Currently viewing the tag: "Stupidity"
Suspiciously fashion-conscious and single Republican Congressman Aaron Schock of Illinois came out to Morning Joe today to inform us he has finally decided what he wants to cut to get a handle on the deficit. Recall Schock was on months earlier and was challenged by Scarborough to tell him what he would cut (since he wouldn’t shut up about the budget deficit) and he didn’t really have an answer. Months have passed and Aaron is now ready to educate us on the path to fiscal sanity.
Even Pat Buchanan laughed at this. The worst part of this flimflammery, besides the point it does nothing to deal with debts or deficits (less than a sneeze to either) is the transparent cynicism of the Republican Study Committee trying to take away the signs that show Americans what the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act actually funded while going around the country saying the stimulus did nothing. I’m still not certain if Schock is dumb or cynical or a nice mix of both, but I do understand why he might want those ARRA signs taken down since they might be embarrassing the next time he shows up at a ground-breaking or ribbon-cutting in his district with the voice of Rachel Maddow ringing in his ears.
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No one but a GOP strategist — discussing the recently passed financial reform bill — could describe his party’s ultra-cynical core strategy so well:
“This bill, in the minds of most Americans, is just a big amoeba,” said John Feehery, a Washington-based GOP strategist. “Because this bill is so complicated, it makes it easier for Republicans to oppose it, and by opposing it, call it a job killer.”Translated from strategy-speak:
Americans (and especially the people in our base) are drooling, barely sentient idiots. When we wave shiny objects and complicated bills in front of them, they quiver as puddles and yearn to have us fill their stupid, fecund minds with pleasant-sounding nonsense that comforts the frightened part of their brains in which they all permanently dwell.I agree with DougJ on this:
To my mind, this is one of the central problems of contemporary American politics: any reasonably complicated bill can be twisted into a soshulist, unAmerican, job-killing atrocity. The media doesn’t help, obviously. Conservative pundits are happy to help with the twisting, straight reporters mostly write “shape of earth, views differ”, and there’s always Charles Lane to tell us that, while, it isn’t truly a job-killing machine, there are legitimate concerns that we can read about in an American Enterprise Institute study.Clearly, the only solution here is to make sure that all bills are no longer than the Constitution.
YouTube celebrity and Tea Party favorite, Rick Barber, apparently didn’t have a firm enough commitment from Presidents Washington and Lincoln to get the Republican vote out in Alabama’s 2nd Congressional district runoff today. Maybe his supporters were too busy LARPing to make it to the polls. It wasn’t even close — Councilwoman Martha Washington Roby defeated him 61% to 39%. Maybe Barber can play dress up and do a Dodge Challenger ad.
Here’s one of Barber’s ads, filmed in his basement, to jog your memory.
One thing I like to say is: America is great, not because of our genetics. We’re great because we created a place and space where people can be free. And they can choose Christ, they can choose to be faithful. They can worship, and they find their way to the Lord. And — or some of them don’t. We sure want them all to, but some of them don’t.Part of that freedom — when you take a government and you impose, and take away all your choices. One of the choices you take away is to find the Lord. And to find your savior.
And that’s one of the things that’s most destructive about the growth of government. It’s this taking away of that freedom. The freedom — the ultimate freedom, to find your salvation, to get your salvation. And to find Christ, for me and you.
And I think that’s one of the things that we have to be very, very aware of. That the Obama Administration and Congressman Carnahan are doing to us.
I know you’re all gonna slam me for my child-like naiveté on this but are there really so few good, decent politicians out there with any shred of integrity or responsibility?
Are there any depths to which most any politician will not sink?
Are there simply no limits to what these greased-up sociopaths will say to the ignorant masses to stoke up their animal fear-based instincts to get themselves elected?
Disagreeing with Obama on health care policy is fine.
Saying that Obama wants to take away “all your choices” and your choice to “find the Lord“? That’s serious danger talk.
Remember the days when we had a few responsible Republicans who batted shit like this away? No longer.
Jeebus wept for the future of our polity.
This page from a textbook published by ultra-christianist Bob Jones University is just about the funniest (and scariest) thing I’ve seen in a good long while:
Here’s the text:
Electricity is a mystery. No one has ever observed it or heard it or felt it. We can see and feel and hear only what electricity does. We know that it makes light bulbs shine and irons heat up and telephones ring. But we cannot say what electricity itself is like.We cannot even say where electricity comes from. Some scientists say that the sun may be the source of most electricity. Other think that the movement of the Earth produces some of it. All anyone knows is that electricity seems to be everywhere and that there are many ways to bring it forth.
How would you have to change the way you get ready for school if you did not use electricity?
“The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook.” Psalm 77:18
Yes, I am totally not shitting you. I especially love the bit about “some scientists” saying that the sun is the source of “most electricity”.
I think we all know the answer to the question “is our children learning?“
Public Service P.S. If any home-schooled Christian kids want to “hear” and “feel” electricity, go down to the kitchen, grab a fork, and stick it in a light socket. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Come back and tell me how it was.
Update: I dig this take by Smrt Mama:
Really, how is explaining about particles and currents not compatible with creationism? Can someone explain that to me? Does electricity have to be dumbed down and falsified and just…just…stupid-ized purely for the sake of making it different from secular science? What is the purpose here?
It is really hard to fathom how much of a bleedingly stupid fool Michael Steele really is:
Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”…As John Cole helpfully points out:“It was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well, if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan.”
Everyone knows that there was no land war in Afghanistan until 2009. Since Saddam paid for Al Qaeda’s attack on 9/11, it’s always puzzled me what Obama was doing attacking that other place.The mind reels…
Will someone please wake me up when this nightmare is over?
Update: And doubleplusgood on Glenn Greenwald for calling the following statement put out by the DNC in response to Steele’s comments above “truly repellent and classically Rovian“:
RNC CHAIRMAN MICHAEL STEELE BETS AGAINST OUR TROOPS, ROOTS FOR FAILUREThe only thing Democrats have to fear is Democrats.“Here goes Michael Steele setting policy for the GOP again. The likes of John McCain and Lindsey Graham will be interested to hear that the Republican Party position is that we should walk away from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban without finishing the job. They’d also be interested to hear that the Chairman of the Republican Party thinks we have no business in Afghanistan notwithstanding the fact that we are there because we were attacked by terrorists on 9-11.
“And, the American people will be interested to hear that the leader of the Republican Party thinks recent events related to the war are ‘comical’ and that he is betting against our troops and rooting for failure in Afghanistan. It’s simply unconscionable that Michael Steele would undermine the morale of our troopswhen what they need is our support and encouragement. Michael Steele would do well to remember that we are not in Afghanistan by our own choosing, that we were attacked and that his words have consequences.”
THE GRAPEVINE
