Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

So what happens when Cons are caught in blatant lies? Why, they double-down, of course:

Yesterday, ThinkProgress noted that at least 11 Republican members of Congress have advanced the false claim that a cap-and-trade proposal currently before Congress would cost American families over $3,000 in extra energy taxes per year. They base their claim on a 2007 MIT study. In fact, that study actually says any tax burden would be about one-fortieth of what the Republicans claim.

Since yesterday, at least eight more GOP members have joined their ranks in advancing the false claim. Some have repeated the exact same line (GOP Reps. Paul Broun of Georgia and Jason Chaffetz of Utah both said the budget “opens the door to a national energy tax that will cost every family at least $3,128 a year”), while others like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) have increased the alleged tax to $4,500.

Didn't their mommies and daddies tell them it's fucking stupid to repeat a debunked lie? Apparently not.

Someone also needs to explain to them how grandstanding on the economy isn't such a good idea when the numbers keep getting worse:

Once in a great while, there are key turning points in a policy debate. This might be one of them.

GOP Whip Eric Cantor ... accused Democrats of "overreacting" to the economic crisis by embarking on a federal spending spree.

The Virginia Republican, speaking to reporters at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast Thursday morning, praised Rush Limbaugh for his "ideas" and for avoiding the Democratic error of "overreacting, as they often will, to crisis."

He went on to criticize Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's recent statement that the biggest danger was "doing too little" to deal with the meltdown.

"Doing too much has huge, huge pitfalls as well," he said.

[snip]

Cantor's timing could have been better. While he was accusing Democratic officials of caring too much about economic growth and ending the crisis, the Labor Department reported that "initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to a seasonally adjusted 669,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 657,000. That total was above analysts' expectations and the highest in more than 26 years."

With that in mind, Cantor handed Democrats quite a gift this morning.

Indeed.

While some of the Cons have turned into Beavis and Butthead, another group is morphing into Dr. Evil. All they want are frickin' sharks with frickin' laser beams attatched to their heads:

Late last February, North Korea announced that it was preparing a rocket launch in order to — allegedly — put a communications satellite into space. While U.S. and allied officials widely believe “the launching is a cover for testing technology for a long-range missile that could carry a nuclear warhead,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last Sunday that the U.S. has no plans to militarily disrupt the launch.

But Newt Gingrich believes military action is necessary. Last night on Fox News, Gingrich said “we should be very worried,” referencing a “novel” he read about a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack which “could eliminate all electricity production” in the U.S. “[W]e would go back to a pre-industrial era overnight, in seconds,” Gingrich warned. “It’s a very serious threat”:

GINGRICH: I don’t think North Korea should be allowed to launch missiles. I think we should take whatever preemptive actions are necessary. The idea that we’re going to suddenly be shocked one morning as one of these missiles has a nuclear weapon and does something that dramatically changes America I think is a very dangerous idea.

Continuing his fantasy, Gingrich then likened a lack of action on North Korea (and Iran and Hamas) to what “we did in the 1930’s about Adolf Hitler and Nazism.” He argued that “changing the regime is the only way to change the behavior,” but if all else fails, the U.S. should use lasers to wipe out the missile.

[emphasis amusedly added]
This is a man who should really stop reading and watching fiction. It's obvious he's having a hard time telling the difference between the complicated ol' real world and the exciting made-up world.

Speaking of people who can't tell the difference between fiction and reality, you're going to die laughing:

It probably seemed, at first, like an amusing idea of an April Fools' Day prank. Car and Driver magazine "reported" that President Obama told Chevrolet and Dodge this week that they would only be eligible for federal aid if they pulled out of NASCAR events. The move, the "article" said, would save more than $250 million.

The prank caused quite an uproar, the magazine apologized, and editors later acknowledged the joke went "too far." The parody piece has since been pulled from the Car and Driver website.

The funny part, as it turns out, is seeing who fell for the prank.

In her April 1 column, Ann Coulter fell for a fake April Fools' Day article by Car and Driver magazine that claimed that President Obama has ordered General Motors and Chrysler to cease their participation in NASCAR because it is an "unnecessary expenditure." Coulter wrote, "If Obama can tell GM and Chrysler that their participation in NASCAR is an 'unnecessary expenditure,' isn't having public schools force students to follow Muslim rituals, recite Islamic prayers and plan 'jihads' also an 'unnecessary expenditure'?"

Oddly enough, Rush Limbaugh said yesterday that no one would fall for the NASCAR joke. Oops.

Well, he was sorta right. She's a nobody in my book, anyway.

With a Con party like this, who needs Comedy Central? Aside from all the Daily Show and Colbert Report fans, that is.