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?