Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

So what happens when Dems stand up to Con bullies?  Why, what usually happens when the bullied stand up to the bully:

Ordinarily, NRCC recruiting trouble in one specific district wouldn't be of particular interest, but it's been fascinating to watch recent events in Florida's 8th district.

The Orlando-area district has generally been quite friendly to Republicans, but last year, Barack Obama won the 8th with 52% support. The same day, district voters elected Rep. Alan Grayson (D), also with 52% of the vote, getting rid of Ric Keller (R) after four terms.

Would Grayson play it safe, hoping to keep his competitive seat by positioning himself as a moderate? Not so much -- Grayson has quickly become a liberal firebrand.

Given the district's right-leaning history, and Grayson's bold pronouncements, the Republican Party is itching to take him on next year. There is, however, a small problem -- the NRCC's top candidates keep passing on the race.

Former state Sen. Dan Webster, who was seen by many Republicans as someone who could clear the GOP field and help the party avoid a contested primary, took his name out of consideration Tuesday afternoon. [...]

That announcement was followed by the news that businessman Jerry Pierce, who had recently discussed putting a large amount of his personal fortune into a congressional bid, said he would not challenge Grayson.

Orange County Mayor Richard Crotty and Orlando businessman Tim Seneff already passed on the race.

Let this be a lesson to spineless Dems everywhere.  They can no longer claim they have to be cowering little mice because the Cons might hit them.

So, how's that rollout of the Con 2.D'oh going?  Not too good:

The new Republican National Committee Web site has been derided for its "GOP Heroes" section -- which teaches us that almost all of the great Republicans lived in the 1800's, and about half of them were black -- but there's another illustrious name on the list: Ronaldus Magnus.

The site's page on Ronald Reagan includes this citation of the party's great hero, giving him a stylized name we might see on a Roman emperor:

Our country has to decide, said Ronaldus Magnus, "whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether to abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives better than we can plan them ourselves."

And to think that the GOP makes fun of the Democrats for allegedly worshiping Obama.

[snip]

Late Update: The page has now been edited, removing Reagan's Latin throne name. It now simply says, "Our country has to decide, said Reagan..."

But TPM has the screenshot.   And the fucktards didn't grab the "hackers put it there" lifeline thrown out by that other bit of incompetence of theirs.  They're such a bunch of bumbling idiots even right wingers are panning them - well, everybody except for Red State, which just loves the new site.

No accounting for taste, I suppose.

By the way, meet the writer behind the enterprise:

The big GOP.com relaunch has been plagued by technical and other snafus, as we've been documenting. But those mishaps may be the least of it.

The new site is at pains to present the party as racially tolerant, and to stress its anti-slavery history. But Michael Steele and Co. have outsourced that task to a writer who has argued that Democrats' "socialist policies have recreated a vile new version of the slave system."

I think there's a bit of wishful thinking, there.  I'm sure the descendants of actual slaves could inform them of the essential difference.

Someone else needs to explain the definition of "immutable characteristic" to John Boehner, seeing as how he just doesn't quite get it:

Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that he would oppose a military spending bill because it included a provision to expand hate-crime protections.

"All violent crimes should be prosecuted vigorously, no matter what the circumstance," Boehner argued. "The Democrats' 'thought crimes' legislation, however, places a higher value on some lives than others. Republicans believe that all lives are created equal, and should be defended with equal vigilance."

There's at least some consistency to the argument. If a bigot violently attacks a victim, Boehner doesn't care if hatred motivated the crime. It's a debatable point, but it's not a ridiculous position.

That is, until one digs a little deeper. CBS News, responding to Boehner's comment, inquired as to whether the Minority Leader opposes all hate-crime laws, including the ones already on the books that offer protections based on race, color, religion, and national origin. After all, if Boehner doesn't want to consider the circumstances behind a violent crime, and doesn't want to pursue "thought crimes," then he'd necessarily reject the rationale behind every hate-crime law, right? Wrong.

In an email, Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said Boehner "supports existing federal protections (based on race, religion, gender, etc) based on immutable characteristics."

It should be noted that the current law does not include gender, though the expanded legislation would cover gender as well as sexual orientation, gender identity and disability.

"He does not support adding sexual orientation to the list of protected classes," Smith continued.

Boehner's position, then, appears to be grounded in the notion that immutable characteristics should be protected under hate crimes laws. And while religion is an immutable characteristic, his office suggests, sexual orientation is not.

Let's have some fun by asking him to prove sexual orientation isn't immutable, but religion is.  Give him the choice between choosing a different church and getting a boyfriend.  That should clear that confusion right up.

One thing's for sure: his assessment of the stock market's importance in gauging America's general economic mood certainly isn't immutable:

Today on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed above 10,000 for the first time this year as “U.S. stocks approached their highest levels since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy sent the global economy into a tailspin.” In fact, the index is up 13 percent since the start of the year.

When asked about the surging markets, House Minority Leader John Boehner grumbled at the news. “[You're] certainly not talking to the American people,” if you’re placing any significance on the 10,000 mark, Boehner contended:

[snip]

Boehner said the stock market’s rebound is a reaction to the extreme shock from earlier this year, but it says little more than that.

“At the end of the day, the American people aren’t looking at the stock market in terms of putting food on the table,” Boehner said. “They want jobs, and they want them now.”

But Boehner hasn’t always been so dismissive of the stock market’s significance. In search of an attack line on the newly-inaugurated President Obama back in March, the GOP leader thought that the dismal numbers coming from Wall Street represented the public’s dissatisfaction with Obama’s policies:

“The president certainly remains popular, but his policies are becoming less and less popular,” Boehner said, citing the continuing slide in the financial markets. “Certainly the stock market hasn’t acted very well” since Obama’s inauguration.

And, of course, that's not the only example of his strange high regard for the stock market back when it was performing poorly.

In other surprising news, Faux News has decided this is a sign of the "Bush recovery."  I don't think I have to say very much about the fact they were moaning about Obama's horrible influence on the stock market just after the inauguration, not to mention how insanely ridiculous it is to credit the Dow's upturn to the man who a) helped fuck the economy to begin with and b) has been out of office, leaving a successor to clean up his mess, for nine fucking months.

While Faux is busy nominating Bush for the Nobel Prize in Economics, Hannity's busy moaning that Bush should've won the Nobel Peace Prize.  I think these folks want to prove the White House is right to call them nothing more than a Con propaganda machine.

Oh, and remember how they defended their teabagging by saying they always cover big protests?  Yeah.  Not so much.

More kabuki on the Hill as Cons go all gaga over a tell-all book published by - wait for it - the WorldnutDaily:

Four House Republicans are charging that the Council on American Islamic Relations is infiltrating Capitol Hill with undercover interns, and they're basing the charge on a WND-published book that itself is based on the work of a man who posed as a Muslim to infiltrate CAIR as ... an intern!

In other words, it's Intern Spy vs. Intern Spy.

[snip]

[CAIR spokesman Ibrahim] Hooper is not impressed. "This guy spied on us for months, and the most they can come up with is that we're doing ordinary lobbying work on Capitol Hill?"

Politico reports that the four Republicans revealed an internal CAIR "strategy" document today, that, in the words of the Politico reporters, "basically lays out a fairly straight forward public relations and lobbying strategy."

Translation by WorldNutters: ZOMG the Muslims are taking over the country!!1!11!1!!!  These people are beyond fucking pathetic.

And let us not lose sight of the fact that four - count them, four - House Cons are taking this ridiculous shit seriously.

Finally, our next installment in "But really - they're not racists!"

Racism and homophobia are still alive and well in America:

A Geneva High School teacher is being accused of making anti-gay and racist comments in his classroom.

Dave Burk, who teaches consumer education, is accused of making the comments by his students during an Oct. 5 lecture on tax money involving the National Endowment for the Arts.

"How would you feel about your tax dollars going to pay some black fag in New York to take pictures of other black fags?" Burk allegedly asked, according to student Jordan Hunter.

Now don't be too hard on the guy, according to his attorney he never meant to offend anyone and he's really, really sorry:

"Mr. Burk is cooperating fully with both the principal, the dean of students and the school board," Tegeler said. "Mr. Burk's biggest problem is he does not want to intentionally offend anybody and if he did, he apologizes." Read on...

If he did?  If?  Is he really that fucking oblivious? 

Alas, I'm sure he is.  Just like the rest of the Cons and their pathetic followers.