Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

I knew the Republicons were getting desperate, but this is just utterly pathetic:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has made clear he's against the idea of a government rescue package in response to the financial crisis, but he's apparently having trouble finding economists who agree.

So, as Matt Stoller discovered, Boehner has gone online looking for help. This plea was published this week on Boehner's website.

Attention Economists: Are You A Stimulus Spending Skeptic?

A recent Associated Press article quoted transition officials for President-elect Obama as saying "[o]nly one outside economist" contacted by the President-elect's advisors had "voiced skepticism" about the President-elect's emerging plans for an economic "stimulus" spending bill with a price tag as large as $1 trillion, with the vast majority of that number going to new spending on government programs and projects.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) is compiling a list of credentialed American economists who would like to add their voices to the list of stimulus spending skeptics. If you are an economist who would like to be added to this list, you can join the list here and provide your comments.

[snip]

Let's put aside the fact that Boehner knows that the future of our economy is on the line, and he wants to stand in the way of the one thing the nation desperately needs. Even looking past this, Boehner putting up an "economists needed" plea on his website is kind of humiliating.

It really kind of is. Anyone wanna take bets on how long it'll be before he just starts putting the names of computer programmers, engineers, and people who used to do the books for Joe the Plumber on a list, DIsco style?

Trying to pump up their economic cred, the Cons are going batshit insane over the auto bailout:

Republican leaders across the board have let loose on President Bush’s auto industry bailout in what may be some of the toughest GOP criticism of the Bush presidency.

John McCain is leading the way, saying it is “unacceptable that we would leave the American taxpayer with a tab of tens of billions of dollars while failing to receive any serious concessions from the industry.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House GOP leader John Boehner and a cast of other angry fiscal conservatives have also rained criticism on the president. Bush may only have a month left in office, but Republican leaders who went along with the Wall Street bailout are finally making a clean break with their president on economic policy.

“I’m very disappointed,” said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). “The president justified his action with a false choice: it’s either this plan or abrupt liquidation of the companies. The White House seems to think that the industry didn’t have time to deal with the problem or prepare for an orderly bankruptcy, which is false.”

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), one of the architects of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, thinks Bush may be skirting the Troubled Asset Relief Program rules.

ZOMG, who could have ever guessed Bush would ignore the rules, etc. etc.?

Apparently, these stupid fuckwits don't realize that when you cheer someone on for breaking the rules when you want them to, they might be inclined to break rules you don't want them to. Watching Cons learn this sad truth is going to be entertaining as shit.

It will also be amusing to watch them learn that Americans realize that, as obnoxious as it might be to have to dig companies out of a deep, black pit, the digging had to be done. I don't think anyone's interested in seeing what losing the entire auto industry on top of this year's job losses would've done to the economy.

I'm sure they'll be turning their attention from economic matters to teh eviil gays any moment now anyway. After all, that antichrist UN just put out a call for decriminalizing homosexuality. Cons, I'm sure, will take this as more proof that the end of civilization is just around the corner, even though the United States was too fucking bigoted to sign the damned declaration:

With all the talk about the symbolic value, symbolistry and pragmatism associated with Obama's selection of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation, I consider the following measure to be of greater symbolic import, and hope that Obama addresses it appropriately and promptly:

Alone among major Western nations, the United States has refused to sign a declaration presented Thursday at the United Nations calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality.

In all, 66 of the U.N.'s 192 member countries signed the nonbinding declaration — which backers called a historic step to push the General Assembly to deal more forthrightly with any-gay discrimination. More than 70 U.N. members outlaw homosexuality, and in several of them homosexual acts can be punished by execution.

Co-sponsored by France and the Netherlands, the declaration was signed by all 27 European Union members, as well as Japan, Australia, Mexico and three dozen other countries. There was broad opposition from Muslim nations, and the United States refused to sign, indicating that some parts of the declaration raised legal questions that needed further review.

According to some of the declaration's backers, U.S. officials expressed concern in private talks that some parts of the declaration might be problematic in committing the federal government on matters that fall under state jurisdiction. In numerous states, landlords and private employers are allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation; on the federal level, gays are not allowed to serve openly in the military.

The legal concerns voiced are mostly illusory. As stated, the declaration is non-binding, so approving its passage would not require any action on the part of the federal government vis-a-vis the states, or with respect to its own practices. Further, the declaration deals with "decriminalizing" homosexuality which is different than outlawing discrimination in any and all forms (though the latter should be an important goal for the United States regardless).

The problem is, the fuckwits currently running this country think that we don't do enough to criminalize homosexuality (and nearly all forms of sexuality, comes to that). And so they have, once again, placed us firmly among the unenlightened, the ignorant, the intolerant and the totalitarian countries of the world.

How's it feel to be unique in the West when it comes to intolerance, USA?

And the moral midgets are firmly on the march:

Because nothing says "pro-family" like tearing apart thousands of legally married couples.

Sponsors of the California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage are seeking to nullify thousands of marriages between gay and lesbian couples performed after the state Supreme Court ruled them constitutional.

The sponsors Friday filed responses to three anti-Proposition 8 lawsuits with the state Supreme Court. The briefs also defend Proposition 8 against opponents' legal challenges, including an argument that the amendment needed a constitutional convention to be added to the state's constitution.

"We are confident that the will of the voters and Proposition 8 will ultimately be upheld," said Andrew Pugno, General Counsel for ProtectMarriage.com and the Proposition 8 Legal Defense Fund.

This was bound to happen, but it doesn't make it any less jarring. It's not enough for these activists to prevent people from getting married, they also believe the state has to nullify existing marriages that are already on the books and which were legal at the time. It reflects a painful degree of callousness.

[snip]

By the way, the lawyer who'll argue against gay marriage at the state Supreme Court? None other than Ken Starr. Yes, that Ken Starr.

And so we come full circle, with Ken Starr once again leading a witchhunt against those who offend the sexual mores of the terminally repressed.

This is what they do after they've finished destroying the country and the Dems have stepped up to clean up after them: push their harebrained trickle-down schemes, grandstand, and try to nose their way into everyone's bedrooms. We're in for a long, long stretch of outrageous behavior on the part of the rabid right.

Too bad for them it ain't the Nineties anymore. I have a sneaking suspicion that Americans are starting to lose their fascination for such antics. It is, after all, rather hard to care who you're neighbors are sleeping with when you're not sure where you'll be sleeping after the plant's closed and the house is foreclosed.