Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

After a detailed and thorough analysis, one can only conclude that 4 out of 5 Americans are fake:

It's a real shame MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski, who seems to be moving further and further to the right with each passing week, didn't learn the appropriate lessons from last fall. This morning, in an incoherent defense of Sarah Palin, Brzezinski said people attended Palin rallies during the campaign because "they agree with her." (Brilliant analysis. People attend rallies for politicians they like? Remarkable!)

Brzezinski added, "Look at the polls out there. Look at where people stand on life. Look what real Americans think.... In the cities where there are a little more liberal elite populations, you're not going to find what's representative of America."

Asked who the "real" Americans are, Brzezinski, perhaps unaware what the question meant, said, "I think [Palin's] views actually do." I don't know what this means. Perhaps I'm not "real" enough.

Brzezinski went on to complain that some in the "mainstream media" don't agree with Palin, but "real" Americans do. She said, more than once, "Look at the polls."

This is just sad. Four out of five Americans live in urban areas (for the record, I'm not one of them). Most Americans do not want to see Roe overturned. Indeed, most Americans reject Palin's worldview on most social, economic, foreign, or constitutional issues. Most Americans voted for and continue to support President Obama. I know this because I took Brzezinski's advice and I "looked at the polls." [emphasis added]

Actually, maybe more than four-fifths of Americans are fake, because according to Brzezinski, you have to also agree with Sarah Palin, and I'd imagine there's a hefty batch of rural Americans who aren't real enough to take that plunge into the deep end of the insanity pool. Conclusion: the vast majority of Americans are fake. Sing with me, now! "And I'm proud to be Fake American..."

While we're on the subject of fakes, let's check in with "Joe" the "Plumber." Because, you know, even though his name and his job are total fabrications, he's like 100% Real American, and I'm sure that makes him ever so much wiser than all us icky fakes. Oh, hey - he's solved the immigration problem:

While protesting government spending at Houston’s Independence Day Tea Party, Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher stated that American taxpayer dollars would be best spent on the mass deportation of 12 million undocumented immigrants:

WURZELBACHER: I believe in making sure our country is safe first. I believe we need to spend a little more on illegal immigrants. Get them the hell out of our damn country and close the borders down. We can do it. We’ve got the greatest military in the world and you’re telling me we can’t close our borders? — That’s just ridiculous.

[snip]

Wurzelbacher dedicated a private interview to saying that he’s tired of the government “sticking its hand” in his “back-pocket” and urging the government to “pull its head out of its butt.” Apparently he’s against bailouts and the stimulus bill, but he completely supports spending approximately $206 billion over five years, or $41.2 billion annually, to hunt down and deport all the undocumented immigrants living in the US. Joe probably doesn’t realize that such a policy would also mean a loss of $1.8 trillion in annual spending and $651.5 billion in annual output.

Yup. Definitely oh-so-much smarter than all us fakes.

Bored, now. It's time for a good Dueling Cons match. I'm always willing to try something new. What we'll do is put a Somewhat Sane Con up against a Batshit Insane Con, and see who the base goes for.

Somewhat Sane Con:

Ed Rollins, who has run many a Republican campaign, crushed Sarah Palin's decision to quit her job as Alaska's governor on CNN's State of The Union yesterday. He called it a disaster and went as far as saying that he was insulted by it.

I guess she wants to go on the TV and the book tour circuit instead of helping Alaskans who voted her into office. Times are tough right now and she'd rather leave them all behind than try to help them get through this economic meltdown. Rollins didn't pull any punches.

ED ROLLINS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think yesterday was a disaster, Friday was a disaster for her both in the sense that she was very incoherent in articulating why she was quitting and what she wanted to do with it.

And as I always say, you call press conferences to answer questions, not to basically raise questions. I think the serious thing here is 311 days ago, very few people in America, very few Republicans outside of Alaska knew who this woman was. She had a tremendous first few weeks as a campaigner, but she got super imposed on top of the Republican establishment. It's sort of like taking a helicopter and putting her on top of Mt. Everest, which John McCain was flying it.

Everybody else climbed up that ladder, and all of the sudden she's on top of the mountain. She didn't like it -- or she did like the top of the mountain. What she didn't like was coming back to Earth, flying back to Alaska to her job as governor.

Batshit Insane Con:

I suspect Ann Coulter didn't really intend, appearing yesterday on Fox News with Marc Lamont Hill, to open a big wide window for everyone to see in brilliantly illuminated color the deep, sneering contempt in which your average Republican pundit actually holds all of those "hard-working average Americans" they normally profess to represent.

But she did:

Coulter: I think it's brilliant. And I'm baffled by people being baffled by it. Um, I mean, she's a huge, huge star. And meanwhile she's stuck up in Ulan Bator, she can neither respond to her many admirers who want her to come speak down in the Lower 48, and want her, you know, to be raising money for them, starting PACs, and being the voice of conservatism, which she is. She can't do that, or she'll be neglecting the state.

... Look, she's a lame-duck governor, it isn't her fault that she became a huge, huge star, but she is too big for the position now. And people acting like, you know, leaving a governorship is a step down.

Betting is now open. I'm sure you've already guessed that the smart money's on the base making a beeline for the batshit insanity while gathering pitchforks and torches for Rollins.

Maybe that's where all the Teabaggers were:

And loneliness was de rigueur (ooh, look French) all over the place.

It was more than the heat that had people hot under the collar this Independence Day at Southfork Ranch...Organizers billed the gathering as the largest tea party in the nation, saying crowds could reach 50,000...

As the event kicked off at 3 p.m., only a smattering of people had gathered in the grassy field in front of the stage.

Yes, of course crowds could reach 50,000 - but you'd have to furiously clone the 50 or so who actually showed up.

We should probably stop poking fun at Teabaggers, though. There's stupid politicians needing a spanking. Let's begin with Eric Cantor:

Last week, House Republicans, who've been wrong about every significant economic development of the last few decades, felt comfortable arguing that the economic stimulus package passed in February "is not working." Paul Krugman called this kind of analysis "insane," in large part because "hardly any of the money has flowed to the economy yet."

Today, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) went a step further. We've gone from "is not working" to "did not" work in just a few days.

Pushing back against a possible second stimulus bill, Cantor asserted that the Obama administration-backed first $787 billion stimulus has not worked, and insisted that characterization has now become consensus.

"I think we all need to recognize that the first attempt of the stimulus bill did not stimulate the economy," Cantor said in a conference call sponsored by the Republican National Committee (RNC). "I think we all agree on that now."

Who's "we all"? Apparently, Cantor and his right-wing cohorts who got together for a chat.

"We all" sure as shit don't include those of us intelligent enough to realize that the stimulus a) is going to take at least a year before we see a big jolt from it and b) that the fucking thing got so watered down by Cons pissing all over it that it became weak tea as compared to Red Bull.

Cons must have some kind of congenital defect that prevents them from seeing reality. Take John Boehner, for instance:

During the July 5 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace let stand House Minority Leader John Boehner's false claim that "[i]n Ohio, the infrastructure dollars that were sent there months ago," as part of the economic recovery package, "there hasn't been a contract let, to my knowledge. And the fact is is that I don't believe it will create jobs." In fact, in a June 15 update on the state's stimulus spending, the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) stated, "Combined with the contracts awarded so far using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, ODOT has awarded more than $83.9 million in contracts for work on 52 projects -- a combination of interstate, local roadway and bridge modernization projects." The department's statement continued:

As contracts are awarded, construction companies begin to mobilize workers for these jobs. Jobs are also being created and retained by firms that provide materials and equipment used in highway construction, and those jobs supported by consumer expenditures resulting from wages to 'construction oriented' and 'supporting industries' employment.

A June 8 Associated Press article reported: "President Barack Obama's $787 billion economic spending package reached Ohio's roads Monday when construction crews began work on a highway project in Cleveland. The $1.8 million project will widen a ramp from Interstate 490 to Interstate 77, and other stimulus projects are scheduled to begin in weeks."

Ideology blinds the stupid fuck to the jobs created and contracts awarded in his own fucking state. Remarkable. And remember, these blind-ass dumb fucking douchebags claim they'd do a better job running the country.

I'll let you ponder their previous record and come to your own conclusions:

Paul Krugman called it correctly:

You can offer various excuses and explanations, but how anyone can suggest that Republicans are more committed to and/or credible about job creation is a mystery

.

Yup.