Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

It would've been great if there were less stupidity than usual today, considering Aunty Flow's here and it's hard to wield a Smack-o-Matic when you're doubled over.  Alas, no such luck.  It seems that the American Right is getting more stupid on an hourly basis.

And few people are more stupid than the pols and pundits who're busy shitting themselves in fear over KSM's upcoming trial in NYC.  Apparently, they do not want to be the only ones with brown-seated trousers, because they're doing their best to foist their own bowel-busting fear on us, as well.

It might work out a bit better for them if there weren't so many damned precedents:

Joe Scarborough argued this morning that it's "unprecedented" for the U.S. to try foreign terror suspects in our federal judicial system. That might be true, if it weren't for all the other foreign terror suspects that have been tried, convinced, and imprisoned through our federal judicial system.

Bush administration used federal justice system to bring several foreign terrorism suspects to justice. During the George W. Bush administration, several foreign terrorists were brought to justice through the federal justice system, including 9-11 conspirator Zacarious Moussaoui, "Shoe bomber" Richard Reid and East African embassy bombing perpetrators Wahid el-Hage, Mohammed Sadiq Odeh, Mohammed Rashed al-Owhali, and Khalfan Khamis Mohammed.

Clinton administration also used federal justice system to bring foreign terror suspects to justice. During the Clinton administration, 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and "urban terrorism" plotters Sheik Oma Abdel Rahman and others were brought to justice through the federal justice system.

There are already 216 international terrorists in U.S. prisons. A May 29 Slate.com article reported that according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, "federal facilities on American soil currently house 216 international terrorists and 139 domestic terrorists. Some of these miscreants have been locked up here since the early 1990s. None of them has escaped. At the most secure prisons, nobody has ever escaped."

Someone might want to tell Sen. Webb about this, because he seems to have forgotten basic American history and civics.  That's conduct unbecoming to a Dem, that is.

How inane has the scaremongering gotten?  Even prominent Cons are telling their fellow Cons to STFU already.  When David Keene and Grover Norquist are delivering the cease-and-desist, you know you've jumped a whole row of sharks.

However, most Cons appear addicted to shark-jumping, so I doubt that sound advice will be taken.  Such a shame.

So, Cons are in full cry against American principles of justice enshrined in our Constitution and convinced that our courts can't handle a few terrorists, although we've done just fine with all the other terrorists we've prosecuted.  And now the party who likes to believe themselves patriots are showing their true colors aren't just yellow.  What color do you associate with a bunch of dumbfucks who talk about supporting our troops whilst yanking that support away?

A Senate measure to help wounded veterans is on the verge of passing, and that's clearly a positive development. There's just one problem.

The urgently needed legislation consolidates more than a dozen improvements in veterans' health care -- most notably a new assistance program for family members who wind up providing lifelong home nursing to severely disabled veterans. These vital caregivers -- who sacrifice careers and put huge strains on their own mental health -- assume an obligation "that ultimately belongs to the government," Senator Daniel Akaka, the bill's chief sponsor, properly notes.

The measure also expands benefits for women veterans who suffered sexual trauma on duty, extends veterans' care in rural areas, tightens quality control at V.A. hospitals, and ensures that catastrophically disabled veterans will not be charged for emergency services in community hospitals.

Sounds great, right? Senators seemed to think so -- it sailed through committee with unanimous support. But it's currently stuck, because right-wing Sen. Tom Coburn (R) of Oklahoma refuses to let it advance. As he sees it, the five-year, $3.7 billion price tag for the veterans' program is too high a price unless is offset by budget cuts elsewhere.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) noted the strange standards Coburn applies to these spending bill -- Coburn doesn't care about paying for the war itself, but he balks when it comes to caring for the vets when they come home. "Where was he when we were spending a trillion dollars on the war in Iraq?" Reid asked. "That wasn't paid for. I didn't hear him stopping the bill from going forward at that time. I think he should become more logical and understand we have people who are suffering."

Asking a Con like Coburn to "become more logical" is like asking a scorpion not to sting or a dog to stop licking its balls.  They're not capable of it.  I think hypocrisy's a genetic condition with them.

And Bush's leftover buffoons are intent upon adding injury to the insult they've already piled upon injury:

Tara McKelvey has a fascinating item in Boston Review on diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of particular interest was an anecdote from Paul Sullivan, an analyst in the VA's Veterans Benefits Administration.

Sullivan was working as an analyst at the Veterans Benefits Administration in Washington in early 2005 when he was called to a meeting with a top political appointee at the VA, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Michael McLendon. McLendon, an intensely focused man in a neatly pressed suit, kept a Bible on his desk at the office. Sullivan explained to McLendon and the other attendees that the rise in benefits claims the VA was noticing was caused partly by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who were suffering from PTSD. "That's too many," McLendon said, then hit his hand on the table. "They are too young" to be filing claims, and they are doing it "too soon." He hit the table again. The claims, he said, are "costing us too much money," and if the veterans "believed in God and country . . . they would not come home with PTSD." At that point, he slammed his palm against the table a final time, making a loud smack. Everyone in the room fell silent.

"I was a little bit surprised," Sullivan said, recalling the incident. "In that one comment, he appeared to be a religious fundamentalist." For Sullivan, McLendon's remarks reflected the views of many political appointees in the VA and revealed what was behind their efforts to reduce costs by restricting claims. The backlog of claims was immense, and veterans, often suffering extreme psychological stress, had to wait an average of five months for decisions on their requests.

McLendon denied the incident took place, but nevertheless told McKelvey that he believes PTSD is "a made-up term," which has "taken on a life of its own."

Is it wrong of me to wish to acquaint McLendon with the reality of PTSD personally?

You know something, my darlings?  The men and women stuffed into uniforms and shipped off to shitty war zones to allow pasty little neocon douchebags to feel like manly-men while living out their fantasies of being soldier boys vicariously deserve better than this.  They deserve a fuck of a lot better than this.  You know why they're not going to get it?  Because the second they're injured, they're no longer useful aids to neocon masturbation fantasies, and so they're discarded like used tissue.  Cons don't give two tugs on a dead dog's dick for the welfare of our troops.  They never have.  All they care about is their own greed, glory, and pathetic little fantasies.

Michael Shields spoke for them all when he joked:

Yesterday on Inside Washington, during a discussion of Obama’s upcoming decision on Afghanistan, syndicated columnist Mark Shields scoffed at Obama’s demeanor, wishing instead for a “manly man” in the White House:

SHIELDS: We have a president of real intellectual horse power who is cool, detached and analytical and if anything you can watch the emotional side of him emerge in this whole process. … There’s an emotional aspect, the comforter in chief as well as the commander in chief. Both roles. And I think it makes me nostalgic for those days when we had a manly man in the White House who could say, “Let’s kick some tail and ask questions afterwards” you know? That’s what we really need instead of any reflection.

That's precisely how these fucktards feel.  It's small, it's pathetic, and it's dangerous.

After all that, you probably need some fun news to cheer you up.  So let's ask a question: how stupid are the Teabaggers?  Stupid enough that they don't know when they've been punked:

On Saturday, a few dozen anti-immigration activists gathered on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol for a Tea Party, part of the nationwide effort by Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC). But somehow, one of the counter-protesters, a “concerned citizen from Minneapolis” named “Robert Erickson,” manged to get on the speaking list. His address started with the standard anti-immigrant rhetoric, but then revealed that he was talking about European immigrants. By this time, however, the crowd was in a frenzy and joined him in his chants of “Columbus go home!” and “Europeans out!”:

Let’s send these European immigrants back where they came from! I don’t care if they are Polish, Irish, English, Italian, or Norwegian! European immigrants are responsible for the most violent and heinous crimes in the history of the world, including genocide and slavery! Its time to restore the sovereignty of people native to this land! I want more workplace raids, starting with the big banks downtown.

C&L takes up the story:

Not surprisingly, the organizers were pissed. Sally Jo Sorensen at BlueStemPrairie was there to watch, and she reported that some of the nativists started getting violent:

Most of the MINN-SIR supporters were slow to catch the satire, and so the cheering from that side of the crowd took a while to subside. As they realized they'd been punked, they stood in a cold, stunned silence, while the 30 or so counter-protesters urged Columbus to go home.
Unfortunately, some of the pro-MINN-SIR audience made up for what they lacked in humor through the use of violence. Both Danielson and I saw middle-aged men attack young protesters, knocking one off a bike before he started throwing punches at the young man.

Just as shocking was the reaction of the state police working the rally, who pushed back those being attacked, rather than those attacking the counter protesters.

Neither of us have ever witnessed violence at rallies and events we've attended in the past. The attacks formed a sharp counterpoint to Hendrycks' shrieked claims from the podium that MINN-SIR "patriots" had "respect" while the young protesters were rude.

Taken for suckers, and their first instinct is to throw a sucker-punch.  I'd have expected no less.  And after the cops' behavior during the RNC, wasn't expecting any less than their dumbfuckery, either.

Oh, and about that brilliant burning-in-effigy scheme - the landowner said ixnay on the urningbay, so they're out of luck.  They'll have to console themselves with Bill O's comment that Pelosi will end up floating in Boston Harbor.  These fucktards surely do love their violent rhetoric, don't they just?

Prepare yourselves now, my darlings, for candidate Rubio's budgetary genius:

Rubio, true to form, has trashed the recovery effort that saved the economy from collapse, and blasted his Republican governor for endorsing it. Asked what he would have done if governor, Rubio said he would have refused federal aid for his struggling state, and would have preferred to cut $6 billion out of the $65 billion state budget.

Asked where this $6 billion in savings would have come from, Rubio said, "I don't have the budget in front of me."

It's the kind of seriousness of thought and analytical depth we've come to expect from all of the right's leading darlings.

All you ever need to know about Teabaggers is summed up by the fact that they think this man is brilliant.

Speaking of people trying to be right-wing darlings, it seems Tim Pawlenty's completed the transformation from cap-and-trade crusader to global warming denier.  Alas for him, this will not impress the hunters he pissed off by breaking one of the most sacred rules of hunting.  All you ever need to know about Tim Pawlenty is that he believes attending a fundraiser is more important than tracking the deer he just wounded.

In other 2012 Con hopeful news, Sarah Palin's book has earned many more spankings.  "Going Rogue From the Facts," indeed.  One fact she can't go rogue from: the anti-abortion frothers think she's a big fat fake pro-lifer.  Awesome.  I loves it when they eat their own.

Speaking of books, right-wing children's books are just as fact-free and ridiculous as Palin's tome.  Do not read if you value your gray matter.

And, finally, rumors of Lou Dobb's principled quitting have been greatly exaggerated - it seems CNN paid him a fuck of a lot of money to get out the door:

Wow. Look how much CNN wanted him out of there:

CNN was so sick of Lou Dobbs, it gave him an $8 million severance package to leave, The Post has learned.

"They wanted him out," according to a source.

Dobbs, who a source said had a year and a half to go on his $12 million contract, shocked viewers last Wednesday by announcing he was quitting.

CNN boss Jonathan Klein and Dobbs, 64, had been publicly feuding over the kind of reporting Dobbs was doing on his show -- especially stories about illegal immigration and the anti-Obama "birther" movement, which contends the president was not born in Hawaii and is not an American citizen.

But it was not clear until now that CNN was willing to pay Dobbs so much money to leave.

How did we know something like that would be the case?  Now if only we could pay all the other fucktards to go the fuck away....