Dumbfuckery du Jour

Memo to Gov. McDonnell and idiot friends thereof:  Taking $2.5 billion from the feds to balance your state budget does not make you a brilliant balancer:

The Wall Street Journal editorial board has an item today heralding Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell's (R) $400 million budget surplus. According to the WSJ, it "proves" the efficacy of the Republican approach, and reminds federal policymakers to "employ the Virginia strategy."

In his ridiculous economic speech today, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) also singled out Bob McDonnell for praise, noting how impressive it was to see the Virginia Republican "balance his state's budget ... without raising taxes."

McDonnell himself has started patting himself on the back. Last week, he stopped by the Fox Business Network to boast about the greatness of his "conservative, fiscal, practical approach" to budgeting. McDonnell added his way is a model for reducing the "dependence of people on government." Fox Business described it as "an amazing story."

So amazing, in fact, that it deserves a closer look. Indeed, there's a key detail about Virginia's surplus that Republican leaders and their media outlets hope you'll overlook.

Gov. Bob McDonnell decries rising federal spending, but a handout from Washington is helping him balance Virginia's cash-strapped budget, a fiscal think tank says.

If not for $2.5 billion from President Barack Obama's economic-stimulus program, the state's shortfall would have swelled from more than $4 billion to nearly $5.5 billion, according to the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis.

[snip]

Republicans consider this "an amazing story." That's not the adjective I'd use.

Oh, it's certainly the adjective I'd use.  It's amazing to me that Cons can be this bloody stupid, ungrateful, and blatant in their lying.

And here's something else amazing: Faux News and the lengths they'll go to in order to whip their dumbshit viewers into a frenzy:

My one wish out of all of this is that everyone who watches Fox News for news becomes aware that their second most invested shareholder is Arab and, yeah even I gotta admit, looks like a South Park Cartoon Terrorist. And Fox and Friends just got caught calling this co-owner of their parent company, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a "funder of radical madrassahs."

One wonders how Prince Alwaleed bin Talal will feel about his money going to an organization that subsequently smears him as a terrorist (though they were careful not to mention said "funder of radical madrassahs" by name because, y'know, the average Faux News viewer can be trusted not to be able to add 1 and 1).

Bing's rant on this is epic.