Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Remember how I said there was too much yummy stupidity to merely skim? I was ever so right. Prepare for a feast, my darlings.

Cons' little bubble of personal "reality" may be shrinking faster than most Americans' bank accounts, but they're still happily living the lie:

Some opponents of a public option in health care reform seem to have a new strategy: pretend they know what Americans want -- and ignore evidence to the contrary.

On Fox News this morning, for example, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), arguably the chamber's most far-right member, insisted, "Americans don't want more government in health care."

Yesterday, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) made the same argument in a bizarre piece in the Washington Examiner: "The President's proposal would empower bureaucrats -- rather than patients and doctors -- to make key medical decisions, limit treatments, and ration care, raise taxes, and kill jobs. The American people simply don't support it."

There are only two instances in which these absurd claims would be true. Either numerous polls all showing sustained American popular support for a public option would have to be incorrect:

Um, yeah, not likely.

Or, America would have to consist of about 76,750,000 people, because that's roughly the number who sneer at the public option. Alas, the United States government seems to think there's nearly 307,000,000 Americans, and strangely doesn't define "American" as "someone who swallows Con bullshit whole." Weird, I know, but there it is.

And yet Sen. Chuck Grassley seems to think there's some sort of support for Con fuckwittery:

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee and arguably the lead Republican negotiator on health care, argued on MSNBC this morning that a public option was a deal-breaker for the minority party. Period.

If the legislative package is going to be "bipartisan," Grassley said, "We need to make sure that there's no public option."

You know what, Chuck? I think we can pass on the bipartisanship this time around, thanks anyway. Go ahead, take your ball and go home. Cry yourself to sleep. 75% of Americans care bunches, really.

Speaking of sniveling crybabies who don't quite get where the vast majority of Americans are coming from, check out Rep. Shadegg:

Rep. John Shadegg says all Americans should "boycott ABC" for the network's plan to air a "one-sided" townhall meeting on President Obama's healthcare plan.

The Arizona Republican tells The Hill that it's "outrageous" that the news network intends to air a 90-minute primetime special Wednesday evening featuring Obama talking about his plan, which includes a "government-run" option.

"I think every Americian should boycott ABC, if they aren't going to cover both sides of the issue," Shadegg said. He is a member of the Energy and Commerce Health subcommittee.

Shadegg said that the idea of "airing the issue is wonderful, but the idea of making it one-sided is outrageous."

His fellow House Republicans were upset as well.

I'm sure they were. And you know, me and my fellow 75% of Americans are just devastated they're unhappy. We'll be weeping all through Obama's townhall, I'm sure.

You know, Arizona's elected officials aren't exactly covering themselves in glory, here, and it's not just on healthcare that they're being the usual bunch of outrageous fucking idiots:

The Senate has yet to confirm a number of President Obama’s nominees to various State Department posts. One of those nominees, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) — a champion of repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy — has had a hold placed on her nomination to become Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. But the hold on her nomination is not anonymous, as Foreign Policy’s Laura Rozen reports:

A blanket hold placed late last week by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) on all State Department nominees appears to have been lifted on Saturday, administration sources tell The Cable. Kyl’s only remaining hold, The Cable was told, is on Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), President Obama’s nominee to be under secretary of state for arms control and international security.

Kyl’s office confirmed his remaining hold on Tauscher’s nomination. “He honestly has made no guise of his hold on her nomination,” spokesman Ryan Patmintra told The Cable Monday.

[snip]

But last week, Rozen reported that Capitol Hill sources said Kyl “is not satisified with the information he has been receiving from the administration on the progress of arms control negotiations with Russia”:

“Kyl’s beef and the general Republican argument now emerging against the Obama administration’s nuclear weapons policy is that they are rushing to conclude a new agreement with Russia on strategic arms levels before their Nuclear Posture Review [NPR] is complete,” a Democratic congressional source said.

[snip]

Nuclear non-proliferation expert Joseph Cirincione told ThinkProgress, “Senator Kyl wants to delay any arms reductions until the Nuclear Posture Review, then work the process so the NPR makes only minor changes to the existing nuclear arsenal.”

Indeed, if Obama makes a deal with Russian President Medvedev to drastically reduce nuclear stockpiles, Kyl — who is against reducing America’s nuclear weapons — won’t have much of an opportunity to challenge it. Kyl would rather play domestic politics with the NPR and have a chance at limiting nuclear reductions before any U.S.-Russia binding agreement. Thus, it appears Kyl is using the NPR as an excuse to block U.S. negotiations with Russia, and is holding up Tauscher’s nomination as blackmail.

Isn't he just charming? He wants to make sure Amurka has plenty of nukes for the kiddies, and he's not afraid to use extortion to get them. Awesome, Arizona. Thanks for sending this assclown to the Senate.

Speaking of assclowns... Glenn Beck's been getting steadily more frothing insane, but you know there's something wrong with a man when he starts playing with dolls on national television:

Now, I can appreciate the notion that some news stories are hard to explain with just text or words. Graphics, charts, video, etc. can help a news consumer understand an item with more depth.

But when Glenn Beck starts playing with dolls on national television to go after ACORN, explaining a "story" that really isn't especially complicated, it's a helpful reminder of the caliber of "reporting" we're getting from Fox News.

I know. Scary, isn't it? And it's not like his dumbassery stops there. Oh, know. This is Glenn Beck, after all. He's got to go whole hog:

Last week Glenn Beck scoffed at the notion that he had been promoting the notion of state secession, somehow overlooking the fact that he had in fact been promoting the notion of state secession.

So yesterday, to further demonstrate his skepticism, he invited on his Fox News program a fellow named Dan Miller, who runs the Texas Nationalist Movement. As you can see, he provided two full segments of the show to an interview that most kindly could be called “credulous,” and less kindly would make a crude reference to teabagging.

And indeed the Teabaggers’ Parties was an important topic, because Beck raised it himself at the end:

Beck: You actually believe the Tea Parties are, um, are the “gateway drug” to secession. Is that true?

Miller: Well, I think that’s definitely the case for a lot of folks. Because, you know, the Tea Parties have been about venting frustration and anger with what’s going on in Washington, D.C. And what we’re seeing here is a lot of people are looking for solutions, and the solution for Texas is Texas, independence.

Beck: Unbelievable.

Well, it's nice of them to admit that the Tea Parties in fact have been a prime recruiting ground for all kinds of extremist right-wing belief systems, most notably those arising from the "Patriot" movement of the 1990s.

Nice one.

Finally, I must leave you with a terrifying piece of news, that pretty much sums up the current desperately sad state of the Republican party:

It’s really striking how much more popular Sarah Palin is among Republicans than just about any other GOP figure. She really rules the GOP!

Take a look at her latest numbers in the new Pew poll (click to enlarge):

Palin is just crushing other GOPers in popularity among Republicans, with 73%, leading runner-up Mitt Romney by 16 points. And that’s in spite of all Romney’s recent Mittmentum.

That's right. The most popular Con in the party is the one who can't even string a coherent sentence together.

No wonder Glenn Beck feels secure playing with pink Barbie houses and the Cons feel great blackmailing the government for nuclear weapons while railing against an overwhelmingly popular health care reform option. If 73% of your base thinks Palin's the great white hope, you can be pretty well assured they'll let you get away with anything.

Too bad for the Cons that the base ain't big enough to sustain them in national elections...