Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Please make the stupid stop. It hurts:

Today on her radio show, Laura Ingraham mocked those who were “panicking” about Wall Street’s collapse and insisted that “the best thing we could do today” would be to invest in the stock market. She also ridiculed lawmakers, like Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), who are worried about the crisis, calling them “girly”:

We need to send signals of confidence and long-term belief in our financial markets. We need to send that signal to the rest of the world. And for Harry Reid — and to any of these other congressmen and senators up there, in both parties, who feel like the best that they can do is wave their arms in this girly fashion of fear — come on, step up to the plate.

You know, the Seattle Times had this huge banner headline today blaring about how WaMu's going down, several of our premier financial instutions - companies that survived the Great fucking Depression, mind you - have completely imploded, Republicons have utterly fucking destroyed this country's financial infrastructure with their deregulation frenzy, the government's scrambling to keep the economy from crashing and burning, and this silly bitch thinks it's girly to worry about this? We just need to believe it's all going to be all right?

For fuck's sake.

McCain's stupidity on the economy just got a little bit more stupid:

John McCain has apparently decided he has to say something different and/or unique about the crisis on Wall Street, so he's come up with a new line: he wants to see Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox fired.

"The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the president and has betrayed the public's trust. If I were president today, I would fire him," McCain says, according to excerpts for a speech on reforming the ailing U.S. financial markets he will deliver today in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

"The primary regulator of Wall Street, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) kept in place trading rules that let speculators and hedge funds turn our markets into a casino," McCain says."They allowed naked short selling -- which simply means that you can sell stock without ever owning it. They eliminated last year the uptick rule that has protected investors for 70 years. Speculators pounded the shares of even good companies into the ground."

[snip]

First, the president cannot fire an SEC chair. It's procedurally impossible. As ABC News reported, "[W]hile the president appoints and the Senate confirms the SEC chair, a commissioner of an independent regulatory commissions cannot be removed by the president." That seems like the kind of thing McCain ought to know before spouting off on the
subject.

Second, the SEC did allow all kinds of short selling, but that's legal under the federal regulatory system that John McCain -- and his advisor, Phil Gramm -- helped put in place. After more than a quarter of a century in Congress, has McCain ever proposed changing these laws and imposing stricter regulations? No. Has he ever, before today, criticized Cox's oversight of existing trading rules? Not as far as I can tell.

This buffoon wants us to trust him with this nation's future, but he doesn't even know who he can and cannot fire. And, according to his campaign, he totally meant to dis Spain - it wasn't a senior moment, it was John McLame's inane idea of foreign fucking policy:

One more comment on McCain's confusion about the Prime Minister of Spain: as I noted earlier, I think McCain simply did not know who the interviewer was talking about. This is striking, since she identified him repeatedly: "let's talk about Spain", "President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero", "the President of Spain", etc., etc.

However, that's not the explanation the McCain campaign is going with. The Washington Post reports:

"McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Sheunemann said McCain's answer was intentional.

"The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain's willingness to meet Zapatero (and id'd him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred). Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview," he said in an e-mail."


[snip]

Suppose that's right. If so, then Scheunemann's spin is designed to cover up for McCain's confusion. If so, that tells us something very important. Namely:

McCain and his campaign are willing to insult a foreign leader and damage an alliance, rather than admit to a moment of confusion.

Can you imagine how many wars, diplomatic incidents, hurt feelings, lost alliances, and sheer embarrassment we'll have to deal with if this is McCain's answer whenever he fucks up? "I meant to do it, I don't like you, so there!" This man is far too fucking stupid to be allowed in the Oval Office.

And the stupid goes marching on:

On Saturday, Northern Virginia Republicans will be staging a “unity” rally to “improve their appeal among the region’s large ethnic population.” One of the planned speakers? Former Republican George Allen, who in 2006, called a young man of Indian descent “macaca” (a racial slur).

Oh, yeah. That's a great way to get minorities to lurv Republicons - give them George Allen. Fucking brilliant. Now I know why John McCain's a Republicon: he's stupid enough to fit right in.