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.