Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

And the future of the Republicon party is...

The results of the presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference have just been released, and you'll never guess who won.

[snip]

Here it is in order:

1. Mitt Romney

2. Bobby Jindal

3. Sarah Palin & Ron Paul

5. Charlie Crist

Romney won last year as well. Prior to that it was Rudy Giuliani and George Allen.

So you can see what great prognosticators they are.

I'm a little surprised to see Charlie Crist in the Top Five - he just doesn't strike me as insane enough for that crowd. Then again, it's possible they threw his name in there for shits and giggles, and there were only the six choices. Sarah Palin and Ron Paul tying for third is hysterical. Can't you just see that ticket?

Amazingly enough, Mike Huckabee didn't even make the list, but it wasn't for lack of trying:

On Thursday, Mike Huckabee offered the CPAC faithful the kind of rhetoric they want to hear.

"The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may be dead," said Huckabee, "but a Union of American Socialist Republics is being born." Democrats, according to Huckabee, were packing 40 years of pet projects like "health care rationing" into spending bills. "Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff."

The estimable Mark Kleiman, noting the bizarre remarks, said Huckabee may be "self-destructing" as a credible national figure.

Yes, yes, the CPAC crowd is the extreme of the extreme. But in the YouTube era you can't go around mouthing this stuff and be taken seriously as a candidate for President.

I'd really love to believe that, but I don't.

[snip]

That's just not how modern conservative politics works. In Republican circles, there's no such thing as excessive rhetoric.

True, that. For instance, the CPAC straw poll also returned Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly as their #s 2 and 3 most favoritest media personality. This is what they consider worth watching:

Whenever Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly get together, a new black hole of wingnuttery opens up in the time-space continuum. This could eventually prove to be unhealthy for human existence.

Take last night for example:

O'Reilly: There's got to be a reason why Feinstein and Pelosi and Leahy and all these far-left loons want to do damage to the country. This hurts the United States. Al Qaeda -- you know who the happiest people in the world are on a CIA investigation? Al Qaeda. They're the happiest people. Let's find out what the CIA's up to. Who does it help? It helps Al Qaeda.

Beck: Are you saying that -- Wait a minute, are you saying that these guys might be un-American?

O'Reilly: I'm not saying un-American. I would never say that. I'm saying misguided severely. And maybe should be tortured.

Beck: [Laughs] Who gets to do that?

They go on to soft-peddle the torture rhetoric by contemplating Beck's show as the instrument - and they are correct in that regard: Glenn Beck's program is a torturous thing to watch. If you've never had the displeasure, check out this gem. It's a "special" postulating that by 2014, we'll be living in a Mad Max world. You get the feeling that Beck wants the extreme right wing to take up guns, nukes and whatever other weapons they can muster, and destroy American civilization, all because he can't stand the idea of a popular Democrat as President.

Sad, pathetic men, aren't they? Do you see now why I put "special" in quotes? The short bus is a little too long for people who can't even find their ass with both hands, a GPS, and two aides.

Beck, O'Reilly et al aren't the only ones jumping on Limbaugh's "Root for failure!" bandwagon, either. More and more Con lawmakers have signed on for the trip:

Just before President Obama was inaugurated, hate radio host Rush Limbaugh declared, “I hope he fails.” Though some Republicans have distanced themselves from Limbaugh’s sentiment, conservatives at CPAC have fully embraced it.

In an interview with ThinkProgress today, radio host Mark Levin and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) added their voices to the chorus of conservatives hoping for Obama’s failure:

TP: What do you think about what Rush said about, I mean, do you hope, should we hope that President Obama fails?

LEVIN: Yes.

TP: Yes?

SANTORUM: If…absolutely we hope that his policies fail.

“I believe his policies will fail, I don’t know, but I hope they fail,” added Santorum.

Steve Benen "can't recall ever hearing so many prominent political figures hoping for American leaders' failure like this, especially not in the midst of a crisis." He delivers a stunning bitch-slap to the failmongers:

About a half-century ago, actor John Wayne, who was very conservative, was asked for his thoughts after JFK defeated Richard Nixon in 1960. "I didn't vote for him," Wayne said, "but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."

Wasn't it these self-same Cons who were telling us just a few months ago that anyone who failed to support the President is a traitor?

Cons are achieving stunning new heights of insanity and hypocrisy. And just like all insane hypocrites, they're eating their own:

The finance director for the Republican National Committee resigned abruptly Friday afternoon, and a source familar with the situation said he was forced out.

Reince Priebus, who’s running the transition team for new RNC Chairman Michael Steele, confirmed that Tim Crawford resigned Friday after just two weeks as the committee’s interim finance director.

No word on why (sex? Drugs? Embezzlement? Saying something reasonably sane?), but an insider says he didn't resign on his own initiative. This should get interesting - especially considering Tim Crawford is also Sarah PAC's treasurer. Oh, the plot sickens, it does, it does!

And if you think that unfolding drama might provide hours of entertainment, you're going to be delighted to discover just how much more is in store:

Sen. Jim Bunning (R) of Kentucky hasn't been getting along with his party lately. Convinced that his erratic behavior, bizarre comments, poor fundraising, and weak poll numbers all but guarantee his defeat next year, the Republican Party has been pushing Bunning to retire, and quietly reaching out to other potential GOP candidates.

Bunning has responded with varying degrees of outrage. He's no longer talking to most of his Republican colleagues. He announced this week that he no longer trusts NSRC Chairman John Cornyn. On Tuesday, Bunning talked openly about suing the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

This, however, would represent a whole new level of spite.

Already in conflict with his party's leaders, Sen. Jim Bunning has reportedly said privately that if he is hindered in raising money for his re-election campaign he is ready with a response that would be politically devastating for Senate Republicans: his resignation.

The Kentucky Republican suggested that possible scenario at a campaign fundraiser for him on Capitol Hill earlier this week, according to three sources who asked not to be identified because of the politically sensitive nature of Bunning's remarks.

The implication, they said, was that Bunning would allow Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, to appoint his replacement -- a move that could give Democrats the 60 votes they need to block Republican filibusters in the Senate.

"I would get the last laugh. Don't forget Kentucky has a Democrat governor," one of the sources quoted Bunning as saying.

"The only logical extension of that comment is, '(Make me mad) … enough and I'll resign, and then you've got 60 Democrats,' " said another source who was present at the event.

Bunny's now trying to claim he never threw that challenge in his colleagues' teeth, but multiple sources beg to differ.

He's a crazy SOB even by Con standards. He might just follow through. And that would propel the right-wing hysteria machine into the stratosphere. It seems, my darlings, that we are fated to live in interesting times.

We'll see if the Cons survive them.

Political Snark at its Finest

Digby highlighted one of the most beautiful rants I've read all week. I'm only going to give you snippets. Go. Read the whole thing. I don't care if it's Saturday - you only think you have better things to do:

No. You're idiots and your mothers are embarrassed by every single one of you. It's almost rush hour. Go panhandle outside the Heritage Foundation now. And Accuracy in Media remains one of the most blissfully ironic names in the political lexicon. Once, when writing about John McCain for Esquire, just at the very beginning of the Full Monica, I went to CPAC. (In those days, it should be noted, McCain didn't have three votes in the hall.) What you had there then was what you have there now--the distilled essence of what Krugman was talking about when he mentioned Beavis and Butthead in relationship to the conservative movement the other night.

[snip]

Look at this decaying lump of abject fail. Kids, in every place save his own mind, Newt Gingrich ended up a profound political failure. Rick Santorum lost. Badly. Global-warming denial? At least invite some UFOlogists to really liven things up. Election fraud? From the party of Katherine Harris? Citizen-led reform? In a country that has demonstrated its revulsion toward all you stand for in two consecutive elections, and that's now lining up at almost 60 percent behind a huge big-gubmint stimulus plan that makes Arthur Laffer cry like a child every night?

Damn, that's tasty!

Another Noxious Bush Reg Bites the Dust

A few months ago, I alerted you to Bush's little scheme to allow healthcare providers to redefine birth control as abortion and then refuse to provide the service. At the time, I gave you what I considered wise advice:

We can't rely on Obama's ability to roll these rules back. Better for the country if they're never implemented at all.

It's nice to be half-wrong sometimes. Looks like we can rely on Obama after all:

Today, the Obama administration plans to rescind the controversial “conscience rule,” which “allows healthcare workers to deny abortion counseling or other family planning services if doing so would violate their moral beliefs.”

That's my President, that is. He's not got a perfect record in rolling back Bush abuses - in fact, if a few things don't change over the next week, a trip to the woodshed will be in order - but he's doing a tremendous amount of good very, very quickly.

This is why I find it rather difficult to apply the Smack-o-Matic in his case. Every time I pick the damned thing up, he does something that makes me put it right back down. Y'know, little things like, oh, I dunno,

Ending the war in Iraq.

Restoring Superfund, making polluters pay, and ending tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry.

Planning a budget even Paul Krugman can love.

Going for healthcare reform.

Delivering a kick-ass speech that helps prepare the country for progressivism.

And that's just a few items from the last few days.

It's a good thing the Cons have been such raging idiots, or the poor Smack-o-Matic would be gathering dust. We can't have that.

The following illustration describes the situation precisely:


Our President is practically MacGuyver. I'm loving this.

The Revolution's Been Postponed Due to Lack of Interest

Oh, look! Sad, pathetic people holding hands:

So, remember just last week when derivatives-trader-turned-working-man-populist Rick Santelli delivered his infamous rant about Obama's housing and other economic plans? Remember when Andie Collier at Politico announced that Obama was in trouble because America was "a nation of Santellis" (presumably, good news for McCain)?

Remember all those "Chicago Tea Parties" Americans were supposed to participate in, taking out their righteous anger against Obama's anti-American economic plans? It was supposed to the be first wave of Americans taking to the streets against socialism, the birth of the New Minutemen. Michelle Malkin insists there's a growing tax revolt that "the MSM won't cover." It seems there was an army of angry citizens waiting to storm the barricades, holding "Obamination" signs and taking back the Republican Republic for sweet laissez-faire liberty.

Well, those were on for today. The protests received the assistance of numerous conservative organizations and their email lists, from The Heartland Institute to Americans for Tax Reform to the American Spectator, and were all scheduled to happen today, the 27th of February.

The results? Not so impressive.

Let's see...The Pittsburgh party was canceled due to rain. A whopping 79 people showed up today in Jacksonville, FL. Looks like maybe over a dozen showed up in Asheville, NC. Almost 10 people made it to the Buffalo, NY, protest. About 100 people throughout all of Los Angeles came out to Santa Monica Pier. All of about 300 people made it out throughout the entirety of Atlanta. 250 made it out to Dallas for the tea party there. 150 in Lansing. Looks like about 100 went to watch the Joe the Plumber and Michelle Malkin teabag fest in D.C. (if you had to retch, it's not my fault, just your dirty, dirty mind...)

The very best numbers these jokers managed to pull was 1,500 people in St. Louis (UPDATE: St. Louis wasn't anywhere close to 1,500; it was more like 400 if that--delusional, pathetic FAIL), and somewhere between 500-1,000 in Chicago--if reports from the organizers are to be believed.

Perhaps most hilarious is the 250-person turnout in Houston which was said to be

pretty good turn-out considering the livestock show barbeque cook-off in Reliant Park was a competitor.

When the choice is between revolution and chargrilled cow, and people plump for the cow, you know the nation's not quite ready to storm the White House just yet.

It's also very hard to join a revolution when you're laughing your ass off at the erstwhile revolutionaries (forgive me for filching the whole thing, Digby):

Courtesy of Dave Weigel, here's the scene from today's wingnut populist uprising in DC:


They really don't know, do they?*

Apparently not.

If you're not already on the floor in tears of mirth, prepare to be so:

Recently, I've come under editorial attack for my interest in the sexual practice known as teabagging. Before I address the specific calumnities tossed my way by jealous hacks, let me say that if a man enjoys lowering his scrotum into his partner's mouth, and enjoys having his partner suck on one testicle, then the other, and then, if possible, both testicles at once, followed by a judicious application of the tongue to the base of the scrotum, sometimes accompanied by a gentle stroking of the penis, then I say that man should be granted his fun, and should be permitted to look for other teabag afficionados however and wherever he can. No one can disagree with me on that point.

So, uh, yeah. Thanks for the offer, my conservative countrymen, but I'll pass.

The deeper irony here? Since conservatives consume so much more internet porn than liberals, there had to have been at least a few people at each gathering who knew exactly why those signs were an incredibly poor choice of slogan. And yet, due to the nature of conservative gatherings, those in the know wouldn't have been able to say a damned word, lest they admit they'd been looking at dirty pictures and thus incur the wrath of their fellow hypocrites.

Awesome.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

News too funny not to lead with:

From the File of Things That Really Shouldn't Surprise Anyone Who's Been Paying Attention to American Culture, we have this:

A new nationwide study (pdf) of anonymised credit-card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider finds little variation in consumption between states.

"When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different," says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School.

However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.

"Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by," Edelman says.

You'll love the state that comes in at #1. Hypocrisy runs rampant, doesn't it just?

Want more hypocrisy? You know there's plenty. How about some fiscal responsibility hypocrisy?

This is one of those strange stories in which Democrats want to spend less money and make a federal system more efficient, and conservatives are livid.

The situation is pretty straightforward. When Clinton was elected, the student-loan system was burdened by a layer of unnecessary bureaucracy. Higher-ed students would get a loan from a private lender, but it was effectively a no-risk system -- the federal government would guarantee the loan in the event of default. The industry was getting government subsidies to provide a service the government could perform for less. Clinton wanted to streamline the process and make it cost less -- the government would make the loan, cut out the middleman, and save billions.

Conservatives and loan industry lobbyists went nuts, forcing Clinton to backtrack. The eventual compromise led to two types of student loans -- direct loans and guaranteed loans. Colleges were allowed to choose the system they preferred. (They preferred the direct loans until lenders started bribing college-loan administrators.)

Sixteen years later, the Obama administration wants to save $4 billion a year, end subsidies to lenders, and make the process more efficient. The White House and Department of Education have apparently come to the conclusion that there's no point in laundering loans through lenders, who make a tidy profit, for no reason.

And once again, conservatives are livid.

This is why I ceased listening to their blather about government spending, responsibility, etc. etc. a long damned time ago. They're as hypocritical over government spending as they are over porn, not to mention corrupt as hell.

More news that shouldn't shock anyone with a functioning brain: Tom Delay is still a dumbshit:

Just days before the Inauguration, Rush Limbaugh famously declared, “I hope [Obama] fails.” Since then, some conservatives have been hesitant to embrace this view. Pat Robertson said, “That was a terrible thing to say.” “Anybody who wants him to fail is an idiot,” said Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC). Responding to Sanford, Limbaugh reiterated his position yesterday, saying, the “hell we don’t” want Obama to fail.

One of those “idiots” adopting Limbaugh’s stance is former House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX). In an interview with ThinkProgress at CPAC today, we asked DeLay whether he agrees with Limbaugh’s statements. DeLay said Limbaugh was “exactly” right to root for Obama’s failure:

TP: Do you agree with Rush Limbaugh that we shouldn’t hope for President Obama to succeed?

DELAY: Well, exactly right. I don’t want this for our nation. That’s for sure.

I don't think Cons are hoping Obama will fail because they genuinely think they have better ideas. They know they don't have better ideas. But bad ideas are the only ideas they have, and they know that if the American public gets a taste of peace, prosperity and progressive living, they'll never vote for Cons ever again. Who's going to go back to eating shit sandwiches when you've enjoyed steak? Well, there's a few swing voters who are that stupid, but not enough to help the Cons. Thus, the Cons really, really need Obama to fail. And they're making assclowns of themselves rooting for it.

I'll be very happy to remind undecided voters just who didn't want them fed, sheltered and employed come next election. It'll make canvassing fun.

It would be even more fun if I could go canvass in one of the states whose governors are grandstanding jackasses:

I guess the Republican governors are counting on their residents becoming so poor, they won't have TVs and so they won't find out what they're missing in other states? I really don't see the point of playing such heartless games with peoples' lives:

For people like Henry Kight, 59, of Austin, Tex., the possibility that the money might be turned down is a deeply personal issue.

Mr. Kight, who worked for more than three decades as an engineering technician, discovered in September that because of complex state rules, he was not eligible for unemployment insurance after losing a job at a major electronics manufacturer he had landed at the beginning of the year.

Unable to draw jobless benefits, he and his wife have taken on thousands of dollars in credit-card debt to help make ends meet.

[snip]

Mr. Kight and other unemployed workers said they were incensed to learn they were living in one of a handful of states — many of them among the poorest in the nation — that might not provide the expanded benefits.

“It just seems unreasonable,” Mr. Kight said, “that when people probably need the help the most, that because of partisan activity, or partisan feelings, against the current new administration, that Perry is willing to sacrifice the lives of so many Texans that have been out of work in the last year.”

He was referring to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who has said he may decline the extra money rather than change state policy.

Who woulda thunk unemployed people might be a tad upset with governors who refuse the money that might help them survive this recession? Shocking, I know. I have a feeling some of those states may be bluing up in a hurry.

Of course, at the rate the Cons are going, every state's going to be trending a bit more blue:

For GOP lawmakers anxious to push back against the Obama administration's agenda, the answer isn't to engage in a debate over the role of government. Rather, the Republicans have decided the way to win the broader policy debate is to find individual spending proposals that sound funny.

The strategy hasn't been especially effective. The money for marsh-mouse preservation turned out to be a lie. The money linking Vegas to Disneyland by way of high-speed rail was also non-existent. The volcano-monitoring program turned out to be a pretty good idea.

But now they've got a new one. Republicans, Fox News, the New York Post, and Drudge have found a $200,000 provision in the omnibus spending package for "tattoo removal." How can anyone defend that?

It's actually pretty easy to defend. Greg Sargent looked into it.

[A] little reporting reveals that that this "tattoo removal" program is an anti-crime program in the San Fernando Valley that re-integrates reformed gang members and makes it easier for them to find jobs. Two Los Angeles law enforcement officials I just spoke to -- one who identified himself as a "conservative Republican" -- swore by the program for reducing crime and saving lives.

The chief of San Fernando Police Department told Greg that the program is "important" and "reduces attacks." A local probation officer added, "This program is one of the best life-saving and life-changing programs out here. I am about as right wing a conservative as you would ever find."

I'm going to have to start making a list of questions. We've already got a start with "Why do Cons hate D.C.?" Now we've got "Why don't Cons want to reduce crime and save lives?" By the time the next election rolls around, we should have a pretty good list going.

Does anybody know where I can find a fifty-foot scroll? Preferrably one that unrolls dramatically...

Our Mission Be Delayed

February be a short month, and Admiral Dana be dealin' with shipwrecks. We'll spend an extra week in port - shore leave for the lot o' ye! Just have yerselves on board by Thursday the 5th o' March - we be sailin' next Friday! Those o' ye who've already boarded get extra rations o' rum this voyage.

Friday Favorite Childhood Cartoons

My supervisor has taken to announcing his lunch break with cartoons. Since we're roughly the same age, our tastes coincide. It's sad that the highlight of my work day is seeing what cartoon he's hyping next, but at work, you must take whatever nuggets of joy you can find.

He's reminded me of those halcyon days of childhood, when I used to drag my arse out of bed at five or six a.m. just so I wouldn't miss my favorite show. Take a trip down Memory Lane with me, why don't you.



Thundercats. Hands-down favorite cartoon evah. I wanted to be Cheetara when I grew up. Everything about this cartoon was awesome, from the characters to the stories to the theme music. Not to mention the logo - whoever designed it was a sheer genius.

There's been talk of a movie in the works. I generally despise live-action - I'm a purist that way - but a fan put together a trailer, and damn if it doesn't look spectacular. I hope the producers are paying attention. Here it is, for your viewing pleasure:




They should just hire this guy to do the film. Seriously.



He-Man. Okay, fine, yes, I'll admit it - She-Ra, too.

But I thought that He-Man had a much better transformation. There's no competition between "I have the power!" and "I am She-ra!" But She-Ra kicked He-Man's ass as far as stunts went. She almost inspired me to become a gymnast.

But Battlecat kicks Swift Wind's ass. Sorry to say. I like unicorns a lot, mind you, but that character was lame.

Almost as lame as He-Man's hairdo. Almost.







Transformers. Oh, yeah. Oh, hell yeah. One of the greatest shows of all time, that was. Although reality never quite matched up to the fantasy - I spent a good portion of my childhood lamenting that my Transformers action figures couldn't transform as fast as in the show, and they didn't make that awesome Transformer noise. I loved that sound!

Optimus Prime was my hero and role-model. He showed that kindness and compassion didn't make you a weak sister. I'm not ashamed to admit I cried like a baby when he died.

Never saw the movie. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Sometimes, you just have to keep the original enshrined in your mind, whole and complete, perfect in itself. Complete with cheesy 80s electronic music.

You're probably getting the idea that I was a total tomboy as a kid. Yepper. Oh, I had my girlie moments, but for the most part, I watched the boys' cartoons and played with boys' toys, and fuck that froufy shit. Didn't watch Care Bears or Rainbow Brite. Didn't sigh over the sparkly fairy fantasies. But there were a couple cartoons in my pantheon that weren't all about rivets and battle.


Scooby-Doo. You knew that was coming, right? I mean, is there anyone who doesn't love Scooby-Doo? This one ran every afternoon after school, and I'd get pissed if the bus was late. It didn't matter how many times I'd seen an episode - I never wanted to miss a minute. I of course wanted a dog just like Scooby. And I became known as the Scooby-Dooby-Doo girl at school because I'd sing the theme song on the swings.

The show may have inspired my brief flirtation with the idea of becoming a detective, too.

Shaggy is the official mascot of me and my best friend. We used to hang out with a guy who thought he was Fred - liked to get us into crazy situations in a spirit of investigative adventure. We were always pulling a Shaggy on him: "That's a great plan, Fred. There's just one problem - I ain't doing it." Shaggy taught me the value of just saying no. Ironic, eh?



And, of course, the Smurfs. I don't really want to talk about it. But I'll admit that this is the show that dragged my sorry arse out of bed so early on Saturday mornings.

Besides. Without the Smurfs, we wouldn't have had this awesomely wrong exchange in Twisted Toyfare Theatre #12 (paraphrasing from memory):

Mego Spidey: "Are you really the only girl?"

Smurfette: "Yeah. And for twenty bucks, I'll be your only girl, too."

So wrong it's right.

Weigh in, my darlings. What cartoons kept you glued to the tube as kiddies?

Why Do the Cons Hate D.C.?

This is rich:

The residents of the District of Columbia pay federal taxes, but have no voice in Congress. A measure is finally near passage that would, at long last, give D.C. a vote in the House of Representatives.

But before that happens, Senate Republicans want to ignore their professed principles and tinker a bit with the city's governance.

Opponents of a bill that would award the District its first seat in the House of Representatives fought back yesterday with a blitz of amendments in the Senate, including one to repeal the city's gun-control laws that appeared to have significant support. [...]

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) said he was introducing the amendment [to undo the city's gun laws] because the D.C. Council "has continued to enact onerous and unconstitutional firearms regulations" despite the Supreme Court decision last year overturning the city's ban on handguns.

[snip]

Think about that. A lawmaker from Nevada will be gracious enough to let 600,000 American taxpayers have a vote in the House, but only if he approves of their local gun-control laws.

This is absurd.

Indeed. And, even with that obnoxious amendment, even with all their yawping about freedom and rights and all that rot, the Cons voted overwhelmingly against representation for D.C.:

Senate approved a bill this afternoon to give D.C. a vote in the House. It passed 61 to 37, and 36 of the Senate's 41 Republicans voted against it.

Why do the Dems in Congress bother to give these obstructionist fuckwits a single thing they want? This is like making a bargain with a bully - you get him to promise not to take your lunch money if you give him your favorite action figure, and then after he gets the action figure, he takes your lunch money anyway. That's exactly how the Cons are acting.

It'll be up to the House to kick the bully in the nads and take back both lunch money and action figure:

The gun amendement makes the Senate's D.C. Vote legislation significantly different from a companion bill in the House, which is expected to face a floor vote next week.

Differences between the two bills would have to be worked out in negotiations between the two chambers. Proponents of the bill said they hoped the gun language could be removed during those talks.

[snip]

"The District of Columbia leadership is fully united in its opposition to unwarranted amendments that would dramatically damage the District's carefully revised gun law and expose the District to great harm through the undoing of its laws," D.C. Council President Vincent C. Gray and Council Member Phil Mendelson, chairman of the council's public-safety commission, said in a letter to Congress released yesterday.

In a statement after the Senate's vote, Ilir Zherka, executive director of D.C. Vote, a lobbying group, said the city has passed a "significant hurdle in our fight for full democracy for DC residents."

But he added of the gun amendment: "If anything, this amendment has strengthened our resolve to continue to fight for the rights of Washingtonians. Congress repeatedly treats the District as a testing ground for flawed, dangerous legislation. This has to stop - and we'll keep fighting to ensure that the bill signed into law is not tainted by this amendment."

I imagine the taint can be cleansed. Especially now that Dems understand that including it doesn't win Con votes.

We're Coming for You

That's right.

No more free lunch for incumbents. No more job security. No more helpless handwringing as you Blue Dogs and spineless gits and corporate bitches get drunk on your own power. There will now be consequences for your actions:

Some of the most prominent names in progressive politics launched a major new organization on Thursday dedicated to pinpointing and aiding primary challenges against incumbent Democrats who are viewed as acting against their constituents' interests.

Accountability Now PAC will officially be based in Washington D.C., though its influence is designed to be felt in congressional districts across the country. The group will adopt an aggressive approach to pushing the Democratic Party in a progressive direction; it will actively target, raise funds, poll and campaign for primary challengers to members who are either ethically or politically out-of-touch with their voters. The goal, officials with the organization say, is to start with 25 potential races and dwindle it down to eight or 10; ultimately spending hundreds of thousands on elections that usually wouldn't be touched.

[snip]

It is a concept bound -- indeed, designed -- to ruffle the feathers of powerful figures in Washington, in part because the names behind it are now institutions themselves. With $500,000 currently in the bank, Accountability Now will be aided, in varying forms, by groups such as MoveOn, SEIU, Color of Change, Democracy for America, 21st Century Democrats and BlogPAC. FireDogLake's Jane Hamsher and Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald will serve in advisory roles, while Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos will conduct polling, with analytical help from 538.com's Nate Silver.

This has been in the works since that FISA fuckery in June. Remember that time? Our vaunted political rulers lined up with Bush and voted an appreciable chunk of our Constitution away. Strange Bedfellows arose out of our anger and disgust, and morphed into Accountability Now PAC. While we weren't able to defeat Blue Dogs Chris Carney and John Burrows, we surely gave them the shock of their young political lives. And you may have noticed that Steny Hoyer has all of a sudden discovered that it may be a good idea to sound like a Democrat again. All that, before the PAC was even fully functional.

2010's gonna be interesting, especially for Dems who don't serve their constituents' interests.

And, lest you think this is just a far-left witch hunt borrowing a page from the Cons, keep this in mind:

In a conversation with the Huffington Post, Hauser, Hamsher and Greenwald said that the process by which targeted incumbents were chosen would not constitute an ideological litmus test. The goal, they noted, was simply to follow the numbers: figure out which Members were casting votes that were out of tune, philosophically speaking, with their constituent's public opinion readings.

Granted, we'd love more progressives. But following the numbers means that it's truly the will of the people that decides. If that means we don't end up with an ultra-progressive challenger, so be it. Incumbents who aren't incurring their constituents' wrath likely have nothing to fear - much. Unless, of course, they pull another stunt like trying to immunize corporations for illegal spying, in which case I wouldn't count on polling data to save their hides.

And if they were planning to stand in the way of broadly popular initiatives, they're fucked:

By empowering the grassroots, Accountability Now will help create the political space needed to enable President Obama to make good on the many progressive policies he campaigned on - such as getting out of Iraq, ensuring access to affordable health care for every man, woman and child, restoring our constitutional liberties and ending torture.
In 2007, grassroots activists banded together to oust Al Wynn out of office, and it shook House Democrats to their core. Similarly, we learned in 2006 how even a primary challenge that does not win could change behavior, as Jane Harman has been more accountable to the concerns of her constituents after a tough primary race against Marcy Winograd.

It's going to be interesting to see how this impacts the Washington old-incumbents' club. As Accountability Now notes, "nothing focuses the mind of a politician on listening to citizens better than a primary."

Change is coming. About damned time.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Kristol's advice to Cons: "I don't care why you do it, just obstruct!"

In his inaugural column for the print edition of the Washington Post, Bill Kristol offers some advice for his Republican brethren: obstruct as much as humanly possible.

...Obama's aim is not merely to "revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity." ... Conservatives and Republicans will disapprove of this effort. They will oppose it. Can they do so effectively?

Perhaps -- if they can find reasons to obstruct and delay. They should do their best not to permit Obama to rush his agenda through this year. They can't allow Obama to make of 2009 what Franklin Roosevelt made of 1933 or Johnson of 1965. Slow down the policy train. Insist on a real and lengthy debate. Conservatives can't win politically right now. But they can raise doubts.... Only if this happens will conservatives be able to get a hearing for their (compelling, in my view) arguments against big-government, liberal-nanny-state social engineering -- and for their preferred alternatives.

It seems like an odd thing for Kristol to put in writing. Generally, Republicans say they want to at least try to have a constructive role in public policy. Kristol counsels the opposite -- Obama is poised to "make history," so Republicans need to "obstruct and delay." The GOP, Kristol insists, needs to "find reasons" to do. Obstruct for obstruction's sake, and figure out the rationale later.

I'm sure that sounds like a clever plan to the current fuckwits in Washington, but I don't think it's going to have quite the effect they might hope. Obstructing one of the most popular presidents evah is probably going to haunt them just a wee bit. 2010's looking better all the time.

2012, alas, may not be as entertaining as we'd hoped:

One Republican who isn’t heeding Limbaugh’s warnings is the anti-immigrant zealot and former congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO). In an interview with ThinkProgress at the CPAC conference today, Tancredo declared that Jindal’s speech marks the end of his presidential ambitions:

TP: [Jindal] has gotten some flack for his performance on the response to Obama. I’m curious what your thoughts on it was.

TANCREDO: Great content. Lousy delivery. And I’m sorry to say this because I like him a lot. I served with him. Good guy. Solid guy. But I think that performance would very well have put the last nail in the coffin for him, for running for president. Mostly because what we are desperately looking for today in this party is a leader. Bobby Jindal is a great intellect, but his capacity to lead just is, his bearing, is not there. At least, it wasn’t there.

Paging Joe the Plumber... oh, wait, his stock isn't rising, either:

On the homepage of the Politico right now, there's a headline that reads, "Joe laughs at Obama speech," above a picture of Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher. The headline leads to a story -- and video -- in which we learn the former campaign prop didn't care for President Obama's address to Congress this week.

Apparently, the fact that Wurzelbacher "did not have many nice things to say about Obama's speech" is newsworthy.

It's worth noting, though, that while Wurzelbacher remains important in some circles, his public "following" appears to be dwindling.

Joe the Plumber (no longer a plumber; first name actually Samuel) popped into [Washington, D.C.] yesterday evening to sell his new book and to remind people that he's still a plain and simple guy. Mission accomplished, on at least one of his missions.

About 11 people wandered into the rows of seats set up hopefully in the basement of a downtown Border's bookstore to hear Joe speak. Joe addressed them from behind a lectern and with a microphone, but that seemed unnecessarily formal.

At least a few of the 11 didn't actually show up for Wurzelbacher, but were in the store anyway. One was reading "Dreams From My Father" upstairs and thought it was an amusing coincidence that "Joe the Plumber" was in Borders at the time.

That's just pathetic. What's Sarah Palin going to do for running mates and Cabinet officials if these two are anathema? What happens to all that popcorn we'd stockpiled?

Ah, well. I'm sure the Cons will find some way to entertain us. They've not missed a trick yet:

In the budget released today, the Obama administration announced that it would end the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans, as well as shut off loopholes that effectively eviscerate corporate tax revenues, all in an effort to fuel a robust domestic agenda and start lowering the deficit.

Predictably, the right wing is up in arms over the small tax increase for the richest businesses and families. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) complained to a friendly crowd at CNBC this morning that Obama’s tax increases would harm the economy, and insisted the best way to raise revenue is to cut taxes:

HUTCHISON: I think we get revenue the way we’ve done it in the past that has been so successful in the past and that is tax cuts…Every major tax cut we’ve had in history has created more revenue.

[snip]

The notion that cutting taxes somehow — magically — increases government revenues is a myth that won’t die. “The claim that tax cuts pay for themselves…is contradicted by the historical record,” reported the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which showed that revenues grew twice as fast in the 1990s, when taxes were raised, than in the 1980s, when taxes were cut. FactCheck.org called a claim like Hutchison’s “highly misleading” and stated the obvious fact that “we can’t have both lower taxes and fatter government coffers.”
You know, these tax cut arguments hold about the same water as an employer telling employees they'll make more money if their salary's cut. Which arguments hold about the same amount of water as a collander does.

If Sarah Palin wants a truly awesome running mate, though, she won't want Kay Bailey Hutchinson, who is merely average on the batshit insanity scale. No, she'll want to turn to someone else, someone who rails against imaginary legislation, someone who makes less sense than she does... I have just the one:

So, to review, the Senate today approved an amendment to a bill about D.C. voting rights prohibiting the FCC from bringing back an old broadcast policy that the FCC wasn't considering and which the Obama administration does not support. Congress at its finest.

But since it passed overwhelmingly, at least we won't have to hear the right complain about this anymore, right? If only it were that simple. The measure would still have to be approved by the House, which isn't interested in holding a vote.

In response to the DeMint/Thune measure, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) proposed "a rival amendment that he said essentially reaffirmed existing law, which calls for the FCC to encourage diverse media ownership." It passed 57 to 41. Despite the fact that Durbin's measure simply re-stated current law, every Republican in the Senate voted against it.

DeMint told reporters that Democratic efforts to legally encourage diverse media ownership open a "back door to censorship."

I have no idea what DeMint is talking about. Come to think of it, neither does he.

My darlings, the Con party still offers hope. They may have lost two of their best idiots, but they've got a plethora waiting in the wings. We shall be able to enjoy our popcorn in 2012 after all.

I'm In Suzy Homemaker Mode. You All Get to Suffer.

No consensus has formed around my first choice in loveseat. That being so, I have quested further afield, and discovered a few interesting possibilities. Once again, your opinions are desired.

I love this one for the style and the fact that it's made by Simmons (screams comfort, doncha know), but being a smoker, I especially love that they're calling this color "tobacco:"



Isn't that sweet?


There's also the temptation of a good recliner instead, though. This one is super-cheap and looks super-comfy.

For comparison's sake, I'll put up yesterday's find, and you lot can battle it out. If you were dropping by Dana's house for a little light Con-bashing, followed by a movie, which seat would you pick?

Bear in mind there can be only one. My soon-to-be new place is slightly smaller than my budget.

Thanks for your input, my darlings.

Crazier Than Worldnut Daily?

Compare and contrast time, my darlings.

First, batshit insane:

There's been a little mini-tempest in Michigan lately over WOOD-TV 8 in Grand Rapids refusing to show an anti-gay film put out by the American Family Association. Naturally the Worldnutdaily has picked up on it. And their most recent story is rather amusing because they've now discovered that - gasp! - WOOD-TV once had a gay employee.

The American Family Association of Michigan, however, has now learned that Trevor Thomas, the deputy communications director for the HRC in Washington, D.C., once worked in WOOD-TV's newsroom.

Gary Glenn, president of AFA-Michigan, said in a statement to WOOD-TV General Manager Diane Kniowski that he originally suspected the cancellation was merely a matter of political correctness, but now wonders how deeply the connection runs between Thomas and the station.

"Now," Glenn wrote to Kniowski, "we learn that a public spokesman for the so-called Human Rights Campaign - the national homosexual activist group that claimed credit for pressuring your station to censor and breach its agreement to air AFA's paid documentary - is a former long-time WOOD-TV newsroom executive who while holding that position was allowed by the station to actively and publicly campaign against the Marriage Protection Amendment approved by Michigan voters in 2004.

[snip]

Congratulations, Gary Glenn. You've discovered that a TV station once had a gay employee and solved the mystery. Scooby Doo would be so proud of you.

I love it when Ed gets sarcastic. I love it even more when he invokes one of my all-time favorite cartoons to bash the Worldnut Daily.

You remember them. They've entertained us with such nuggets o' wisdom as "We know for certain Obama's not a Christian because he admitted worshiping at Trinity United Church of Christ." They've awed us with their astronomical prowess. And they've blinded us with their insight into the "radiant energy" that presidents shine directly on the people (explaining, o' course, why electing a Democrat is unthinkable). Those are just some of the highlights, and they shine like a supernova in the firmament of frothing fundie fucknuggetry.

But if you know anything about astronomy, you know that a supernova, while super, is not the brightest object in the universe. Oh, it gets attention, and it can even be seen by the naked eye if it happens in the right spot, but as far as brilliance goes, quasars are it.

And Ed believes he has found the fundie equivalent of a quasar:

Every once in a while I take a peek at Covenant News, which is a news site so far out on the lunatic fringe that they make the Worldnutdaily look sane and rational by comparison. These people are the religious right's religious right, the people who think that James Dobson is a liberal pussy. Seriously. Here they look at Utah Sen. Chris Buttars getting stripped of his committee chairmanships and provide their response, an article declaring that gays should be put to death.

Where does it say in the Bible, "If a man lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, you shall pass a Marriage Protection Amendment"?

Such legislative efforts make the commandments of God of no effect, and Christian men involved in these efforts should be ashamed of themselves for engaging in pharisaical deceit against the ordinance of God in front of His people (Matt.5:17-20, 15:7-9; Rom.13:2).

Back in 2003, when the Supreme Court issued an opinion against Texas sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas, Republicans started pushing the idea of a "Marriage Protection Amendment" as a solution to the "gay problem." As we now know the amendment idea is not a solution but a red herring used by crafty politicians to distract Christians away from obedience to the commandments of God concerning homosexuality. It is a political trick used to lure the Church into a humiliating situation of begging the State to "defend marriage" while allowing civil officials to circumvent their God ordained duty to administer Justice upon sodomites!

They can spell, string together a grammatically correct sentence, resist the use of ALL CAPS, dramatic font and color changes, and understand that multiple exclamation points make you look crazy!!!!!!!!! But, deep down, they're right in the same league as the cretinists who email PZ. I mean, damn.

The Worldnut Daily puts up some stiff competition, but if the above quoted post is any indication, Covenant News wipes the floor with them. What say you all?

New Partisan Issue

Below: An eloquent comment on the
dumbfuckery of Cons.

There's this place near Flagstaff, Arizona called Deer Farm. It's basically a wildlife petting zoo, with a few domesticated but somewhat exotic animals thrown in. If you ever go there, I do recommend walking the right way round the path - my mom and I decided to do it backwards one day, and didn't see the "Don't Feed Me - I Spit!" sign on the llama enclosure until it was too late for one unfortunate woman's hairdo.

I saw my first peacocks there, but the outstanding memory (other than the sound a llama makes when it's about to spit corn all over an unsuspecting member of the public) is the stench from the monkey house. I don't know if they've still got monkeys, but I wouldn't blame them if they'd given that up as a bad job. Monkeys are cute in their natural habitat and in pictures, but not so much in real life. It doesn't matter how much you clean the cage - they still stink. And the little buggers, instead of enjoying themselves in the various branches arranged throughout the house for their climbing pleasure, ganged up at the barred front of the cage just waiting for the opportunity to take a chunk out of some poor goober.

Before I visited Deer Farm, I'd thought owning a monkey would be awesome good fun. Afterward, I swore off monkey ownership for life.

This anecdote leads us to Hilzoy's post, which had me agreeing wholeheartedly:

Yesterday, the House passed the Captive Primate Safety Act, which would make it illegal to "import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, or purchase in interstate or foreign commerce" any nonhuman primate. (Humans are covered by the 13th Amendment.) This is one of those small-bore but really, really good bills that I've been rooting for for years. I wrote about it back in 2005; since I rather like my original post, here's a compressed and updated version, rather than a whole new one.

Owning primates as pets is a bad idea.

No kidding! And it's wrong on so many levels - as Hilzoy points out, these animals haven't been domesticated, they're strong, they've got sharp teeth, and they've got opposable thumbs, which means they can get a lot more creative in their mischief than your basic dog or cat. Add to this the fact that they're intelligent enough to get bored easily and figure out ways to keep themselves entertained (I think the red-faced screaming owner is part of the entertainment), and you have a recipe for disaster.

It's bad enough for the primates when their owners are somewhat sane, but it seems some folks buy them just so they can dress them up in ridiculous outfits. IMO, stuffing an animal into gawdawful ensembles should be a felony.

Primates are wild animals. They're our cousins. And it's about time they got some respect. You'd think most rational people could agree with this.

We must remember that Cons are not rational:

Postscript: Does anyone have any idea why Democrats voted for this bill 247-2, while Republicans voted against it 76-93? I didn't realize that this was a partisan issue.

Well, lessee, who sponsored it?

Rep. Earl Blumenauer [D-OR].

Ah. That obviously makes it a partisan issue. The Con philosophy seems to be ossifying around "We hate anything Dems like!" If the Dems introduced a resolution praising the cuteness of children, I'm not entirely sure the Cons would vote in favor. We'd probably hear plenty of arguments as to why children aren't really cute and parsing the meaning of the phrase "cute child," complete with diatribes against the out-of-control cuteness of children when what the country needs is less cute, not more.

Do not be surprised if this happens.

The blog where I filched the awesome orangutan pic, the Monkey's Cage, has this tongue-in-cheek advice:

Opponents of the bill might want to print bumper stickers saying, “When owning a pet chimp is a crime, then only criminals will have pet chimps.”

Do not be suprised if they do. They're getting just that unhinged.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

I'm often at a loss as to where to start with the stupidity-bashing - there's always so much to choose from. Today's no exception.

First, I just want to ask a question: what the fuck is wrong with Colorado state senators? First we have this steaming pile of stupid:

Today, Colorado State Sen. Dave Schultheis (R) caused outrage by announcing that he would vote against a bill requiring HIV tests for pregnant women because the disease “stems from sexual promiscuity” and he doesn’t think the government should reward “unacceptable behavior.”

And as if that bit of fuckwittery weren't enough, here we have someone who belongs on Worldnut Daily:

On the floor of the Colorado state senate on Monday, Republican Sen. Scott Renfroe equated “homosexuality as a sin with murder” during a debate on a bill that would allow same-sex partners of state employees to be covered by health care benefits. “I’m not saying this (homosexuality) is the only sin that’s out there,” said Renfroe. “We have murder. We have all sorts of sin. We have adultery. And we don’t make laws making those legal, and we would never think to make murder legal.”

You'd think Cons would be less terrified of sex and all things involved with it, considering how many sex scandals they get embroiled in. I expect to see these two caught in flagrente delicto any minute now. That's if the outraged human rights groups, gays and women don't gang up to oust them first, of course.

Time for some housecleaning, Colorado.

Moving on to the hallowed halls of Congress, it looks like John McCain is still terminally confused and making an absolute ass of himself - color me shocked:

Last night, appearing once again on CBS News, John McCain complained about something he heard in President Obama's address to Congress.

"[W]hen he says that there's no earmarks, I just picked up a bill that we're going to take up tomorrow, that has 9,247 earmarks in it, in the omnibus appropriations bill. So, what am I supposed to believe here?"

McCain is confused. When the president talked about the lack of earmarks, he was talking about the economic stimulus bill. In fact, Obama wasn't vague: "I'm proud that we passed the recovery plan free of earmarks." The omnibus appropriations bill is a different piece of legislation -- a detail McCain is probably aware of -- and Obama didn't (and couldn't) promise that every spending bill would be earmark-free forevermore. "What am I supposed to believe here?" Reality would be a good place to start.

That said, McCain's observation is at least partially right -- there are earmarks in the appropriations bill. And why is that? Because many of McCain's Republican colleagues put them there.

In fact, the Cons seem to be on a bit of a spending spree, despite all their foot-stomping, neo-Hooverite screaming about government waste et al. They're fine with spending as long as the money's being spent on them:

A ten percent increase in the budget for Congressional operations was needed because Senate Republicans wanted to retain previous staff levels despite having lost roughly 20 percent of their ranks in the 2008 elections, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said Wednesday.

Congressional Republicans have been pouncing on any instance of wasteful spending they can find, but the congressional-operations line item will likely remain safe from their ire.

The one-tenth hike brings the budget for Congress itself to $4.4 billion.

[snip]

"We had a situation -- you should direct that question to Senator McConnell," he said, referring to the Senate Minority Leader, "because we had trouble organizing this year. He wanted to maintain a lot of their staffing even though they had lost huge numbers. And the only way we could get it done is to do what we did. So you should direct that question to Senator McConnell."

Whined the Cons, "But it's the same amount of money we got last year, so what's the problem?" Put it like this: there's fewer of you now, you fuckwits.

And with bright ideas like this, that trend should only continue:

On Monday, RNC Chairman Michael Steele appeared on Fox News, calling for a "spending freeze." It was relatively easy to dismiss, since Steele has no formal policy role, and is easily confused over policy details.

But actual Republican policymakers are apparently serious about pursuing such a freeze. David Weigel reports:

House Republicans have responded with a change of subject: they have proposed a "spending freeze," a controversial idea among economists during an economic downturn. [...]

"We're advocating that Congress freeze all federal spending immediately," said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), the chairman of the House Republican Conference, during a Tuesday luncheon at the conservative Heritage Foundation. [...]

Pence's argument for a spending freeze is widely accepted within the Republican conference. On Monday, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) asked Democrats to "abandon their plans" to push through an omnibus bill "and instead pass a clean bill that freezes spending at current levels."

It's hard to overstate how incredibly foolish this is. It's a Neo-Hooverism approach in its most obvious form. Weigel noted that Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist who wrote a book critical of George W. Bush's spending, "could not name many peers who believe that smaller deficits and less spending are the way to combat economic downturns."

For Republican officials -- who spent freely, cut taxes, and produced massive debt during Bush's presidency -- the way to respond to an economic crisis is to spend less money. It's what "people out there" do, so it's what the federal government should do. (It's as if they've never even heard about the differences between micro- and macro-economics.)

They probably have, but got it confused with their dear creationist friends' micro- vs. macro- evolution talking points, and as you all know, the ridiculous right doesn't believe in macro.

Considering their situation, they're going to need a miracle to turn their political fortunes around. Alas, it looks like their Great Leader Rush believes Bobby Jindal is their last, best hope:

The response across the political spectrum to Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R-LA) speech last night has been overwhelmingly negative. Even the most enthusiastic conservative talkers had harsh words for Jindal’s speech, calling it “cheesy,” “insane,” and “not his greatest oratorical moment.”

But Jindal still maintains one key supporter — Rush Limbaugh. On his radio show this afternoon, Limbaugh leaped to Jindal’s defense. “I love Bobby Jindal, and that did not change after last night,” he said. Limbaugh then directed this admonition at his fellow conservatives:

LIMBAUGH: [T]he people on our side are really making a mistake if they go after Bobby Jindal on the basis of style. Because if you think — people on our side I’m talking to you — those of you who think Jindal was horrible, you think — in fact, I don’t ever want to hear from you ever again. … I’ve spoken to him numerous times, he’s brilliant. He’s the real deal.

If Jindal is their definition of "brilliant" and "the real deal," they're in worse shape than I thought.

To which I can only say: good.

Jindal's Speech Measures 8.9 on the Epic Fail Scale

Haven't watched Obama's speech yet cuz I'm too tired to enjoy it properly, but apparently it was amazing. It must've been - check these numbers:

From a CBS snap poll on President Obama's speech:

Stimulus is going to help me?

Before:

62%

After:

79%

That speech was something special, all right.

So was Bobby Jindal's rebuttal. But, whereas Obama's speech was special in that left-everybody-glowing way (and believe me, every single political blog I frequent is beaming right now, and that's a damned lot of blogs), Jindall's was special in the even-the-short-bus-is-too-long sense.

When the next great Republicon hero has even Faux News and the Free Republic groaning, you know that "blew leper donkey dick" doesn't really begin to cover the gravity of the situation.

I'm not sure who it was who muttered "Oh, my God..." over an open mic when Jindal came mincing out, but put it like this: I'm surprised that person wasn't shrieking like a girl. I shall have nightmares tonight, and they will involve Bobby Jindal as a murderous marionette.



No wonder even the MSM talking bobbleheads are using the word "strange" almost universally in their descriptions.

I'm afraid to actually watch the thing now. Seeing him walk out and say hello was creepy enough. I shall have to content myself with Firedoglake's liveblogging, and the Daily Kos crowd's magnificent smackdowns here, here, here, here and especially here.

For those of you too busy to peruse all those links, the takeaway is this: Bobby Jindal is a self-serving Con freak who had the gall to use Katrina as the jumping-off point for an anti-government diatribe, not to mention lied about being there; is addicted to Con lies like the imaginary earmark for a high speed rail line between Vegas and Disneyland (precious how he calls it a "magnetic levitation line" - what, Bobby, maglev sound too European for you?), and he thinks government scientists should stop monitoring things like active volcanoes. Seriously.



Bobby Jindal sez "Stop monituring teh volcanoz - monitur guvmint spinding insted!"















It's really getting far too easy to make fun of these people. All I can say is, I sincerely hope Jindal and Palin battle it out in the primaries in 2012 - the entertainment value would be incalculable.

Your Vote Counts

I'm shopping for a love seat. Found this one on clearance at Target:




I mean, how cool is that? A love seat that converts into a bed fit for midgets! Or for someone who wants to spread out her laptop and writing crap in front of the teevee some night.

What do you all think? Aye or nay?

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

My darlings, I have a veritable banquet of stupid laid out before me, and I'm at a loss over where to begin. All of it just looks so tasty, and there's only so much room.

Why don't we begin with the only smart thing Cons have done, then?

Despite what all the talking heads have been reciting ever since the House stimulus vote, Republicans aren't helping themselves any with voters. Indeed, it seems they are shooting themselves in the foot. Charlie Cook -- aka someone who actually looks at data and doesn't recite GOP talking points -- reports:

As polling very clearly shows, congressional Republicans have done nothing to help themselves by almost unanimously opposing the massive stimulus package. Indeed, they look increasingly isolated: a narrow party that is looking inward for sustenance. Selecting former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele to be national party chairman is about the only intelligent thing that Republicans have done since Election Day. At this point, a Republican rebound seems more contingent upon a Democratic collapse than anything else. Certainly, Republicans aren't doing anything these days to help bring themselves back. [emphasis mine]

Tell me, now: how pathetic is it when the single most intelligent thing they've done is select this assclown in an attempt to reverse their fortunes?

Three Senate Republicans -- Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine), and Arlen Specter (Pa.) -- were the only members of the minority party to cross party lines and vote in favor of the stimulus package. Yesterday, RNC Chairman Michael Steele suggested they'll be rewarded with primary challengers, and possibly a withdrawal of support from the national party.

Greg Sargent flagged this clip from Fox news yesterday, during which Neil Cavuto asked, "Will you, as RNC head, recommend no RNC funds being provided to help them?" Steele said he'd "talk to" state party officials in Maine and Pennsylvania about the possibility. When asked if he was at least open to withholding party support to three incumbent Republican senators, Steele added, "Oh, yes, I'm always open to everything, baby, absolutely."

Steele was probably hoping to send a message to GOP lawmakers who may be thinking about working with the White House on controversial policies, but it's an odd kind of threat. For one thing, Steele's comments probably won't mean much to Sens. Snowe and Collins. Snowe won 74% of the vote in her last campaign, and isn't up for re-election until 2012. Collins was just elected to a third term with 62% of the vote, and isn't up again until 2014. Are they going to be afraid of Michael Steele? I doubt it.

[snip]

In the same interview with Cavuto, Steele added that the way to improve the economy was to signal that "the state and the federal government will spend no more money."

Steele added, "[T]e inflationary effect, the deflationary effect, all of those things are going to come to head at some point." I have no idea what this means. I'm fairly certain Steele doesn't either.

I'm fairly certain he's just as much of a fucktard as the rest of them. The only thing different is his diction.

Cons are awfully proud of themselves for being obstructionist fuckwits. They may want to take a second look at the poll numbers:

In the past few days, a number of national polls have been conducted that measure President Obama’s performance after one month in office. Beyond Obama’s continuing high job approval rating, the polls have found that the public believes Obama has made a good faith effort to work in a bipartisan manner to address America’s problems:

WaPo/ABC News: 73 percent say Obama is “trying to compromise with the Republican leaders in Congress” while just 34 percent believe Republican leaders are trying to compromise with Obama.

NYT/CBS News: 74 percent think Obama is “trying to work with Republicans in Congress” while just 31 percent think Republicans in Congress are trying to work with Obama.

Fox News/Opinion Dynamics: 68 percent believe that Obama “has sincerely tried to reach out to Republicans and be bipartisan” while only 33 percent believe Republicans have “sincerely tried to be helpful to Barack Obama and be bipartisan.”

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not really seeing much public support for Con antics, here.

Speaking of antics, it appears editors at the NYT don't like it when their reporters employ the truth about marsh mice:

Okay, this is pretty interesting. As I noted here yesterday, the infamous GOP talking point that the stimulus package contains gobs of cash for saving marsh mice found its way into a New York Times story, without the paper mentioning that the claim is untrue.

It turns out, however, that earlier drafts of the story did describe the claim as “misleading” — but Times editors removed that description from the copy, leaving the assertion to stand on its own. An email from the author of the story to a reader confirms this.
The line in the final story read:

Mr. Gingrich sees the stimulus bill as his party’s ticket to a revival in 2010, as Republicans decry what they see as pork-barrel spending for projects like marsh-mouse preservation. “You can imagine the fun people will have with that,” he said

.The story doesn’t note that there are no such funds in the bill.

A reader tells me that he emailed the author of the story, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, to discuss the omission. Here is part of her reply to him in her email, which I obtained:

I did write in the story I submitted that the assertion was misleading, but I’m sorry to report that language was removed by editors and that I didn’t notice the deletion. My initial text read like this:

“….as Republicans decry, often misleadingly, what they see as pork-barrel spending for projects like marsh mouse preservation.”

So the words “often misleadingly” were removed by editors.

Because the Cons may throw a tantrum if the NYT points out that they're lying, and we can't have that. Journalism be damned.

In the department of saving the best for last, we have two absolute gems Steve Benen dug up and polished off. First, we have "Diapers" Vitter all concerned about ethics:

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) still hasn't figured out the benefits of quiet time.

Louisiana Sen. David Vitter (R), who survived a 2007 sex scandal, called on Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) to resign Tuesday for his ethical shortcomings.

Oh my.

To be sure, Burris' problems are overwhelming, and he'd do well to step down from the Senate seat he never should have agreed to accept in the first place. No doubt, it's time for him to go.

But hearing Vitter complain about another senator's ethical shortcomings is pretty amusing. It's as if he has an incredibly short memory -- or he assumes we do.

We are, after all, talking about a far-right Republican, known for his "family values" platform, who got caught up in a prostitution ring just two years ago. Vitter, who's has spent years lecturing others about morality and the "sanctity of marriage," arranged extra-marital liaisons while on the floor of Congress. The only reason Vitter wasn't prosecuted is that the statute of limitations had come and gone.

I do believe this man has cut off all contact with common sense.

And, for our dessert, I present you:

In light of Sen. Jim Bunning's (R-Ky.) increasingly erratic behavior, and likelihood of defeat next year, the Republican establishment has practically been begging Bunning to retire. So far, he's only responded angrily and refused to back down.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, worried about losing a winnable seat in a deep "red" state, is quietly making alternate arrangements. Just this past weekend, NRSC officials met with State Senate President David Williams (R) over the weekend, apparently to talk about a primary challenge to Bunning.

Today, Bunning said he's prepared to sue his party.

Sen. Jim Bunning is vowing to fight back as his feud with Republican leadership over his 2010 re-election bid spills into the national political scene.

If Republican campaign organizations tried to recruit another candidate to run in Bunning's stead, "I would have a suit against the (National Republican Senatorial Committee) if they did that," Bunning told reporters on Tuesday. "In their bylaws, support of the incumbents is the only reason they exist."

They exist, Jim, to make sure that more Cons are elected. I do not believe you are the Con they are looking for. But good luck with that lawsuit - I'm sure it'll make everything all better.

You guys full yet? I'm stuffed.

AP Reporter Fails to Comprehend English Sentences

Intrepid reporter Liz Sedoti must be auditioning for the Cons' Opposite Day Award:

In an AP piece today, she made the following seemingly alarming assertion about Obama's alleged stance on Social Security:

He said he would reinstitute a pay-as-you-go rule that calls for spending reductions to match increases and would shun what he said were the past few years' "casual dishonesty of hiding irresponsible spending with clever accounting tricks." He called the long-term solvency of Social Security "the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far" and said reforming health care, including burgeoning entitlement programs, was a huge priority.

Well, not exactly.

In fact, not at ALL, because this is what Obama ACTUALLY said today:

Now, I want to be very clear: While we are making important progress towards fiscal responsibility this year in this budget, this is just the beginning. In the coming years, we'll be forced to make more tough choices and do much more to address our long-term challenges, from the rising cost of health care that Peter described, which is the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far, to the long-term solvency of Social Security.

Hey, Liz? Got a message for you and the fact-checkers at the AP:

Spending Cut Calculator - We Needs One

The always brilliant dday comes up with another brilliant point:

One result of the budget mess being resolved here in California was a variety of tax increases (which were mostly flat or regressive and not all that good). The spending cuts were actually larger. However, in two of the weekend editions of the Los Angeles Times, right on page A1 above the fold, there was a graphic of a "tax calculator," which projected the additional taxes an individual would pay based on certain factors like income, number of dependents and values of vehicles. They have a corresponding tax calculator on their website where users can type in the data and get the precise tax hit coming to them. The Sacramento Bee has the same thing. Talk radio was having a field day with these calculators over the past few days, getting people to call in and disclose their statistics and telling them how much money they will owe. I heard a lady making $126,000 a year ranting about an $800 tax increase, and nobody seemed to find that absurd.

In my life, I have never seen a "spending cut calculator," where someone could plug in, say, how many school-age children they have, or how many roads they take to work, or how many police officers and firefighters serve their community, or what social services they or their families rely on, and discover how much they stand to lose in THAT equation. Tax calculators show bias toward the gated community screamers on the right who see their money being "taken away" for nothing. A spending cut calculator would actually show the impact to a much larger cross-section of society, putting far more people at risk than a below 1% hit to their bottom line.

But of course, people who are perceived to depend on state services probably don't log on to the LA Times and the Sacramento Bee websites very often to calculate their tax burden. In reality, we all depend on the state for roads and law enforcement and libraries and schools and county hospitals and on and on. And in Los Angeles County, one in five residents - almost 2.2 million people - receive some form of public aid. So wouldn't it make sense to portray the real cost of spending cuts in the same way that tax increases are portrayed?

Why, yes. Yes, it would. And I think it would give Americans the shock of their young lives to see just how much they depend on government spending in their daily lives.

I don't make jack diddly shit, but you know what? I'd accept a tax increase to improve my community and my country. Those services are a damned good bargain. So why the fuck can't people who earn - lessee - 4.34 times what I make quit their bitching and accept a measly $800 increase?

When did this country become so damned allergic for paying for what they use?

Oh. Right. When the Cons got stuck in the tax cut rut...

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Well. Technically, yesterday's, but why quibble? And yes, my darlings, Neil deGrasse Tyson is well worth the time spent. You are going to love this week's Sunday Sensational Science. Put it like that. If he comes to your town and you have the opportunity to see him, but only if you sell your firstborn, consider it a bargain and put the kid on Ebay.

Now, on to the bashing of incredibly stupid people, who did not get any smarter in my absence.

Steve Benen has the definitive post on Republicon Gov. Mark Sanford, who apparently wants to win the Batshit Insane Sweepstakes (afraid the odds are long due to stiff competition, there, Mark):

At this point, I kind of hope South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) continues to strive for the national spotlight. The governor, who appears to be mad as a hatter, keeps saying crazy things that make for fun blog posts.

Here's his latest new gem:

"[Y]ou know, people who don't learn from history are destined to repeat it.

"The Golden Gate Bridge was a Hoover-era infrastructure project designed to get the economy going. The L.A. aqueduct system was a Hoover-era, you know, infrastructure program designed to get the economy going. The Hoover Dam was a Depression-era, you know, project designed to get the economy going."

First, Sanford claims to oppose government spending in the midst of a crisis, so I'm not sure why he'd point to public works projects like these. Second, as my friend Alex Koppelman explained, the Golden Gate Bridge wasn't a Hoover-era infrastructure project; it was originally proposed before Hoover was even born, and began being built six years before Hoover became president. For that matter, the Hoover Dam wasn't a "Depression-era project," either.

What was that the governor was saying about those who don't learn from history?

And that, my darlings, is just his warm-up. Steve points us over to Think Progress, where we learn that the governor actually has a solution to people's dire economic situation:

On C-SPAN’s Washington Journal this morning, Sanford received a call from a Charleston resident who said he lost his job because he has been taking care of mother and sister, both of whom have serious illnesses. The caller told Sanford he is “wrong” to decline the money. “A lot of people in South Carolina are hurting. And if this money can come and help us out we need it.” In response, Sanford could offer him only his prayers:

[snip]

SANFORD: Well I’d say hello to Charleston because its home and I’d say hello to this fellow this morning and say that my prayers are going to be with him and his family because it sounds like he is in an awfully tough spot.

That's it. Mark Sanford is turning down the money that could keep this poor gentleman and the seriously ill family members he supports, but everything's all right, because the governor's prayers are with him.

What a fucking loser.

Do you want to know Sanford's - well, we can't really call it reasoning, because there's no reason involved, so let's just say - crap, can't call it a thought process, either... um... what his excuse is? Are you sitting down?

Sanford offered no other alternative solution for his constituent and instead argued that the state could not accept money to extend unemployment benefits because “increasing the tax on unemployment insurance” would negatively “impact the caller’s family” (although he didn’t say how).

If they're not making any money, how the fuck could taxing a fucking employer's unemployment insurance negatively impact him, you retarded fucking schmuck?

Mark Sanford's blinding stupidity might have seemed even brighter if it weren't for the even more blinding of Cons on Capitol Hill:

Here's John McCain today:

"So, we will be seeking fair and transparent use of the money. I believe that Arizona can compete with any other state or locality to get the much-needed money. Already we're seeing a good example. There was $2 billion in the Senate bill of the stimulus package for light rail; there was zero in the House. It came out of conference -- only Democrats, no Republicans in the room - with $8 billion for light rail. And guess where it's going to go? A light rail between Las Vegas and L.A. Everybody knows that.

"Could we have competed for that money? Maybe so. So it's business as usual in Washington, and I think that Americans are generally very disappointed. Sorry for the long answer."

He should be "sorry," but the problem isn't the length of the answer, it's the blatant dishonesty of his answer.

It's certainly possible that McCain just doesn't know what he's talking about. Maybe he saw someone repeat the lie on Fox News, and assumed it was true. McCain has never been especially detail-oriented, which is why he manages to make patently false claims with some regularity.

But this one is especially egregious, and not just because there is no $8 billion for light rail between L.A. and Vegas. As Matt Yglesias explained, "The thing that John McCain wants where different states can compete for the high-speed rail money is what the bill already says. Except McCain has piled ignorance onto dishonesty by confusing high-speed rail (advanced passenger trains that run between cities) with light-rail (relatively low-capacity trains used for intra-city mass transit)."

So, in this case, McCain is not only lying, he's confused about the subject on which he's lying. He then insists, "Everybody knows that," as if those who accept reality are somehow ignorant.

I have just one thing I want to say to John McCain. I know he's intellectually challenged, but surely, he's got staffers who can read a map for him. So, John: where the fuck on this map do you see a rail corridor planned between Los Angeles and Las Vegas?



Don't see one? That's because it's not there, you dumbshit. It exists only in the fevered imaginations of Cons, where the marsh mouse money also dwells.

But what else can you expect from Cons? They don't understand the definitions of simple words. They seem stuck in a permanent Opposite Day, wherein if they're told something doesn't exist, it exists, and if something isn't going to be funded - well, you can complete that thought, can't you?

They also have a bizarre idea about who's grabbing for power:

In a new piece in the National Review, former Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky tries to make the case that D.C. residents don’t deserve full federal voting rights. Spakovsky, of course, has a history of vote suppression allegations while serving in the Bush administration.

In his piece, Spakovsky goes beyond the traditional constitutionality claim made by opponents, such as Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). He claims that D.C. residents don’t need a full voting member in Congress because every federal lawmaker is supposedly looking out for their best interests. Toward the end, he also claims that this bill — supported by Republicans such as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) — is nothing more than a “raw grab at political power” by Democrats.

Dude. Utah. If the Dems were making a "raw grab for power," do you really think they'd be giving Utah another rep in the bargain? Well, all right, Spakovsky does, but he's frothing insane.

It's not just Capitol Cons and former Bush vote-suppression foot soldiers who play Opposite Day every day. RNC Chairman Michael Steele said it's important for Cons to reach out to people who support gay rights. Here's his idea of reaching out to include them:

Gallagher asked guest Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican Party, if he thought the party “ought to consider” something like civil unions. Steele replied immediately, “No, no, no,” adding, “What are you, crazy?”

What a surprise it will be when that outreach effort fails.

But this one, I do believe, wins the Opposite Day prize:

In an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren earlier this month, Bristol Palin, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter who recently gave birth to a son, said that while she believes “everyone should be abstinent,” it is “not realistic at all“:

BRISTOL: But I think abstinence is, like — like, the — I don’t know how to put it — like, the main — everyone should be abstinent or whatever, but it’s not realistic at all.

In a segment discussing the “Ups and Downs” of the past week, Fox News’ Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes said on Saturday that Bristol Palin is now “the new face of teen pregnancy.” After playing a clip of Palin’s abstinence comments, Barnes claimed that what she was really saying was that “abstinence is actually realistic”:

BARNES: I guess so. That means she’s saying that abstinence actually is realistic.

I shit you not.

It's probably time we start looking into medical appliances. There's got to be some device medical scientists could design that would flip things the right way round in these poor assclowns' brains. I'm not sure remedial education could help them at this point. One thing I do know for sure, though: these backward buffoons have no business trying to govern a nation.

Happy Hour Announcement

Happy Hour will be unavoidably detained today. You can blame this guy:


Given the choice between more Con dumbfuckery and astrophysics with Neil deGrasse Tyson, put it like this: Con dumbfuckery is forever, but Neil's only going to be in Seattle tonight.

There's also apartment hunting to be done.

Back soon, my darlings.

Folk Medicine We Can Believe In

You know me. You know how I feel about woo. You know that I feel like a fool every time I take goldenseal and echinacea, because while my doctor swears they help colds, scientific studies are, shall we say, inconsistent at this time. And who the fuck knows what's actually in the capsules they sell at Target - other than the placebo effect, which is what I rely on when I start feeling sniffly.

I hear the words "folk medicine," and my first reaction is disgust. Not because there haven't been folk remedies that work - there's been a few, like chicken soup, with proven benefits - but usually the people burbling about them are serving up nothing but a heaping helping of woo. And when they start talking like this:

One of my friends had some trouble today - a small thing for someone employed, but like me last year health issues have stripped him of his business and they could have killed him today. More below the fold, including a folk medicine cure you can help me make ...

...I start shouting "Oh, come on!" at my computer. It's one thing to rely on folk remedies to ease the misery of a cold. It's quite another to rely on them to save a life. And this diary sounded like it was headed into "Hey, if you've lost your health insurance, it's okay - you can cure your deadly diseases using common kitchen herbs!" territory.

So of course I read the diary to find out what the folk remedy was, just so I could have a good scream.

I learned about the friend with the serious heart condition, practially homeless in Florida, suffering this bit of outrage:

Some genius decided that cutting coverage for isosorbide would be a good way to conserve Broward County's funds after a federal block grant ran out. I guess I'm not there so I don't know, but nitro and heart troubles seem to me like something the county would want to keep in place - it's probably cheaper to give it free to all homeless there than it is to patch up just one or two that show up at hospitals having heart attacks because they went without.

No fucking shit, huh? At least the diarist isn't yapping about how groovy everything is still, cuz hey, guess what, you can mix up something just like isosorbide by boiling some herbs in a saucepan! But that threatened folk remedy looms... wait for it... wait for it...

We played a little phone tag with Walgreens, found a pharmacy tech who knew how to make it work when we're 1,300 miles apart, and that's that. So now I'm sitting here at work banging this out and he is on a city bus going to pick up his medication.

The hell? Bought his friend the meds... Since when does the folk-remedy woo-woo crowd promise us folk remedies and buy actual prescription drugs instead? Odd, that.

And we're coming up on the cure...

My friend is in Broward County, and that means his Congresscritter is ... Lincoln Diaz-Balart. I've got a folk medicine cure for what ails America, but the recipe calls for the head of a wingnut and the hide of a blue dog.

... Harf?

*reads again to ensure proper understanding*

I've got a folk medicine cure for what ails America, but the recipe calls for the head of a wingnut and the hide of a blue dog. If you guys can come across with some $$$ via this ActBlue link we'll be taking a step towards bumping off Diaz-Balart in 2010.

That's the folk remedy?

ROFLMAO.

Holy fucking shit, Batman! Folk medicine I can believe in! I'd so whip that shit up in my kitchen!

OK, I feel like I've done my part here. We've only got six hundred twenty more shopping days until we get to stomp the Republican again in 2010 and our candidates are going to need every dime, so dig out those debit cards and make it happen. We have to change the system ... before it kills us all.

"Six hundred twenty more shopping days." Priceless! Someone make me a countdown widget!

And Stranded Wind's right. This is the recipe. This is the folk medicine we can believe in. The folk are going to the polls, and we're going to give the Cons a dose of bitter medicine indeed.

They deserve it after all the bullshit they've made us swallow...

No Respect and No Shame

Yesterday, I told you about Ed Brayton and Todd Heywood's experience trying to cover the Michigan Republicon Party's convention. The saga continues, with Michigan Cons denying the intrepid independent reporters media credentials for the second straight day. But this time, the Cons are on the record with their sorry-ass excuses:

Party officials described the denial as “a consequence” of Messenger’s coverage of the Michigan Republican Party, specifically Eartha Jane Melzer’s article from last September titled “Lose your house, lose your vote.” The story cited a GOP official in Macomb County as saying the party planned on Election Day to use foreclosure lists as the basis for challenging voter eligibility.

“It [the article] wasn’t very favorable to the party, and we just chose not to give you guys credentials,” said a man who would only give his first name, Greg, and identified himself as the new media coordinator for the party.

Party spokesperson Robert Wolfe denied that the GOP was censoring the media.

“We’re in favor of allowing media into our conventions that we feel are going to give us fair coverage. Based on our previous experiences with you, we do not feel that you are such an outlet,” he said.

Apparently, the Cons define the phrase "fair coverage" the same way they define the word "bipartisanship." They also have a rather sad grasp of censorship. When you deny reporters credentials with which to cover you because you're afraid they'll write something honest, you have just censored the media. It may not be the dictionary definition, but that is the effect. And it's anathema in a democracy.

Ed is righteously pissed:

The upshot of all this is quite simple. It's an attempt by the Republicans to intimidate news outlets into giving them favorable coverage. The message is clear: you do a story about us that we don't like, we'll shut you out and you won't get any access. This has been going on for months. We've gotten no response at all out of Michigan Republicans, including government officials in office, virtually since the story broke.

And the most grating thing about it: they didn't have the courage to just tell us that up front. They didn't return our calls all week seeking credentials for the convention. And when we got there last night, they lied right to our faces and told us that we didn't need credentials, only to find out later that we did and that they wouldn't allow us on the convention floor. And the media coordinator refused repeatedly to tell us who made the decision so they could be held to account for it.

Not only are they corrupt, not only do they not give a damn about freedom of the press, not only are they authoritarians who seek to punish legitimate news outlets that dare to publish true stories that make them look bad - they're also cowards to boot.

Lying, corrupt cowards - yup. That's the GOP in a nutshell. Ed forgot the part about them being tantrum-throwing toddlers, but I guess that goes without saying by now.

Two sound thrashings didn't work. Looks like we'll have to throw them in kiddie boot camp next election. Prepare to proffer political pain, my poppets. And a variety of other Con-pummelling slogans that don't necessarily employ the letter P, but come down to one thing: the only way these sons-of-motherless-goats will ever be taught the proper respect for the press and our political system is by dealing them yet another resounding electoral defeat.

Not that the third time's the charm with fucktards this dense, but at least there won't be so many of them around screwing things up.

¡Viva los Fósiles!

Ron Britton called, and many have answered. Including uno en español at La Columna de Cristal. Muchas gracias, Gen! And here's hoping you'll forgive my atrocious Spanish grammar.

Friend of the cantina and official Thinking Brain Dog Cujo359 did his duty.

The Gaytheist Agenda not only has the fossils, but the links.

Cognitive Dissident has more Dawkins!

Parrotlover77 links to the Tiktaalik Song.

Creationist Idiocy presents Neil Shubin on Tiktaalik.

Verbal Razors joins the revolution.

The Atheist Librarian is the one who came up with that gorgeous smack-down: "This is Tiktaalik. He is an example of a true Transitional Fossil. He has both fishy and lizardy parts. I really don't know what more fundies want."

Brilliant. ¡Viva los Fósiles! ¡Viva la Revolución!

But eight really isn't enough. If you joined the revolution, let me know in comments. If you didn't, join the revolution and let me know in comments. No excuses.

And Ron? Flattery gets you free drinks for life at the cantina. Once we figure out how to pour alcohol through the intertoobz, anyway....

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

I look at these idiots, and the only thing I can think is "barking fucking mad:"

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) has said he'll reject some of unemployment insurance from the federal stimulus package. Not to be outdone, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) said he'll not only reject unemployment insurance, but will also "not take $42 million in funding for green buildings."

Yes, because there's nothing worse than paying construction crews to make buildings more energy efficient.

There's apparently a race among some far-right Republican governors -- all of whom are already eyeing the 2012 presidential race -- to see who can be slightly crazier than the other. Jindal is clearly a contender, and Sarah Palin and Mississippi's Haley Barbour are obviously in the mix, but Sanford seems especially driven to get out in front of the pack.

It's leading him to make unusually ridiculous decisions affecting the people in his state, while making truly odd policy prescriptions.

Sanford, asked about the stimulus, said he would probably reject some of the funds. "I think it's a bad idea," he said of the package. "Period. Exclamation point."

"Good medicine to the wrong patient ultimately makes the patient sicker," Sanford continued. "What we're dealing with here is a fundamental misdiagnosis of the problem."

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin (D) told the WaPo, "I think people will ... understand that it's political posturing and you're playing with people's lives, and that's a very, very dangerous game."

That's true, but for Sanford, it's a dangerous game he can win by losing -- he "wins" by currying favor with unhinged Republican activists, while "losing" as his state's economy deteriorates and his constituents suffer.

The shape of the Con field in 2012 is shaping up as a contest between dumb, dumber, and outright fucking insane. In the meantime, there are real people in these states who will suffer so that these fucktards can play their political games. We'll see what that does for them.

And as if we don't have enough insane shit to deal with, here's another George Bush tossing his dumbshit opinions around:

Delivering a speech before the Young Republican National Federation yesterday, George P. Bush — the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — ripped current Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) for being a “D light” (Democrat light). “There’s some in our party that want to assume that government is the answer to all of our problems,” Bush said. “I’m not going to name any names,” he added, but told the crowd, “You know who I’m talking about.” He clarified later:

Afterward, Bush said he doesn’t think Crist is a fiscal conservative and that he may have hurt himself with some Republicans for his appearance with Obama and his support of the stimulus plan.

“That will be on his track record and people are going to remember that,” Bush said, adding that Crist is running the risk of falling in the “D light” category of the party.

What does the young George P. Bush think of his uncle’s “track record”? President George W. Bush presided over the greatest expansion of government spending since World War II. “As a result of all this spending, the country has gone from a $128 billion budget surplus when Mr. Bush took office” to a deficit exploding over $1 trillion when he left office.

No word on that. I'd imagine his memory is just as selective as the rest of the Cons. And he's got political aspirations, although he wants to "obtain success in my own right" first. What the fuck ever. I'll guarantee you that we'll have another George Bush running for office within the next four years - as if this country hasn't suffered enough with the first two. If previous patterns are anything to go by, this one will be more batshit insane than the second one, who was exponentially worse than the first.

And as if Zombie Bushes weren't enough, we've got Mitch McConnell busy spreading zombie lies:

In his first budget, President Obama apparently plans to keep his campaign promise to let the Bush tax cuts expire for Americans making over $250,000 a year. And just as during the election, Republican leaders are falsely claiming that Obama's proposal constitutes a tax hike on small business owners. This time, it is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell echoing John McCain and Joe the Plumber in spreading the lie.

McConnell's myth-making came during an appearance Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." (WMV and QT videos here.) There, he fired the first salvo against President Obama's plan to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans who need it least. Claiming that "a vast majority of American small businesses pay taxes as individual taxpayers," McConnell thundered:

"I don't think raising taxes is a great idea, and when our good friends on the other side of the aisle say raising the taxes on the wealthy, what they are really talking about is small business."

Of course, they're not talking about small business. As CNN concluded in October, "fewer than 2% of small business owners would pay more under Obama's plan."

As it turns out, McConnell is merely parroting the same fraud now that John McCain tried to perpetrate then. Last fall, then Republican presidential candidate McCain attacked Obama, wrongly asserting, "The small businesses that we're talking about would receive an increase in their taxes right now." As it turned out, McCain's human shield and faux small business owner Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher will receive a tax cut, and not an increase, under the just passed Obama stimulus package.

But in case there was any doubt the Republicans' deception on the point, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center quickly put it to rest. As the Obama campaign correctly claimed, 98% would see their taxes decline or remain the same...

Is there anything about reality that penetrates through their thick skulls? Any fragment, any factoid, any one fucking thing?

I didn't think so.

And just when you think you've seen the limits to their insanity, they manage to find a new depth to the deep end:

Why is it so painfully difficult to take the Republican Party seriously in the 21st century? Because they haven't quite figured out that credibility comes with a degree of political maturity. Take Sen. Richard Shelby (R) of Alabama, for example. (via Ben Smith)

Another local resident [in Cullman County, Alabama] asked Shelby [yesterday] if there was any truth to a rumor that appeared during the presidential campaign concerning Obama's U.S. citizenship, or lack thereof.

"Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven't seen any birth certificate," Shelby said. "You have to be born in America to be president."

According to the Associated Press, state officials in Hawaii checked health department records during the campaign and determined there was no doubt Obama was born in Hawaii.
The nonpartisan Web site Factcheck.org examined the original document and said it does have a raised seal and the usual evidence of a genuine document. In addition, Factcheck.org reproduced an announcement of Obama's birth, including his parents' address in Honolulu, that was published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Aug. 13, 1961.

This kind of stupidity took a right turn at annoying quite a while ago, and now rests comfortably in the realm of madness. When Alan Keyes launches into a ridiculous tirade about the president's birth certificate, it's not especially surprising -- Keyes, based on all available evidence, is apparently not well. Anyone looking for lucidity from the poor man is bound to be disappointed.

It's far more annoying to have elected Republican officials in Tennessee signing on as plaintiffs in a lawsuit "aimed at forcing" the President to "prove he is a United States citizen."

But the Shelby example is a different magnitude of idiocy. Shelby isn't just some random yahoo with a right-wing radio talk-show; he's a four-term United States senator. He's the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, for crying out loud. It's incumbent on him to be somewhat coherent and conduct himself with at least a little sanity.

Apparently, such things as coherence and sanity are no longer requirements in the Republicon party. Oh, granted, someone in his office is making a weak attempt at claiming that's not really what he meant, but how the fuck do you spin "I haven't seen any birth certificate" into anything remotely resembling, "President Obama is an American citizen and I have no doubts as to his citizenship"?

You can't. All you can do is marvel over how truly fucked-up these idiots have become.

Sunday Sensational Science

Transitional Fossils



Ron Britton, one of the Masters o' the Smack-o-Matic, recreated this wonderful poster that really says everything one needs to say when arguing evolution's case. He says:

I’ve always liked this poster. The evidence for evolution goes way beyond the fossils, but this poster summarizes the fossil evidence quite well. One of the things creationists are always claiming is that there are “no transitional fossils!” Well you’re staring right at one!

All of you evilutionists should know that transitional fossil by sight. For the rest of you, we'll be revealing its identity shortly.

If the creationists were right, I wouldn't be able to write this post for lack of fossils. In fact, I have the exact opposite problem. Here's a partial list of transitionals. Keep scrolling. And scrolling. And scrolling. And once you've finally reached the bottom of that partial list, keep something in mind: it was last modified in 2001, before many of the spectacular finds I'll be highlighting in this post were made.

That's a hell of a lot of transitional fossils the creationists have to pretend don't exist, isn't it?

I'm currently re-reading Richard Dawkins's wonderful book The Ancestor's Tale, and before we dive into the transitionals themselves, I want to share several insights I've gleaned. One of the major confusions, and the hardest thing to explain to folks who don't know much about evolution, is how species transition from one to another. People tend to see evolution as a series of discrete steps instead of cumulative, gradual changes. That's why you get IDiots demanding to know why there's no cat-dog in the fossil record.

Dawkins handles this rather nicely:

It is true that when we look at living species, we expect members of different genera to be less alike than members of different species within the same genus. But it can't work like that for fossils, if we have a continuous historical lineage in evolution. At the borderline between any fossil species and its immediate predecessor, there must be some individuals about whom it is absurd to argue, since the reductio of such an argument must be that parents of one species gave birth to the child of the other. It is even more absurd to suggest that a baby of the genus Homo was born to parents of a completely different genus, Australopithecus. These are evolutionary regions into which our zoological naming conventions were never designed to go.

When we consider transitional fossils, then, it's best to remember that they're capturing a moment in time. They're like snapshots. There were plenty of individuals both before and after the transition that were shading from one thing to another.

The diagram below captures the essence of this fairly well, albeit without the shading. Notice the relationships. We're not walking a straight line from Australopithecus to Homo erectus to Homo sapiens here.



Here's another evolutionary fact to keep in mind. Dawkins, tracing humanity's ancestry back to a small shrew-like mammal he calls Henry, shows how species diverge:

Long-distance ancestry, of a particular group of descendants such as the human species, is an all-or-nothing affair. Moreover, it is perfectly possible that Henry is my ancestor (and necessarily yours, given that you are human enough to be reading this book) while his brother Eric is the ancestor of, say, all the surviving aardvarks. Not only is it possible. It is a remarkable fact that there must be a moment in history when there were two animals in the same species, one of whom became the ancestor of all humans and no aardvarks, while the other became the ancestor of all aardvarks and no humans. They may have met, and may even have been brothers. You can cross out aardvark and substitute any other modern species you like, and the statement must still be true. Think it through, and you will find that it follows from the fact that all species are cousins of one another. Bear in mind when you do so that the "ancestor of all aardvarks" will also be the ancestor of lots of very different things besides aardvarks (in this case, the entire major group called Afrotheria... which includes elephants and dugongs, hyraxes and Madagascan tenrecs).

By now, you should be getting the feeling that finding a transitional fossil isn't necessarily like filling in a gap on the family tree. The gaps in our fossil record aren't so concise as, say, Grandmother, blank spot, granddaughter. In the case of a genealogical chart, we know there's one and only one way to fill in that blank: with a mom. In the fossil record, it's more like a series of "moms," all a little bit less grandmother and getting closer to granddaughter. And, just like mothers can give birth to more than one granddaughter (or grandson), one species can give rise to several, who eventually become so different from one another that it's hard to comprehend that they were ever related at all, even distantly. (I'm sure many of us feel that way about our distant ancestors, comes to that - I'm sure that if I ran into the cave-dwelling couple who, 20,000 years ago, started the lines that eventually led to me and, say, the Kiowa, we wouldn't have plenty to talk about. We'd seem absolutely alien to each other. Yet, there we are - related. They're my ancestors, while not a single Kiowa is. Interesting, eh?)

Now that you've been hedged about with all of the proper caveats and such, I feel comfortable showing you a pretty straightforward evolutionary line.


We were fishes once, and young. At the bottom, you see an undeniable lobe-finned fish, Eusthenopteron. These darlings had all of the necessary equipment to start us on the road to land - nostrils (in their case, internal), "a distinct humerus, ulna, and radius (in the fore-fin) and femur, tibia, and fibula (in the pelvic fin)." Those bits probably sound familiar, especially to those of you who have broken any of those bones.

Onward we go, through Panderichthys, whose fins are still very much fins but showing clear signs of headed toward tetrapod limbs, and whose spiracle, a nifty little bit of anatomy that allowed it to breathe water through the top of its head, eventally became our ear's stirrup bone. We're getting closer to land, and then, ZOMG, there's a gap!!1!11!

You can see it in that red bit in the line, there. Acanthostega used to be our next fossil in line, and it had true limbs, complete with really-real toes. How the hell did we get there from the mostly-finny fins of Panderichthys? And that's where one of the greatest demonstrations of the predictive power of evolution comes in:

The scientists who discovered Tiktaalik made a threefold prediction, based on evolutionary theory: that such a creature would exist, that it would be found in rocks in a certain location, and that it would be found in rocks of a certain age. They went to this area explicitly because other primitive tetrapods had been found there, and searched in Late Devonian strata because more fish-like creatures were known from earlier strata and more tetrapod-like creatures were known from later strata. And all three of these predictions were borne out by the evidence.

Tiktaalik, it turns out, has plenty to tell us about the transition from water to land, which is why it's the perfect subject for Ron's evolution poster:

Meticulous studies of the internal structure of the cranium from several fossil fishapods, T. roseae, reveal the step-wise process that morphological changes followed as terrestriality evolved in tetrapods. [snip] "The braincase, palate and gill arch skeleton of Tiktaalik have been revealed in great detail," reports Jason Downs, a research fellow at the Academy of Natural Sciences who is the lead author of the study. "By revealing new details of the pattern of change in this part of the skeleton, we see that cranial features once associated with land-living animals were first adaptations for life in shallow water."

Well, that's what makes transitionals so interesting, innit? They demonstrate how we got here from there. And if we have a here without a there, we know that all we have to do is go look - there will be a there there. In fact, don't be surprised if we find several fossils that have paleontologists arguing over whether they're Tiktaalik or Panderichthys - there's bound to be some hard-to-classify versions that represent transitions between the two. Many fossils have led to constant quibbling, reshuffling, redefining, and a variety of interpretations that might drive you absolutely nuts until you realize that kind of uncertainty is a good thing. Here's Richard Dawkins again:

If you think about it, we should be worried if there was not disagreement over the divisions. On the evolutionary view of life, a continuous range of intermediates is to be expected.

Conversely, of course, we shouldn't panic if we can't find those intermediates right off - we're lucky, between the vagaries of decomposition, critters scavenging other critters, and chemical and mechanical weathering, not to mention the grand finale of plate tectonics, that we have any fossils at all. There are some transitionals we may never find, simply because they didn't get preserved. Put it like this, though: we know they lived. You wouldn't claim you didn't have a great-great-great-great-grandmother just because all the records about her got destroyed in fires and floods and various other mishaps, now, would you? She obviously existed - otherwise you wouldn't be here. Same thing with the transitionals.

And there's always the chance we'll come across her records in unexpected places, which would leave those arguing against her existence looking rather foolish. Check out these beauties, found just within the last decade:

Yanoconodon

The latest Nature reveals a new primitive mammal fossil collected in the Mesozoic strata of the Yan mountains of China. It's small and unprepossessing, but it has at least two noteworthy novelties, and first among them is that it represents another step in the transition from the reptilian to the mammalian jaw and ear. [snip] In us, the old articular and quadrate bones have completely lost their role in supporting the jaw as a joint and instead have become imbedded in the middle ear of mammals, suspended with the stapes between two delicate membranes to specialize in conducting sound vibrations to the inner ear. What does the hearing apparatus look like in Yanoconodon?

I'm going to be cruel and force you over to Pharyngula to find out.


Heteronectes

Now, Matt Friedman from the University of Chicago has described a new transitional fossil that is one of the most dramatic yet. Its name is Heteronectes (meaning "different swimmer") and it's a flatfish, but not as you know it.

You've probably eaten flatfish before but tasty fillets of plaice, sole or halibut give few hints about their extraordinary physical specialisations. They are fish that live on their sides and their flat profiles make them both efficient hunters and difficult prey. For other fish, lying sideways would give one eye a useless view of sand but flatfish have adapted accordingly. Their fry resemble those of other fish but as they grow, one of their eyes makes an amazing journey to the other side of its head. The adults look like they've swum out of a Picasso painting.

But Heteronectes is a half-committed flatfish. Like modern representatives, its skull is asymmetrical and one eye has begun migrating to the other side of its head. But it hasn't made it all the way round and stops near the midline without crossing to the other side. No living flatfish has eyes arranged in such a way. We couldn't have wished for a better intermediate form - it's a marvellous missing link between the standard fish body plan and the distorted visages of flounders and soles.

Ed Yong's post is wonderful, but don't stop there - click the photo for some classic snark from the University of Chicago's news room. Take that, creationists!

There's so much more where that came from - I mean, just a single page search on Pharyngula turns up a snake with legs, a transitional turtle, a water-going whale ancestor that gave birth on land, ancient arachnids... and that's not even beginning to scratch the surface of what comes up when you search for transitionals on ScienceBlogs. You could fossilize a creationist underneath that strata of fossils.

So I think we'll just end with some videos from Afarensis instead:








Not a bad haul from an evening's digging, eh? If this post got you as excited over transitional fossils as it should have, do Ron Britton a favor - copy that wonderful Tiktaalik poster at the beginning and post it on your own blogs. It nearly went extinct, but, as Ron says, " If we can get enough members of this species onto the internet, it will reestablish itself as a self-sustaining population."

Conservation is always a worthy goal. Especially when the message is so damned true.

Afraid of Independent Press, Are We?

I'm not sure if Ed Brayton's experience with the Michigan Con party is more funny, pathetic, or outrageous:

On Friday night, I went with my colleague from the Michigan Messenger, Todd Heywood, to cover the Michigan Republican state convention in Lansing. We got to the convention center and stood in line at the registration desk to find out where we got our press credentials. A lady there then told us to go over to the hotel, right next door, and to a particular room.

So we go to the hotel, go to that room, and talk to the person we were told to talk to. He tells us that we don't need any special credentials at all, we just had to sign in - so we did.

So far, so good, right? They're in and doing what professional journalists do - i.e., acting as the watchdogs of democracy - which is where problems arise. Todd got stopped by one of Attorney General Mike Cox's aides while trying to snap a picture for the paper.

Finally Todd asked what he was doing and the guy asked if he was media. He said yes and showed him his ID from the Michigan Messenger and the guy says no, you need a green media pass to be here. So Todd goes back to the guy who told us we didn't need credentials and the guy told him that, in fact, he had lied to us and that the decision was made not to issue credentials to anyone from the Michigan Messenger. [emphasis exasperatedly added]

Ladies and gentlemen, the Michigan Republican Party.

Not only are they still addicted to censorship, even their minions are pathological liars. Is it any wonder I hope the Con party ends up ratfucking itself out of existence?

Adios, Socks

He made it through the Clinton era, the Bush years, and caught a glimpse of the age of Obama, but that's as far as he goes. Cancer just caught up with Socks, the former First Cat.

It's not many cats who've had such long, rich lives, or got to have their say in the White House press room. Appropriate that a superstar feline ended up in Hollywood, eh? Even if it was Hollywood, MD, not CA. He spent his final years in quiet, happy retirement, getting fed chicken dinners by Bill Clinton's former secretary, Betty Currie, and putting in the occasional celebrity appearance to help less fortunate felines. He was an awesome cat, and he'll be missed.

Hasta luego, muchacho. Salud.

Where Are They Now? The Mercenaries Formerly Known As Blackwater Edition

Blackwater's stock hasn't been rising. The company's come under fire for firing on Iraqi civilians, and both Iraq and the State Department planted a judicious boot up their arses. What's a band of murderous mercenaries to do but change their name? Because, like Cons, Blackwater - um, excuse me, Xe - thinks it's all about branding rather than the product.

They maybe shoulda researched the name first:

Over at my home blog of Mercury Rising, one of my co-bloggers, MEC, noticed something a wee bit interesting about Blackwater's name change (and, they apparently hoped, reputation change) to "Xe" -- namely, that there's already an "XE" out there and they care about their copyright:

"XE”, “XE.COM”, “UNIVERSAL CURRENCY CONVERTER”, the XE logo, the spinning currency logo, and other identifying marks of XE are and shall remain the trade-marks and trade names and exclusive property of XE CORPORATION, and any unauthorized use of these marks is unlawful.

Deary, deary me. Looks like the corporate lawyers shall be rolling up their sleeves and deploying the cease-and-desist letters. And in a battle between an army of lawyers and an army of mercs, I know who my money's on.

If anyone wants to float some potential names for Blackwater now they've lost their first choice, I'll be happy to pass them along.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Vote for the Cons in 2010 and kiss your stimulus goodbye:

It's good to have dreams and aspirations, isn't it? Too bad that the Republican party's aspirations appear to be centered on destroying the country. After two decades of nearly unfettered access to run the nation, the Republicans are trying their damndest to obstruct and torpedo the stimulus bill and any success that President Obama might have.

And they actually think this will win them supporters. Astonishing. Even David Frum, who hasn't seen a really bad idea he wouldn't cheerlead, as long as it came out of the mouth of a Republican, thinks the GOP is "brain dead".

Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX-01) goes on FOX News and vows that the Republican Party will cancel the stimulus bill if they retake the majority in 2010.

This grandstanding may play well with their shrinking base, but to retake a majority, they'll need support from independents. And "Vote for us - we'll stop the stimulus!" seems a slogan destined to lose with that crowd. For a party attempting to climb out of the political toilet, they're doing a fine job of going the wrong way up the U-bend.

And there's no sign they've realized their mistake:

Watching conservatives talk about the economic crisis, the arguments start to have a certain "Groundhog Day" quality.

On MSNBC, Pat Buchanan perpetuated the myth that government efforts to expand affordable housing to underserved communities caused the financial crisis, a charge that has frequently taken the form of attacks on the Community Reinvestment Act. In fact, as Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has stated: "Our own experience with CRA over more than 30 years and recent analysis of available data, including data on subprime loan performance, runs counter to the charge that CRA was at the root of, or otherwise contributed in any substantive way to, the current mortgage difficulties."

[snip]

When I saw Media Matters' item noting Pat Buchanan blaming "minority communities" for the financial crisis, I had to triple-check the date to make sure it wasn't a piece from last year.

Didn't we already have this debate? Isn't it already clear that the conservative talking points were wrong in October, and haven't improved with age?

Steve Benen, generous soul that he is, goes on to speculate that con media mouthpieces know they're wrong, but are stuck repeating old talking points because they haven't yet formulated new ones. Myself, I think it's because they're genuinely too clueless to understand they've been debunked. And they're relying on an electorate that's just as uninformed as they are. Sadly, at least 30% of the country can be relied upon in that regard.

However, even an appreciable fraction of that 30% can, with encouragement and a few tries, think their way out of a brown paper bag. Antics like this might get a few synapses filing in the "What the fuck?!" centers of their brains:

Man, the NRCC under Pete Sessions is even more hilarious than last year's model.

As Republicans who voted against the stimulus package (by which we mean, every single Elephant in the House) step up left and right to try to take credit for the stimulus jobs, the NRCC is busy firing off ads and robocalls targeting vulnerable Democrats for voting for the stimulus.

Which means that House Republicans hate the stimulus, voted against it, but they're super excited about the tax cuts and jobs and infrastructure and all the mega-awesome stuff the StimPak is actually gonna do...but damn all those Democrats to hell who actually got it done!!!

That's an impressive, if risible, series of reversals in and of itself, but as the Detroit News' Gordon Trowbridge notes, the actual content of their robocall hitting Michigan Democrat Gary Peters is even better:

The National Republican Campaign Committee said Friday it will launch a robocall campaign targeting freshman Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, for his vote on the "wasteful spending" stimulus bill. But the research team at the NRCC might want to think a little harder about the "wasteful spending" it cites in Michigan.

Amid the smoking cessation and STD prevention programs the NRCC cites as evidence of Peters irresponsibility come "$1 Billion for Advanced Battery Loan Guarantee Program" and "$600 Million for cars for government employees." The fact that Michigan lawmakers of both parties pushed for the advanced battery funding apparently didn't occur to the NRCC. Nor did the fact that those cars for government employees would be build by Michigan-based manufacturers.

Wow. Just... wow. If we had to depict the above graphically, it would look something like this:



Or perhaps this:


Which may explain why the job market is a little reluctant to absorb some of these assclowns:

The Wall Street Journal reports today that “for many of the roughly 3,000 political appointees who served President George W. Bush, [f]inding work has proved a far tougher task than those appointees expected”:

Only 25% to 30% of ex-Bush officials seeking full-time jobs have succeeded, estimated Eric Vautour, a Washington recruiter at Russell Reynolds Associates Inc. That “is much, much worse” than when Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton left the White House, he said. At least half those presidents’ senior staffers landed employment within a month after the administration ended, Mr. Vautour recalled.

[snip]

Paul Krugman observes, "[I]t appears that wingnut welfare is breaking down when it comes to former Bush officials."

Indeed.

As for signs that the Cons may acquire a clue: if California is any indication, we're in for a long wait:

It's amusing to consider how the beginning of this excerpt relates to the end of this excerpt. (thanks to reader G.B. for the heads-up)

The 1,400 Republican activists heading to Sacramento this weekend for the twice-yearly GOP convention will be united by a single concern: how to lift the state party out of the deep hole it's dug in recent years.

Reeling from their failed attempt to block tax increases in the state budget, their worst presidential defeat in decades, losing seats in the Legislature and watching party membership shrink, California Republicans know something has to be done soon if the party wants to hang on to what's left of its statewide clout.

"We have to get out of the doldrums from the November election," said Tom Del Beccaro of Lafayette, the party's vice chair. "We need to rally people."

That won't be easy. The convention opened Friday, just a day after Democrats -- and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- steamrolled over GOP opposition and managed to pass a state budget plan that included tax hikes opposed by all but a handful of Republican legislators.

Convention delegates are expected to vote Sunday on a motion to censure the six Republicans who voted for the tax increases.

Punishing people for doing the right thing, driving out the few relatively sane Republicans left in the party, and campaigning simultaneously for and against the stimulus, therefore shooting their chances for political survival in both feet with a rocket launcher.

It's probably best to stop thinking of them as a political party and start thinking of them as absurdist performance art instead.

Where Are They Now? Homophobic Fuckwit Edition

We left Utah State Sen. Chris Buttars foaming at the mouth over teh evil gays a few days ago. He seemed on top of the world, free to let his homophobia range wide and free with such statements as "To me, homosexuality will always be a sexual perversion. And you say that around here now and everybody goes nuts! But I don’t care." Oh, and don't forget, "It's the beginning of the end. Oh, it's worse than that. Sure. Sodom and Gomorrah was localized. This is worldwide."

You may have thought that Sen. Buttars needed a nice, long lie-down in a soft, quiet room, preferably with a few good doses of anti-psychotics on board. But, like me, you might not have expected much to come of it - we're talking Utah, home of the Mormon Church and the Prop 8 crusade. However, it seems Buttars's anti-gay rhetoric was just a little too hot for even Utah Cons to handle:

Today, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that Buttars’ Republican colleagues have decided to kick him out of the state senate judiciary committee:

Sources familiar with the Senate discussions, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Senate Republican caucus decided to remove Buttars from the Senate Judiciary Committee, a panel which he currently chairs.

It is unclear how that move would affect his position on another panel, the Judicial Confirmation Committee, which he also chairs and is a member of by virtue of his position on the Judiciary Committee.

[snip]

In the press conference, Waddoups continued to defend Buttars. “I want the citizens of Utah to know that the Senate stands behind Sen. Buttars and his right to speak, that we stand behind him as colleague and support his right to serve in this state,” Waddoups said. Meanwhile, Buttars refused to apologize for his comments, in a senate blog post:

When it comes right down to it, I would rather be censured for doing what I think is right, than be honored by my colleagues for bowing to the pressure of a special interest group that has been allowed to act with impunity.

And his colleagues' response to Buttars's last stand?

The outrage prompted a frank, closed-door discussion among Senate Republicans on Thursday, and Senate President Michael Waddoups said he decided to boot Buttars off of two committees -- the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee and the Senate Judicial Confirmation Committee -- both of which Buttars leads.

Before you congratulate the Utah GOP on showing some sense, consider Waddoups's words:

Waddoups refused repeatedly to clarify which of Buttars' opinions are shared by himself or Senate leaders.

He said the decision to remove Buttars from the committees was ultimately his own as president, a move he made so the Senate could function smoothly. The judiciary committee, in recent years, has heard most of the bills dealing with gay and lesbian rights, and removing Buttars from his position would remove the "personalities" and focus on the issues, Waddoups said.

However, the Legislature has defeated all of the so-called Common Ground initiatives, which sought to extend some rights to same-sex couples, including one that Buttars helped defeat in the judiciary committee.

"It frees Senator Buttars to feel more at ease in saying how he personally feels without feeling as if he's personally speaking on behalf of his committee and the Legislature," Waddoups said.

That's right. Not a single word condemning rabid homophobic spew. Instead, Waddroups wants Buttars "to feel more at ease in saying how he personally feels."

For. Fuck's. Sake.

In other homophobic fuckwit news, Sarah "But I Have a Gay Friend!" Palin is terrified of children's literature when it contains teh gay:

In a new biography of Palin released this week, Trailblazer: An Intimate Biography of Sarah Palin, her former campaign manager details Palin’s disgust at the idea of a gay-friendly book. During her 1996 mayoral campaign, Palin questioned the local library director about the “content and selection” of the library’s books. [p. 76]

One book that Palin questioned as not being “appropriate for the public library” was Daddy’s Roommate, a story about a young boy whose father is gay and moves in with his partner. Palin’s campaign manager at the time, Laura Chase, urged Palin to read the book before passing judgment:

I found it to be a sensitve book about showing love for additional family members. I took the book to show the other council members and said I felt it was inoffensive and suggested for everyone to read it, but there were not takers. I said, ‘Sarah why don’t you take it home and read it.’ I could tell by her body language she cringed at the idea.I was shocked. It blew my mind that she wouldn’t look at it. [p. 77]

Palin said the the book should be kept behind the library reference desk, telling Chase that “it shouldn’t be in a place where kids can get it without their parents knowing.” [p. 77]

Because the Lord knows if kiddies get hold of contraband like that, they might figure out that gays are *gasp* ordinary folks, and the right wing won't have the club of homophobia to bludgeon people into compliance with anymore. Next thing you know, buh-bye Republicon party - because without the culture wars, they ain't got nothing.

It's just funny that Sarah Palin's shit-scared of a children's book herself. Whatsamatter, Sarah - worried your opinions might change? Or are you scared you'll catch teh gay?

Betting's open on how long it'll take before some frothing fuckwit on the far right wing floats a Palin-Buttars ticket.

Three Views of Cons

It seems that with the advent of the Dems, our Con politicians have gone completely off the deep end. My imagination failed me. I didn't think they could get much worse than they'd been during the Bush era, but where they've failed on all other levels, as sideshow freaks they are an unqualified success.

Case in point:

Right winger talkers are just losing their minds over the fact that Obama is now President. I know they lack humor so could it be that they actually think this is funny?

Discussing President Obama's signing of the economic recovery bill at a ceremony in Denver, 630 KHOW-AM's Peter Boyles on his February 18 program repeatedly referred to one of the ceremony attendees, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Denver), as "Vagina DeJet" and "Vagina DeGette."

And a Republican state Sen joins in the conversation like it's no big deal. He should apologize immediately.

CALDARA: When Schultheis speaks, it's a real room-clearer.

BOYLES: As soon as Schultheis spoke, I said, "It's time to fire up the bike." But then I went out to the museum. And, you know, I went over to Fox News, and all the media trucks were over there on the north side. Guys, there wasn't 75 people there.

SCHULTHEIS: That's what I hear. Hardly anybody.

BOYLES: I mean, now there were 250 of, like, Vagina DeJet was in there, and other people, they were the 250 selected, hand-picked -- Federico Peña was in the front row. I was shocked to see that.

The state senator in question is Dave Schultheis, whose priorities can be discerned here. He makes not a peep of protest at Boyles's assinine, locker-room misogyny. I wonder how he'd react if a talk radio host started calling him Penis Schultheis? Would he believe that's an appropriate way to reference a lawmaker?

I somehow doubt it. Cons are infamous for the double-standard.

A couple of things got me thinking differently about them, though. Rather than just a bunch of batshit insane fucktards, what if they're just miserable pooches? Do they need not censure or antipsychotics, but the kind ministrations of a dog whisperer instead?

The Dog Whisperer never fails a dog. He helps owners become "pack leaders" who learn how to make their dogs into relaxed, contented animals. Cesar Millan demonstrates to each owner how their dog responds to calm, positive, assertive energy. Some dog transformations are miraculous – but these are miracles you can believe in because they take place before your very eyes.

Obama’s efforts at bipartisanship remind me of the failing efforts of dog owners before Cesar Millan shows up. They assume that their dogs are like humans and will respond to the right combination of love, understanding, and operant conditioning.

But dogs don’t think like humans. Dogs are pack animals. Dogs instinctively look for the leader of the pack, and they follow. If no leader emerges, they become the leader. They do what their instincts tell them a leader does. No amount of love or understanding or even rewards and punishment changes this. They simply must have a leader to follow or they will continue to misbehave, even to the point that they get themselves killed. Republicans in Congress have been allowed to let their instincts run wild - "tax cuts, more tax cuts"..."this is a spending bill!"...etc. They followed their leader over cliff after cliff for eight years. They don't know any better. Left to their instincts they will take us over more.

Obama has to become the leader of the pack. He has to stop tolerating bad behavior on the part of Republicans in the House and Senate. He has to take over their territory on the issues, and deliver sharp corrections to get their attention when they get out of line.

This makes an intriguing sort of sense. I hadn't thought of them this way before, but the Cons do remarkably resemble the pair of evil Westies veternarian James Herriot once wrote about, dogs who delighted in causing people misery and pain because their owners had left them leaderless. They weren't inherently mean or evil, they just didn't know what to do, and they were miserable trying to be their own leaders.

Then again, while the Cons resemble miserable mutts, they also resemble - well, cons:

The only upside I can see to any of this is that political science students attempting to grasp the nature of conservatism need no longer waste any more time studying Friedman, Oakeshott or any of the other great minds of wingerdom. They need only read the latest e-mails from Nigeria, and everything they need to know about conservatism will become crystal-clear.

That's just the denouement to Steven Hart's excellent case, which really must be read in its entirety.

So, my darlings, after perusing the above, which possibility resonates for you? Do Cons strike you as clueless jackasses, undisciplined dogs, or scam artists?

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Governor Bobby Jindal gives a big fuck-you to his state's unemployed:

When President Obama signed the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act last week, it included three different provisions to benefit unemployed workers. The first provided funding to states that allowed for a $25 per week increase in benefits. The second extended the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program which gives 20 weeks of federally-funded unemployment benefits to individuals “who had already collected all regular state benefits,” while the third provision widened the pool of people eligible to receive unemployment benefits.

Today, however, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal announced his intention to oppose changing state law to allow his Lousiana citizens to qualify for the second two unemployment provisions. Jindal said the state would only be accepting money to increase the unemployment insurance payments for those who currently qualify for unemployment insurance.

In all, Jindal turned away nearly $100 million in federal aid for his state’s unemployed residents. Further, as the National Employment Law Project projected on Febuary 13, EUC extension alone would have benefited 24,981 Louisiana residents. Jindal justified his decision by claiming that expanding unemployment benefits would result in tax increases for businesses.

Is it just me, or does this seem batshit fucking insane? These people are so hung up over taxes that they're willing to starve poor people over tax increases that wouldn't even happen. As Think Progress notes, the state could end the program a few years from now, before tax increases became necessary.

And this is one of the fuckwits who's rumored to be a strong contender for the Republicon presidential nomination come 2012. If this is what they have to offer, it looks like they'd best get comfy in the wilderness - they won't be leaving it any time soon.

Consider what all their grandstanding has earned them thus far:

If you dig into the new Research 2000 weekly tracking poll, you’ll find some really rough numbers for GOP leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.

McConnell’s favorability rating is twenty three percent, and his unfavorability rating is fifty one percent. Boehner’s fave rating is seventeen percent, and his unfave is fifty four percent. The Congressional GOP’s fave rating is eighteen percent.

By contrast, Nancy Pelosi is in the forties, and Harry Reid is in the thirties.

And a quick look at the broader picture suggests that the GOP leadership has sunken in popularity since mid-January, when President Obama took office, suggesting once again that the performance of GOP leaders in the big stimulus debate has hurt them. The Dems have held steady or risen a bit.

Their only hope is that the stimulus fails spectacularly. Guess what they'll be working to ensure happens - while hedging their bets by selectively loving it. We shall see how easy it is for the terminally unbalanced to walk that tightrope.

I don't think Paul Krugman believes they have the requisite intelligence to pull off such stunts:

So when I read something like this:

“Why should we reward Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with $200 billion in taxpayer dollars without first reforming these housing entities that were at the heart of the economic meltdown?” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.

and people ask what on earth Boehner might mean when he talks about taxpayers “rewarding” institutions that are owned by taxpayers, I go for Occam’s Razor: Boehner doesn’t have some complicated notion in mind, he either doesn’t know that the government took over F&F months ago, or he just doesn’t get this “government-owned” concept.

This is what happens when the Con party becomes so outrageously inane that only stupid people or the woefully uninformed vote for them. We end up with outrageously stupid politicians. That in turn leads some leading lights on the Con side to contort the facts in order to pretend they're not quite as stupid as they appear. As you might expect from such a sideshow, the contortionist act is painful for the actor and hilarious for the rest of us:

Neocon mastermind Richard Perle spoke in D.C. yesterday, and argued, with a straight face, that neoconservatives don't actually exist. And if they did exist, they wouldn't deserve the blame for the Bush administration's foreign policy failures.

Dana Milbank, who was on hand for Perle's remarks, said the experience of listening to all of this was like "falling down the rabbit hole."

"There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy," Perle informed the gathering, hosted by National Interest magazine. "It is a left critique of what is believed by the commentator to be a right-wing policy."

So what about the 1996 report he co-authored that is widely seen as the cornerstone of neoconservative foreign policy? "My name was on it because I signed up for the study group," Perle explained. "I didn't approve it. I didn't read it."

Mm-hmm. And the two letters to the president, signed by Perle, giving a "moral" basis to Middle East policy and demanding military means to remove Saddam Hussein? "I don't have the letters in front of me," Perle replied.

Right. And the Bush administration National Security Strategy, enshrining the neoconservative themes of preemptive war and using American power to spread freedom? "I don't know whether President Bush ever read any of those statements," Perle maintained. "My guess is he didn't."

It was apparently quite a performance, which literally drew laughter when Perle insisted, "I've never advocated attacking Iran."

[snip]

Apparently, at the end of yesterday's event, the moderator thanked Perle for being there: "You certainly kept us all entertained."

Take a moment to fully appreciate Perle's pathetic attempts at dodging reality. "My name's on it, but I didn't read it." "Maybe I said those things and signed those letters, but since they're not in front of me, can't remember a thing!" "Bush probably didn't read my babble, so you can't say he was influenced by it." What a spectacular ass.

You may have noticed a sudden and dramatic uptick in the asshattery lately. This has not gone unnoticed by the White House, which is taking the opportunity to have some fun and score political points at the asshats' expense:

The White House has declared war on Rick Santelli.

The CNBC squawker is already, by now, infamous for his rant about "the losers' mortgages." Matt Drudge and the conservative blogosphere tried to turn him into the new Joe the Plumber -- or perhaps something even bigger. Now, if White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has his way, Santelli may become something quite different -- the public face of opposition to President Obama's plan to stabilize the housing market.

Gibbs tore into Santelli today, blasting him from the White House podium with language that would cause an international incident if CNBC were a sovereign nation. "I'm not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives, or in what house he lives, but the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgage, stay in their job, pay their bills, to send their kids to school, and to hope that they don't get sick or that somebody they care for gets sick and sends them into bankruptcy," Gibbs said, all the usual Southern charm drained from his voice, replaced with venom. "I think we left a few months ago the adage that, if it was good for a derivatives trader, that it was good for Main Street. I think the verdict is in on that." If Santelli didn't like the housing plan, Gibbs said, it was because he didn't have any idea what was in it. "Every day when I come out here, I spend a little time reading, studying on the issues, asking people who are smarter than I am questions about those issues," Gibbs went on. "I would encourage him to read the president's plan and understand that it will help millions of people, many of whom he knows. I'd be more than happy to have him come here and read it. I'd be happy to buy him a cup of coffee. Decaf."

And then he twisted the dagger a little: "Let me do this, too. This is a copy of the president's home affordability plan. It's available on the White House Web site, and I would encourage him, download it, hit print, and begin to read it." He wrapped up the Santelli portion of the briefing with one final zinger. "It's tremendously important that for people who rant on cable television to be responsible and understand what it is they're talking about," Gibbs said. "I feel assured that Mr. Santelli doesn't know what he's talking about."

That, my darlings, is one hell of a towel-snap to the nads. And I get the feeling the White House is only warming up.

The next few months should be interesting. Make sure you've stocked up on your popcorn.

Friday Favorite Physics Cats

Two of my great loves: physics and cats. Thanks to the intertoobz, I can indulge them all at once.

This was my opinion of biology once. Then I discovered molecular biology, got to know evolutionary theory better, and realized there wasn't anything "soft" about it at all...


This is a frequent experience at Casa de Dana. I do believe my cat has several wormholes scattered throughout the apartment - either that, or she's discovered how to use Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Nothing else explains why she can pop so suddenly out of nowhere.



String theory: exciting, elegant, and damned cute!



Every cat seems to have a touch of Schrödinger's Cat in them.


Cats sometimes do seem to defy the laws of physics. A friend and I once tried to clean off her coal-dust covered kitty by dropping it in the wading pool. I'd never seen an animal go from a vertical fall to a horizontal flee without any intermediate stages before - and this cat didn't even ruffle the water. They prove the impossible possible every day.

Who can resist a kitteh that imitates Einstein? Not me. And I'll bet I'm not alone here.

Hilzoy Takes WaPo to the Woodshed

This, my darlings, is a thing of beauty. To briefly recap: George Will, fact-challenged Washington Post columnist extraordinaire, recently penned a climate change denialist column so egregious in its errors that it nearly defies description. Days went by as we waited with baited breath for the WaPo to publish a correction. None was forthcoming. And then, a response!

I have also been following the various requests for comment from the Washington Post, and wondering when the Post might respond. Now they have:

"Thank you for your e-mail. The Post's ombudsman typically deals with issues involving the news pages. But I understand the point you and many e-mailers are making, and for that reason I sought clarification from the editorial page editors. Basically, I was told that the Post has a multi-layer editing process and checks facts to the fullest extent possible. In this instance, George Will's column was checked by people he personally employs, as well as two editors at the Washington Post Writers Group, which syndicates Will; our op-ed page editor; and two copy editors. The University of Illinois center that Will cited has now said it doesn't agree with his conclusion, but earlier this year it put out a statement that was among several sources for this column and that notes in part that "Observed global sea ice area, defined here as a sum of N. Hemisphere and S. Hemisphere sea ice areas, is near or slightly lower than those observed in late 1979,"

Best wishes,

Andy Alexander

Washington Post Ombudsman"

Until I read this, I had been under the impression that newspapers didn't do as much fact-checking as magazines, because of deadline pressure; and I had imagined that the inaccuracies in George Will's column might result from applying standards designed for reported stories to columns. But on reading that Will's column had been subjected to a "multi-layer editing process", and that this "process" had checked the facts "to the fullest extent possible", I realized that I had been wrong. Naturally, I clicked the link Mr. Alexander provided, and read it. Did he? I don't know what would be worse: that he did, and takes it to support Will, or that he didn't take his job seriously enough to bother.

Hilzoy takes Mr. Alexander's link, and beats him thoroughly with it. Then she continues the beating by reading the Science article Will quoted in defense of his indefensible position. Go witness. It's a classic in the annals of correction, destined to go down in history as one of the most merciless trips to the woodshed in blogging history. She does the job that the WaPo's "multilayer editing process" somehow found impossible.

It's incredible to me that a national paper could not only publish something so insanely wrong on every level, but then claim they'd fact-checked it. Were I the Post, I'd be claiming an unprecidented breakdown in the editing process - it would be far less embarrassing than demonstrating that multiple people failed to read so much as the two most easily-accessed papers cited in Wills' column, both of which take a howitzer to his conclusions.

Alas, one trip to the woodshed, even one as epic as this, will not be enough for the WaPo team. They need to be set back a grade and placed in special education for the clueless on climate change. Thankfully, a class is available, and it has a proven track record helping the climate change challenged wake up and smell the CO2.

Let us hope it can rescue the WaPo before they become the identical twin of the Moony Times.

Where Are They Now? Confused Con Edition

Remember Carol Carter, the Republicon party official who emailed a racist joke to a select few friends and threw a sniveling fit when someone called her on the carpet? She's had a busy ten days.

Some things are too embarrassing even for the GOP, so she resigned. Then she tried to rescind her resignation. Failing that, she wants to run in the election meant to replace her. Or maybe she doesn't. She's all confused. And she's still confused over the definition of an apology:

At the local party meeting this week, Carter continued the "sorry you found out" apology tour, saying:

Please accept my deep and sincere apologies. I was wrong to have shared any such materials even with a few.

Hmmm, not sorry for the horrendously insensitive and racist content? Just that you shared it? Nice. But she goes on:

The media frenzy that happened was beyond my comprehension, and in the heat of the moment I e-mailed a resignation.

To those of you who leaked to the media, I'm ashamed of you.

That's right, email leakers and evil media forces- Carol is ashamed of YOU!

I love this. "In the heat of the moment," she resigned, all because some untrustworthy bastard leaked her lack of humor, the media decided that a Con official making racist jokes might just be newsworthy, and who could've known that sending around inappropriate emails when you're in a position of authority could blow up in your face? So, y'know, since her resignation was kinda sorta like a crime of passion, she didn't really mean it and she'd like her job back - even though she hasn't yet managed a proper mea culpa for being a racist fuckwit.

Expect to see her added to the Palin-Santelli dream ticket as a top cabinet-level pick any day now...

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Our mainstream media in action:

Speaking to the Justice Department in honor of Black History Month yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that “we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.” When it comes to discussing race, he said, the U.S. is “essentially a nation of cowards.” He said that the Department has “a special responsibility,” and that as long as he is Attorney General, the Department “must — and will — lead the nation to the ‘new birth of freedom’ so long ago promised by our greatest President.”

Apparently, the notion that the DOJ might “lead the nation” in protecting and upholding justice greatly alarmed Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. Interviewing Juan Williams this morning, she declared that “addressing racial ills…strikes fear down the spines” of conservatives:

KELLY: He said they [the department] has a special responsibility in addressing racial ills. That — that strikes fear down the spines of many conservatives in this country, because they don’t want the Justice Department taking us back to the day when they get heavily involved in things like affirmative action, and things like voter registration rights. […]

WILLIAMS: What you will see I think is more aggressive enforcement in terms of existing civil rights laws. And that was the fear that the existing civil rights laws were not being enforced by the Bush justice department.

KELLY: Well a lot of people thought that the Bush Justice Department sort of got us back to the point where we were — we were being reasonable.

Reasonable? Not enforcing the law is considered "reasonable" in Megyn's world? And assclowns like this end up on national television?

Lest you think it's just Faux News going off the deep end, this has to be seen to be believed:

As Calculated Risk notes "some say this may be the rant of the year."
CNBC's on-air editor, Rick Santelli, calls ordinary Americans who face losing their homes to foreclosure "losers" who don't deserve government help.

The Obama Administration is trying to slow down the foreclosure rate by encouraging (via subsidies) lenders to reduce payments and allowing another 3-4 million homeowers with mortgages owned/supported by Fannie/Freddie to refinance, but Santelli apparently thinks that's unAmerican, deserving of another "tea party."

And the financial fuckwits cheering him on are like the rancid cherry on top of outrageous stupidity.

Speaking of outrageous stupidity, check out this Bush rubber-stamp suddenly deciding that the White House must keep its nose clean:

I'm sorry, the Irony-O-Meter I keep on my desk just burst into flames.

A California Republican congressman has called on President Obama to put in place a system that ensures all White House emails be preserved even if official business was done through private e- mail accounts.

Rep. Darrell Issa, the senior Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, made the request in a February 19 letter to White House Counsel Greg Craig.

Issa specifically mentioned the new administration's brief use of Gmail accounts after Obama was sworn in last month, as they waited for the official White House e-mail accounts to become active.

"As you know, any e-mail sent or received by White House officials may be subject to retention under the Presidential Records Act (PRA)," Issa wrote Craig in the letter.

"The use of personal e-mail accounts, such as Gmail to conduct official business raises the prospect that presidential records will not be captured by the White House e-mail archiving system. Consequently Gmail users on the President's staff run the risk of incorrectly classifying their e-mails as non-records under the [Presidential Records] Act."

[snip]

When Henry Waxman raised concerns about all of this, Darrell Issa dismissed the questions as partisan sniping.

But now Issa is worried about the Obama White House failing to fully comply with the Presidential Records Act. Funny, up until recently, Issa preferred to pretend the Presidential Records Act didn't exist. I wonder what changed his mind?

Funny how Faux News and Friends only care about "fair and balanced" when the Cons are in control, and how Cons in Congress only care about the law when it's the other side in charge. Whodathunkit?

Absolutely Perfect.

Go. Behold photograph and caption. Do it now. Just make sure you've swallowed whatever you're drinking first.

Do you see now why I want to put this up on a billboard outside DIsco's HQ?

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Stimulus!

Ah, I'm sure the desperate citizens of these states find it heart-warming that their Con governors are standing on ideology:

BATON ROUGE, La. – A handful of Republican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package, a move opponents say puts conservative ideology ahead of the needs of constituents struggling with record foreclosures and soaring unemployment.

Though none has outright rejected the money available for education, health care and infrastructure, the governors of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, South Carolina and Idaho have all questioned whether the $787 billion bill signed into law this week will even help the economy.

[snip]

U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the No. 3 House Democrat, said the governors — some of whom are said to be eyeing White House bids in 2012 — are putting their own interests first.

"No community or constituent should be denied recovery assistance due to their governor's political ideology or political aspirations," Clyburn said Wednesday.

In fact, governors who reject some of the stimulus aid may find themselves overridden by their own legislatures because of language Clyburn included in the bill that allows lawmakers to accept the federal money even if their governors object.

He inserted the provision based on the early and vocal opposition to the stimulus plan by South Carolina's Republican governor, Mark Sanford. But it also means governors like Sanford and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal — a GOP up-and-comer often mentioned as a potential 2012 presidential candidate — can burnish their conservative credentials, knowing all the while that their legislatures can accept the money anyway.

Considering how the Con base is shrinking, it seems to me that's a fool's gamble. How easy will it be for challengers to annihilate them with "Governor X rejected the money that saved your house/kids/job" ads?

Meanwhile, the insanity in California just gets more insane:

Just to update everyone on the meltdown out here in California - last night the Republicans in the State Senate engineered a putsch, deposing their leader in the dead of night because he was insufficiently unconcerned about the welfare of the state.

Around 11 p.m., a group of GOP senators, unhappy with the higher taxes that Senate leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto agreed to as part of a deal with the governor and Democrats, voted to replace him in a private caucus meeting in Cogdill's office. Shortly before midnight, it was still unclear who would replace him.

Cogdill's ouster could be a major setback to budget negotiations. Cogdill was a lead negotiator on the budget package and had committed to voting for it. If he were removed from his leadership post, a new Senate minority leader would likely try to renegotiate the deal, which lawmakers spent three months forging.

This is what happens when you give Cons a 2/3 majority cudgel. And, as Paul Krugman sez:

Everyone should be paying attention to the political/fiscal catastrophe now unfolding in California. Years of neglect, followed by economic disaster — and with all reasonable responses blocked by a fanatical, irrational minority.

This could be America next.

Principled opposition is one thing. It's necessary and healthy in a democracy. But the obstructionism the Cons are engaging in isn't principled, it's just destructive and deadly dangerous. How much of the country do we let them destroy before we have them declared a danger to self and others and carted off to a nice, quiet room with deeply-padded walls, where they can be gently reintroduced to Mr. Reality while the rest of us fix all the stuff they broke during their psychotic rampage?

Where Are They Now? Con Comeuppance Edition

Time to catch up with a few of our favorite Cons and see how fortune is favoring them.

First up, we've got Jeff Frederick. When last we looked, Frederick was vying for the World Champion Wingnut Award by dissing Darwin, and making a twit of himself on Twitter. Alas, it appears his star has burned out too early:

Just days after being embroiled in Virginia's first Twitter-gate scandal, the chairman of the commonwealth's Republican Party is giving up his seat in the House of Delegates -- with one catch. He wants his wife to take his place. [snip] The saga continued Friday morning when he sent an e-mail to his constituents saying he wouldn't seek a fourth term. “For me, it has always been about serving -- not power or position -- and because God has opened up other doors for me, I am glad to be of service elsewhere,“ Frederick wrote. But while God is acting like WMATA, Frederick's own decision opened the door for his wife to take his place. She's not entirely sure she'll go for it, but already has a Web site, http://www.VoteAmy.com. Jeff Frederick's own Web site, VoteJeff.com, now redirects to a site with a big picture of his wife, as well with a message of, well, hope: "Jeff Frederick isn't running for re-election, but maybe we can elect another Frederick to the House of Delegates. Help Jeff convince Amy to run."

Because what Virginia needs is dynastic dumbfuckery.

You may wonder why Del. Frederick decided to bow out stage right. He'll tell you it's because he promised he wouldn't run again. Others may tell a different story, especially the Virginia GOP's abruptly former chief fundraiser, who had this to say in his calling-it-quits letter:

“Unfortunately the problems of structure, power projection, consultant interference, interpersonal difficulties, years of internal malaise, Luddite attitudes, leadership, and unity of purpose stand in the way of any hope of success,“ said Curt.

Ouch. Very ouch. And, of course, it gets better:

Kenneth Klinge, a former state GOP executive director who last fall urged Frederick’s removal, said the Curt resignation is a signal that Frederick’s chairmanship is short-lived.

“Good news comes in strange packages,“ said Klinge, adding, “How can you be weakened when you’re already a zero?“

Curt wrote of the GOP: “The organization is dysfunctional.“

Shiny happy people holding hands they are not. I can hardly wait for the end of this saga.

Time now for Cao. Hailed as the hero of the GOP when he first burst on the scene (OMG, a Vietnamese man, we have minority cred!!11!1!), temporarily appearing as an actual Republican with principles rather than a Con with nothing but ideology and a herd instinct, he raised our hopes high, and then dashed them by cravenly kowtowing to Cantor et al. Considering a heavily Democratic district elected him only because the alternative was a corrupt old bugger who kept mounds of cash in his freezer, an astute political observer might assume that voting the Con party line against his own constituents wasn't the wisest move - and that observer would be so right (h/t):

Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, the Vietnamese Republican who made a successful longshot bid for Congress in an overwhelmingly black and Democratic New Orleans district, is the subject of a recall petition filed by critics of his vote against President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package.

Rev. Aubry Wallace is the chairman of the recall effort. In a news release, he and Rev. Toris Young criticized Cao for twice voting against the stimulus bill, which Obama signed into law this week.

If Cao is indeed the future of the GOP, it's not a very bright one.

Speaking of things that aren't bright, I'm sure you all remember Sarah Palin. We left her stumped by a legislator's simple question on matters of governance, which, y'know, you kinda sorta expect a governor to be able to answer. I must preface the following by stating that she was not under consideration for a position in the Obama cabinet, tax woes notwithstanding (h/t):

Gov. Sarah Palin must pay income taxes on thousands of dollars in expense money she received while living at her Wasilla home, under a new determination by state officials. The governor's office wouldn't say this week how much she owes in back taxes for meal money, or whether she intends to continue to receive the per diem allowance. As of December, she was still charging the state for meals and incidentals.

This, of course, comes after the humilation of having to admit that your daughter's right about the futility of abstinence-only programs.

They say fortune favors the bold. It seems to favor boldly bashing wingnuts this week. Here's hoping this happy state of affairs continues.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Ladies and gentlemen, the future of the Republicon party:

Oddly enough, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was not only in over her head on the national stage, she's also struggling in Alaska.

A couple of weeks before the Alaska legislature began this year's session, a bipartisan group of state senators on a retreat a few hours from here invited Gov. Sarah Palin to join them. Accompanied by a retinue of advisers, she took a seat at one end of a conference table and listened passively as Gary Stevens, the president of the Alaska Senate, a former college history professor and a low-key Republican with a reputation for congeniality, expressed delight at her presence.

Would the governor, a smiling Stevens asked, like to share some of her plans and proposals for the coming legislative session?

Palin looked around the room and paused, according to several senators present. "I feel like you guys are always trying to put me on the spot," she said finally, as the room became silent.

Asking her to do her job is putting her "on the spot." And the Con base adores this woman. I don't have to say any more, now, do I?

Let's see if things are any better in Utah:

Last night, Utah’s local ABC station received leaked portions of an interview with state senator Chris Buttars (R), which will be highlighted in an upcoming documentary on Proposition 8. Buttars is an outspoken opponent of gay rights; in the latest interview, he compares gays to alcoholics and Muslim terrorists, and warns that gay people are “probably the greatest threat to America.” Some excerpts from the interview:

– To me, homosexuality will always be a sexual perversion. And you say that around here now and everybody goes nuts! But I don’t care.

– They say, I’m born that way. There’s some truth to that, in that some people are born with an attraction to alcohol.

– They’re mean! They want to talk about being nice — they’re the meanest buggers I ever seen. It’s just like the Moslems. Moslems are good people and their religion is anti-war. But it’s been taken over by the radical side. And the gays are totally taken over by the radical side.

– I believe that you will destroy the foundation of American society, because I believe the cornerstone of it is a man and a woman, the family. … And I believe that they’re, internally, they’re probably the greatest threat to America going down I know of. Yep, the radical gay movement.

Nope. Still white-hot stupid. National stage?

During the debate over the stimulus, President Obama accused his critics of wanting to “do nothing” about the economic crisis. Republicans complained that it wasn’t true. “I know of no Republican in the Congress of the United States who wants to do nothing,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) said. But with the focus now shifting to the credit and housing crises, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) (who led the opposition to the stimulus) is advocating a radical prescription of “allowing private markets to run their course” and let banks fail...

Dear, oh dear. That's a stupid two-fer. But at least they're the party of fiscal responsibility and iron-clad integrity, right?

Huff Post:

Rep. Cantor played a key role in getting bipartisan approval for the controversial $700 billion bank bailout bill in September, although since then he has been a vocal opponent of the surprising way the money is being spent: buying up stock in banks.

Still, it is one of those strange quirks in politics that $267 million of the money is going straight to a privately owned bank where Cantor's wife, Diana, is the managing director at a subsidiary. It's a job she apparently started early last year, after years in finance.

Cantor's people maintain that his wife and he did not even know that her employer was applying for a federal taxpayer bailout.

I guess he forgot to tell her all about it. I guess all that advice from Gingrich is paying off.

Utterly corrupt or jaw-droppingly clueless. I can't decide which is worse. Of course, they could be both...

But hey, they'll get to campaign on their opposition to the stimulus. Sure to be popular with the base, right?

We talked a week ago about the tax-cut provisions of the economic stimulus package, and how it turns out that President Obama proposed and passed one of the largest tax cuts in American history -- $282 billion over two years -- without Republican support.

I'm glad to see some others are picking up on this. Yesterday, Marc Ambinder noted:

Don't know if anybody has yet noticed in the Republican Party but President Obama was presented last week a major talking point for 2012.

He'll sign today one of the largest tax cuts in history.

In spite of the White House pointing this out to journalists, it is funny how little remarked-upon this is.

It's hard imagine we won't hear about this four years from now. And if that's not boxing a future Republican candidate in ahead of time, I don't know what is.

Chris Hayes had a similar observation.

On the politics side of the ledger, Ben Smith notes Obama's emphasis on the tax cuts in the bill. I'm not necessarily a fan, though politically it's true that every single Republican member of congress can now be accused of "Voting against the biggest tax cut in history" come next election." Clearly, this hasn't escaped the White House's notice.

I believe the technical term here is "up shit creek without a paddle." Which is probably why they're swimming for all they're worth just about now:

Last week, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) slammed President Obama’s recovery and reinvestment plan. “Hold on to your wallets folks because with the passage of this trillion-dollar baby the Democrats will be poised to spend as much as $3 trillion in your tax dollars,” Bond said. Unfortunately, this bill stimulates the debt, it stimulates the growth of government, but it doesn’t stimulate jobs,” Bond insisted.

However, today Bond is touring Missouri to tout the very stimulus plan he railed against. In a press release, Bond boasted about an amendment he included in the bill to provide more funding for affordable housing — and that will create jobs...

[snip]

Bond is not alone in trying to reap the political benefits both from voting against the bill and from bringing much needed funding to his district:

– Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), who complained that the “federal government is spending money they don’t have,” told Rachel Maddow he would nevertheless accept funds for Minnesota: “Our view is, if you buy the pizza, it’s OK if you have a slice.”

– Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who also campaigned ardently against the bill, said he would nevertheless gladly accept its funds for his state. “You don’t want to be crazy here,” he said.

– Rep. John Mica (R-FL) gushed over the bill, which he, too, voted against. “I applaud President Obama’s recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America’s future,” he said in a press release.

– Rep. Don Young (R-AK) boasted that he “won a victory for…Alaska small business owners” in the recovery bill he refused to vote for.

No wonder RNC Chairman Michael Steele declared recently, “You have absolutely no reason — none — to trust our word or our actions at this point.”

No kidding.

The Answer to a Very Good Question

Cujo359, the official Thinking Brain Dog of En Tequila Es Verdad, has an economic post up worth reading in its entirety. But I just want to focus on this bit here:

We were also the ones who allowed our manufacturing and services industries to be shipped overseas. Rather than fix the environmental problems with the semiconductor and steel industries, we let them be shipped elsewhere. The employment that created the highest-paying jobs for us working stiffs were shipped to countries that didn't bother to enforce employment laws, and took a dim view of labor unions. Now we know the answer to a question that's been on my mind for some time: How can an economy cast off its ability to make things, and instead live on ever-cleverer "financial instruments" and "intellectual property" to sustain itself?

The answer is now clear: It can't.

I remember asking myself this very question back in the '90s, when I was a crass, clueless college student. And I'd come up with the same answer. I was a little surprised when things took so long to tank.

So my new question is, if Thinking Brain Dogs and tequila-soaked economic amateurs could see this coming from over a decade back, why the fuck is it coming as such a surprise to our ruling class?

Oh. Right. Because they live in an alternate reality.

More States Confounded by Cons

California's not the only state held hostage by insane Con ideology. Kansas is staring down the barrel of their guns:

According to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D), it is up in the air currently as to whether or not government employees will receive a paycheck this Friday. Due to budgetary shortfalls and unexpected expenditures, there isn't enough money this week to make payroll.

In order to address this shortfall, legislators proposed an inter-governmental loan, a proposal blocked by the Republican majority. Sebelius called them "petty political games", but any reader here knows that it's just indicative of the systemic wingnuttery exhibited by Republicans across the country -- locally and nationally.

For ten years, Kansas has borrowed from unencumbered funds to close its budgetary gap in that dry spell before people pay their taxes. From the way I'm reading it, it's basically like withdrawing money from savings to keep food on the table until your bonus comes through, on which date you pay the money right back into your savings. It's been no problem until this year, which happens to be the year in which Cons are out of power but want to prove their potency, the economy is aspiring to repeat the gory days of the Great Depression, and people are losing their jobs in droves. Now, when the pantry's empty, the Cons want to tell Kansas to suck it up and starve.

These people are motherfucking beyond insane.

And it's not just California and Kansas. Louisiana's coming under fire, too:

Louisiana faces a possible $2 billion budget shortfall next year, and the state is being hit hard by unemployment. Yet Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), rumored to be a future presidential candidate, said this weekend that he may turn down the roughly $3.8 billion for the state in the economy recovery package, which is expected to create 50,000 jobs:

We’ll have to review each program, each new dollar to make sure that we understand what are the conditions, what are the strings and see whether it’s beneficial for Louisiana to use those dollars,” Jindal said.

You know what, you fucktard? I'll bet that 50,000 jobless people would find those dollars plenty beneficial for Louisiana. I can guaranfuckingtee you that the poor people whose services you'll slash to try to close that $2 billion gap would find those dollars beneficial. And those people in Cao's district, y'know, the ones he said this about:

“Even though it is going to be a humongous bill, even though we will be in debt for years, I believe that more likely than not, I will vote for it because the 2nd Congressional District needs a stimulus package.” … “A lot of the provisions in the bill will be good for the district, because we need almost everything,” he said. “You name it, we need it.”

and then stabbed in the back by voting with his party rather than his conscience, I'd imagine they'd find those dollars beneficial.

So how far does it go, America? How many of you are going to let the Cons con you again? How many jobs do you have to lose, how many state employees have to go without pay, how many schools and hospitals and vital services suffer, before you say enough?

Keep in mind the games they're playing with your lives when this next election cycle rolls around. Hand them a defeat to remember.

Right now, that looks like the only way any of us will get to keep our jobs...

Possibly the Greatest LOL Evah

Perfecto.

Quote o' the Day

This one rates a 9.9 on the Snark-o-Meter:

The biggest issue facing America today are San Francisco marsh mice. Especially the gay ones.

The sad thing is, this sounds rather like a direct quote from one of our current Cons in Congress...

Addendum: Ohforfuckssake.

Last Friday we were treated to the sight of Republicans self-righteously opposing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, as one after another, they denounced a non-existent mouse earmark.

And today the White House has released "state-specific details on the local impact" the bill will have across the nation.

So let's take a moment to remember that while Republicans were taking to the floor to rail against imaginary marsh mice, Democrats were taking action to jump start the economy, even for the luckless constituents of the rodent-obsessed. A few examples:

John Boehner (OH-08)

When you look at some of the spending in this bill, it will do nothing about creating jobs in America. Tell me spending $50 million for a mouse in San Francisco is going to help a struggling auto worker in Ohio?

Impact for OH-08: 7,400 jobs

Rep. Jack Kingston (GA-01)

Meanwhile out in San Francisco a rat is going to get $30 million in the so-called stimulus bill. Apparently it's a full employment bill for rats in the San Francisco Bay area ... Wait a minute. I just thought about it. That's why it's called a stimulus bill. It stimulates rats' activities so we can grow more rat families out in San Francisco.

Impact for GA-01: 7,500 jobs

And there's far more where that came from.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

When awards are handed out for Wingnuttiest Congressperson, Michelle Bachmann's got a damned good chance of taking the grand prize:

A friend passed along an item from the weekend, with an audio clip of Michele Bachmann chatting with a conservative talk-show host in Minnesota. In the ongoing debate as to which member of Congress is the single most ridiculous, this interview is very compelling evidence that Bachmann is, at a minimum, near the front of the pack.

The whole interview is about 13 minutes long, but it's worth listening to, if only to appreciate just how truly disturbed some far-right members of Congress have become.

Bachmann "explained" to the host and Minnesota audience:

* ACORN is "under federal indictment for voter fraud," but the stimulus bill nevertheless gives ACORN "$5 billion." (In reality, ACORN is not under federal indictment and isn't mentioned in the stimulus bill at all.)

* many members of Congress have "a real aversion to capitalism."

* the stimulus bill includes a measure to create a "rationing board" for health care, and after the bill becomes law, "your doctor will no longer be able to make your healthcare decisions with you."

* the recovery package is part of a Democratic conspiracy to "direct" funding away from Republican districts, so Democratic districts can "suck up" all federal funds. Bachmann doesn't think this will work because, as she put it, "We're running out of rich people in this country."

* the "Community-Organizer-in-Chief" is also orchestrating a conspiracy involving the Census Bureau, which the president will use to redraw congressional lines to keep Democrats in power for up to "40 years." When the host said he was confused, noting that congressional district lines are drawn at the state level, Bachmann said Obama's non-existent plan is an "anti-constitutional move."

There's no point in trying to fact-check such unhinged stupidity, but I should note that none of this is in anyway grounded in reality.

It seems that our Cons were standing behind the door when reality was handed out. That little space must've been rather crowded. Arizona's very own J.D. Hayworth was there, and from what I remember of him, he qualifies as two wingnuts all by himself. Here he is on Hardball, making an utter ass of himself as per usual:

Hayward [sic]: No, I'll tell you what was bad. The sneak attack on our economy, the dress rehearsal of Indy bank, when Chick Schumer helped get that started and the guy in the background George Soros manipulating all the currency.

Matthews: What?

Hayward [sic]: You want to keep that going?

Matthews: You mean the economic situation we faced right now...JD you can talk fast but I don't know what you're talking about.

Arizona has a hard time kicking out it's batshit insane reps, but they did a good job voting this assclown out the door. Like John Amato said:

Hayworth, the EX-Congressman from AZ. is the perfect example of what the Republican party is. They're a party of insane people parading around with the American flag draped around their shoulders while James Dobson whispers in their ears that gays are trying to destroy the world. Let them obstruct and perform like the sideshow---circus acts that they've become. Bring it on JD, you are the perfect messenger for a message-less and dangerous ideology.

So my question now is, why the fuck is this irrelevant fucktard on teevee? Entertainment value? But we've got so many other fucktarded Congresspeople who are currently serving to fill that role...

And it seems Americans are starting to get just a little bit tired of them:

On Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) attended the NBA All-Star game at US Airways Center in Phoenix, AZ. Though McCain “might be fan favorite during Phoenix Suns games,” he “didn’t receive a warm hometown welcome” when he was introduced at the game:

McCain, who’s held his seat in Arizona for 22 years, was greeted with a smattering of boos and hisses when introduced with wife, Cindy, during a break between the first and second quarter of the NBA All-Star game Sunday night.

I can't emphasize enough how unusual it is for John McCain to get booed in Arizona. Methinks the tactics Cons are so proud of themselves for employing are having the desired effect only in their dreams. Taking marching orders from Rush Limbaugh may win points with a frothing few, but the more rational people are taking a swift step back from the insanity.

How bad is it getting? Well, let's put it this way:

When do you know Rush Limbaugh has gone too far? When TV preacher Pat Robertson questions his rhetoric and judgment. (via Faiz Shakir)
Robertson told U.S. News that he wants to give President Obama "the benefit of every doubt, and I definitely hope he succeeds." Dan Gilgoff followed up, asking, "So, you don't subscribe to Rush Limbaugh's 'I hope he fails' school of thought?" Robertson responded:

"That was a terrible thing to say. I mean, he's the president of all the country. If he succeeds, the country succeeds. And if he doesn't, it hurts us all. Anybody who would pull against our president is not exactly thinking rationally."

I'm not at all accustomed to agreeing with Robertson. It's a strange feeling.

Indeed. And anyone turning to Bill O'Reilly as a potential voice of reason - at least compared to Rush - has another think coming:

The absurdity that is known as Bill O'Reilly continues to get more absurd with each passing day if you can believe that. C&L wrote about BillO's mean spirited attack on Helen Thomas after she asked a question that he deemed ridiculous to President Obama during his first national press conference. He called the plus-eighty year old Thomas a witch and an old woman.

He took so much heat for it that he lied about what he actually said: O'Reilly flat-out lies to defend calling Helen Thomas the 'wicked witch'

On Monday's Factor, he used an online poll that came from his own website which was voted on for the most part by his followers that said he shouldn't have to apologize to her by a 93-7% margin as some sort of rationalization that the PC police are dead. And then linked a completely irrelevant protest to make his case. No, seriously. He's delusional.

That's today's right. Too crazy even for the frothing fundies, and living in a self-created world where everything's juuust fine and everybody luuuves them, despite all evidence to the contrary.

It would be hysterically funny if it wasn't so damned pathetic...

What Is Eric Cantor Smoking?

Whatever it is, it must be some pretty powerful shit. Y'know, the kind of stuff that has you standing on a ledge on the 56th floor preparing to prove that while your hallucinations say you can fly, gravity and anatomy say otherwise.

Here we see him at a press conference in January 2008, bouncing on his toes, warming up for the leap:

Eric Cantor makes it clear that he is no friend to those Americans who are suffering:

Well, you know, there are some people in this economy who are really hurting. And if we're going to enhance their unemployment benefits, if we're going to increase their food stamp benefits, then let's call that what it is. That is enhancing the safety net in this country. That is not something that I think we should look to, to grow our economy and to secure the job prospects and the economic future for the American families.

Here he is, flapping his arms on Hannity and Colmes four days after the election:

Cantor also made this little slip on HANNITY & colmes:

MR. COLMES: Yeah. Wouldn't it be wise to hold your fire and stop looking for a reason to be critical until he actually takes office so you can actually work together before you criticize an administration which hasn't even taken hold yet, hasn't even entered office yet?

REP. CANTOR: Alan, Alan, Alan, I'm not criticizing. All I'm saying is we've had no indication that they're reaching across the aisle, taking some of our suggestions to try and make this thing real rather than some payoff to some workers that they feel that they need to provide some assistance to.

And on January 12th, we see his knees bending and his arms windmilling as he gets ready to take flight [h/t]:

Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican whip, said Republicans had concerns about expanding the [SCHIP] program, to immigrants or any other group, before the original purpose of the program was achieved. [emphasis added by moi]

“The program has not fulfilled its initial mission, to serve children of the working poor,” Mr. Cantor said in an interview.

Houston, we have lift-off:

Well, the new Newt Gingrich is at it again. Virginia Representative Eric Cantor, who takes "credit" for leading the House Republicans to unanimous opposition to the Obama Jobs Bill, now is "opposing" the plan to help prevent foreclosures:

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said that the Obama administration's yet-to-be-announced $50 billion plan to stem home foreclosures may only add to the country's fiscal and housing problems.

snip

"Homeowners, right now, are suffering under skyrocketing property taxes. And if we put the bill for $50 billion plus on top of all the bills that families have right now, you may very well be set to encourage more foreclosures," said Cantor.

The Hill: Cantor offers early criticism of Obama mortgage aid

If you don't have a home, you can't pay property taxes. And property taxes don't go to the federal government. Cantor knows that. Clearly he is being disingenuous.

That's one way to put it. I think I prefer the term "suicidally delusional," meself. Because, you see, it turns out that man really wasn't meant to fly:

The GOP senses an opening to attack Obama and the Democrats on the stimulus and future legislation as spending our nation cannot afford, which is of course ironic given that the Republicans signed off on President Bush’s doubling of our national deficit.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) previewed this line of attack today when criticized the upcoming mortage legislation on CBS today: "At some point, I think the people of this country are beginning to understand, who is going to pay for all of this?"

Do the numbers indicate that Americans are beginning to subscribe to Cantor’s philosophy?

No.

More Americans approved of former President Bush before he left office than of Congressional Republicans’ efforts regarding the passage of the stimulus bill, according to a Gallup poll conducted a week ago. [emphasis most emphatically added]

Poor Eric. That's gonna be a long, hard fall, with a rather messy landing at the end.

Cons Out to Destroy California

There's insanity, and then there's this:

It sounds as though California is finally melting down politically:

"The state of California -- its deficits ballooning, its lawmakers intransigent and its governor apparently bereft of allies or influence -- appears headed off the fiscal rails.

Since the fall, when lawmakers began trying to attack the gaps in the $143 billion budget that their earlier plan had not addressed, the state has fallen into deeper financial straits, with more bad news coming daily from Sacramento. The state, nearly out of cash, has laid off scores of workers and put hundreds more on unpaid furloughs. It has stopped paying counties and issuing income tax refunds and halted thousands of infrastructure projects.

Twenty-thousand layoff notices will go out on Tuesday morning, Matt David, the communications director for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Monday night. "In the absence of a budget we need to realize this savings and the process takes six months," Mr. David said.

After negotiating nonstop from Saturday afternoon until late Sunday night on a series of budget bills that would have closed a projected $41 billion deficit, state lawmakers failed to get enough votes to close the deal and adjourned. They returned to the Capitol on Monday morning and labored into the evening but still failed to reach a deal. They planned to reconvene at 10 a.m. Tuesday to go at it again.

California has also lost access to much of the credit markets, nearly unheard of among state municipal bond issuers. Recently, Standard & Poor's downgraded the state's bond rating to the lowest in the nation.

California's woes will almost certainly leave a jagged fiscal scar on the nation's most populous state, an outgrowth of the financial triptych of above-average unemployment, high foreclosure rates and plummeting tax revenues, and the state's unusual budgeting practices. (...)

The roots of California's inability to address its budget woes are statutory and political. The state, unlike most others, requires a two-thirds majority vote in the Legislature to pass budgets and tax increases. And its process for creating voter initiatives hamstrings the budget process by directing money for some programs while depriving others of cash.

In a Legislature dominated by Democrats, some of whom lean far to the left, leaders have been unable to gather enough support from Republican lawmakers, who tend on average to be more conservative than the majority of California's Republican voters and have unequivocally opposed all tax increases."

They need three (3) Republican votes in each house. They can't get them. And this despite the fact that the Republicans who have been negotiating have gotten a lot, including, according to the LATimes, "tax breaks for corporations".

Really. I am not making this up. With the state budget $41 billion in deficit, Republicans held out for corporate tax cuts, and then aren't even supporting the resulting bill.

What the Cons are doing to California is far beyond insane. They're holding a state hostage to their tax cut religion, and don't doubt they would do it to the nation if Washington worked by the same outlandish rules as California. They've completely broken with reality. Even Reagan faced up to facts and raised taxes, first on the state of California when he was governor, and then again as President. Today's Cons are so far round the bend they can't even follow the lead of their hero when their state and their nation are in desperate straits.

Robert in Monterey, who has been blogging the crisis at Caltics, pulls no punches in describing what they've become:

The Republican Party now exhibits the logic of a terrorist organization - willing to sacrifice anyone and everyone to their ideological purity. And it's worth noting that they themselves embrace that description, with one Republican Congressman equating their party to the Taliban. Rush Limbaugh says he wants Obama - and thus America - to fail; John and Ken and the California Republican Party are essentially saying the same thing about California.

Let the state fail, they say. Let all the schools close, all the health care workers be fired, all the buses and trains shut down, all the construction workers laid off. Let the economy collapse, because god forbid they step down from their ideological pedestals.

Republicans have become the party of no - no to economic recovery, no to fiscal stability, no to the very government they have sworn to uphold.

This is what comes of electing people who hate government and hate coastal California even more. The only question now is, what do we do to prevent them from destroying a nation?

How Right They Were

And, since I'm talking about Cons, you know I don't mean "correct."

David Waldman, the blogger formerly known as Kagro X, has compiled a series of Con quotes about Clinton's stimulus package. You know, the one that led to nearly a decade of prosperity. The Cons were just as Right then as they are now - and just as blindingly stupid.

A taste:

Rep. Robert Michel (R-IL), Los Angeles Times, 5/28/93:

They will remember who let loose this deadly virus into our economic bloodstream.

[snip]

Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA), 5/27/93:

This is really the Dr. Kevorkian plan for our economy.

[snip]

Rep. John Kasich (R-OH), GOP News Conference, Senate Gallery, 8/3/93:

Come next year... we're going to find out whether we have higher deficits, we're going to find out whether we have a slower economy, we're going to find out what's going to happen to interest rates, and it's our bet that this is a job killer.

Ah, yes. Total job killer:

And that deficit, oh dear:



Not to mention, y'know, the economy totally tanked:


And I'm sure they're just as Right this time.

The Ship Sails Yet - Get Aboard, Ye Elitist Bastards!

Captain Chaos ran afoul o' the dreaded Ship o' Life, and is limping to port to make repairs. But we'll be launching wi' yer Admiral at the helm. The HMS Elitist Bastard be sailing from her home port, En Tequila Es Verdad, on the 28th o' February. I wants a full crew, so get yer elitist bastardry aboard by Friday the 27th.

For any o' ye who've never sailed, but think ye might be Elitist Bastard enough to sign on, now's yer chance! Let's review the requirements:

1. Write a blog post that blasts ignorance or celebrates some aspect o' wisdom, or if ye be really ambitious, does both.

2. Post yer post.

3. Send us the link no later than the deadline, or ye be dead in the water.

Simplicity itself, innit? Which means no o' ye should be left sittin' on the docks when we sail. Admiral Dana be hatching a special plot, and none o' ye'll want to miss it.

(Post-dated to reach all o' my Elitist Bastards)

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

The Cons are just getting more and more surreal in their antics:

The House Republican Whips released a video this morning, bragging like conquering heroes about their unanimous rejection of the economic stimulus package last week. It's possible the GOP base will love it -- rocking out to "Back in the Saddle" while reading party talking points -- but I found it kind of embarrassing. As Jason Zengerle explained, "[I]t's basically a litany of every tired, failed GOP buzzword (from ACORN to golf carts), all set to the tune of ... Aerosmith.... [Y]ears from now, when historians are trying to sort out what went so terribly wrong with conservatism in the early twenty-first century, I really hope this little video doesn't get overlooked."

[snip]

"Back in the Saddle"? More like, "Dream on."
Indeed. I don't even know what to say. When we elect adults to national office, we expect them to act like adults - now we're getting a bunch of obstructionist dumbshits who make music videos celebrating their own stupidity. It's bizarre.

Former President Bill Clinton said it best:

On Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that President Obama is off to a bad start in part because Obama didn’t “sit down together” with Republicans (even though he did). Today, CNN asked President Clinton to respond to McCain, and Clinton ripped the GOP as being simply “automatic” in its opposition to Obama’s agenda:

CLINTON: [T]here’s 100 economic studies which show that you get a better return in terms of economic growth on extending unemployment benefits or investing money in energy conservation jobs to improve buildings than you do giving people in my income group a tax cut. But it doesn’t stop them. Those guys are on automatic. You punch a button and they give the answer they give you.

We could replace every Con in the House with a robot that just said "Tax Cuts!" in response to every argument and question, and get the same damned result.

And what the fuck is up with Eric Cantor trying to go all Churchill? The fuckwit doesn't even know what party Churchill belonged to:

Apparently, when the House Minority Whip isn't seeking guidance from Newt Gingrich, he's reading up on Winston Churchill.

...Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the House minority whip who led the fight to deny Obama every GOP vote for the plan, is studying Winston Churchill's role leading the Tories in the late 1930s, a principled minority that was eventually catapulted into power over the Labor Party.

There's no direct quote in the paragraph, so it's not clear who's misstating history, but Josh Marshall sets the record straight.

In the late 1930s, of course, Great Britain didn't have a Labour government with a principled Tory minority. It had conservative Tory government with a Labour minority. And Churchill was on the outs with both, although on some fronts he was beginning to make common cause with some Labourites on his key issue, which was foreign policy. When Churchill eventually came to power it was in a national coalition government for the purposes of fighting the war. And when he eventually went to the voters as head of the Tory party toward the end of the war they got crushed by Labour in a landslide.

I say all this as a big Churchill fan. But, I mean, not only is Eric Cantor no Winston Churchill, I'm not even sure he's read a book about Winston Churchill.

Myself, I'm not even sure he can read.

George Will certainly can't:

Looks like Fred Barnes isn't the only high-profile conservative columnist still arguing that climate change doesn't really exist.

Over the weekend, the Washington Post's George Will, got in on the act. And it took us about ten minutes -- longer, it appears, than the Post's editors spent -- to figure out that Will, like Barnes, was essentially making stuff up.

Both of Will's major "data points" fall apart after a moment's scrutiny.

Here's the first:

According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

But within hours of Will's column appearing, the ACRC had posted the following statement on its website:

We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined.

It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts.

So, nevermind then.

As for Will's second claim, he writes:

[A]ccording to the World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade.

This one is a little more complicated. But only a little.

Will's claim appears to come from a BBC News article from way back in April 2008, whose first version reported:

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

It's true that temperatures haven't risen since 1998, because that year was a particularly hot one. But as anyone with a high-school level grasp of statistics understands, you need to look at data over a broad period to get a realistic assessment of what's going on. In fact, the WMO itself made that very point in an "information note" that confirmed that the organization believes global warming is continuing, and pointed out that the last decade has been the warmest on record.

The WMO wrote:

The long-term upward trend of global warming, mostly driven by greenhouse gas emissions, is continuing. Global temperatures in 2008 are expected to be above the long-term average. The decade from 1998 to 2007 has been the warmest on record, and the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74C since the beginning of the 20th Century. [...] "For detecting climate change you should not look at any particular year, but instead examine the trends over a sufficiently long period of time. The current trend of temperature globally is very much indicative of warming," World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General, Mr Michel Jarraud said in response to media inquiries on current temperature "anomalies".

These fuckwits are illiterate on economic issues and climate change. But as far as sheer magnitude of dumbfuckery, they've got stiff competition coming from the Tennessee State House:

As is often the case, the line between Republican satire and Republican reality is often blurred -- some of the president's GOP detractors really are nuts. (via Mahablog)

Four Tennessee state representatives, all Republicans, have signed up to be plaintiffs in a lawsuit against President Barack Obama, aimed at forcing him to prove he is a United States citizen by coughing up his birth certificate.

Let me just say what all the world is now thinking, including their fellow Republicans on the Hill: This is dumber than a box of rocks.

Tennessee Reps. Eric Swafford, Stacey Campfield, Glen Casada and Frank Nicely now have a giant "G" on their foreheads for "Gullible." The four were so willing to drink the craziest flavor of Kool-Aid, they've gotten themselves caught up in a national urban legend that has been thoroughly debunked.

What's next? A resolution honoring the Easter Bunny for doing such a great job with the annual colored egg delivery system? A proposed law asking these four to prove they have a brain?

Apparently, some yahoo in California is filing another lawsuit challenging Obama's presidential eligibility. Some Republican lawmakers in the Volunteer State, including the GOP caucus chairman of the Tennessee House, are using their positions to not only endorse the baseless case, but also pledging to be plaintiffs in the litigation.

Once again, I am left speechless in the presence of awe-inspiring insanity. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you today's Republicon party: now with more lunacy.

Please oh please let the electorate be in the mood for cold, hard sanity in 2010.

Luskin Does Lucy

It's too bad I didn't visit Lucy's Legacy on the same day Casey Luskin did. Watching an IDiot ponder transitional fossils is almost as entertaining as watching Cons try to employ clever rhetoric. It's even more enjoyable when people who know what the fuck they're talking about get their hands on his burble and take him apart with gleeful precision:

I don’t know why I do it to myself. Perhaps I’m a glutton for punishment and frustration. Every so often, I’ll feel the need to go to one of those Intelligent Design/Creationism blogs and get myself all angry and riled up. This morning I went over to Evolution News and Views and saw that Casey Luskin has been to the Pacific Science Center’s Lucy exhibit, and he’s soooooo not impressed. That’s okay though, because I’m not impressed with his critique.

Luskin says,

The first thing my friends and I noticed when seeing Lucy’s bones was the incompleteness of her skeleton. Only 40% was found, and a significant percentage of the known bones are rib fragments. Very little useful material from Lucy’s skull was recovered. (This seems to be common: many of the replica skulls of early hominids at the exhibit were clearly based upon extremely fragmentary pieces.) And yet, Lucy still represents the most complete known hominid skeleton to date.

I’m not sure if this is just a confusion of terms or just glaring ignorance, but Lucy is not the most complete fossil hominid known to date. Meet Nariokotome Boy. If you’re looking for complete skulls, let me introduce you to the Taung Child, Little Foot, Mrs. Ples, or KNM-ER 406. Or, open a book and introduce yourself to any number of the other skeletons that are comparatively or more complete than Lucy.

A Primate of Modern Aspect goes on to utterly demolish him, but the fun doesn't end there. Afarensis gets his smackdown on:

In the second section Casey tries to cast doubt on the bipedality of Lucy by quoting from a News and Views article by Collard and Aiello. The Collard and Aiello article reports on a "letter" to Nature by Richmond and Strait called Evidence that humans evolved from a knuckle-walking ancestor. In that paper Richmond and Strait claim to do two things. First they provide evidence that Australopithecus anamensis and A. afarensis both share wrist morphology indicative of knuckle-walking. They then argue that knuckle-walking is a synapomorphy that links the African apes and humans. Once upon a time, and not all that long ago, the relationships between chimps, gorillas, and humans was considered an unresolved trichotomy. Quite a few people argued that chimps and gorillas were more closely related to each other than either was to humans. Others argued, based on morphological and genetic evidence, that chimps and humans were more closely related. Richmond and Strait's results took away a crucial piece of evidence for the gorilla-chimp clade. Casey, having "...studied about Lucy and other fossils..." doesn't mention any of this. Of course, if Lucy really is the commingled remains of who-knows-what as Casey argued above, then none of this matters and one has to wonder why Luskin goes futher. But he does. Says Casey:

Lucy did have a small, chimp-like head, but as Mark Collard and Leslie Aiello observe in Nature, much of the rest of the body of Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, was also "quite ape-like" with respect to its "relatively long and curved fingers, relatively long arms, and funnel-shaped chest."

Given that Luskin is dedicated to exposing the misreporting on evolution, I'm sure you will be shocked as I am to find that this is only kind-of sort-of what Collard and Aiello said:

The basic facts are not in dispute. A. afarensis has a combination of traits that is not seen among living primates. In some respects, A. afarensis is quite human-like (for instance in the foot structure, nonopposable big toe, and pelvis shape). In others, it is quite ape-like (relatively long and curved fingers, relatively long arms, and funnel-shaped chest).

My goodness. An IDiot twisting the scientific literature to suit his own purposes? Say it ain't so!

One day, for shits and giggles, I'm going to take a field trip to the Discovery Institute with a sack full of science journals and ask them for their peer-reviewed contributions to science. I'll ask for their original fieldwork, their dramatic finds, and Nobel Prize-winning research. They'll try to hand me Luskin's lunacy and Egnor's ignorance, because it's all they've got. And that's their only contribution: in being such ignorant fuckwits, they allow actual scientists to shine in the rebuttal.

I'm discovering that you can indeed learn a lot from a dummy, because the smart people have such fun taking them apart.

(George points us to Afarensis' follow-up, which is an excellent chaser.)

Cons Who Failed English 101

The blogger formerly known as Kagro X takes out Rep. Paul Broun's rampant dumbfuckery quite nicely, and I'll leave him to address the railing against imaginary mice, the tax cut tomfoolery, and the myriad other con canards that littered an otherwise eminently forgettable speech.

I'm a writer. Of course I'm going to zero in on the violence done to the common metaphor (metaporus metaphorus):

Madam Speaker, I stand here today because Americans face a fork in the road. One side leads to socialism and the other path leads to freedom. This nonstimulus bill is the road to socialism. It will give us a journey that includes bureaucratic controls, high taxes, government intervention, Cuba-style medicine and economic collapse of America. This steam roller of socialism is being shoved down our throats and it will strangle our economy. This porkulus bill has a few decent provisions in it but is mostly filled with mystery meat. Rancid meat. Like the millions for plug-in government cars and millions for mouse restoration, that will ruin the entire meal. The captivating rhetoric about openness and transparency is providing cover for the rancid meat.

(Excuse me. I seem to have fallen to the floor laughing, and I can't get up. Uno momento, por favor.)

What is it with Republicons and their inability to put together a coherent English sentence? They seems to have a disproportionate number of utter nimrods who, when called upon to speak with clarity and passion, end up with an incomprehensible babble in which only a few debunked talking points make it out alive, and then only just. It's pathetic.

Broun's metaphor isn't merely mixed. He seems to have dunked his hand in a bag of words, pulled a fistful out at random, dumped them in a blender, and set it to puree. We're left with the image of a rather large piece of road-building equipment with hands attempting to throttle the American economy whilst being energetically shoved down our collective throats by, one can only assume, a team of sumo wrestlers on steroids. Bring me the artist who can paint that, and I may just take up a second job to pay him for it. Such a painter would earn a place right alongside Picasso and Dali.

In order to be successful, a metaphor must be evocative. It must make sense. It can surprise, but it must not flummox. Only professionals should attempt to meld two disparate metaphorical elements into one: no one, under any circumstances whatsoever (except, of course, in comedic writing, and then only to be attempted by the reincarnation of Mark Twain), should ever attempt to meld three. And yet, here is Rep. Broun, visualizing socialism as a steamroller (apparently in a handy lozenge size) which, instead of being a thing that rolls, is a thing that is capable of being shoved down multiple throats at once (could it be a quantum steamroller?), and furthermore, rather than choking those whose throats it is shoved down, is possessed of appendeges which strangle their victim (whether from within or without is never made entirely clear). And we're supposed to be frightened by this image.

The only thing I'm afraid of is that I may need abdominal surgery to repair the damage once the last aftershock of laughter has died away. Somewhere, a geologist is measuring a 5.o on his Richter scale, and wondering what the fuck just happened.

Until we can arrange for some remedial English education, I do wish Cons would stop trying to be clever. It's funny, yes, but also tragic, and if it keeps up, the Queen's going to call us wanting her English back.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Let's have a little fun spanking an idiot Dem for a change, just by way of warming the Smack-o-Matic up:

It seemed like the story was just about over. Newly-appointed Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) had disclosed his ties to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), and Blagojevich has been impeached. Attention then shifted to the disgraced governor's criminal charges and Burris' plans for 2010.

But as it turns out, there's one more wrinkle.

Senator Roland W. Burris of Illinois acknowledged in documents made public Saturday that the brother of former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich sought campaign fund-raising help from him in the weeks and months before his appointment to succeed Barack Obama as the state's junior senator.

Mr. Burris said he provided no money to Governor Blagojevich's campaign in response to the brother's request.

The disclosure was different from Mr. Burris's earlier descriptions, including one under oath, of his conversations with those closest to the former governor. It raised new questions about events that preceded Mr. Burris's unusual appointment in late December and prompted some Republican lawmakers in Illinois to immediately demand an inquiry into whether Mr. Burris committed perjury.

Now, this isn't a pay-to-play problem. There's no evidence that Burris gave Blagojevich any money, or agreed to do any fundraising. Burris, at this point, isn't accused of any corruption. For the senator, that's the good news.

The bad news is, this new revelation is the third version of events relating to his contacts with the impeached governor, and yesterday's acknowledgement appears to flatly contradict what Burris told the Illinois House impeachment committee -- under oath.

Heh heh heh whoops. Who would've guessed that someone appointed by Rod "Flaming Corrupt Idiot" Blagojevich would be, how shall we put this, less than completely honest? I am, as they say, having a heart attack from not surprised.

This should provide plenty of entertainment for those moments when we want to enjoy something a little different than the usual oceans of Con stupidity.

Now that we've had that little interlude, it's back to the Cons in the studio, where they are - what else? being fucking ridiculous. Let's begin with John McLame, who is busy flapping his yap and having no trouble at all making himself look dumb as a bag of bricks:

John McCain tries his level best to look concerned for the plight of the average American while he bemoans that gosh, golly gee, the stimulus bill just wasn't bipartisan. That is why, of course, despite his home state of Arizona nearly topping the lists of foreclosures for the country, McCain couldn't bring himself to support the stimulus bill. But what makes his plaintive wailings all that much more amusing is that McCain actually whines about the....wait for it...tax cuts, that he admits have not worked in the past. You know, those tax cuts added to gain bipartisan support? They weren't bipartisan, according to Grumpy McSame.

But the point is, this bill was not bipartisan. It was -- it is incredibly expensive. It has hundreds of billions of dollars in projects which will not yield in jobs. Now, if you think we need to improve education, spend money for it, fine. But this was supposed to be a package that was going to create jobs. A lot of this package will not create jobs. A lot of the tax cuts we've tried before of just giving people some money, it hasn't changed the way that savings have been conducted by Americans. So I'm not happy--and most of us aren’t-- at the lack of true bipartisanship in approaching this legislation.

Are you kidding me? The utter hypocrisy is mind-blowing...and yet, McCain has the audacity to sit there with a look of deep regret and sincerity on his face as he spews complete tripe.

I must apologize to the bricks. At least they, in the hands of a skilled mason, be useful. And occasionally make sense. Can anyone please explain to John that the tax cuts he's bewailing are exactly what the Cons demanded, that providing money for education means creating construction jobs and ensuring teachers don't get the axe, and that the whole point of a stimulus bill is that the government spends a lot of money very fast?

You know what, never mind. I don't want to waste peoples' valuable time explaining things to a braindead idiot.

I wonder how much of it he gets from his good buddy Graham?

The Cult of Bipartisanship gets just a little nuttier.

Our "This Week" panel this morning got into a rousing debate over the stimulus bill, with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, S.C. and Rep. Peter King, N.Y., arguing the GOP was left out of the process.

"If I may say, if this is going to be bipartisanship, the country's screwed," Graham said.

I'm not even sure what this is supposed to mean.

[snip]

But the United States is "screwed" unless the failed minority party -- the one taking orders from Rush Limbaugh and comparing itself to the Taliban as a model for insurgency -- gets to help shape legislation even more in the future? Please.

They're Cons. The sky is always falling in their world.

And right now, they're shit-scared Norm Coleman won't be able to snooker the courts into stealing victory away from that icky Al Franken:

The Politico tells us what we already know, but which most of the mainstream press won't mention -- namely, that Norm Coleman is pursuing his doomed challenge to Al Franken's being seated as our newest Senator because the national Republican Party has ordered him to do so come hell or high water. NRSC fundraisers are being held constantly to feed the maw of Norm's hundred-lawyer machine; Mitch McConnell's already maxed out at $10,000 to Norm, and other Republican Senators aren't far behind.

Even Republican House members like Bawlin' John Boehner are said to be throwing thousands of dollars at Norm's lawyers -- because if President Obama can get a big thing like the stimulus package through with only 58 Democrats, imagine how much easier his job gets when he has 59 of them?

But in the end, all the Republicans are doing is delaying the inevitable -- and their ability to do so just suffered several major blows.

Read the rest if you'd like to know just how fucked Norm Coleman's chances are. For those of you with busy lives, the answer is: really, really, very fucked. And so, as long as Burris doesn't go down in sudden flames (and really, what's a little perjury between Senators, eh?), the Dems will get their 59, and the Cons will need to change their Depends.

I love this stuff.

Oh, and California? You may want to spend the next election cycle cleaning your House while you've still got one:

Digby mentioned the enormous corporate tax cut embedded in the California budget deal, the only permanent tax change in the whole bill. She didn't mention that the deal actually hadn't been secured. For some insane reason, they announced the "deal" before getting the votes, which only empowered the few Republicans needed for passage. So there was an all-night session, on Valentine's Day, which ended up falling one vote short in the State Senate. In between we were treated with much hilarity, including the GOoPers in the State Assembly trying to oust their Minority Leader for daring to even put together this deal, and then the ringleader resigining his Minority Whip position in protest. The key vote in the Senate objected to any money being used for children's health programs and ultimately torpedoed the deal on those grounds. Despite the fact that there was this huge corporate tax cut, and worse, a hard spending cap which would really drown state government in the bathtub, Republicans couldn't abide what were essentially flat or even regressive tax increases. Brian Leubitz pretty much sums it up:

This process has been a disaster. The worst of everything that we've been going through for months, even years, with the Republicans. This is a fancy stick-up, with a patina of legitimacy. Who knows if a deal will be reached, but at this point there can be no question from the High Broderists who caused this. Every newspaper, every television station, every radio station should do what the Media News group did and call out the Republicans for their stickup of the state.

So now the state will get a lot of stimulus money that they probably can't even use because they don't have the cash reserves. The education cuts, most of which have to happen by March 15 to prepare for the next school year, will come down hard, maybe harder than necessary. Welfare recipients and students and those expecting a tax refund won't get their money. And the state will spiral downward, cutting against any upward movement from the stimulus.

People who don't know how to govern and believe a tax cut is the solution to every problem should not be allowed to govern. Period.

Sunday Sensational Science

Lucy's Legacy



Lucy got us on our feet and thinking.

That's no small thing, although she was tiny - about the size of a seven year-old. She was a big deal here in Seattle this Valentine's Day, when a passel of people walked over to see her at the Pacific Science Center, and got to thinking about her legacy. I'll have a lot more to say about her in a future installment. For now, we're going to take a photo journey through the pieces of our past the exhibit touched on.

The exhibit has a replica of the Laetoli Footprints. 3.6 million years ago, some of Lucy's kin, Australopithecus afarensis, walked through volcanic ash, and left us a record of their bipedal meanderings. There's something extraordinary in seeing the footsteps of those who walked before us. Bipedal posture seems so uniquely human that it leaves an immediate impression. Other becomes us in an instant. Suddenly, you can picture yourself walking side-by-side with a little ape-like ancestor who wouldn't have to strain her back to hold your hand. There's something special in that. It brings paleoanthropology alive.


Lucy almost wasn't found. When you see fossils in a museum, they're already extracted from their rock matrix, easy to see, sometimes stained dark. You begin to think that the dark brown patina is the actual color, but fossils are products of their surroundings, and blend in. And if it wasn't for the instincts of a sharp-eyed paleontologist, Lucy wouldn't be here in Seattle today:

Then, on the morning of November 24, 1974,^[3] near the Awash River, Johanson abandoned a plan to update his field notes and joined graduate student, Tom Gray from Texas State, in taking their Land Rover to Locality 162 to search for bone fossils.^[9] Both Johanson and Gray spent a couple of hours on the increasingly hot arid plains, surveying the dusty terrain, then Johanson decided on a hunch to make a small detour on their way back to the Land Rover to look at the bottom of a small gulley that had been checked at least twice before by other workers. At first sight there was virtually no bone in the gulley, but as they turned to leave, a fossil caught Johanson's eye; an arm bone fragment lying on the slope.

That was Lucy, shining in the sun.


In the end, they discovered 40% of her, an incredible find. She remains one of the most complete ancient hominid skeletons ever found, and she's taught us a lot about how we came to be us.

"She occupies a pivotal place on the human family tree," said Donald Johanson, the American paleoanthropologist who, with his colleagues, discovered the fossil in 1974 near the northern Ethiopian community of Hadar. "We now know that one of the first significant things our ancestors did was to stand up, to walk on two feet instead of four."

The exhibit helps resolve a debate that's been raging since well before I was born: was it the brain or the bipedalism that came first? Lucy says we got on our own two feet before we started on the big brain portion of our program. Below, you'll see a chart showing the brain sizes of many of our ancestors and close cousins. Lucy's posture wasn't terribly different from ours, but her brain capacity certainly was. A modern human boasts a cranial capacity of about 1100-1700 cc. Hers would have been between 375-500 cc. Einstein she wasn't - at least, not compared to us.










Upright posture, it seems, came first, freeing our hands for other tasks. And those free hands got busy manipulating the world, which helped lead to bigger and bigger brains.

I wasn't thinking all that much about brains, although I'd had my fun with the display of water bottles that could be flipped upside-down to drain into the skulls of a chimpanzee, A. afarensis, and homo sapiens. It's the knees that caught my attention. I didn't know a damned thing about knee angles until I saw a display up against the wall demonstrating what upright posture does to the shape of the knee. It's fascinating:

Femurs of upright walkers and ape

Leg of ape Quadrupedal animals like apes, have femurs in which the ball joint, the part that joins the pelvis, sits directly over the inside of the knee. The angle subtended by the femur at the knee in quadrupedal walkers is less than that of bipedal walkers.

Leg of Australopithecus afarensis This diagram shows the femur with the same shape and structure as that of modern humans, but it is a little shorter. It subtends the same angle at the knee as that of a modern human and the inner bump of the knee joint is larger than the outer one. This shows that this hominin was also a bipedal walker.

Leg of modern human This modern Homo sapiens bone shows the structure of the femur of an upright walker or bipedal animal. The ball joint, the part that joins the pelvis, sits directly over the outside of the knee. The angle subtended by the femur at the knee in bipedal walkers is greater than that of quadrupedal walkers. This results in the inner bump of the knee joint being longer than the outer bump.

Pretty amazing, isn't that just?

That posture does interesting things to the pelvis. And hers looks remarkably like one of ours, aside from not having to be so wide to accommodate big-brained babies. You can see the similarity in the picture at right:

Comparison of three female pelves over the course of the last three million years. The pelvis of "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis, around 3.2 million years old) on the left, the new Gona pelvis (Homo erectus, about 1.2-1.3 million years old) in the middle, and a modern human female (Homo sapiens) on the right.

That's a spectacularly clear evolutionary progression right there, isn't it just? It's really hard to stare at Lucy's hips, pelvis and knees without being dumbstruck by the similarities.

But that's nothing compared to walking up a long, sloping corridor filled with hominid skulls, and realizing that some of these folks would've looked a lot like us.


Kneeling down, looking in the eye sockets of some of those skulls, seeing the shapes become so close to our own, gave me an eerie thrill. I could see the sutures in a Neanderthal's skull. I could see the softening of the brow ridges as time went on, the increase in brain size, the changes in cheeks and jaw. We think of our ancestors and cousins as ape-like brutes, but a lot of them, like Neanderthal, were nearly identical. Seeing those skulls all lined up makes you realize how close we are to where we came from.

And, strangely enough, little Lucy's skull, chimp-like as it is, also has some incredibly human features. Her jaw, her teeth, aren't as different from us as you might expect.

There's a sculpture of her there, nearly the first thing you see when you walk into the room where her bones lie spotlit in the dark. She stares over her shoulder, almost coquettish, and utterly adorable. This image to the right was taken at a bad angle - it doesn't capture the slight smile, the serene joy in her expression. She's definitely an ape, still, but she strongly foreshadows the humans to come.

It's a delightful sculpture that makes Lucy more than just a collection of remarkable bones. You want to slip your hand into hers, let her tug you into her world. You get the feeling that the two of you would relate on a level a little closer than humans and chimps. She has a lot to tell us, and in a way, it's too bad that all we can listen to are her bones.

But what incredible bones they are.






The first thing that strikes you is how small they are. The rib bones are no wider than my finger. Her vertebrae are tiny. And her pelvis is a delicate, beautifully curved structure that doesn't look strong enough to bear an upright body. She was under four feet tall, which is a bit of a jolt when compared to the size of her legend.

The second thing you notice is her pallor. The bones are a silvery-tan, with only hints of darker brown here and there, almost shimmering against the stark black of the case they have her in. It's incredible that those pale bones were ever found in the pale dust of the Ethiopian desert.

It does inspire awe, gazing down at bones that are nearly four million years old, that have so many human characteristics that the ape-like ones fade into the background. Even an amateur like me can see how much she had to say about who we are, what we were, and how we got from there to here.

She's an inspiration. She's glorious. She's earned both of her names: Dinkenesh, which means "Wonderful one," and Lucy - because, for all that she's lying under glass in a museum, it truly seems she is "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

Go see her, should you get the chance. She'll tell you something wonderful.

Spare Us

George sent me a link to a damned good question, asked by Cortunix: Why would anyone still take Republicans seriously at this day and age? This in turn leads us to Joseph Palermo's exasperated plea, which I would like to echo:

Republicans: Spare Me Your Newfound “Fiscal Responsibility”

At his press conference on Monday, President Barack Obama had to remind Mara Liasson of Fox News and NPR that it was the Republicans who doubled the national debt over the past eight years and it’s a little strange to be hearing lectures from them now about how to be fiscally responsible. That interchange was my favorite part of the press conference. A savvy inside-the-Beltway reporter of Ms. Liasson’s caliber shouldn’t have to be reminded that George W. Bush and the Republican Congress were among the most fiscally reckless politicians in U.S. history.

The most inexcusable action the Republican Congress and the Bush administration took vis-à-vis the federal budget was to launch two wars and two open-ended occupations without raising one dime in revenues to pay for them. Never in the history of this country has an administration and Congress cut taxes while launching open-ended wars.

Bush and the Republican Congress didn’t think twice before throwing the entire $850 billion price tag for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars right onto the national debt. Not only did they refuse to pass new “revenue enhancements” to pay for the wars, but they also fought tooth and nail to block any legislation that would raise revenues. They didn’t budge an inch on repealing the totally irresponsible Bush tax cuts of 2001 that immediately ballooned the deficit before 9-11. Any “conservative” administration and Congress (one would think) would either raise taxes to pay for their new wars or at least roll back the tax cuts they enacted upon seizing power. In 2008, John McCain campaigned on making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

So pardon me for not being moved when I hear Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Jon Kyl, Lindsey Graham, John Boehner, and other Washington Republicans (along with the Right’s echo chamber) whining and griping about the “excessive spending” in the stimulus bill and the effects it will have on the national debt.

Noooo shit.

Hey, Cons - try to wrap your infinitesimal minds around this number:

That's how much credibility you have.

Things I Learn About Myself at the Pacific Science Center

Every time I drop by the Pacific Science Center, I learn new things about meself.

Today, I discovered I could hit my target weight immediately by moving to Saturn.

Madegascar hissing cockroaches don't give me the creeps. Much.

And I've gots to get me that globe filled with rheoscopic fluid that demonstrates the atmospheric turbulence on gas giants like Jupiter. I thought the flat disc full of the stuff was teh awesome, but it's merely nifty compared to a globe of it. And guess what? You can at least get balls of the stuff for $6.95 at stevespanglerscience.com. If anyone knows where to find an empty clear plastic globe on a stand, let me know.

I'm a sucker for fluid turbulence, and I didn't even know it till now...

This is why communities need science centers. Getting your hands on stuff, getting to play and explore, seeing something new or something old in a new way, is enormously enriching as well as entertaining.

The floor is open, my darlings. Tell me what you learn about yourselves when you go play in the fields o' science.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

The next time someone tries to tell you how much Cons care for their country and the common man, point them here. Show folks just how much they put the nation before their own interests:

Rush Limbaugh caused a bit of a stir about a month ago, when he told his audience, "I disagree fervently with the people on our [Republican] side of the aisle who have caved and who say, 'Well, I hope [President Obama] succeeds.' ... I hope Obama fails. Somebody's gotta say it."

The right-wing host went on a similar tirade yesterday when talking about the economic recovery package: "I want everything he's doing to fail... I want the stimulus package to fail.... I do not want this to succeed."

[snip]

Similar sentiments are even found coming from members of Congress. Take Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), best known for getting caught in a prostitution scandal, talking to a Federalist Society gathering this week.

According to Vitter, the GOP is basically betting the farm that the stimulus package is going to fail, and the party wants Democrats to go down with it. "Our next goal is to make President Obama and liberal Democrats in Congress own it completely," he said. Instead of coming up with serious measures to save the economy, the party intends to devote its time to an "we told you so" agenda that will include GOP-only hearings on the bill's impact in the coming months to highlight the bill's purportedly wasteful elements and shortcomings.

While Vitter seemed to think this was a brilliant new political tactic, voters might be less enthusiastic than Federalist Society members about politicians who spend the next 18 months rooting for the economy to get worse, just to prove a point.

You think maybe? These fuckwits would prefer to have America crash and burn than change their direction.

And they'll use desperation to hold guns to our heads:

I gotcher disaster capitalism for yah, right heah:

The average Californian's taxes would shoot up five different ways in the state budget blueprint that lawmakers hope to vote on this weekend. But the bipartisan plan for wiping out the state's giant deficit isn't so bad for large corporations, many of which would receive a permanent windfall.

About $1 billion in corporate tax breaks -- directed mostly at multi-state and multinational companies -- is tucked into the proposal. Opponents say the breaks will do nothing to create jobs, and the Legislature has rejected such moves repeatedly in the past. But now, to secure enough Republican votes to pass a budget that would raise taxes on everyone else, the Legislature is poised to write them into law with no public hearings at a time when the state treasury is almost out of cash.

[snip]

"This is a pure giveaway for the vast majority of corporations that will benefit," said Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Assn., a union-backed nonprofit. "They will walk away with a great deal of money at everybody else's expense."

[snip]

Conservatism has been stripped of everything but its essence --- cheap thugishness. I honestly can't remember a time in the last 30 years when they weren't holding a gun to the states' head no matter what the economic climate. If times are good they have to cut taxes. If times are bad they have to cut taxes. It's no wonder that the regular folks decided they shouldn't have to pay taxes either.

It doesn't matter to them that their ideology has failed in every conceivable way. It bothers them not one wit that their ideology could destroy the country.

And their thuggery gets turned on their own if any sign of heresy is detected:

Earlier this week, New Orleans’ freshman congressman Joseph Cao (R) stated that he would vote for the economic recovery package. “I believe that more likely than not, I will vote for it because the 2nd Congressional District needs a stimulus package,” he said. Even on the day of the vote, Cao was telling reporters that he was “leaning yes.”

When the vote occurred yesterday, Cao voted no, succumbing to the GOP’s pressure tactics. Politico reports:

Beforehand, Cao acknowledged that Republican leaders had put “pressure” on him to oppose the package, and the party’s chief deputy whip, California Rep. Kevin O. McCarthy, stood near Cao during the entire vote.

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), the Republican whip, “said he had talked to Cao regularly, including the last 24 hours.”

[snip]

Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said Cao’s hopes for winning a second term depended on “people in the district identifying him as a thoroughly independent person who is not in the thrall of the Republican leadership. Now anyone running against him can say, ‘He’s a Republican mouthpiece.’”

So they've fucked the citizens of Louisiana and they've fucked a member of their own party, but by god they got a unanimous no vote against the stimulus. Now they strut and brag and pray for the Dems to fail, because only catastrophic failure could possibly make them look palatable to voters again.

You may admire them for standing on principle, but that admiration would be sorely misplaced. Now that the stimulus has passed despite their obstruction, they can't get their hands out fast enough:

What is at least a little surprising, though, is seeing some of the same Republicans who rejected the package issue press releases touting the spending measures in their districts.

Rep. John Mica was gushing after the House of Representatives voted Friday to pass the big stimulus plan.

"I applaud President Obama's recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America's future," the Florida Republican beamed in a press release.

Yet Mica had just joined every other GOP House member in voting against the $787.2 billion economic recovery plan.... Mica wasn't alone in touting what he saw as the bill's virtues.

To be fair, it's hard to say just how common this was yesterday; the McClatchy article only points to a couple of examples of the GOP hypocrisy.

But it's nevertheless amusing. In Mica's press release about the stimulus package, for example, he not only applauded the spending for his district, he neglected to mention altogether that he opposed the bill. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who also issued a press release claiming "victory" for an Alaskan contracting program in the bill, also failed to mention that he voted against the measure that he's so excited about.

These people are obscene.

Cons are betting voters won't remember their fuckery come election day, but if the past two cycles and the fact that Cons are doubling down on all of the things that got them trounced the last two times are any indication, the American electorate has a better memory than they think.

And don't be surprised if the electorate's not in a forgiving mood, either.

Subsidizing the Rape Culture

So, abstinence-only programs. We know they don't work for shit, but did you know they promote a culture of rape? Indeed they do:

The Ohio program is Abstinence ‘Till Marriage, which started receiving annual CBAE grants of $600,000 in 2006 (set to run until 2011). On their "Miss the Mess" website, you can enter the "Party Room", where you learn the story of Rochelle, Jason, Monica and Tanner. Each person tells their perspective about what happens during and after a party one night.

Rochelle tells how she drove her drunken friend Jason home after the party, and then is raped by him. Jason denies that the rape happened, saying their sex was consensual. Monica and Tanner observe that Jason was being a drunken idiot the entire night, with Monica (Jason’s ex) adding her opinion that Rochelle has a reputation for "putting out" and being a "slut".

The site then asks the question: "Based on all accounts, whose story sounds the least credible?"

Guess who is the "correct" answer? Rochelle.

Why, you ask? Because she "made several questionable decisions", "she had a motive to lie" and, lest we forget, "she’s been pinned reputation (sic) for being ‘loose’"

It’s hard not to overemphasize the sickness in this "correct" answer. Rochelle is not be believed. After all, she drove in a car with a boy. And she’s actually had sex before, or at least people say that she has, which is apparently the same thing and equally worthy of disbelief after you’ve been raped.

[snip]

The site then goes a step further, adding a degree of sympathy for the actions of the rapist:

"Also, alcohol makes people less inhibitive. Jason was extremely vulnerable to his circumstances".

Vulnerable? Less inhibitive? What exactly are they saying here, that rape is a "less inhibitive" behavior? That alcohol made poor Jason "vulnerable" to being a sick rapist asshole? Seriously, I’d like to know what the hell their point is on this one.

Perhaps the sickest aspect of this organization and their website is the fact that our tax dollars are funding it. To date, they have received $1.8 million dollars, and are set to receive another $1.8 million in the next three years. Yes, we are subsidizing rape culture. And this is just one example of the many ridiculous abstinence-only until marriage sex education programs that we have wasted $1.5 billion in federal money on in the last decade.

The blame-the-victim, excuse-the-rapist mentality both amuses and horrifies me. Amuses, because it's precisely how the fucktards who believe in abstinence until marriage think, and it's darkly funny to see that attitude enshrined in their Q & A. So much for their superior morals.

But it's truly, truly sick and outrageous that kids who don't yet know any better are being taught that if you're drunk and the girl you're with has a reputation as a slut, it's perfectly fine to force yourself on her.

I can see I'm going to have to start talking. In order to get the attention of the fuckwits responsible for this criminal drivel, I'd like to begin by placing their balls in a vise and ensuring it's very snug. Then I can explain to them that the anxiety, fear, humiliation and pain they feel is but a patch on what a rape victim feels while some asshole forces himself on her.

And then, giving the vise a few more good turns, I'd explain what comes next. If the victim is strong enough to prosecute, she's in for a hell worse for the rape. Because what happens is, you're dragged into court, where you have to stare at the man who brutalized you while his attorney attempts to place all of the blame squarely on you. The rapist's friends, who in a situation like the above were probably your friends as well, will spread rumors and lies and do everything they can to slander you because they can't believe that their very own friend is a sexually violent son of a bitch. All of this gets added to your already heavy load of second-guessing, self-loathing, and terror.

The culture that these insane freaks are promoting makes that a thousand times worse. It justifies it all. It encourages the victim to shut the fuck up and put out, because everything that happens is her fault and hers alone. It lets the rapist strut around like a stud, because hey, it was the alcohol. Or the testosterone. Or it's just what guys do. And the victim knows that in that culture, there's nothing she can do to fight back.

This is the point at which, in order to demonstrate how it feels to be a woman in this scenario, I give the vise a final turn, with graphic results that shall not be described here but which I'm sure the male members of the audience will have no trouble imagining. And even then, I'm understating the case.

Women have fought a long, hard, bitter battle to get to a point where even a fraction of us feel that sexual violence against us is never justified, and that it's okay to step forward, that if we cry for justice, it might just be given. I for one am not willing to return to the dark ages.

So please, with all due haste, send Obama this message today: ZERO OUT ABSTINENCE-ONLY SEX EDUCATION FUNDING.

Don't make Dana come to your door with a vise and a story to tell.

Can We Dig to the Bottom of Human Stupidity?

In reference to a neocon doofus whose idea of "civil disobedience" is to refuse to engage in what she calls "the crypto-fascist hand jive" (known to sane people as a simple dap or fist jab) and carefully turning magazine covers so they don't show Obama's face, Ed Brayton writes this:

Some day I hope to find a bottom to human stupidity. It appears that will require more digging.

No kidding. One needs a backhoe for this work, especially when the leader of the Virginia GOP disses Darwin:



Steve Benen partially transcribes if you prefer your pain at one remove:

First, paying tribute to Lincoln, Frederick explained, "Abraham Lincoln is best know [sic], as you all well know, for freeing the slaves by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation affirming in his Gettyburg [sic] Address in 19, I'm sorry, 1863...."

From there, the state party chairman and state delegate, told the legislature, "Darwin, however, is best known for the theory of evolution, arguing that men are not only, quote, are only, not, not created, but they are not equal, as some are more evolved."

That, I admit, is some pretty high-grade dumbshittery. But personally, my favorite bit of this sea of idiocy was when he said, "Whereas Darwin's theory was used by atheists to explain away the belief in god, the last Act of Congress signed by Abraham Lincoln, before he was shot, was to place the phrase 'In God We Trust' on our national coin."

You know what a driving force Lincoln was behind that effort? He signed the Act. He had about as much to do with our inane national motto as Darwin did with what uses other people chose to put his theory to. From this, as well as his sneering at evolution, we can conclude that Del. Frederick is an ignorant nutbag.

No bottom to human stupidity yet. Let us keep digging:

Now that the Democratic press conference is over, it's Amateur Hour!

Boehner derides the bill as costing a billion dollars a page.
Compared to Paulson's billion dollars a word ransom note that is pretty damn good.
But somehow more is less with these guys.

He claims the bill won't work.
He claims their solution would have been better.
He is adamantly opposed to it.

He also claims that no one has read the bill.

Anyone notice the non sequitor?

They just prove that Mark Twain was right when he said:

People who don't read have no advantage over people who can't.

Lawmakers deriding a bill they haven't read. They haven't read it, but they absolutely know it won't work. How the fuck do they know? They're so ignorant about it that they've been busy bleating about mouse money that doesn't exist, which they'd know didn't exist - if they'd read the damned bill.

Certainly no bottom to human stupidity there, although I'm not surprised - our Cons have always seemed bottomless fonts of dumbassery to me. I do believe Rep. Louise Slaughter sees them the same way, considering how exasperated she sounds debunking their little but-nobody-was-bipartisan-with-us! tantrums:

They are being disingenuous, or worse. These are the facts:

The bill, as it came to the Rules Committee, the last stop before the floor vote, already incorporated 12 Republican amendments. The Rules Committee then added the 11 amendments: 6 Democratic and 5 Republican, in addition to a complete Republican substitute, and a motion to recommit. They were unable to muster the votes necessary and lost on bipartisan votes. House Republicans may have come together to vote against the final bill, but they split on their own amendments with 40 to 60 Republicans voting with Democrats. Some Republicans even voted against their party’s alternative bill, and it failed on the floor.

The Republican alternative didn’t have a final price tag, consisted entirely of tax cuts, and would actually raise taxes for 26 million American families. In two years, the Democratic bill would create 3.6 million jobs. The Republican substitute: 1.2 million – a third as many as the Democratic bill that passed the House.

President Obama even met with House Republicans more times in two weeks to discuss this legislation than President Bush did with House Democrats in two terms.

The Republicans were certainly allowed in the process, but they wanted to obstruct.

Yup. Bottomless. Let's dig elsewhere, then:

Prominent fundamentalist Christian leaders with deep ties to the Republican Party have, over the years, generally rejected the notion of being "politically correct." It's ironic, then, that they've decided "religious right" doesn't sound good, and they'd prefer we stop using it.

Gary Bauer said this week, "There is an ongoing battle for the vocabulary of our debate. It amazes me how often in public discourse really pejorative phrases are used, like the 'American Taliban,' 'fundamentalists,' 'Christian fascists,' and 'extreme Religious Right.'"

A Focus on the Family official added that the "religious right" label might generate negative impressions: "Terms like 'Religious Right' have been traditionally used in a pejorative way to suggest extremism. The phrase 'socially conservative evangelicals' is not very exciting, but that's certainly the way to do it."

This is pretty silly. The religious right is an established political movement, and the phrase has been common for decades. I can appreciate the fact that people like James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and their followers would blanch at labels like "American Taliban," but "religious right" is clearly (and deliberately) bland.

If the movement's leaders believe "religious right" has become synonymous with extremism and hatred, perhaps the movement should be less extreme and hateful.

[snip]

We're not talking about a branding problem here. These clowns have become publicly reviled because they embrace a radical worldview, starkly at odd with American traditions, laws, and culture.

What the fuck is it with people thinking a name change will solve everything this week? First it's Blackwater, now the raving right. This is right up there with our own local buffoon Dino Rossi thinking he was oh-so-clever by saying he "prefers GOP party" rather than calling himself the Con he is. They think they're oh-so-sneaky, but while it's impossible to dig to the bottom of human stupidity, just enough Americans are wise to name-games.

Sod this for a game of larks. Digging for the bottom of human stupidity is a fool's errand. Myself, I shall do the smart thing: sit back, pour me a drink, point and laugh.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

It's going to be fun in 2010 to remind Americans who would have been jobless without the stimulus just who voted to keep them unemployed:

Just moments ago, the House passed the economic stimulus bill, 246 to 183. Seven Democrats joined the Republicans in opposing the bill.

And how many Republicans broke ranks to support the package? Just 48 hours ago, the Politico reported, "It's now expected that as many as 20 or more Republicans could break ranks to back the president." But today, not even one House Republican voted for the legislation.

No, not even Rep. Cao, who yesterday was burbling about how his district needed the money desperately. What happened, Mr. Cao? Did the Cons beat you up in the bathroom, or did your district win the lottery?

Maybe the toy mouse overwhelmed his conscience:

As I noted here yesterday, the Nancy Pelosi team is blasting as a “total fabrication” the claim by conservatives that there’s $30 million in the stim package to save the salt water marsh mouse in Pelosi’s district.

Today GOP Rep Tom Price, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, went on the House floor and floated the story again, and he held up a mysterious prop in his right hand as he did so...

[snip]

“What’s in it? Have you read it?” Price asked, holding up the bill. Then he hoisted what appeared to be a little critter in a bag, and continued: “We found thirty million dollars for mice.”

Was he really hold