Today’s opining on the public discourse.

It occurs to me that electing batshit insane paranoid freaks to higher office is probably a rather bad idea:

But when Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) casually refers to elected Democratic officials as the “enemy,” and nonchalantly refers to keeping her supporters “armed and dangerous,” it’s probably a good time to remind Republican lawmakers to turn down the temperature a bit. (via the University of Minnesota and the Dump Bachmann blog.)

Bachmann appeared over the weekend on the First Team radio show with John Hinderaker and Brian Ward, speaking about the horrible stuff that the Democrats are doing: “I’m a foreign correspondent on enemy lines and I try to let everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington.”

Bachmann also spoke out against the cap-and-trade proposals currently making their way through Washington, and how she’ll be distributing information against it at an upcoming event in the district. “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax, because we need to fight back,” said Bachmann. “Thomas Jefferson told us, having a revolution every now and then is a good thing. And the people — we the people — are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country.”

On the one hand, it seems clear that Bachmann was speaking figuratively. On the other hand, is it appropriate for a member of Congress to speak in any context about being armed for revolution?

No, probably not. But this seems to fit in with a larger trend. We have one GOP lawmaker saying the party should emulate the insurgency tactics of the Taliban. We have another arguing the party should position itself as “freedom fighters” taking on the “slide toward socialism.”

Is it just me, or do these fuckwits sound mentally deranged?

Michelle Bachmann is also (surprise, surprise) confused about global warming:

During a Saturday interview with WWTC 1280 AM flagged by Smart Politics, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) slammed President Obama’s cap and trade plan, warning that it would have “the impact of forever changing our country.” She was particularly incensed that the bill was meant to address global warming, which she flatly denied was a human-caused problem:

BACHMANN: And actually, we want this debate because the science is on our side on this one. And the science indicates that human activity is not the cause of all this global warming. And that in fact, nature is the cause, with solar flares, etc.

What “science” are you referencing, Michelle? Cuz that’s not what I’m hearing from scientists. Methinks possibly it’s time to vote out dumbshits who can’t tell the difference between genuine science and pseudo-science.

While we’re on the subject of faulty premises, this is truly precious:

From Politico via Yahoo, we find that Gary Bauer is still out there acting as if anyone gives a rat’s buttock what he thinks. Today’s Gospel According to Gary: It’s not seizing, jailing, and torturing innocent Muslims in the Levant that turns them into Western-hatin’ terrorists, but letting them pray to Mecca.

Just in case you think I’m kidding, here’s his closing spiel: “Whatever Obama decides to do, it is likely that some detainees will be released and, after years of radicalization at Gitmo, some may take up arms or suicide belts and join the jihad. If they do, it will be the accommodation, not suppression, of religious freedom at Guantanamo that’s to blame.”

See, according to Gary, all we need to do is make sure these people can’t pray to that icky Muslim god, and then everything’ll be sunshine and roses. Despite the abuse they suffered at our hands. Because, of course, people of other religious faiths never do terrorist stuff.

Let’s ask him to explain Timothy McVeigh, shall we? Should be fun.

While we’re at it, let’s have Politico explain why they’ve become patsies for right-wing hysteria:

For a while, the lead story from Politico last night was the idea that President Obama chuckled a little too much during his interview with Steve Kroft on “60 Minutes.” The headline on the piece read, “Kroft to Obama: Are you punch-drunk?“

[snip]

When Politico started promoting the piece at 7:04 p.m., I hadn’t seen the interview. Reading the headline and these paragraphs, I started wondering if the president had somehow laughed inappropriately at economic suffering. I imagined extensive discussion of “Laugh-Gate” on “Morning Joe” today. Drudge, naturally, ran with this, and far-right blogs pounced.

But then I saw the interview and realized the Politico’s piece didn’t exactly capture the context.

For most of the interview, Obama is dead serious. Occasionally, he’d chuckle at some absurdity — hardly an unusual reaction for, you know, humans — but for the most part, the president was hardly jocular.

About half-way through, Kroft brings up aid to the auto industry, and public opposition to additional government investment. The two share a laugh at the one-sided polling numbers, which led to Kroft’s question about “laughing.”

This is the kind of inane bullshit the right wing gets all excited about these days. On a scale of pathetic from 0 – infinity, they’re way past the point where their rate of pathetic can be measured without scientific notation, and they’re accelerating.

Are there funds in the stimulus for the psychotropics these fucktards so desperately need?

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

The stupid’s rather thick on the ground for a Sunday. Is it something they ate?

According to Cons, the rules that have served our country for well over 200 years are no longer adequate to needs now that Cons are in the minority:

This week, there was increased speculation that the Obama administration might pursue major healthcare and energy reforms through the budget reconciliation process. The point would be to make passage far easier — Republicans can vote against reconciliation bills, but they can’t filibuster them.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) blasted the idea, calling it “the Chicago approach to governing.” Gregg added, “You’re talking about running over the minority, putting them in cement and throwing them in the Chicago River.”

A couple of Fox News personalities went even further yesterday.

During the March 20 edition of Fox News’ Hannity, host Sean Hannity falsely claimed that “a parliamentary procedure called reconciliation” would allow the Obama administration to pass legislation “without any Republicans even having an opportunity to vote.” Guest and fellow Fox News host Mike Huckabee replied that this is “horribly dangerous because it really does bypass the entire system of the American government, where we’re supposed to have an honest debate.”

Look, the budget reconciliation process isn’t complicated. Indeed, it’s called “majority rule.” It doesn’t deny Republicans from “even having an opportunity to vote.” Just the opposite is true — every member in both chambers gets to vote, up or down, after a floor debate. When Hannity talks about having an “opportunity” to vote, he means protecting a system in which 41 votes defeat 58 votes.

Ah, the good old days. I remember them well. Did you know there was once a time in America when all the Senate needed was a simple majority to pass legislation? And Cons didn’t stomp their feet and wail and cry that no one was listening to them. I certainly don’t remember them sitting around snivelling that they won’t get to vote at all just because their votes happened to be on the losing side.

But the hypocritical grandstanding, that’s always been with us:

Last month, every single Republican House member and all but three Republican senators voted against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Yet, as Thinkprogress noted at the time, as many as 22 Republicans who railed against the stimulus then touted the projects the stimulus would fund in their home districts. (A few Democrats who voted against the bill have done the same thing.)

Now, many of those same Republican lawmakers are pulling the same bait-and-switch with the FY2009 omnibus spending bill. The Wall Street Journal notes today that Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) slammed the omnibus as wasteful spending, before putting out a press release touting a local harbor project the bill would fund. Similarly, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) voted against the omnibus but then declared he was “proud to have secured these federal funds” for his district. Both insisted to the Journal there was no hypocrisy in their actions

Note to Rep. Diaz-Balart: you didn’t do jack diddly shit to “secure these federal funds.” You both did your level best to ensure those funds would never end up in your districts. You’re trying to have things both ways, and while that’s a time-honored Stupid Con Trick, it’s just getting ridiculous.

So is the wingnut wailing over how nobody ever pays attention to their tantrums:

Wingnut bloggers — still the biggest victimhood queens around.

The tea party movement continues to gain steam, as anti-tax increase, anti-bailout, anti-ballooning deficit citizens turned out around the country today…One emerging theme is the absence of press coverage, especially at the national level. For some reason, reporters and editors believe it is not news when thousands of people, all around the country, gather to protest the government’s bailouts, trillions in debt, etc. And yet, when a mere forty people turned out in Connecticut for an ACORN-sponsored bus tour of homes owned by AIG executives, there were more media people covering the event than there were people on the bus. So let’s see: conservative and libertarian opposition to the government’s economic initiatives–not news. Far left opposition to the government’s economic initiatives, no matter how few participate–that’s news. But of course, not a single person reading this will be surprised.

Assrocket links to photos of Teabagging in Orlando, FL, Raleigh, NC and Ridgefield, CT — the last of which drew a staggering 200 people.
You can see where this is going, can’t you?

The Orlando Sentinel
ORLANDO ‘TEA PARTY’ PROTEST DRAWS MORE THAN 4,000

The Raleigh News & Observer
PORK FRIED AT CAPITOL PROTEST; STIMULUS WRONG, PROTESTORS SAY

The Ridgefield (CT) Press
HUNDREDS PROTEST ADMINISTRATION’S ACTIONS AT VILLAGE RALLY

I don’t think “absence” means what Assrocket thinks it means.

It doesn’t mean what he wants it to mean, which I suppose is the problem. They want their antics discussed on all the 24-hour news channels 24/7. Well, they ain’t getting it. Poor babies.

And speaking of irrelevant hacks, check out lil Billy Kristol, snivelling that Obama’s not bloodthirsty enough:

In his latest column for the Weekly Standard, super-hawk Bill Kristol addresses President Obama’s recent Persian New Year message to the Iran’s leaders and its people, calling it a “message of weakness.” He is upset that Obama didn’t use the words “liberty,” “freedom,” “democracy,” or “human rights” and chastises Obama for referring to Iran as the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” claiming that doing so means that Obama is “kowtowing” to Iran’s leaders.

On Fox News Sunday this morning, Kristol picked up where he left off in his column and continued to whine about Obama’s move, calling it “a weak and embarrassing statement by the President of the United States.” Fox News’s Brit Hume piled on, complaining that it “appears” that the U.S. has now “joined the rest of the world and practicing the diplomacy of talk.”

Assclowns all.

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

I just want to state for the record that moving sucks. And repair shops suck just as much. Well, some repair shops – I still swear by Willy down in Prescott, AZ. If he’s still running The Carport, and you live in Prescott, consider this a not-so-subtle hint to give him a ring next time your car needs some TLC.

Now, on with the rest of the stupid.

For once, I’m going to lead with the Obama administration, because it appears that they’re completely bungling their attempts to rescue the economy:

The trick, at this point, is finding someone — anyone, really — who thinks the Geithner plan is a wise, prudent approach to the problem.

Paul Krugman argues that “zombie ideas have won,” and described what we know of the Geithner proposal as an “awful mess.”

The Obama administration is now completely wedded to the idea that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the financial system — that what we’re facing is the equivalent of a run on an essentially sound bank. As Tim Duy put it, there are no bad assets, only misunderstood assets. And if we get investors to understand that toxic waste is really, truly worth much more than anyone is willing to pay for it, all our problems will be solved.

[snip] In effect, Treasury will be creating — deliberately! — the functional equivalent of Texas S&Ls in the 1980s: financial operations with very little capital but lots of government-guaranteed liabilities. For the private investors, this is an open invitation to play heads I win, tails the taxpayers lose. [snip]

Dean Baker is discouraged. Calculated Risk isn’t happy. And John Cole summarized the big picture this way:

The Illness- reckless and irresponsible betting led to huge losses
The Diagnosis- Insufficient gambling.
The Cure- a Trillion dollar stack of chips provided by the house.
The Prognosis- We are so screwed.

Oh my.

I see Steve Benen’s “oh my” and raise him a “d’oh, shit.”

At this point, the only thing to do is get my CDL, drive a bus to D.C., and invite Obama to throw Geithner under it. It would appear we need a fresh new beginning with people who know what the fuck they’re doing.

While we’re chucking people under buses, we might as well include the entirety of CNBC:

CNBC’s Mark Haines — who yesterday made waves by suggesting that Wall Street companies can’t “be run well” by those making under $250,000 and compared Wall Street executives to Nazis and Baathists while defending their bonuses — was at it again today.

While debating Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), Haines said those who think bailed-out executives shouldn’t receive bonuses are engaged in “witch-huntery.” He also expressed dismay at the thought of Wall Streeters working for a $100,000 salary:

This is witch-huntery. I’ll be perfectly honest with you. You and people who share your opinion seem to feel that, you know, let’s hold salaries on Wall Street to $100,000. Do you have any idea what Wall Street would look like if you did that?

Yes. It would look just a little bit more like Main Street, where people generally don’t get obscene salaries and XXX bonuses for fucking their companies, their country, and the entire world right up the back passage. How’s about we cap salaries at a comfortable (by normal people’s standards, mind) sum, and make bonuses dependent upon the quality of their work? I know that’s a shocking idea to many of them, but it’s time they joined us here in reality.

Rep. Sherman, in case you were wondering, ripped Haines a new one. Possibly several new ones. Ouchies.

It’s getting rather crowded under our bus, but there’s always room for one more:

Conservative Republican Govs. Sanford, Perry, Jindal, and Palin have already taken steps to reject federal stimulus aid. Apparently, Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons (R), arguably the nation’s least popular and most scandal-plagued governor, wants to join the club.

With Nevada suffering from some of the nation’s highest unemployment and foreclosure rates, no one seems to understand what Gibbons is thinking rejecting funds for extended unemployment assistance. If the governor assumed taking an uncompromising conservative stand might rally the Republican base to his defense, he badly miscalculated — GOP lawmakers and the state’s Chamber of Commerce want him to cut the nonsense and accept the money.

[snip] The governor’s finance team hasn’t been able to defend Gibbons’ position. The state’s Democratic Assembly speaker called Gibbons’s position “incoherent.”

That just about sums it up right there. But, of course, Steve takes the Parthian shot and nails it. Go have a look.

When you’re back, you might wish to peruse an interesting chart:

In just their latest posturing for the 2012 Republican presidential race, governors Sarah Palin (R-AK) and Mark Sanford (R-SC) joined Texas’ Rick Perry, Mississippi’s Haley Barbour and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal in announcing they would reject some of the federal stimulus funds allocated to their states. But as the steady one-way flow of tax dollars and earmarks spreading the wealth from Washington to their states shows, de facto red state socialism is alive and well.

As a 2007 analysis (above) of federal spending per tax dollar received by state shows, the reddest states generally reaped the most green. Eight of the top 10 beneficiaries of federal largesse voted for John McCain for President. Unsurprisingly, all 10 states at the bottom of the list – those whose outflow of tax revenue is funding programs elsewhere in the country – all voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

Strange. They always told me it was the liberals who were leeching off conservatives, not the other way round.

But that’s not the point of that chart and post. The point is to show that posturing by the likes of Palin, Jindal et al doesn’t mean jack fucking shit – it’s all for show. Of course, they’re taking the bits of the stimulus they like. What they’re leaving out are the bits they can’t stomach, y’know, the parts that might actually help ordinary people:

Of the $288 million that Palin doesn’t want, $170 million would go to education, including money that “would go for programs to help economically disadvantaged and special needs students.” Other programs affected include “weatherization, energy efficiency grants, immunizations, air quality grants, emergency food assistance, homeless grants, senior meals, child care development grants, nutrition programs, homeless grants, arts, unemployment services, air quality, and justice assistance grants.”

Words fail me at this point.