Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Stupidity marches blindly on. The latest? Cons don't know how to read a calendar:

I'm not just mentioning this to make fun of a dimwitted conservative Republican lawmaker. Sure, it's part of my motivation, but there's more to it than just mockery. (via Matt Yglesias)

The day before, as [Republican Rep. Steve Austria of Ohio] was explaining his opposition to the huge federal stimulus package backed by President Barack Obama, he told The Dispatch editorial board: "When Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression.... He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That's just history."

Austria said he gave that message via telephone to constituents at a recent town-hall meeting.

Roosevelt took office in March 1933. Many historians date the Depression from the stock-market crash later dubbed Black Tuesday, which happened in 1929.

Right. Roosevelt couldn't "put our country into a Great Depression" with the New Deal because 1933 comes after 1929. Republicans may be inclined to create their own reality, but they shouldn't create their own calendars.

Well, we already knew they can't do math. Now we know they're unclear on timelines. Pretty fucking pathetic to watch, and even worse knowing these fuckwits still have a vote in Congress.

And then there's the escalation of schoolyard games:

Today, public-workers union AFSCME launched a massive advertising campaign targeting neo-Hooverite conservatives who are trying to block President Obama’s recovery and reinvestment plan. One target is Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), whom the union faults for declaring he was proud that his party was “just saying no” to Obama. A Cantor spokesman responded by sending around a profanity-laced video portraying AFSCME as mob goons. The video uses the F-word six times in one minute and ends with the tagline: “AFSCME: We’re the f*cking union that works for you.”

[snip]

Cantor claimed the video was a “joke,” though AFSCME didn’t think it was very funny.

Yet it’s not just unions who could be offended by the video; Cantor himself has railed against obscenity, voting for the Broadcast Deceny Enforcement Act that allowed fines of up to $500,000 on broadcasters for airing any “obscene, indecent, or profane” material. Speaking on the House floor in support of the bill, Cantor condemned “offensive television” that will “damage our society” and “cannot be tolerated...“

Cantor has since taken to blaming his spokesperson, thus hitting the trifecta of tasteless, hypocritical, and ducking responsibility. What an ass.

Speaking of irresponsible, hypocritcal, and tasteless, Faux News is still pretending they're fair and balanced after yesterday's antics:

As it turns out, Fox News took the Republicans' materials and aired it, word for word, without telling viewers that the "story" was a creation of Republican officials. It was so blatant, Fox News' on-screen graphic included the identical typo made in the original GOP document, making it obvious that the network used a party press release as a news script.

Today, after having been caught serving as a propaganda outlet for a political party, the fair-and-balanced network responded. Jon Scott told viewers:

"Yesterday on Happening Now we showed you how the stimulus bill has grown over time. Our story prompted by a news release from the Senate Republican Communication Center. Their point that a $56 billion proposal in September has grown to $838 billion in five months. In compiling that story, our producers and researchers did what we always do -- we verified the accuracy of the material. But in double checking the newspaper quotes referenced in that news release we made the same mistake they did. We labeled a Wall Street Journal article as having run in 2009 when in fact it was 2008. That was our error, and we apologize."

So, let me get this straight. Fox News ran a Republican press release as news, and Jon Scott apologizes for the typo? That's a bit like a thief getting caught in a jewelry store, and apologizing for leaving broken glass on the carpet.

These people certainly do have a lot in common with your basic sociopath, don't they?

The hypocrisy, of course, doesn't end there:

Today, the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee voted 11 to 1 to give the District its first full voting seat in the House of Representatives. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) cast the lone “no” vote. Dave Weigel at the Washington Independent explains McCain’s opposition — and hypocrisy:

McCain was the only one of them who voted nay, and he gave two reasons. The first was that the proposed compromise that would give D.C. voting rights while giving Utah a fourth seat in Congress was unfair to other fast-growing states. The second was that McCain didn’t want to pass a bill that constitutional scholars are still tussling over “and then have the Supreme Court decide whether or not it’s constitutional.”

Well, that was a fine "fuck you" to the good citizens of D.C., now, wasn't it? Good ol' John McCain. And some people thought he'd go back to being only a mildly insane fucking asshole after the election.

Alas. Obstinate, stupid hypocrisy is to Cons what alcohol is to alcoholics: once they start imbibing, it's nearly impossible for them to stop...