Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

So, did you hear the one about the guy who, like, totally foiled a terrorist plot to take over a flight?

If you have any right-wing relatives, or spend a lot of time perusing far-right blogs, you may have heard about Tedd Petruna and Flight 297.

Petruna's version of events, written in an email that's quickly made the rounds, is quite a colorful tale. As he described what transpired, Petruna boarded an AirTran flight from Atlanta to Houston, sitting in first class. He saw "11 Muslim men" get on the plane "in full attire," and noticed that two of the eleven sat in first class, while the other nine "peppered themselves throughout the plane."

Drama!  Intrigue!  Terrorists calling each other on cell phones!  No mention of just how Petruna knew who the terrorists were calling!  And then, the punchline:

As the email, written just nine days ago, garnered more attention -- it was especially popular on Glenn Beck's site for the 9.12 Project -- more news outlets began seeking Petruna for comment. The bold hero of his own story, who was only too glad to confront those he suspected of terrorism, didn't want to talk to reporters.

Now we know why.

He was not on the plane, AirTran Airways says.

"After conducting additional research into this situation, we have verified, according to flight manifests [legally binding documents] that the individual that allegedly created a first-hand account of events on-board AirTran Airways Flight 297, a Theodore Petruna, was never actually on-board the flight," AirTran said in a statement, which the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was the first to obtain.

It turns out, the incident, if you can call it that, stems from a Spanish-speaking passenger who didn't turn off his cell phone when asked to do so, because he didn't understand the instructions. Petruna's story, not surprisingly, is bogus.

The airline went to the trouble of debunking the entire ridiculous tale, point by point.

You know how the right-wingers love to jump all over left-wing blogs for getting a story wrong?  Yeah.  Excuse me while I engage in a delicious moment of schadenfreude.  Oddly enough, we get to indulge more in the schadeny-goodness than they do.

Quite the little fantasy world they live in, innit?

Speaking of fantasies, the Cons are getting some bizarre idea that they're, like, totally qualified to rescue the American economy after flushing it down the toilet.  They're as good at fixing the economy as Petruna is at identifying terrorists.  But the poor dumbshits just can't keep their mouths shut, and they think they have Great Ideas.

Here's Orrin Hatch's brilliant idea:

Today, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) appeared on Fox Business and unleashed an angry tirade against the Democratic majority in Congress. As Fox host Alexis Glick fawned over the senior Republican senator — praising his characterization of Democrats’ policy ideas as “doggone stupid” — Hatch agreed that Democrats are trying to “socialize the country.”

Towards the end of the interview, Glick asked him what his “solutions” are to the problems the country faces, prompting Hatch to respond that he’d start by putting the country “back into conservative Republican hands” and keeping the Bush tax cuts:

FOXBIZ: What are your solutions to jobs, the unemployment situation, rising health care costs, energy costs that are rising, inflation that is still a concern, how do we solve these issues right now? Are we trying to do too much too quickly?

HATCH: Number one you get the arrogance of power by throwing the Democrats and get the control back into conservative Republican hands. Number two we should not do away with the Bush tax cuts, those marginal tax cuts are a major help to try and keep the economy going. Number three we should use fifty state labratories to do health care.

Dear fucking gods. Let's see what we've got here: he thinks the same fucktards who tanked the economy can rescue it by employing the same methods they used to tank the economy, and on top of that, he wants to experiment on a state-by-state basis with health care, which is what we already fucking do.  Is there anyone who can top his dumbfuckery?

Why yes, yes, there is:

Mitt Romney is asked what he thinks the Obama administration needs to do to stimulate the economy and surprise, surprise...he recommends more tax cuts. How'd those tax cuts work out under George W. Bush Mitt? Of course Romney also thinks we need to get rid of the stimulus plan which wasn't big enough in the first place. Let the private sector take care of everything. It will all work out just fine.

[snip]

Transcript via CNN.

KING: What should the president do in the short term? A lot of Republicans have said we're in this deficit, we can't run up more deficits. What should he do in the short term to create jobs?

ROMNEY: Well, put the brakes on the stimulus plan. Stop spending money on government, and instead create incentives for businesses to buy things and to hire people, by, for instance, having a more robust investment tax credit, by letting businesses expense capital expenditures in the first year for the next year or two, by lowering the payroll tax. At the same time, stop all the talk about cap-and- trade. That holds back job growth.

So, merely talking about cap-and-trade holds back job growth.  That's special.  Why is it that Cons are suddenly on this legislation-that-hasn't-passed-yet-is-destroying-the-economy kick?  Bizarre.

And, turning the duet into a trifecta of Con dumbshittery, here comes Eric Cantor to share the GOP's big ideas on job creation:

Today, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) appeared at the Economist’s World in 2010 conference (attended by ThinkProgress), where he took exception to NBC’s David Gregory characterizing Republicans as “not really a party of ideas, because they don’t want to be.” Cantor claimed that it’s actually the media’s fault that no one hears about Republican ideas, because “it’s not as sexy of a story to cover our ideas right not.” But when the Economist’s Daniel Franklin gave Cantor an opportunity to present his big idea for job creation, Cantor couldn’t come through:

FRANKLIN: What is the big idea? “Jobs” is not an idea.

CANTOR: The big idea is to get, to get, to produce an environment where we can have job creation again. And see, that’s where the Obama administration’s agenda so clearly disadvantages the Democrats in this upcoming election in eleven months and advantages us.

Don't go to the link looking for his actual, concrete proposals to "produce an environment where we can have job creation again," because there aren't any.  They haven't got one.  The closest they've come is Cantor's "magic pony" plan.  Apparently, he's realized that there is no magic pony in his magic pony plan, because he didn't bring it up this time round.  Gee, I wonder why?

Speaking of economic matters, it seems that corporations are now using non-profits to send politicians on expensive trips so they can get some quality face time with them after having softened them up with luxury junkets.  Color me surprised, because it ain't happening naturally.

And there's awful news for Cons and Teabaggers everywhere: an independent investigation has determined that ACORN isn't a criminal enterprise, hasn't broken the law, and in fact isn't the end of all civilization.  Actually, this might not be bad news, because I'm sure they'll just ignore it.  They always do when reality gets too inconvenient.

And, finally, if you want to know how far the Con party has fallen:

A new Rasmussen poll suggests that the Tea Party movement is far and away more popular than the Republican Party it seeks to influence -- so much so that if it were a full-fledged political party, it would overtake the GOP on the generic Congressional ballot.

The Cons have been reduced to some pretty pathetic spin:

Asked for the GOP leadership’s view of the poll, a senior GOP leadership aide emails an interesting, and somewhat similar, interpretation: It proves that Democrats are wrong about the Tea Partiers being extremists. From that aide:

This proves one of the major points that Democrats have tried hard to deny: the Tea Party movement is not some fringe group of ultra-conservatives, it is most popular among independents, many of whom believed President Obama’s campaign promises about doing things differently in Washington, and feel burned by the fact that he has governed in a relentlessly partisan fashion.

The thing is, of course, that the Tea Partiers’ success is exposing how deep the divide is within the GOP. Indeed, the poll finds that among Republican voters, the GOPer only holds a slim advantage over the Tea Party candidate, 39%-33%!

That prompted conservative blogger Ed Morrissey to remark that the national GOP’s best hope is to embrace the Tea Partiers agenda, or else.

“If not, expect another cycle of loss and frustration,” Morrissey wrote, referring to 2010.

The only question is, how willing are they to let the lunatics officially take over the asylum?  And if the lunatics do take over the asylum, will this give the Democratic voters the necessary kick in the arse that gets them to the voting booth?

I can hardly wait to see what happens next.