Flaming Small-Minded Stupidity
tqa | November 19, 2009
Doug Hoffman recently posted a new fundraising letter on his blog. Now, I know some of you might be wondering why the guy is trying to raise money for an election that already happened. It's simple, really. He wants to keep fighting until he gets the seat in Congress that ACORN stole from him.
No, really, that's what he's claiming (if you click the link, make sure you note the url):
As evidence surfaces, we find out that reported results from election night were far from accurate. ACORN and the unions did their best to try and sway the results to Obamacare supporter Bill Owens.
(Also,…
tqa | November 19, 2009
As many of my regular readers know, I often find myself frustrated by something that's happening (or, more often, not happening) in the United States Senate. Over the past several years, I've been repeatedly stunned by the near-complete absence of skill, competence, or leadership demonstrated by Harry Reid - particularly when it comes to actually getting the Senate to do anything more than twiddle, fiddle, and resolve.
Given that, I was mostly pleased with E.J. Dionne's take on the Senate problem in his most recent WaPo column. His analysis of the issue, the way he hi-lighted the…
tqa | October 29, 2009
Great White, Tiger, Lemon, White-Tip, Hammerhead - you name a species of shark, and Orly Taitz DDS Esq. has jumped it. She hasn't just gone off the deep end, she's gone of the Challenger Deep. One of her more recent blog posts should be more than enough proof of that for anyone:
If Obama is not legitimate, neither are his appointments, including his pick of Biden. We will need to have a new election ASAP, before these diabolical psychopaths completely destroy US economy, currency and unleash some bio engineered swine flu virus as an excuse for martial law and suspension of our…
tqa | September 18, 2009
Yesterday the House of Representatives - demonstrating a reckless disregard for the United States Constitution and the very concept of the rule of law - overwhelmingly voted to ban the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now from receiving federal funding. ACORN, you might recall, is the organization that the right-wing echo chamber turned into an all-purpose bogeyman after some temporary ACORN employees were caught submitting fictitious voter applications in poorly thought out efforts to get paid for doing no actual work. More recently, a couple of ACORN employees were caught…
tqa | September 7, 2009
...and it's easy to see why the right is so up in arms over Obama's plan to start off the new school year by talking to students.
I've just finished reading the text of the speech, and it's just totally jam packed with anti-Republican ideological concepts. Here are some of the highlights:
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn't have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday - at 4:30 in the morning.
Now I wasn't too happy…
tqa | September 2, 2009
How in the world did your party manage to get here:
"As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology. The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the President justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other President, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse…
tqa | August 18, 2009
In his latest column, Cal Thomas takes another swing at explaining the perils of health care. Last week, you might remember, he claimed that health care proponents want to kill off the old because we're evolutionists. This week, we're Hitler:
Anyone wishing to revise America's medical system and model it after the systems in Britain and Canada ought to thoroughly examine how those health care systems function before plunging into the same pool. A reasonable conclusion is that these systems require long waits and treatments (if you can get them) that are inferior to what's available in the…
tqa | August 11, 2009
Why, exactly, do Democrats want to kill the elderly with their health care? It's a question that's baffled billions since at least last week. Politicians, philosophers, theologians, and comedians have all been at a loss to explain the motivation for the proposed geriatric genocide. Fortunately for us all, there is one who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.
In his latest column, Cal Thomas exposes our motivations for wanting to pass a "health care" bill that will allow us to whack granny. He comes up with an answer that's so simple, so glaringly obvious, that I'm honestly surprised…
tqa | August 4, 2009
One of my occasional readers just forwarded me the following email. A quick google search reveals that the same story has been making the rounds of the wingnuttier segments of the intertubes overfew months. (By the way, nutbars, the word you're looking for is "gaff", not "gaft".
UNBELIEVABLE PRESIDENT???
THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS STATEMENT EVER MADE BY A PUBLIC OFFICIAL, LET ALONE BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. THIS GUY IS OUR "COMMANDER IN CHIEF". HE IS A DISGRACE!
HERE IS HIS RESPONSE WHEN HE BACKED OFF FROM HIS DECISION TO LET THE MILITARY PAY FOR THEIR WAR…
tqa | June 3, 2009
PETA is continuing their ever-successful quest to prove that mind-numbing insensitivity and flaming stupidity are not restricted to any particular portion of the political spectrum. This time, they're using the murder of Dr. George Tiller as the hook for a new set of pro-Vegetarian billboards in Wichita.
tqa | May 26, 2009
I'm not sure how I missed it when it first appeared, but it seems that a few days ago one of the other bloggers on this network - Greg Laden - wrote a post that discussed some of the advertising that you may have noticed here recently. I just noticed and read the post, and I honestly wish I hadn't. I'm not entirely sure what point Greg was trying to make with his post, but in his efforts to reach the point he said some things that are amazingly..... I don't know, I'm honestly at a loss for an appropriate word here.
Greg manages to more or less start off on the wrong foot. Most of the ads…
tqa | May 13, 2009
Yesterday, the Daily Kos and ThinkProgress reported on some spectacularly inane things that Texas Representative "Smokey Joe" Barton said about carbon dioxide. Now, Barton getting something wrong that involves science or the environment is, of course, nothing new. He is, after all, the man who recently Twittered his pride at "stumping" the Nobel Laureate Energy Secretary with a question that actually demonstrated nothing more than Barton's own ignorance of basic geology. As revealing as that whole little incident was, he managed to make more mistakes yesterday.
Barton committed the errors…
tqa | May 7, 2009
At least two medical doctors think that it isn't, and have said so publicly. They feel that the "research has shown" that the new flu isn't going to be very virulent, and question the wisdom of spending $1.5 billion developing a vaccine that "may never be used". I suspect that few of you will be surprised to learn that both these doctors are also Republican members of Congress. Representatives Phil Gingrey and Paul Broun (both of Georgia) made their views known during floor speeches in the House yesterday.
I was not aware that any research had been published that demonstrates that we know…
tqa | April 13, 2009
As of when I'm writing this post, a Google News search for the words "Inhofe" and "treason" returns no hits. When I search on "Inhofe" and "sedition", I get the same results. That's also true for a search on the milder combination of "Inhofe" and "inappropriate". What the hell is going on here?
I realize this is old news, but one week ago yesterday, Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) issued a press release and the YouTube video embedded below. I don't understand why I'm not seeing any outrage.
Just in case you're audio was malfunctioning, or you just didn't believe your ears, those helicopters…
tqa | March 31, 2009
Your sink is leaking all over your bathroom floor. Whose advice do you take on how to fix it - your plumber's or your accountant's? I suspect that the sane among us would typically go to the plumber. If we were suspicious about the first plumber's advice, we'd probably call another plumber. Similarly, the rational among us would not look to a plumber as a source for informed commentary on the economy, foreign affairs, or journalism.
We understand that expertise matters.
We don't consider experts to be infallible, we don't bow down and worship at their feet, or uncritically accept…
tqa | March 18, 2009
Update: My praise for Charlie Rangel in this post was, sadly, premature. Politico is now reporting that Rangel has gotten behind a 91% tax bracket for AIG bonuses.
When it comes to the AIG bonuses, I'm about as angry as any other taxpayer who has been paying attention. This morning, I was absolutely undelighted to read that quite a bit of the "retention" money is going to people who have, in fact, not been retained. The look I just took at AIG Chariman Edward Liddy's opening statement for today's Congressional hearing did absolutely nothing to improve my mood. When he says, "I share that…
tqa | March 14, 2009
If you hadn't figured it out by now, Senator David Vitter (R-LA) is not my favorite member of Congress. If asked for my personal ranking of Senators, I'd probably place him somewhere in the bottom 2%. That said, I really can't claim that he's always wrong. Every now and then, he proposes something that is completely reasonable - even if his motives aren't all that pure.
Last week, he proposed an amendment to the big spending bill that would have eliminated the automatic cost-of-living pay increase that Congress gives itself every year. The amendment was shot down, ostensibly because it…
tqa | March 13, 2009
(Fair warning: I usually keep the language clean in this blog, but I didn't manage it this time. Below the fold may be NSFW.)
OK, I admit it. I've still got last night's Jon Stewart CNBC Massacre (with full orchestration and five part harmony) stuck in my mind. I think that's going to be the case for at least a little longer, because I'm still trying to wrap my mind around some of the things I've learned over the course of the whole mess.
One of the (several) things I keep coming back to is just what some of the criticism of last nights production demonstrates. Some critics follow the…
tqa | March 5, 2009
I'm no Nate Silver, but I do enjoy reading polls. Most media reports give you the high points - approval numbers, disapproval numbers, that sort of thing. If take a few minutes to dig a little deeper, you'll often find things that didn't make the highlights, but are still very interesting. Case in point: the most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (pdf).
Fourteen pages into the poll, we find the following question:
I'm going to read you some news stories regarding various people and organizations that you may have heard about over the past two to three months. Please tell me which one…
tqa | March 3, 2009
UPDATE: 4 Mar 09 There are now reports that Senator Menendez is not the only Senator holding up these nominations. I've got a new post up with the updated information and new suggestions for ways you can help.
The Washington Post is reporting that Senate votes to confirm Jane Lubchenco as NOAA Administrator and John Holdren as Science Advisor are currently being obstructed by a Democratic Senator. Quoting multiple unnamed sources, the Post says that New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez has placed an "anonymous hold" on the nominations in order to try to gain leverage for some issues related…