Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

I honestly don't know how the fuck you can have a functional democracy when so many of the voting citizens are totally clueless.  I can understand why they wouldn't want to pay attention to politics - it's an endless exercise in frustration, and the stupidity ratio is far higher than any thinking human being should be forced to endure - but people need to at least pay enough attention to realize that while Senate Dems are, by and large, spineless cowards, the Cons are cons.  Let's just consider something:

The Senate voted yesterday on Craig Becker's nomination to serve on the National Labor Relations Board. There was no doubt about his qualifications, but conservatives don't like unions, and Becker has spent his adult life working to protect the interests of America's workers. As a result, Republicans did what they always do -- they launched a filibuster.

Yesterday afternoon, the Senate voted to end debate and make a decision on the nomination. A total of 52 senators supported Becker, while 33 were opposed (several senators missed the vote due to a blizzard). 

Because madness has begun overcoming our political system, when the vote is 52 to 33, the 33 votes win.

Knowing that a recess appointment is a distinct possibility, Republicans immediately began calling on the White House to resist the temptation. One senator was especially amusing.

Republicans immediately called on Mr. Obama not to place Mr. Becker on the board in that fashion.

"I sincerely hope the White House does not circumvent the will of the Senate by appointing him when the Senate is out of session," Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, said.

Think about that. Hatch wants the president to respect the "will of the Senate" -- which means listening to the 33-vote minority and ignoring the 52-vote majority.

The Constitution, for those who still care about that document, doesn't require the Senate to pull together 60 votes on ever single fucking issue.  It doesn't consider 33 Senators to constitute a "majority."  And 33 fucking assclowns do no a "will of the Senate" make.  Except that Harry Reid is too fucking limp to require these dumbshits to actually filibuster, and somehow the Cons are good enough con artists that they've made the fucking country forget that, in fact, a majority used to constitute "the will of the Senate."  Why, just a few short years ago, 52 Senators voting in lock-step would've meant legislation passing, appointees appointed, and things moving right along.

Time to remember that again.

Another thing to remember is that Cons are complete fucking retards when it comes to national security.  Let's run down today's list, shall we?

Cons are upset over being called out on their lies, so more and more of them are calling for John Brennan's head:

Republicans have responded to Brennan’s pushback with incredulity. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, citing former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen’s misunderstanding of the facts, called Brennan “troubling” on Fox News yesterday. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) called Brennan an “egomaniac.” Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) declared Brennan “needs to go,” and is no longer “credible.” On Fox News today, Hoekstra, who repeatedly referred to Brennan as a “White House staffer” as opposed to an intelligence “professional,” said Obama should “fire” him.

[snip]

Unintentionally, Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade summed up the situation perfectly this morning when he said that Bond and Hoekstra had told him on the radio yesterday that “they’re just astounded and befuddled that” Brennan “continues to dig like this and act so political in condemning everybody else for acting political.”

So.  They're calling for the ouster of a 25-year vet of the CIA, a man eminently qualified for the job he's in, because he's not afraid to tell the truth.  That's so fucking pathetic it's indescribable.  And as for making Cons the world's experts on national security, well.  I think it points up just how serious they are.

But wait!  There's more!

Yesterday, asked by Jon Stewart why it was okay to Mirandize Richard Reid but not the Christmas Day plotter, Gingrich replied: “Richard Reid was an American citizen.” Called out on his mistake, Gingrich Tweeted this afternoon:

On daily show was wrong re: ShoeBomber citizenship, was thinking of Padilla. Treating terrorists like criminals wrong no matter who is Pres.

If it’s true that Gingrich confused Reid and Padilla, that’s a pretty colossal blunder. The shoe bomber was Mirandized within the first five minutes of his detention. Padilla, by contrast, was held as an enemy combattant for three and a half years before being convicted in civilian courts.

What’s more, Gingrich’s explanation doesn’t make much sense on its face. Yesterday, he suggested it was okay to Mirandize a terror suspect provided he were an American citizen. Today, he seemed to transfer that opinion onto Padilla in his Tweet — but then in the very next sentence added that treating any and all terrorists like criminals is wrong in all cases, no matter who is president.

So either Gingrich is conceding it was wrong to try Padilla in civilian court — which would appear to be a concession that Bush did this too. Or he’s saying it was okay to do so because Padilla is an American citizen — even as he’s simultaneously claiming it’s always wrong to treat terrorists as criminals. Or maybe Gingrich doesn’t think Padilla is a terrorist?

Or maybe Newtie's just a big fat fucking hypocrite who doesn't give two tugs on a dead dog's dick about national security.  I'll leave it to your imaginations.

But that's not all!

On close scrutiny, this week's intense debate over Miranda rights for Umar Abdulmutallab -- culminating in GOP calls for a top Obama aide to resign -- largely falls apart.

The key point of dispute -- whether four Republican leaders should have assumed that the Christmas bombing suspect had been Mirandized after a phone call from Obama aide John Brennan, in which the GOPers were told that Abdulmutallab was in FBI custody -- is moot in light of the facts of the case.

That call occurred sometime in the evening of Christmas Day after the incident in the skies above Detroit. The Republicans maintained this week, in sniping eagerly picked up by the media, that the phone calls from Brennan were brief and informal, and they had no way of knowing that the suspect was read his rights.

What's been lost in the debate is that on the afternoon of the very next day, Dec. 26, the Justice Department announced Abdulmutallab had been criminally charged in federal court. At that point, less than 24 hours after the Brennan phone calls, there could be no doubt not only that the suspect was being handled by the criminal justice system, but also that he had been read his rights. 

But none of the four Republicans made an issue out of it until at least several days after criminal charges were brought, according to our search of news archives.

What this basically means is that until they saw a chance for a political attack on the President and Dems, they didn't give a shit whether the Crotchfire Bomber was read his rights or not, or charged in civilian courts or not.  This shit was totally normal under Bush, so it didn't occur to them to start screaming right away.  Which means, my dear friends, that the only reason for the squalling now is because they have this knee-jerk reaction to anything Obama does, and don't give a rat's ass about actual national security.

But I'm still not done!  Today, we have a special gift with your order for stupid fucking Cons - Bond.  Dumb Bond:

Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) has been one of the leading GOP attack dogs against the Obama administration when it comes to national security policy. He's not doing the Republican Party any favors -- the poor guy has no idea what he's talking about.

Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) struggled on Wednesday to distinguish between the Obama Administration's handling of Christmas bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and Bush's similar handling of shoe-bomber Richard Reid in an appearance on MSNBC's "Daily Rundown."

It was a rather humiliating display. Bond suggested Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan was responsible for the FBI reading Abdulmutallab his rights, a claim that doesn't make any sense. When the hosts noted that Bond was silent when Bush/Cheney handled the Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui cases the same way Obama is handling the Abdulmutallab case now, Bond said, "It's a lot different time," as if the American system of justice changed was overhauled after 2006 (it wasn't).

The conservative senator argued, "We now have military commissions." When reminded that we had military commissions then, too, Bond ignored the correction and stuck to his error. He added that it was a "bad idea" to try Reid and Moussaoui in federal courts, but couldn't explain why.

Before anyone feels sorry for this clown, and thinks it's unfair to criticize the doddering senator for being so hopelessly confused, remember that Kit Bond is currently the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It's his job to be informed, coherent, and aware of current events. He's failing in those responsibilities miserably.

If that sounds familiar, it's because Cons fail in all their responsibilities miserably.

For those of you who want the deluxe package of Con stupidity today, I've got Rep. Steve King, who must be quoted to be believed:

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has been busy promoting the "Declaration of Health Care Independence," which he helped formulate with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). And King says there are some clear physical similarities between this document and its namesake, the original Declaration of Independence.

"It's actually set up on parchment paper in Old-English longhand writing script," King told Radio Iowa. "It actually looks like the Declaration (of Independence) and it says a lot of things like the Declaration."

Wow.  I never knew that's all it takes to make something go from total dumbfuckery to genius document.  Why, that's almost as genius as Rep. Paul Ryan's budget antics:

House GOP's top budget guy Paul Ryan (R-WI) claims that his tax-cutting, Medicare and Social Security slashing fiscal roadmap would restore the federal budget to balance over a number of decades...and the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has his back. But on close inspection, it turns out that CBO took much of its analytical lead from Ryan himself, dramatically skewing the numbers. 

For their analysis Ryan provided CBO with a remarkable assumption: he asked CBO actuaries to assume that the major tax cuts he calls for won't create any change in federal revenue over the next two decades--at all. 

Here's how they put it, in budget-ese: "As specified by your staff, for this analysis total federal tax revenues are assumed to equal those under [current fiscal policy]," the analysis reads.

There are just a couple major problems with that. According to Jim Horney, a tax expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, it doesn't account for the tremendous loss in revenues the government would experience if, as Ryan's plan calls for, the Bush tax cuts were extended and the Alternative Minimum Tax and estate tax were repealed.

Why, it would seem that Cons are all about the sizzle and never deliver the fucking steak, wouldn't it?  They're nothing but snake oil salesman, quacks of the highest caliber.  They've got nothing to offer except bullshit in Old English font on pretty parchment paper, budgets scored with the stipulation that reality be ignored, and positions on national security that would be laughable if they weren't so disgusting and dangerous.

So, dear uninformed voters, I do indeed understand why you aren't paying close attention to politics.  Life is short, and it's a depressing subject.  But remember this one thing: only one party is currently somewhat sane.  Only one party is trying to bring you a real steak dinner, even if we end up having to content ourselves with chuck rather than ribeye, while the other party wants to serve you nothing more than mesquite-flavored cardboard chunks and call it gourmet.

Please wise the fuck up and don't fall for the fucktards.