O'Reilly. That didn't take long

As Maire predicted, O'Reilly insists that his book about Lincoln is being savaged by 'enemies.'

Like historians.

My favorite quote:

"We well understand our enemies are full of rage at that success," he said. "We also know the media lies at will these days with little accountability."

I think we can all agree with that last bit.

Where do they find these idiots?

I am not just talking about Republicans, but this time it is one: this idiot. I'll put his original comments aside. They are not a question of stupidity but of his apparently sincere religious beliefs. The issue of stupidity is when he insults everyone who is a Hindu and THEN DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHY THEY COULD BE OFFENDED.

The director of the Hindu American Foundation talked to him and sent him this reply:

“It is difficult to understand how an individual of your education, experience and position would think that calling ‘gods’ of another religion ‘false’ and its practices ‘idolatry, and stating that your hope was that ‘Hindus open their eyes and receive Jesus as their Savior’ would not be taken as offensive…. While you say that you did not intend to offend Hindus, it is apparent that you did. Still, I appreciate the time you personally took to clarify your perspective.”

After reading about this impenetrably smug doofus I can only imagine someone like, say, Christ, walking out of the thoroughly disrupted money changers' section of the Temple and wondering "Was it something I said?"

When you think your religious views are so mainstream that calling anyone else on their religion is simple common sense you have wondered far from the Gospels. What sacrifice, what burden, what cross have you picked up if you are that smug and self-satisfied.

Is there something we have been feeding politicians lately? Is it the water?

money changers. that would be ancient bankers. another remarkably smug lot.

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Bank of America, the home state bank

Once North Carolinians were proud to call Bank of America a Tarheel bank. It seemed well run and actually avoided many of the moral and professional lapses of most other banks. The ones that nearly destroyed the world economy and put paid to Western Civilization.

That was then.

Now - they are an embarrassment. This is just the latest installment of the Bank that can't shot straight.

not only too big too fail, too big to run efficiently: Clemens' First Law of Bureaucratic Growth.

Tea Party Jobs Plan

Let there be none.

Proposed oath for small businesses from Tea Party Nation:

I, an American small business owner, part of the class that produces the vast majority of real, wealth producing jobs in this country, hereby resolve that I will not hire a single person until this war against business and my country is stopped.

I hereby declare that my job creation potential is now ceased.

"I'm on strike!"

It's about nothing sane. And when you find a small business owner who intends not to hire to make a political statement, as opposed to making a living, please get in touch.

they've been drinking the John Galt tea nonsense again.

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Update on Pinellas Co. Stupidity

It was even worse than I first thought.

Read it and weep.

The decision came as a surprise because the county just started fluoridating water eight years ago, so it was considered a debated and settled issue.

It was also unexpected because the 4-3 vote came at a workshop on what was billed as an update on fluoridation.

Why listen to dentists.

"Hillsborough County has been fluoridating water since 1994. The City of Tampa also fluoridates its water."

No evidence it has lowered the intelligence of the population.

but then, how could they tell?

Another Republican speaks

I like reading David Frum, thought sometimes he comes across as a (slightly) more mature and much smarter version of that guy in high school that though Ayn Rand was a brilliant writer. He is a Republican having served in the Bush administration and a true conservative. Here he is unloading on the economic idiocy of the current crop of Republicans and faux conservative:

On the most urgent economic issue of the day – recovery from the Great Recession – the Republican consensus is seriously wrong.

It is wrong in its call for monetary tightening.

It is wrong to demand immediate debt reduction rather than wait until after the economy recovers.

It is wrong to deny that “we have a revenue problem.”

It is wrong in worrying too much about (non-existent) inflation and disregarding the (very real) threat of a second slump into recession and deflation.

It is wrong to blame government regulation and (as yet unimposed) tax increases for the severity of the recession.

It is wrong to oppose job-creating infrastructure programs.

It is wrong to hesitate to provide unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other forms of income maintenance to the unemployed.

It is wrong to fetishize the exchange value of the dollar against other currencies.

It is wrong to believe that cuts in marginal tax rates will suffice to generate job growth in today’s circumstance.

It is wrong to blame minor and marginal government policies like the Community Reinvestment Act for the financial crisis while ignoring the much more important role of government inaction to police overall levels of leverage within the financial system.

It is wrong to dismiss the Euro crisis as something remote from American concerns.

It is wrong to resist US cooperation with European authorities in organizing a work-out of the debt problems of the Eurozone countries.

It is wrong above all in its dangerous combination of apocalyptic pessimism about the long-term future of the country with aloof indifference to unemployment.

Did he leave anything out?

of course, his conclusion is that Mitt Romney is the best thing they've got.

They're different from you and me

They lack a sense of proportion.

"By the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over," - Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), in an interview on MSNBC, on why as a small business owner he can't afford a tax increase.

When I retire I hope I am down to my last $400,000.

A very conservative jury

And the verdict on Michelle Bachman is in (via the Washington Monthly- a very liberal rag):

While this isn’t new to many of us, the vaccine story appears to be uniquely damaging, in part because she was perceived as faltering anyway, making the controversy a poorly-timed setback. Jim Dyke, a former communications director for the Republican National Committee unaffiliated with any candidate, said, “This is the nail in the coffin in her campaign.”

That may sound excessive, but just over the last few days, Bachmann’s anti-vaccine comments have come under fire from, among others, Rush Limbaugh, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, Bachmann’s former campaign manager, and the American Association of Pediatrics.

Well, bring out the forks. She's done.

Next week, exactly where is Ms Palin?

Representing that Unnamed state to our south....

Rep. Steve Southerland. Apparently he is not that happy representing the good folks of ... that place down there. Here's what he has to say in the Tallahassee Democrat, a paper I remember well if not fondly:

"They cut me off from my small business, a business that my grandfather started 60 years ago and that I'm the president of, that I've worked my career to build," he said. He added that "if you took the hours that I work and divided it into my pay," the $174,000 salary would not seem so high.

Yep. They are so underpaid.

On the other hand, he worked pretty hard to get elected. Read the whole article, it's worth it.

where do they find these guys?

A Tea Party example of fiscal responsibility

Sometimes the news is so droll I figure that Colbert and Stewart are stealing candy from babies. Here is a true story (the opposite of 'not intended as a true statement') from TPM:

Tea Party aligned Georgia Rep. Tom Graves (R), who castigates Washington for fiscal irresponsibility, reached an out of court settlement Wednesday after he was sued for defaulting on a $2.2 million loan -- which his attorney argued is the bank's fault for lending him the money in the first place.
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The bank, which has since failed and had its assets taken over, sued Graves and Rogers for defaulting. The two Republicans then countersued, "accusing [the bank] of improperly declaring the loan in default after reneging on a promise to refinance it at more favorable terms," according to Jeremy Redmon and Aaron Gould Sheinin of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution .

Yep. It's about nothing real, nothing coherent, nothing honest.

Except maybe the anger.

It's not about race

Glenn Beck, late of TV fame, is upset by the fact that Marvel comics has killed off Peter Parker and replaced him with a new Spider-Man: Miles Morales, a half black half Hispanic teenager. Apparently Beck feels that whatever made America great is being trashed. He blames all this on the obvious culprit:

On his radio show today, after repeatedly telling listeners that “I don’t care” about the new Spider-Man and that it is just a “stupid comic book”, Beck got his real opinion out. He explained why the new bi-racial Spider-Man can be attributed to Michelle Obama.

“I think a lot of this stuff is being done intentionally. What was it that Mrs. Obama said before the campaign? Because its strange how so much of this seems to all be happening,” he said. Beck then played an audio file of Michelle Obama saying that “we’re gonna have to change our traditions.”

Makes you want to go out and "take back America" doesn't it?
From the Frum Forum, btw.

I mean, messing with Spider-Man!?

One more conservative ...

... who has begun to notice that the old GOP of Reagan and the Bushes no longer exists.

Kathleen Parker.

She's finally figured out, like poor ol' David Brooks, that the kooks are in charge.

The tick-tock of the debt-ceiling debate is too long for this space, but the bottom line is that the Tea Party got too full of itself with help from certain characters whose names you’ll want to remember when things go south. They include, among others, media personalities who need no further recognition; a handful of media-created “leaders,” including Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips and Tea Party Patriots co-founders Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler (both Phillips and Martin declared bankruptcy, yet they’re advising Tea Party Republicans on debt?); a handful of outside groups that love to hurl ad hominems such as “elite” and “inside the Beltway” when talking about people like Boehner when they are, in fact, the elite (FreedomWorks, Heritage Action, Club for Growth, National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Prosperity); and elected leaders such as Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, head of the Republican Study Committee, and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, who grandstand and make political assertions and promises that are sheer fantasy.

Od course, if you are of the Tea Party ilk, there is no need to take this seriously. Just jam your fingers in your ears and chant "Lame Stream Media!" "Elites!" "Elites!"

Now I must get back to work because my school administration has imbibed too much of the zeitgeist.

The ineffable lightness of Newt

This just in from the Gingrich front in the Republican bid for regaining the White House:

Newt Gingrich fired up the crowd in this blue state with the promise that President Obama is so bad that he's made it possible for the Republicans to win over the African American vote in 2012.

This was right after he told reporters "that his campaign was still going strong."

Where do we find people like this?

Jon Stewart must have the easiest job in the world.

New Motto for Sententiae!

I have been informed by La Cid* that the Clemen's family motto is:

Shabby but not rumpled**

Our new professional motto for Sententiae however is supplied by one of the "idea" men from the Republican party***, Newt "Loose Lips" Gingrich:

“Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood because I have said publicly those words were inaccurate and unfortunate.”

So there.

I am now immune to criticism for whatever I said. Or will say. This is great.


*aka Carmen

**I intend to translate that into Latin someday for the family crest.

*** the other one being Paul Ryan, a man so stupid he thinks Atlas Shrugged is a great political novel. Where do they find these people? (btw, you and I pay his salary)

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Not intended as a factual statement?

Apparently. Here is the latest from Newt Gingrich.

So let me say on the record, any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood.

So, let me say on the record ... this man seriously wants to run for president? And the Republicans let him?

the 90s are beginning to come back to me now.

Oh - it was about being WEIRD

OK. I have said often enough that the Tea Party is about nothing, in the Latin sense of Nihil. But after reading this amusing little article in the Washington Post I now realize it was about something: the state of social disintegration on the planet Trzzlinioch in the Alpha Centauri sector.

Wesbury [a Tea Party 'leader'] suggested that Republicans should show some “adult kind of behavior.”

This was a curious request coming from a group that included two men wearing tricorn hats and colonial costumes. Temple had a feather in his hat, carried a 5-foot musket and, without explanation, switched to a Scottish accent during the news conference. Next to him was a man dressed up as George Washington who read a 215-year-old passage.

read the article - it shows that the entire Republican congressional leadership has stepped out of the pentagram.

Truthiness

Here is a quote from the Washington Monthly:

* Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum (R) was asked yesterday on Fox News about his vote in support of Medicare Part D. "I was against that. I spoke against it. I worked against it. But we lost," he said. The detail Santorum hopes Republicans overlook: he voted for it, and didn't even try to pay for it.

Some journalists are so picky.

besides, it probably wasn't meant as a factual statement.

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Profiles in political ... uh... something or other

Here is an actual quote (from Andrew Sullivan) from Sen. Kyl's office.

"[Senator Jon Kyl's] remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions," - a statement from Kyl’s office.

And the reason you would admit that your boss' public statement was "not intended to be a factual statement" (love that phrase) would be that it was, in fact, untrue:

Kyl had claimed that abortion is “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does," when in fact that figure is 3 percent

It is so refreshing to have someone admit that they are peddling non-factual statements in politics, though I am not sure which is dumber, Kyl for the original statement, or his staff for the truly illuminating walk back. To illustrate your point, you just make stuff up and 3% is notionally in the ballpark of 90%.

wish I could write history articles and books that way.

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O Florida!

The great state to our south. Its recent gubernatorial election has pretty much trashed its reputation, even among Floridians. Here is a quote from Washington Monthly.

There's just something remarkable about the scope of Maine Gov. Paul LePage's (R) buffoonery. Part of it has to do with expectations -- Florida's Rick Scott (R) is every bit as ridiculous, but it's Florida, so expectations are lower. Maine, however, as states go, appears to be quite sane.

Always remember: in a two party system not to vote is voting for the guys that win. You wanted them, you got them.

you should hear my 91 year old mother on the subject of her state's new governor. She always did make more sense than the rest of the family.

History is Bunk

At least in the state of Virginia which has adopted history texts written by a non-historian for the ignorant chosen by the inept. Here's an snippet of an editorial in today's Washington Post:

Among the mistakes: wrong date for America's entry into World War I, incorrect tally of states that joined the Confederacy, gross understatement of casualties at the battles of Bull Run. "I absolutely could not believe the number of mistakes - wrong dates and wrong facts everywhere," said Ronald Heinemann, one of the historians who reviewed Five Ponds Press's "Our Virginia: Past and Present." Reviewing another of the publisher's books, historian Mary Miley Theobald concluded the mistakes were "just too shocking for words." The unusual review of the books followed the disclosure by The Post's Kevin Sieff in October that "Our Virginia" included the statement (quite incorrect) that thousands of black soldiers fought for the South during the Civil War.

This is embarrassing on so many levels. Just for the record, when in the final desperate days of the Confederacy Gen. Lee pleaded with the politicians to let him recruit slaves with the promise of freedom the politicians told him no way. Then the Confederacy was put out of its misery.

It seems to be a collision between political and financial constraints. I.e. the books were cheap and they didn't ruffle any ideological feathers.

you get what you pay for.

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