Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

And the Cons' economic genius just keeps getting geniuser and geniuser.  Wow.  Here's John Boehner's answer to those of you without jobs - "fuck all y'all:"

In his speech on jobs earlier today, President Obama took a moment to acknowledge how far we've come from a year ago, but emphasized how much further we have to go. "[E]ven though we have reduced the deluge of job losses to a relative trickle, we are not yet creating jobs at a pace to help all those families who have been swept up in the flood," the president said. "There are more than 7 million fewer Americans with jobs today than when this recession began. That's a staggering figure and one that reflects not only the depths of the hole from which we must ascend, but also a continuing human tragedy. And it speaks to an urgent need to accelerate job growth in the short term while laying a new foundation for lasting economic growth."

The House Republican leader doesn't quite see it that way.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the administration's idea to spend money returned from bailed out banks "repulsive."

The top-ranking GOP lawmaker told reporters that money repaid from failing banks bailed out by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was never intended to fund new programs. [...]

"This makes me so angry! I was there -- I know all about TARP. First it was never intended that all this money was going to be spent. But any money that wasn't spent was going to go to the deficit. The idea of taking this money and spending it is repulsive," the Ohio lawmaker told reporters on Tuesday.

[snip]

Here's what voters should understand: Boehner was fine with that $200 billion being available for Wall Street. He's fine with that $200 billion being applied to the deficit that Boehner helped create. But Boehner thinks it's "repulsive" to allocate those resources on job creation, small business tax breaks, and continued aid to the unemployed.

If you know any of Boehner's constituents, please be sure to tell them to show Boehner the same care and concern come next election.  Having him join the ranks of the unemployed would warm the cockles of many hearts.

Marching right alongside Boehner in the economic genius parade is Rep. Paul Ryan:

Yesterday, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) spokes at The Economist’s “The World In 2010” forum in Washington, D.C. The Economist named Ryan one of its three “youngsters to watch” next year because he is reportedly “full of good sense on how to restore America’s public finances.”

Speaking at the conference yesterday, Ryan offer his standard stimulus-bashing trope, calling it an example of the Obama administration’s desire to rapidly shift to “more of a European welfare state.” Ryan expressed his concern that we are “going toward a system where more of our people are worried about their benefits — and they become complacent — versus making the most of their lives.”

Noting that Ryan’s district has received millions in stimulus funding to create or save many jobs, ThinkProgress asked Ryan whether he’d be willing to adhere to his principles and call for a repeal of the measure. Ryan said he would:

TP: You’re obviously a critic of the stimulus. We listened to your colleague Eric Cantor earlier, who was saying the President needs to focus on jobs. While you were speaking, I looked up Janesville, Wisconsin – which is in your district. It received $4 million in stimulus funding, which has helped repair streets, put jobs back into your district. So I think the question for you is: Are you either willing to acknowledge the stimulus has created jobs and is beneficial or if not, do you want to repeal the stimulus and take money away from your district?

RYAN: Yeah, so, I would prospectively repeal the stimulus and put it toward better policy.

[snip]

Note that Ryan called for “prospectively” repealing the stimulus, meaning that he would not ask districts which have received money to give that money back.

And why wouldn't he want them to give the money back, if they money wasn't doing any good?  'Tis a question I'm sure he cannot answer - well, he can, of course, but not with a convincing enough lie.

Bringing up the rear of the parade o' economic genius, we see Michael Steele:

Michael Steele, in a letter to the President today:

This is not the time to gamble a trillion dollars on a 2,000 page health care experiment Congress is stitching together by the seat of its pants. Washington’s rescue efforts have already burdened our economy with the costs of huge bailouts and government takeovers. When Americans look for relief, they see record debt and deficits. If Americans are still looking for full-time work and employers are still shutting their doors next spring, Democrats and Republicans are going to wish they had that trillion dollars back to create jobs.

That would appear to be an endorsement of the idea that, at least in theory, government spending can create jobs.

Steele, in an Op ed yesterday, also mentioned the trillion dollars, but said this, too:

Today, even some of President Obama’s strongest Democratic supporters say our economic prospects next year are so serious they would borrow and spend hundreds of billions for a “Stimulus II” package, despite the indisputable failure of “Stimulus I.” …

Despite America’s obvious economic crisis and the failure of their huge spending to correct it, President Obama and Congressional Democrats still tell us they can inflate our economy with more spending and overcome our problems with more debt.

That would appear to be a suggestion that more government spending to create jobs can’t work.

Anybody else get the idea that this man's two functioning neurons aren't on speaking terms?  Yeah, me too.

There's not much more that we can expect from a bunch of fucktards who think this kind of behavior is clever:

Listing the faults of congressional Republicans would be an arduous, intensive task, but near the top of the list would have to be the wholesale abandonment of a "seriousness of purpose that matches" the needs of the country. Given that it was GOP officials who failed so spectacularly when they were in power, coupled with the electorate turning so strongly against them, it's tempting to think Republicans would at least show some ... I don't know ... humility.

Alas, officials legislate with the minority they have, not the minority they might want or wish to have at a later time.

Alan Grayson has this story about misbehaving Republicans in the House. He says each House member has an electronic card that he or she sticks in a slot to register a vote. Sometimes members will forget or lose their card, and will go up after votes are taken to register their votes. A few weeks back, he said about 60-70 Republicans began pretending that they forgot their cards.

"They'd all walk to the front of the House and, laughingly and jokingly, put their arms around each other's shoulder like it was some kind of clownish fun. And they did this over and over to make sure every vote took half an hour. That's how low things have gotten. I could give you countless examples just like that. They're simply obstructionists and there's nothing you can do about it."

Lee Fang reported that House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who spoke at the Center for American Progress Action Fund yesterday, conceded that we've seen "a couple of instances of that," enough to draw the ire of the House parliamentarian who has criticized House Republicans' tactics, "which are not countenance by the rules."

I'm reminded of a piece Matt Taibbi wrote in April, when he labeled congressional Republicans "class clowns," who've been "reduced to half-assed buffoonery."

That was eight months ago. They're getting worse.

Yep.  They're going for full-assed buffoonery, now.

While House Cons play the fool, Inhofe plays illiterate:

Appearing on CNN’s American Morning today to discuss the Copenhagen climate change conference, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) attempted to defend his theory that the illegally-hacked emails of climate researchers prove that global warming is a “hoax.” Inhofe, who will lead a “truth squad” of global warming deniers to the conference, told host Kiran Chetry that people “all over the world” agree with him about the “climategate” emails.

Inhofe cited two newspapers and a group of meteorologists who are “changing their position” on the science of global warming:

INHOFE: Hey, Kiran, if it was just me saying it’d be one thing, but all over the world they’re talking about this. And just this morning the meteorologists — one of the groups — has said that they’re changing their position. Listen, the UK Telegraph — this is worst scientific scandal of our generation. The Guardian, this is an activist paper, saying pretending this isn’t a real scandal isn’t going to make it go away.

[snip]

The group to which Inhofe is referring — the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) — did indeed come out with a position this morning. It just happens to be a position which does nothing to validate Inhofe’s skepticism:

The year 2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850, according to data sources compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

[snip]

But Inhofe also was wrong about The Guardian. The UK newspaper joined with 56 other newspapers in 45 countries to run the same front-page editorial yesterday, urging action on climate change.

Two of the three citations Inhofe used to validate his global warming denialism actually argued for the opposite conclusion. Bottom line: Inhofe is inventing facts to justify his fictitious theory of climate change.

You really can't even say he's "misrepresenting" anyone - he's flat-out lying his ass off.  So either he's stupid, evil, or evil and stupid.  I plump for the latter.  Amanda Marcotte has theories of her own (h/t):

I’m forced to conclude that it’s because denying the reality of global warming achieves the central goal of wingnuttery: pissing off the liberals.

And piss us off they do.  Especially when they perform "sting" operations against folks like ACORN and, when they can't get actual evidence of wrongdoing, edit their video complete with dubbing to make it look like they've got evidence.

Really, the only people who can love the Cons in Congress are right-wing fucktards with their heads so far up their asses their own odor overwhelms the stench of bullshit surrounding Cons, and banks.  Banks love Cons.

Time now for Con Family Values, Green Balloons edition:

The former speaker of the Missouri House has been charged with a felony after what looks like a bout of sado-masochistic sex that went way too far.

Details are still unconfirmed, we should note. But a woman appears to have suggested to police that Rod Jetton, a Republican who now works as a political consultant, may have slipped something into her drink, then beat her up during sex, after she failed to use the safe word they had agreed upon as a signal to calm things down.

[snip]

According to the formal complaint filed against Jetton, he "recklessly caused serious physical injury" to the woman "by hitting her on the head, and choking her resulting in unconsciousness and the loss of the function of part of her body."

Jetton then stayed the night, says the woman. When he woke up, she says, he kissed her and said, "You should have said green balloons." He then left and hasn't returned.

Proper little Prince Charming, innit he?  I wonder what he's teaching his three kids.

And, finally, let's check in with Faux News to see how that "zero tolerance for on-screen errors" policy's going.  Oh, deary me, not too good:

Last week, Fox and Friends showed a Rasmussen poll graphic revealing that a whopping 120 percent of the American public believes scientists may be falsifying research to support their own theories on global warming:

Media Matters explains Fox’s fuzzy math:

Well, here’s the Rasmussen poll Fox & Friends cited. They asked respondents: “In order to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, how likely is it that some scientists have falsified research data?” According to the poll, 35 percent thought it very likely, 24 percent somewhat likely, 21 percent not very likely, and 5 percent not likely at all (15 percent weren’t sure).

Fox News’ graphics department added together the “very likely” and “somewhat likely” numbers to reach 59 percent, and called that new group “somewhat likely.” Then, for some reason, they threw in the 35 percent “very likely” as their own group, even though they already added that number to the “somewhat likely” percentage. Then they mashed together the “not very likely” and “not likely at all” groups, and threw the 15 percent who were unsure into the waste bin. Voila — 120 percent.

I wonder if Faux Math Magic qualifies as "on-screen error"?

It appears, my darlings, that when it comes to Cons and their fervent supporters, the motto is "Dishonesty is the best policy."  We expect politicians to lie.  But it seems an insult to have them lying with such transparent stupidity.