou Dobbs thinks he's somehow qualified to run for POTUS, and believes he's somehow reaching out to the Latino community.  I'm not sure what gives him that impression:

Since Lou Dobbs left CNN, he has been mulling a run for office — possibly even for president. Yesterday in an interview with WTOP radio, Dobbs said that part of his strategy to transition from being a media figure is to reach out to all the Latino organizations he alienated while at CNN:

DOBBS: And for the first time, I’m actually listening to some people about politics. I don’t think I’ve got the nature for it, but we’ve got to do something in this country, and I think that being public arena means you’ve got to part of the solution. By the way, I’m reaching out right now to Latino groups, to the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable — all of the groups with whom I’ve been in an ongoing debate, to try to bridge some of these conflicts and try to create solutions. And I think we’re well on our way to doing that.

[snip]

ThinkProgress spoke with Lisa Navarrete, vice president at the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States. Navarrette said that Dobbs had not yet reached out to the group at all.

Dobbs did recently do an interview with Telemundo, in which he said that he was one of the Latino community’s “greatest friends.” However, he also falsely denied ever saying that undocumented immigrants are bringing leprosy to the United States, instead attacking the interviewer for even bringing up the subject.

So.  His "reaching out" consists of not reaching out to the nation's largest Latino civil rights org, and lying to and then insulting an interviewer on Spanish-language television. Additionally, he doesn't think he's "got the nature" for politics, and this is the first time he's ever even listened to people about politics, but he thinks his ass would look good planted in the Oval Office.

ZOMFG.

We do, however, already have a campaign slogan: XENOPHOBES FOR DOBBS!

There's only one loser I'm aware of who's bigger than him potentially running for public office, and that's Sheriff Joe:

AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio needs no introduction, his bigotry and illegal activity has been well documented. The latest outrage on his watch comes at the hands of one of his deputies, who forced a woman to give birth while cuffed at the wrists and ankles, then ordered the baby taken from the mother:

The bleeding kept her up all night, drenching her black-and-white-striped jail uniform.

Alma Chacón feared her baby would arrive early. Her nightmare had started with a traffic stop a day earlier. She'd been weeping since. "What if the baby is born here, in the jail?" she thought.

In the afternoon, she was shackled and transported to Maricopa County Medical Center, where she gave birth in a "forensic restraint." She couldn't hold her baby daughter or kiss her. She could only watch as hospital personnel carried the infant out the door. She wouldn't see the baby for 72 days.

Arizona.  Really.  Do you seriously think this fucktard's qualified to run the state?  Is this really who you want in charge?  Think carefully about this.  It shouldn't take you more than about ten seconds.

In news of other assclowns, Bill O'Reilly's opinion of himself has become comically large.  He thinks something he did two years ago drove Bill Moyers off the air.  He must be a very small, sad man inside, judging by the size of his efforts to compensate.

We have a special section today, wherein the President of the United States has earned a session with the Smack-o-Matic for egregious economic stupidity:

In a move that's akin to acknowledging the roof has massive leaks, but you won't consider any solutions that involve anything more costly than putting pots and pans under the leaks, President Obama announces he wants to do something about unemployment - but he doesn't want it to cost anything:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama assured Americans on Monday that boosting jobs was a top priority, but gave no specifics about how to meet this goal that some economists say warrants more government spending.

The White House said separately that all "sensible and reasonable measures" would be considered to encourage employment, but also stressed that it must be balanced with the need for the United States to tackle record budget deficits.

[snip]

[...] Obama has also said he is interested in solutions that would not cost much public money, warning that adding to the U.S. debt could trigger a double-dip recession.

Reacting in the NY Times, Krugman is, well, appalled:

What? Huh? Most economists I talk to believe that the big risk to recovery comes from the inadequacy of government efforts: the stimulus was too small, and it will fade out next year, while high unemployment is undermining both consumer and business confidence.

Now, it’s politically difficult for the Obama administration to enact a full-scale second stimulus. Still, he should be trying to push through as much aid to the economy as possible. And remember, Mr. Obama has the bully pulpit; it’s his job to persuade America to do what needs to be done.

Instead, however, Mr. Obama is lending his voice to those who say that we can’t create more jobs. And a report on Politico.com suggests that deficit reduction, not job creation, will be the centerpiece of his first State of the Union address. What happened?

It took me a while to puzzle this out. But the concerns Mr. Obama expressed become comprehensible if you suppose that he’s getting his views, directly or indirectly, from Wall Street.

Mr. President, you're a smart man.  I know you're a smart man.  But you're an outrageous idiot where economic matters are concerned.  Might I suggest you have a word with Nancy Pelosi, who seems to remember that we've tried singing this song before?

On a conference call today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) explained how she plans to reconcile deficit complaints with the need to pass an adequate jobs bill:

We’re never going to decrease the deficit until we create jobs, bring revenue into the Treasury, stimulate the economy so we have growth. We have to shed any weakness that anybody may have about not wanting to be confrontational on this subject for fear that we’d be labeled not sensitive to the deficit. … The American people have an anger about the growth of the deficit because they’re not getting anything for it. … So if somebody has the idea that the percentage of GDP of what or national debt is will go up a bit, but they will now — and their neighbors and their children — will have jobs, I think they could absorb that. … If we pull our punch, as they did in the mid-30’s, we shouldn’t be surprised if history repeats itself.

Besides, you know what happens when you lower the deficit?  Americans think it went up anyway.  So just do the right fucking thing.

I hope we don't have to have this talk again, but I'm afraid we will.

Finally, we must close with a rare shout-out to Tweety, who wiped the floor with Bishop Tobin.  This doesn't make up for all of the stupid bullshit you engage in, but this was a thing of beauty, and we here at the cantina salute you.