dumbfuckery du jour

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dana Hunter1 Comment

If John McCain’s thoughts were a swimming pool, we’d have difficulty getting the soles of our feet damp:

McCain co-hosted an event on the Hill this morning, giving the senator a platform to complain about the Recovery Act again. One of the questions from reporters, however, was whether McCain agreed with his Republican colleagues’ concerns about the 14th Amendment. He dodged the question and ended the press conference.
Some reporters, including Brian Beutler, followed him, pressing him to state a position. “Do you support the Minority Leader’s push for hearings into the repeal of birthright citizenship?” Brian asked.

“Sure, why not?” McCain said briefly. 

This appears to be the extent of the consideration he’s given to the idea of amending our Constitution to strip birthright citizenship from our future citizens.  This would be pathetic from any pol, but from the Putz Who Would Be Prez, it’s so fucking pathetic I don’t think we have an appropriate word in the English language.  When you add to that his inability to determine which stimulus projects were useful, which weren’t, and which projects weren’t even part of the stimulus, all I can say is you have a man whose photo would illustrate the word “dumbfuck” very handsomely indeed.

Now ’tis time for a dumbfuck follow-up.  Regular readers know that the “ZOMG SKEERY MOOSLIMS R COMIN TO ENDAWKTRINATE R CHILDRUNS!!1!!1!” crowd planned a protest against a new mosque in Temecula, CA.  Their brilliant ideas: sing songs because Islamic women can’t sing, and bring dogs because all Muslims hate dogs.  The big event has come and gone.  So how’d it go?  As my best friend would say in his best Southern accent,  “Nawt too guud!”

Here’s how it all turned out: the anti-mosque protesters were outnumbered by pro-mosque supporters, the local tea party disavowed the protest and called it hate speech, the protester we talked to dropped off the face of the earth and only one dog made it to the planned protest.

Something tells me this current anti-Muslim crusade will work out about as well as all the anti-Japanese furor did in the late 90s.  Actually, probably worse: the folks who freaked over those damned Nips coming to take all our jobs and own America were fucking idiots, but amateur idiots compared to these professional fucktards, and thus their fail fails to measure up to the major-league fail of today’s frothing fuckwit failures.

And finally, addressing a whole different level of mega-fail, Sen. John Ensign, whom we last encountered having his parents try to pay off his mistress’s husband and discovering himself under investigation by the FBI for his epic fucking fail (ye gods, I slay me sometimes), is now expecting us to see his legal defense as a worthy political cause:

Roll Call reports today that Sen. John Ensign has registered his legal defense fund as a 527 political organization.
A 527 is tax-exempt, but Ensign must report contributions to the IRS.
As Roll Call notes, it’s an unusual move:

Campaign finance experts called the decision unusual and possibly unprecedented, noting that Members of Congress do not typically register legal expense accounts in such a dual fashion. 

“I guess he somehow considers the use of these legal fees, these contributions, to be political, and while they’re related to political charges, typically those defense funds are not set up as 527s,” said Ken Gross, a campaign finance attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom.

I guess Mommy and Daddy’s pockets are only so deep.  Myself, I’m just wondering how much it would cost his little 527 to process penny donations, because I could amuse myself immensely flicking copper coinage at them, one cent at a time.  They’d make such a nice gloopy sound sinking into his sleaze, but it wouldn’t be worth it if he earned a profit from my entertainment.

Now if you’ll excuse me, coming even this close to Ensign has given me the urge to take a bath in industrial-strength bleach.

Dumbfuckery du Jour
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Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dana Hunter

I walked out on the political blogs today.  I’d been busy bemoaning the fact that the new science blog collective Scientopia doesn’t have any geobloggers on board just yet, finding out Neil Gaiman ended up on EW’s 20 Classic Opening Lines in Books, and various and sundry else.  Then I tore myself away from all that and tried to focus on the day’s pollyticks.  I got through Political Animal, but felt the gears grinding.  When I got to Think Progress, I fled.  Somehow, a trip to the grocery store seemed far preferable to killing another neuron with more Con stupidity.  And I really bloody hate going to the grocery store.

Afterward, since the sun had decided to once again shine on Seattle, I tried to settle in on the porch with a book on Yellowstone’s geology and the cat.  Alas, the neighbors were busy proving to the world that they had a healthy sex life, and the results of other neighbors’ healthy sex lives were busy screeching on the teeter-totter, so that plan failed as well. 

Now here we are, and all I want to do is sit quietly contemplating What Do I Really Want Out of Life?  But I simultaneously want to search the woods behind my house for a large stick and then use it to smartly whack some extraordinarily stupid politicians over the head.  Which means you’re getting an installment of Dumbfuckery today after all.  Don’t you feel fortunate?

First, the single thing in pollyticks that made me laugh today: it turns out Sarah Palin’s Palm can’t save her from being a damned fool:

On “Fox News Sunday” yesterday, Chris Wallace chatted for a bit with former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin (R) about, among other things, tax policy. Wallace noted, for example, that taxes went up during the Clinton years and the economy did really well. For that matter, Palin demands keeping all of Bush’s failed tax cuts in place, but as Wallace reminded her, she doesn’t say how she’d pay for them.
She replied:

“Yeah. No. This is going to result in the largest tax increase in U.S. history. And again, it’s idiotic. And my palm isn’t large enough to write — to have written all my notes down on what this tax increase — what it will result in.

“Let me just go through a couple of things that I want people to be aware of, because, you know, the spin coming from Gibbs and the White House — you’re never going to get the truth out of their messaging.

“But Democrats are poised now to cause this largest tax increase in U.S. history. It’s a tax increase of $3.8 trillion over the next 10 years, and it will have an effect on every single American who pays an income tax. Small businesses especially will be hit hardest.”

When Wallace asked what Palin had written on her palm, she explained, “$3.8 trillion, next 10 years, so I didn’t say 3.7 and then get dinged, you know, by the — by the liberals saying I didn’t know what I was talking about.”

That’s right.  Sarah Palin’s still writing notes on her palm. She can’t fucking remember what she wants to talk about unless she writes it down on her palm.  And the shit she’s written down on her palm is, as you will see upon visiting the above link, completely fucking wrong anyway.  There will someday be a dictionary entry for the word “pathetic” that displays a picture of Sarah Palin and uses her as the shining example.

And yet, despite her remarkable idiocy, there is another Con with ambitions to higher office who is very nearly as stupid as she is.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the wit and wisdom of Rand Paul:

In April, two miners were killed at the Dotiki Mine in Western Kentucky after the mine’s roof collapsed. The non-union mine had been cited for 840 safety violations by federal inspectors since 2009, and the Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing issued 31 orders to close sections of the mine or to shut down equipment during the same period. But when asked about the incident, Kentucky’s Republican Senate candidate, Rand Paul, said “maybe sometimes accidents happen.” And as it turns out, Paul doesn’t believe that the federal government has any responsibility at all to set safety standards to protect mine workers:

“The bottom line is: I’m not an expert, so don’t give me the power in Washington to be making rules,” Paul said at a recent campaign stop in response to questions about April’s deadly mining explosion in West Virginia…“You live here, and you have to work in the mines. You’d try to make good rules to protect your people here. If you don’t, I’m thinking that no one will apply for those jobs.”

That echoey sound you just heard, like a coconut hitting a concrete floor, was my head hitting the nearest convenient solid object.

Let’s parse this a bit: what Rand Paul is really saying is, “I am too ignorant and naive to become a US Senator, and if I do, I have no intention of performing my job, but I hope you’re stupid enough to vote for me anyway.”

No wonder the few somewhat-sane Republicans who haven’t yet run screaming into the loving arms of the Democratic Party are getting disgusted enough to start calling their fellows “crazy-cons.”

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dana Hunter

Shit, the stupidity I missed yesterday.  Finally caught up on some of my pollytickal reading today, and came across this shining chunk of dumb shit:

At its state convention in Des Moines last month, the Iowa GOP adopted a new party platform that includes the repeal of mandatory minimum wage laws, the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education, and even clarification on the definition of manure. Out of the “387 enumerated planks and principles,” Newsweek’s Jerry Adler found the most “startling” section of the platform calls for “the reintroduction and ratification of the original 13th Amendment.”

Adopted in December 1865, the current 13th Amendment of the Constitution prohibits “slavery” and “involuntary servitude” in the United States or any place under its jurisdiction. The Iowa GOP is not trying to overturn this amendment to reinstate slavery. Instead, it wants to reintroduce the “original 13th Amendment” first offered by senator Phillip Reed of Maryland in 1810. The amendment states that “if any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain any title of nobility or honor” from a “foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen” and “shall be incapable of holding any office of trust.” In receiving only 12 out of the 13 votes needed for ratification, the amendment was never adopted.

Traditional supporters of the idea are known as “Thirteenthers,” who seek to prevent those with the title of “esquire,” such as lawyers and bankers, from participating in government. But according to its spokeswoman, Danielle Plogmann, the Iowa GOP supports it as an attack on President Obama’s Nobel Prize win:

There are, of course, other implications of Thirteenthism, such as ensuring that the United States never again suffers the humiliation of having a president win the Nobel Peace Prize. That was just what the Iowa Republicans had in mind, according to Plogmann, who wrote in an e-mail that the plank “was meant to make a statement about the delegates’ opinion about Mr. Obama receiving the prize.” (Presumably they didn’t mind if, in the process, they were also making a statement about any American scientist or writer unlucky enough to win a Nobel.) Unfortunately for them, the Department of Justice looked into whether Obama needed Congressional approval to accept the Nobel under the existing emoluments clause, and based on the meaning of “foreign state” (which would not cover the Nobel Prize Committee) concluded that he did not.

I read that ten hours ago, and I’m still speechless.  I mean, I know some people lose all sense of reality and proportion when it comes to Obama.  I know some people have an irrational hatred of him that causes them to develop symptoms of rabies when they hear his name.  But to be motivated to change the Constitution because he won the Nobel is just – there are no words for the magnitude of that insanity.  All I can think of is an astronomical comparison: if batshit fucking insanity is equivalent to the gravitational strength of a neutron star, this is a fucking black hole.  I mean, for fuck’s sake, they almost make the Birthers look rational.

Holy fucking shit, Batman.

Anyway, while we’re on the subject of Cons fucking with the Constitution, I think now would be a good time to point out that Sen. Lindsey Graham is just as much of a Con as any of ’em:

Remember, as far as much of the media is concerned, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is a reasonable, pragmatic Republican, with whom Democrats should have no trouble finding common ground.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced Wednesday night that he is considering introducing a constitutional amendment that would change existing law to no longer grant citizenship to the children of immigrants born in the United States.

Currently, the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to any child born within the United States.
But with 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, Graham said it may be time to restrict the ability of immigrants to have children who become citizens just because they are born within the country.

In fairness, Graham didn’t come right out and demand an amendment, but he told Fox News he’s close. “I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here,” Graham told Greta Van Susteren. “Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake, that we should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child’s automatically not a citizen.”
[snip]
Jamelle Bouie’s take was spot on:

It’s genuinely difficult to overstate the radicalism necessary to seek a transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed to ensure that slavery could never again happen in the United States and is now integral to keeping the United States free of a permanent underclass of immigrant workers.

And here’s about where I start to think that the Con leaders spouting this shit aren’t simply echoing their “brown people are scary!  Xenophobia rulez!” base in hopes of getting a vote, but are thinking more in terms of useful idiots, because creating a “permanent underclass of immigrant workers” would very likely suit them and their corporate sponsors right down to the ground.

I wish that didn’t seem like such a plausible conspiracy theory.  I wish we had a sane opposition party.  These freaks and fools frankly terrify me.

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Right, then.  So I’d had this perfect trifecta of burning stoopid all set and ready for ye when I got a bit sidetracked, and I thought this morning, “Oh, dear, something really profoundly inane will happen today and I’ll end up with either an unwieldy foursome or I’ll have to scuttle the trifecta as old news.”  That was before I spent all day at work watching our queue grow and grow and grow (because apparently the scheduling software has a blind spot when it comes to staffing on Wednesdays).  Then there was the flood in ye olde inbox – a great many excellent old friends whom I’d lost touch with tracked me down on Facebook, and I spent some time reading over the list, reliving fond memories, and thinking, “Holy shit, how the fuck am I going to catch up on sleep, reading, blogging, and all these folks???”

Well, new dumbfuckery can wait.  Besides, this stuff is like cheese – it doesn’t spoil, it just ages.

Let us begin with the rallying cry of Temecula, California’s rabid right, who don’t want none of those icky Mooslems building no new mosques in the territory they’ve already pissed on.  Well, they know just how to scare away that kind of rabble, yes they do:

As the Valley News of Fallbrook reports, the leader of the anti-community center rally — who the paper does not name — has “been active with Republican and Tea Party functions” in the past. Recently, the activist distributed an email to area media outlets calling on those opposed to the construction of the Islamic Center in Temecula to come to a “one-hour ‘singing – praying – patriotic rally'” July 30 at the site of the town’s existing Islamic center, which local Muslims are trying to replace with new construction.
Details on the event, from the Valley News:

“We will not be submissive,” the notice proclaimed. “Our voices are going to be heard!” The alert went on to question what its authors described as Islamic beliefs. It suggested that participants sing during the rally because Muslim “women are forbidden to sing.” It suggested that rally participants bring dogs because Muslims “hate dogs.”

And they know this because an uncle of a cousin of an acquaintance of a friend once told the local pastor that some dude with dark skin and a Middle Eastern name once called in a nuisance complaint on someone’s constantly barking dog, I’m sure. 

As for the Muslim ladies being forbidden to sing, well, that’s going to come as a surprise to the other folks who could find nothing in the Qu’ran to prevent such activities.  (That, of course, has not stopped frothing fundie clerics from inventing such a prohibition, much like frothing fundie preachers have manipulated Bible verses to expressly forbid some activities not actually forbidden whilst explaining why it’s okay to wear blends and eat shellfish despite clear prohibitions against those things.  However, I rather doubt the Temecula mosque and community center gives two shits about those fucktards.)

After that display of amazing ignorance, everything else should’ve been distant second.  But no.  When one group of rabid righties explodes with teh stoopid, another set needs to outdo ’em.  And when it comes to a right-wing fucktard trying to parse the meaning of the word “lynch,” you just know the dumbfuckery’s deep and getting rapidly deeper:

Yesterday, the American Spectator‘s Jeffrey Lord decided to go after Shirley Sherrod, this time accusing her of lying because she said Bobby Hall was “lynched” in 1943. Hall was beaten to death by a white sheriff and his two white deputies, but as far as Lord was concerned, rope wasn’t involved. Ergo, Sherrod’s credibility is in question.
As Adam Serwer responded yesterday, “A lynching is an extrajudicial mob killing. No one who worked to document the practice of lynching in the South limited the definition of the term to solely include those lynchings that occurred using a rope…. Now does three guys beating someone to death sound like an extrajudicial mob killing to you?”
Today, Lord answered that question and defended his offensive argument.

Random House Webster’s College Dictionary defines lynching as: “to put to death, esp. hanging by mob action and without legal authority.”

I have read the Court’s decision. Three people are not a “mob.” A mob is defined as a “large crowd.” So there was no “mob action” because there was no mob.

Look, this is ridiculous. Lord wisely gave up on the whole rope line of argument, but now wants to parse the meaning of the word “mob.” Three white cops beat a black man to death. They arrested him on weak evidence, beat him mercilessly for a half-hour, and dragged the man’s unconscious body, feet first, through the courthouse square before his death.
If there were four white cops would Lord be comfortable with the word “lynching”? How about five? 

I have a feeling he won’t accept anything less than a round hundred complete with torches and pitchforks, but who knows?  He could be satisfied with fifty.  However, debating the exact number of people required to make a mob (anyone encountering a toddler knows the correct answer is 1) rather distracts from the fact that some kindly soul needs to take little Lord aside and ‘splain to him the meaning of “esp.”  As I am not a kindly soul, I shall put it this way, Mr. Lord: if you looked up the word “dumbfuck” and found this definition:

“an extraordinarily stupid person, esp. Jeffrey Lord”

that would not mean that you are the only possible type of dumbfuck in existence, just an especially fine example of one.  Hope that helps!

Anyway, while we’re on the subject of lynching:

The National Organization For Marriage (NOM) has embarked on a disastrous 23-city “Summer for Marriage Tour 2010,” spreading the gospel of one-man-one-woman marriage to tens of supporters and encountering well organized counter protests in almost every city. Yesterday, the The Bilerico Project’s Bil Browning attended a NOM rally in Indianapolis, Indiana and found that while “over 250 LGBT and allied folks protested the rally,” “only 40 fundies showed up.” Among the small crowd of so-called traditional marriage supporters was a man holding a sign reminiscent of the Jim Crowe era. It showed two yellow nooses and a bible passage suggesting that gay couples should be put to death…

(I do not want to confuse Mr. Lord here, so let me explain: just because “noose” is the first image to spring to mind when someone brings up “lynch” does not mean that a noose is the only possible means of lynching someone.  Please refer to the definition of “dumbfuck” above once again, Mr. Lord.)

I’m sure it will surprise you not at all to learn that the wielder of said sign “was all confused himself” before he became a fundie and learned he should hate himself for his icky attraction to other blokes.  Amazing how such buffoons feel the need to turn their self-loathing into exhortations to execute those who refuse to despise their sexual orientation.

These are the supporters that NOM’s Maggie Gallagher was “very proud of” before the rally.  I wonder how proud she is now?

That’s it, my darlings.  We’ve had to don scuba equipment for this foray into the deep dumbfuckery, and I believe I’m running out of air.  Time to surface.

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Dumbfuckery would be a lot harder to get away with if more news organizations were as interested in facts as Arizona’s KPHO:

During this election cycle, Arizona politicians have touted the potential danger of illegal immigration. Gov. Jan Brewer is one of the loudest voices.
She has made several statements to the national media, the validity of which CBS 5 Investigates could not confirm. The governor told one media outlet that almost all illegal immigrants are bringing drugs across the border. U.S. Border Patrol officials said that statement is false.
Brewer also said law enforcement officials have found decapitated bodies in the desert. Calls to all of Arizona’s border county medical examiners revealed no decapitated bodies have been reported to them.

Do go read the whole thing.  It’s a study in earned evisceration by media, and it is glorious. I especially love it when they uncover the fact that two of Brewer’s advisers have close lobbying ties to the private prison industry, which stands to gain a fair amount from laws such as Arizona’s odious immigration law, should those private prisons contract with the state to house all those lovely extra prisoners before they’re deported.

Once that travesty is either repealed or shot down as an unconstitutional piece of shit, I shall have to go visit ye olde home state and buy the fine folks at KPHO a good, stiff drink.  After wading through all of Brewer’s bullshit, they could probably use it.

(Tip o’ the shot glass to Crooks and Liars)

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dana Hunter3 Comments

When Cons brag about outraising Dems, it pays to have a closer look at those magic numbers:

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which raises money to help put GOP butts in House seats, sent an email this week bragging in big red letters that it outraised its Democratic counterpart for the month of June. 
The NRCC raised about $9.15 million and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee came in a close second with around $9.02 million. The difference: $138,000. 
The thing that put the NRCC over the top? A $500,000 settlement from the NRCC’s insurance company, stemming from the years-long bilking of the NRCC by its former treasurer, Chris Ward. 

So it took an insurance settlement for them to “outraise” the DCCC.  And they’re bragging about it.  That’s actually pretty fucking pathetic.

Between that and the NRC’s criminally cute accounting tricks, it seems to me that the national Cons have a few problems they don’t want to admit to.  As the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, it looks like they will continue to be total fuckwits for the foreseeable future.  The shock is absolutely making my toes tingle.

Oh, wait, that’s not it.  I’m sitting on my feet.  Perhaps I should allow circulation to return.  Hey, presto, the tingling is gone!

Anyway, while we’re on the subject of people inflating their importance artificially, let’s discuss the brand-new House Tea Party Caucus:

As for the caucus itself, as of late yesterday, the House Tea Party Caucus reportedly has 29 members, with a membership list that’s nearly identical to that of the right-wing Republican Study Committee. There is, however, some ongoing controversy on this front — some of the members included on Bachmann’s list of caucus members hadn’t formally given their permission to be included in the group.
Sounds like they’re off to a good start.

True Cons, those.  We certainly wouldn’t expect them any other way.

And, finally, Shep Smith has a few choice words on the Sherrod fiasco:

Meanwhile, Fox New anchor Shep Smith — whose network breathlessly promoted the smear campaign — slammed Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com as “widely discredited,” and blasted the White House for acting on its video. Smith even called out his own employer, saying, “The video, taken completely out of context, it ran all over the Internet, and television, including on this network:”

We here at Studio B did not run the video and did not reference the story in any way for many reasons, among them: we didn’t know who shot it, we didn’t know when it was shot, we didn’t know the context of the statement, and because of the history of the videos on the site where it was posted, in short we do not and did not trust the source. […]

[The White House based its decision on] an edited videotape on a widely discredited website that has had inaccurate postings of videos in the past–edited to the point where the world was deceived. … What in the world has happened to our industry and the White House?

Well, y’see, Shep, your network kind of dragged the industry down by being loud, obnoxious, unprincipled partisan shits, and since they make money pandering to the right wing shit-bubbles-for-brains crowd, other networks decided they needed to chase after the right wing shit-bubbles-for-brains crowd, or at least that actual journalism cost too much money when you could just have a lot of shit-bubbleheads babble at the top of their lungs, and Americans were too busy chasing celebrities to notice, and thus the industry went straight down the shitter, shit-bubbles and all.  As for the White House, I think they’ve been conditioned by years of Faux News fanatical screaming combined with Con tantrums, and they’re terrified of you all hitting them in the face.  Alas, the choice was between cowards and batshit fucking insane people this last presidential election, so we ended up with the cowards.  Does that clear it up for you?

I hope so.  That said, I do hope folks pay attention to what you said, because a little more of that kind of thinking would go a very long way toward giving me less dumbfuckery to write about.  Don’t worry, though – I’m sure Michele Bachmann and her ilk will continue providing me with plenty o’ material.

And don’t forget to check out the shit-bubbles link.  I think we could all use a good laugh.  If you don’t want to read the whole thing, just start with the first paragraph after the “Invisible Girl” video and keep reading, but only after swallowing all substances presenting choking or spit-take hazards.

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dana Hunter4 Comments

Ye gods, wot a day.  There’s about ten thousand news items all clamoring for attention at once.  We are, in fact, drowning in dumbfuckery.  And to top that off, it seems everybody in the nation had a broken cell phone, so I merely had time to skim rather than wade into the depths.  In retrospect, this might have been for the best.

Well, let’s start from the shallow yet disgusting end and get our feet acclimated before we wade any deeper.  We can begin with the Cons’ continuing battle against the unemployed.  With an extension to unemployment benefits a foregone conclusion, Cons decided desperate families could wait another thirty hours while they played their little obstruction games in the Senate.  Rep. Alan Grayson analyzes their thinking:

On the floor of the House, Grayson soundly berated the Republicans for holding up the extension of unemployment benefits with a “May God have mercy on your souls”.

Noting that his grandfather scoured the garbage dump for things he could sell to support his family in the 1930s, Grayson said, “That is the America the Republicans are trying to revive — the America of desperate straits and cheap labor.”

“I know what [Republicans] are th/inking [sic]: ‘Why don’t they just sell some stock? If they’re in really dire straits, maybe they could take some of their art collection and send it off to the auctioneer. And if they’re in deep, deep trouble, maybe the unemployed can sell one of their yachts.’ That’s what the Republicans are thinking,” Grayson said.

The Party of Marie Antoinette, they are.  Despicable little bastards.  (And yes, I know, a Dem or two is lumped in with that category – I’m looking at you, Ben Nelson.)

Now that we’ve endured some group sociopathy, let’s wade further and observe a pure psychopath in action:

We got a better sense of Breitbart’s perspective today when the right-wing media activist told MSNBC, “I feel bad that they made this about her, and I feel sorry that they made this about her. Watching how they’ve misconstrued, how the media has misconstrued the intention behind this, I do feel a sympathy for her plight.” He added that he’s “sympathetic” to the fact that the media “went after her and not after the NAACP.”
So, in Breitbart’s mind, the media is to blame — apparently because news outlets ran with the story that Breitbart gave them.
David Kurtz calls the remarks “almost sociopathic.” Simon Maloy labels Breitbart’s response “pathological.”

Why, indeed.  Y’see, a psychopath never sees himself at fault.  Someone else is always to blame.

For further psychopathy, see also Mitch McConnell, the idiot who wanted to start a revolution by shooting the ACLU and the Tides Foundation, and our national media.  Oh, fuck it, throw in very nearly the entirety of the right wing while we’re at it.

We’re pretty deep in the brown, sticky and stinky.  Time to wade back to shore, passing the RNC on the way, who’re hip-deep in the deep shit and getting deeper:

It’s clearly a busy media day, with a variety of stories generating plenty of discussion, but the RNC’s hidden-debt controversy is probably under-appreciated at this point. It has the potential to be a very big deal.

A GOP civil war has broken out between RNC Chairman Michael Steele and RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen.

The dust-up reveals new levels of dysfunction at the RNC and suggests the Republican National Committee is having real money problems.

In a memo obtained by ABC News, Pullen makes startling allegations against Steele’s chief of staff, accusing him of trying to hide unpaid invoices and causing the RNC not to report more than $7 million in debt in its April and May filings with the Federal Election Commission.

Now, we know that at least some of what Pullen is charging is already true — the RNC had to file amended reports to explain previously unreported debt. But according to the RNC’s own treasurer, Steele and others at party headquarters did this deliberately, allegedly going to literally criminal lengths to hide party debts and financial troubles.

How criminal?  Just ask criminal mastermind Hans von Spakovsky:

Though RNC aides and officials are strongly denying any wrongdoing or misreporting, the organization has brought on “former [FEC] Chairman Michael E. Toner” as outside counsel, an “unusual and significant move,” according to Heritage Foundation legal pundit Hans A. von Spakovsky. He noted, “The RNC normally uses its own inside counsel to deal with the FEC, but if I had a really serious problem with the FEC, Michael Toner is one of the first guys I would turn to help me out.” 

Somebody needs to pop us up a container ship’s worth of popcorn while somebody else holds us some ringside seats.  This looks set to get fascinating.

But first, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to go hose off after that dip with the dipshits.  I feel icky.

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dana Hunter

Epic fucking USDA fail:

It looked like Breitbart and the Big Government website had gotten the goods on another one of their enemies. But as is often the case, there’s more to this one than meets the eye.
The story involves USDA official Shirley Sherrod, the director of regional development in Georgia. She spoke recently at an NAACP event, and Big Government posted a portion of her remarks. As far as the far-right site is concerned, Sherrod “admitted” that she’s used her “federally appointed position” to “discriminate against people due to their race.”
At first blush, the allegations almost seem fair. The video shows Sherrod talking about a deliberate decision not to help a white farmer because she was “struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farm land.”

And so Tom Vilsack demanded her resignation, and the NAACP condemned her, all without pausing a moment to consider one teensy possibly significant fact:

The anti-ACORN crusade — and its creative editing — should have been the first clue that right-wing video clips released by Breitbart and Big Government may not be what they seem to be. Shirley Sherrod offers another painful reminder.

Because, as it turns out, context is absolutely everything.  It’s just that Breitbart and his merry band of fuckwits kinda sorta forgot to include those bits of the video that explained why Sherrod had gone to bat for the farmer after all, learning the important lesson that race doesn’t matter in such matters, and has applied that lesson about going beyond race ever since.

I would just like to remind everyone that when Breitbart et al post something that’s giving off a lot of smoke, one should fan said smoke away and determine if there’s actually a fucking fire before busting out the fire extinguishers.

Bonus dumbfuckery: Ben Stein performs an exhaustive study of the personal qualities of the unemployed (i.e., picks what passes for his brain) and concludes they almost all suck.  Additionally, what “family values” really means to a Con.  I know, I know, a man boinking his stepson’s estranged wife on the side would not seem to be a “family values” candidate, but he totally is – at least compared to David “Diapers” Vitter.

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dana Hunter

Step this way, folks, and see John McCain and his Wonderful Missiles!

Arizona’s first debate for the Republican primary race had a few memorable moments but none summed up the Republican Party’s view on what is “pork” and what they consider their priorities on spending than than this bit by John McCain. Spending for teachers, it’s pork, but we need to keep that military industrial complex going and make sure that the people “making those wonderful missiles”… the “job creators”, have their taxes cut.
“Wonderful missiles”… I can’t believe he said that, but he did. I can’t think of a single reason to call missiles “wonderful” unless you think dropping bombs on people’s heads is a “wonderful” thing. 

I couldn’t believe he said that, either.  But he did.  Check out the transcript at the above link.  Then consider that Arizona voters are likely going to choose this supreme asscrunch to represent them for another six years.  In my home state, the wonderful sane people are vastly outnumbered by complete fucktards. 

But you know what, Arizona?  It need not be this way.  There are four folks currently in the Democratic primary for US Senate, and any single one of these four would be a saner choice.  Don’t like any of ’em?  Wouldn’t be caught dead voting for a dirty Dem?  Why, then, write in Camelback Mountain as your senator of choice!  At least the mountain won’t run around making a complete arse out of all of you.


 CAMELBACK MOUNTAIN FOR U.S. SENATE

Of course, the Teabaggers will probably say it’s a crypto-Muslim terrorist because it looks like a camel, camels are found in the Middle East, etc. etc., but who the fuck cares what they think?  It’s solid, it’s held steady and virtually unchanging all these years, it’s been an American citizen since Arizona became a state, and I believe these qualities, among many others, make it the obvious conservative choice for any conservatives who still possess a few shreds of sanity.

Really, when you’ve got a choice between a majestic mountain and John “Fuck Teachers, Fund the Missiles!” McCain, there’s really no choice at all.

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dumbfuckery du Jour

Dana Hunter

It’s a good thing I don’t need functioning vocal cords to point out how ridiculous Sharron Angle is:

CBN’s David Brody, to his credit, brought up the fact that there’s a “perception” that Angle is “avoiding those mainstream media outlets” by limiting herself to Fox News and other conservative outlets. He noted, for example, that she isn’t “going on ‘Meet the Press’ or a ‘This Week,’ those type of news shows.”
Angle replied that she only wants to talk to media that will let her beg for cash.

“Well, in that audience, will they let me say I need $25 dollars from a million people go to Sharron Angle.com send money? Will they let me say that? Will I get a bump on my website and you can watch whenever I go on to a show like that we get an immediate bump. You can see the little spinners. People say ‘Oh, I heard that. I am going and I’m going to help Sharron out because they realize this is a national effort and that I need people from all around the nation.’ They may not be able to vote for me but they can certainly help.”

I guess, then, that the Christian Broadcasting Network is one of those outlets that doesn’t mind being used by Angle as part of a fundraising ploy.
In this sense, I’m not sure who should be more embarrassed: Angle, for her willingness to only appear on programs that let her shamelessly beg for money; or the news outlets that actually agree to go along with this and allow the crazed candidate to treat their interviews as a telethon?

Whelp.  At least now we have a quick and accurate field test for whether news outlets are actually legitimate news outlets.  If you see Sharron Angle shilling for cash, it’s not a legitimate news outlet.  How easy is that?

She’s only willing to go on teevee for cash money.  When it comes to having a dialogue with reporters, you can forget it:

This weekend, Fox 5 in Las Vegas caught up with Angle at the state GOP convention. As the Plum Line’s Greg Sargent points out, Angle attempted to backtrack on her remarks by saying that she opposed the MGM project because it received stimulus funds… [snip]
 
But as Fox 5 notes in its report, Angle’s explanation is bogus, because the City Center never received any stimulus funds: 

FOX 5 ANCHOR: But I listened to that interview, and the caller asked Sharron Angle, would you have called the banks as Harry Reid did to get them to open up some lines of credit to the City Center so they could continue construction after their partners pulled out. That’s what she was asked, and she said, no I would not. And tonight she told you, no that’s not what I said, I said I would not vote for the stimulus — but the stimulus had nothing to do with the construction of City Center. Was anyone able to follow-up with her on that?

FOX 5 REPORTER: No. We were not allowed to ask any sort of follow-up questions. I tried, and another reporter tried, and we were told just one question each. Again, only four questions for the assembled media that was there. […]

Maybe if they’d offered her 25 bucks, they could’ve asked another question.  That’s a steep price for stupid, and I’m not sure they’d have gotten their money’s worth, but at least they could’ve asked.

Harry Reid’s gotta be feeling good about his chances.  Unfortunately, we shouldn’t underestimate the potential stupidity of American voters.  They did, after all, give us eight years of Bush the Younger.  Sharron “Deregulate the Oil Companies!  Force Rape and Incest Victims to Give Birth to Assault Babies Because It’s God’s Plan!  Send Me Money!” Angle might be exactly what they want.  I dunno why.  Maybe it’s because they can’t be bothered to pay even five seconds’ attention, or maybe it’s because these batshit-insane barely-functional morons make them feel better about themselves.  Or maybe it’s because they’ve given up on finding useful politicians and are going for sheer entertainment value.  If it’s either of the latter two, I can assure the American voter that Sharron Angle is cheap at the price – although she’d cost our country dear.

Dumbfuckery du Jour