I’ve been hanging onto this all weekend, because it’s a real Monday morning bit of hilarity. It’s also a good indicator of how the concept of the boycott, wielding so powerfully when used strategically by the civil rights movement, has really devolved into a temper tantrum that’s less about effecting change and more about the boycotter preening over her moral superiority. Observe Rachel Ray’s outfit in a new ad for Dunkin Donuts:

To ordinary people, this is an example of someone wearing the confusing combination of a lightweight summer shirt and a scarf. There are two major possibilities here. One is that this is yet another example of the fashion trend fascists trying to push a stupid idea on the public to see who buys into it. Considering that said fascists have successfully convinced a handful of women to dress like this:

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(UPDATE: Now that he’s going to be the GOP’s nominee, John McCain finally “discovered” how radioactive Rod Parsley is and repudiated him as well. There will definitely be a fundie eruption over this one.)

Today John McCain finally gave the boot to batsh*t fundie Pastor John Hagee of the 17,000-member Cornerstone Church in Texas after audio was released of the televangelist saying that Hitler had been sent by God to help Jews reach the Promised Land via the Holocaust. This was nothing new, however, so one wonders what rock the Arizona senator and his staff have been hiding under:

[I]n his 2006 book “Jerusalem Countdown”, Hagee proposed the theory that “anti-Semitism, and thus the Holocaust, was the fault of Jews themselves — the result of an age old divine curse incurred by the ancient Hebrews through worshiping idols and passed, down the ages, to all Jews now alive.” He also wrote that “Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews.”

Of course it would be interesting to know why this particular insanity crossed the line for McCain, since he had previously refused to reject the endorsement of Armegeddon proponent Hagee, who has condemned Catholics, gays, women, blacks and more from the pulpit and on video.

We’ve been blogging about the juicy-mouthed Patriot Pastor for a long time now. Apparently this influential nutbag has finally caught fire on the blogs.

More below the fold.
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Here is a completely brain-dead quasi gay-baiting ad for Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), who tries to paint his opponent, Kay Barnes, as joined at the hip with Nancy Pelosi and her “San Francisco style values.” We all know what that means. Those values are hilariously depicted by a man in a cowboy hat dancing with two women…and even better, two of them are brown.

Talk about having zero to run on.

See the response from Barnes below the fold.
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In what is a sign of the times, the Republican party is unable to field a single candidate of color with a snowball’s chance in hell of being elected to House, the Senate or governor. So much for former RNC head Ken Mehlman’s “legacy” of GOP outreach to blacks.

At a time when Democrats are poised to knock down a historic racial barrier with their presidential nominee, the GOP is fielding only a handful of minority candidates for Congress or statehouses — none of whom seem to have a prayer of victory.

At the start of the Bush years, the Republican National Committee — in tandem with the White House — vowed to usher in a new era of GOP minority outreach. As George W. Bush winds down his presidency, Republicans are now on the verge of going six — and probably more — years without an African-American governor, senator or House member. That’s the longest such streak since the 1980s.

Taking a look at the current field, the GOP only has one minority governor — Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, who is Indian-American. The Dem tally? Three minority governors and 43 black members of Congress. The GOP obviously sees nothing wrong with this growing problem with gaining interest from POC in its party. Given the vitriol from the Fear of the Brown Menace wing of the party, it crapped away its prospects with Latinos as well. Look at this laugher:

Despite having a Spanish-speaking “compassionate conservative” in the White House, Republicans’ diversity deficit seems to have only widened.

WTF? Anyway, one respected member of the GOP doesn’t mind being blunt about the whiteout:

Jack Kemp, the former Republican congressman and vice presidential nominee, says the culprit is clear: a “pitiful” recruitment effort by his party. “I don’t see much of an outreach,” he said. “I don’t see much of a reason to run.”

A former black GOP candidate who declined to be identified by name offered a slightly more charitable explanation. He said the party is so broke and distracted that wooing strong minority candidates is a luxury it simply cannot afford right now.

Should we bring out the tiny violin? I absolutely cannot wait to see the pale sea of faces during the GOP convention. The party may have to resort to some sort of rent-a-POC service to avoid looking like the fossilized, insular entity it has done everything to cultivate.

Hat tip to Oliver Willis, who said:

Wanted: Racial minorities to stab your own people in the back, provide cover to destructive policies. Perks include a life long association with the party of Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott, and The Southern Strategy. Inquire Within.

Guess someone told Goodtime Vito “it’s game over man.” The reason Fossella, who was arrested for DUI in Virginia (and was fornicating and procreating outside of his sacred marital bond), isn’t resigning is because there would have to be a special election held for his seat, and the Republicans don’t want to lose it. (Staten Island Advance):

In a bombshell announcement that brings the curtain down on one of the most storied careers in Staten Island political history, fifth-term Republican Rep. Vito Fossella will not seek re-election this fall.

Mired in scandal after revelations about the secret daughter he fathered with Virginia divorcee Laura Fay became public, Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) tells constituents in a letter to be posted on his Web site tomorrow that he will no longer serve them in Congress after his current term expires on Jan. 3, 2009.

“After a great deal of consideration, I have made the decision not to seek re-election to the United States House of Representatives this November,” Fossella says in the statement. “This choice was an extremely difficult one, balanced between my dedication to service to our great nation and the need to concentrate on healing the wounds that I have caused to my wife and family.”

Apparently Fossella doesn’t care about any wounds he caused in the past to his lesbian sister, as the homophobic lawmaker will not attend any family events if she and her partner are there; he also voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Related:
* Fossella’s judgment day?
* Another Republican protects the sanctity of marriage

According to Town Hall columnist, racism apologist and author Dinesh D’Souza, the advancement of gay rights via the courts is undermining our democracy. I almost refrained from posting this asshattery, but I just couldn’t after reading:

Now the high court of California has made gay marriage into a right that is immune from restriction by the majority of citizens in the state. We already know what California citizens think about gay marriage: they oppose it. A referendum outlawing gay marriage was passed with the support of the state’s voters. More than 60 percent of voters cast their ballots against gay marriage.

How, then, can a court invalidate the referendum and over-rule the will of the people? Basically through a kind of legal fraud. The court has to pretend that there is a right to gay marriage even though it is nowhere evident in the state constitution.

And since when did the will of the majority become the standard for extending civil rights to a minority group? Oh yes, when the fundies said so. And look at this nonsense:

In the past Democrats have always appreciated courts doing their dirty work when it comes to issues like abortion, pornography, prostitution and gay rights. This way Democrats can advance their permissive agenda without having to take political responsibility for voting against the values of a majority of voters. It’s time to make the Democrats pay for this in the November election.

I guess Loving v. Virginia was “dirty work” in his book as well as Brown v. Board of Ed. Go read the rest of that insanity. I just cannot deal with this level of bigotry today.

If you had any doubt that John McCain is a complete tool — and a prevaricating one at that — take a look at this video from Brave New Films:

Since we first released The Real McCain a year ago, our REAL McCain series has garnered close to 2 million views, with over 13,000 comments and tens of thousands more in petition signatures! Clearly, John McCain’s record is something the public wants to discuss, and yet the corporate media is doing NOTHING to present the truth. We feel obliged to continue countering the mainstream media’s love of McCain. And so we thought it was high time for a sequel: The Real McCain 2.

I would love to hear an argument from the Log Cabin Republicans, for instance, explaining why our country needs to elect McSame.

Bonus: check out the new fact-checking resource McCainpedia.

The question, “What exactly did Neville Chamberlain do to piss off wingnuts so badly?” is on everyone’s lips, everyone being defined as “those who watched that awesome video of Hardball getting interesting for once.” Some would say that it has something to do with Hitler and Czechoslovakia, but that’s not in the talking points memo and for a good reason. After all, if merely capitulating to the demands of fascist dictators with genocidal tendencies were appeasement, then what’s arming said dictators, training them, funding them, and giving them a bevy of economists on the job to spin everything? That would be like super-appeasement, which would make the Republicans like the best most appeasingly appeasing appeasers in the world, and so that can’t be it.

It’s never a bad time for this picture.

So what did Chamberlain do to earn himself such a poor reputation, especially compared to Winston Churchill? Well, his first and most important act of appeasement was to let his parents name him “Neville Chamberlain”, a pussified commie lib name with overtones of pure frogginess that meant he was only good for a lifetime of letting Hitler force him to perform ass-to-mouth rituals.

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The Republican stupid - it burns. From Kathleen Parker’s column at the WaPo:

Well, at least they didn’t kiss.

I was bracing myself for the lip lock Wednesday when John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama.

Don’t look at me. David “Mudcat” Saunders, Edwards’s former rural adviser, came up with the idea, saying Obama should kiss Edwards on the lips “to kill this 41-point loss,” referring to Hillary Clinton’s landslide victory in the West Virginia primary.

Instead, the two men exchanged a manly air-hug to commemorate the moment when Edwards threw Clinton under the upholstered sofa on his grandmama’s front porch.

Holy smoke, is the “Breck Girl” reference to the former NC senator going to make comeback? I leave it to Brad at Sadly, No to break this sh*t down.

It’s tough to list all the things that make this column so mind-crushingly stupid, but let’s give it a shot:

• Parker begins the column by calling Edwards and Obama fags.

• Then, not having the courage to stand by this novel and poignant insight, she claims that it wasn’t her idea to call them fags, but was instead the idea of one of Edwards’ advisers. But hey, they’re still gay homo fruits who like to take it up the homobutt.

• Next, she pulls out the oldest trick in the Wingnut Punditry Bible: she lectures us about what Real Americans think! Never mind that she’s spent her entire working life on the Wingnut Welfare circuit - she’s got her hand on the pulse of The People, baby!

• And what do Real Americans think, you ask? Why, they’re apparently super-duper happy about the state of the country! Even though, like, 85% of them are dissatisfied with the direction of the country. And even though Bush’s approval rating stands at a sterling 28%. And even though the Republicans just lost a goddamn seat in freaking Mississippi.

How come I don’t hear about this loving - ahem - male bonding:

I don’t care how hilarious rapist / murderer-releasing, Christian Reconstructionist- supported, Man-On-Dog wannabe, former Arkansas governor, and Baptist minister-without-a-theology-degree Mike Huckabee thinks he is, this isn’t funny. We’ve already seen the yahoo vote unapologetic about the fact that they’d never vote for a black man — and plenty of them have an NRA card.

During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

After all, look at what a Freeper posted yesterday in response to the marriage equality ruling in California. These folks are sick.

38 posted on Thursday, May 15, 2008 1:37:53 PM by Lancey Howard

Related:
* Noose found at Secret Service training center
* Dallas: weapons screening halted at Obama rally
* Other posts on the security breach

It is, after all, Chris Matthews. But to steal Atrios’ phrase, more of this, please*:

* And less of all the other shit, Chris.

And I thought Bush’s lie that he gave up golf in solidarity out of respect for U.S. soldiers killed in the war was the winner of the dumbassery remark of the year. Boy was I wrong.

PZ Myers at Pharyngula points to an incredible statement by the movie critic, right-wing Clown Hall writer and radio show host. First, I love PZ’s opening.

Did someone declare this National Flaming Racist Idiot week, and I just didn’t notice until now? You have got to read Michael Medved’s latest foray into pseudoscience: he has declared American superiority to be genetic, encoded in our good old American DNA. Because our ancestors were immigrants, who were risk-takers, who were selected for their energy and aggressiveness. Oh, except for those who are descended from slaves.

Oh yes, Medved did, friends. I guess the best thing we can say about the following statement is that he probably wasn’t emitting the spittle Pat “A Brief for Whitey” Buchanan did yesterday when he was on Hardball. Medved even makes the gutsy move of explaining that the DNA shaped by our borders and risk-taking requires governing by Republican policies:

The idea of a distinctive, unifying, risk-taking American DNA might also help to explain our most persistent and painful racial divide - between the progeny of every immigrant nationality that chose to come here, and the one significant group that exercised no choice in making their journey to the U.S. Nothing in the horrific ordeal of African slaves, seized from their homes against their will, reflected a genetic predisposition to risk-taking, or any sort of self-selection based on personality traits.

…Senators Obama, Clinton and other leaders who seek to enlarge the scope of government face more formidable obstacles than they realize. Their desire to impose a European-style welfare state and a command-and-control economy not only contradicts our proudest political and economic traditions, but the new revelations about American DNA suggest that such ill-starred schemes may go against our very nature.

Wow. Talk about junk science — so now Americans are a “race”? Holy smoke, this is incredible. Actually, Medved’s working from the same playbook as Buchanan — slavery was a good thing for the darkies, after all, those bringing the slaves over as cargo didn’t have genocide on their minds, they needed that cargo alive because good hard money was paid for them.

Estimates remain inevitably imprecise, but range as high as one third of the slave “cargo” who perished from disease or overcrowding during transport from Africa. Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of these voyages involves the fact that no slave traders wanted to see this level of deadly suffering: they benefited only from delivering (and selling) live slaves, not from tossing corpses into the ocean. By definition, the crime of genocide requires the deliberate slaughter of a specific group of people; slavers invariably preferred oppressing and exploiting live Africans rather than murdering them en masse.

H/t, Oliver Willis.

So I was listening to the latest episode of “On The Media” on Mighty Ponygirl’s suggestion (because they have a great report on the Cult of Ayn Rand and how they’re trying to buy themselves credibility they can’t generate honestly), and I heard this story that I think should be an iconic example of how the Bush administration is both evil and stupid. It’s about the corruption in the Office of Special Counsel, which is a whistleblower protection agency. As you can imagine, the Bush administration is opposed to whistleblowing (and puppies and kittens and sunshine), so they went out and found the craziest asshole wingnut possible to head up this office: Scott Bloch. He did an admirable job of refusing to do the job he was appointed, and in proper BushCo fashion, this exemplar of malfeasance is now facing a cavalcade of subpoenas and general calls for his head. Bloch ran into trouble when he squelched a complaint that came from the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, because it turns out they were able to get the FBI to care enough to raid Bloch’s offices, take his computers, and subpoena 17 employees to testify against him. The executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is suggesting that Bloch successfully destroyed the office to the point where it’s easier now to dismantle it and rebuild how the government handles whistleblowers than to salvage the office.

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PZ reports that researchers have discovered a link between HPV and oral cancers in men, justifying another look at vaccinating young men for HPV (which also improves herd immunity). So now, as PZ notes, the religious right is facing a major dilemma. It’s one thing to tolerate thousands of deaths from cervical cancer, which only affects women, in order to show that the wages of sin are death. But the sin of fornication is a much different thing for men and women—which is why the nuts say that a woman who has sex is impure and contaminated, but a man who does has just let his integrity slip a little, which is something you can get back by giving your bus seat up to a few old ladies. Certainly, we don’t need straight men getting physically contaminated for real to show that sex is contaminating, when the only spiritually contaminated party is the woman. That’s why, after all, it’s not a sign of integrity for a man to have sex with a woman before marriage, because you’re fouling up someone else’s virgin.

Anyway, PZ has a question.

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Bob Barr has jumped into the race as a Libertarian candidate. Will this siphon off some of the disaffected Republicans voters who cannot stand McSame, or is this just a blip.

Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr launched a Libertarian Party presidential bid Monday, saying voters are hungry for an alternative to the status quo who would dramatically cut the federal government.

His candidacy throws a wild card into the White House race that many believe could peel away votes from Republican Sen. John McCain given the candidates’ similar positions on fiscal policy.

…Barr first must win the Libertarian nomination at the party’s national convention that begins May 22. Party officials consider him a front-runner thanks to the national profile he developed as a Georgia congressman from 1995 to 2003.

Barr, 59, quit the Republican Party two years ago, saying he had grown disillusioned with its failure to shrink government and its willingness to scale back civil liberties in fighting terrorism.

The Freepi are alternately seeing this as a good thing or a disaster spoiler situation.

And look at this fun — McCain is going to have a pain in the posterior as Ron Paul’s revolutionaries are plotting a “convention revolt.” The GOP convention may be more interesting than expected. (LAT)

[L]argely under the radar of most people, the forces of Rep. Ron Paul have been organizing across the country to stage an embarrassing public revolt against Sen. John McCain when Republicans gather for their national convention in Minnesota at the beginning of September.

…But what’s been largely overlooked is Paul’s candidacy as a reflection of a powerful lingering dissatisfaction with the Arizona senator among the party’s most conservative conservatives. As anticipated in late March in The Ticket, that situation could be exacerbated by today’s expected announcement from former Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nod, a slot held by Paul in 1988.

…They hope to demonstrate their disagreements with McCain vocally at the convention through platform fights and an attempt to get Paul a prominent speaking slot. Paul, who’s running unopposed in his home Texas district for an 11th House term, still has some $5 million in war funds and has instructed his followers that their struggle is not about a single election, but a long-term revolution for control of the Republican Party.

So eager are they to follow their leader’s words, that Paul’s supporters have driven his new book, “The Revolution: A Manifesto,” to the top of several bestseller lists.

However…

While I agree with Brad (and Lauren, as an aside) that the “everyhick” method of reporting on better-than-urban* America is complete bullshit, I think he’s wrong about one thing: The perception of Obama as Muslim is hurting him in West Virginia.

Maybe not as much as the Financial Times implies:

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

Mr Simpson’s remarks help explain why Mr Obama is trailing Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival, by 40 percentage points ahead of Tuesday’s primary election in the heavily white and rural state, according to recent opinion polls.

Brad replies:

Well no, dude, they really don’t.

Only 10% of voters think that Obama is a Muslim. And unless they all happen to be West Virginia Democratic primary voters, I don’t think that Mr. Simpson’s remarks explain anything other than his own psychosis.

Not quite.

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Republicans vote down a resolution that was basically a gimme for puffing up your own ass: Honoring mothers on Mother’s Day.

No, I’m not kidding. Congressional Republicans all tossed in a “yay, mothers!” vote to get it on the record that they officially liked mothers, and then asked for a revote so they could express their true feelings about the be-vagina-ed hellbeasts. (Yes, I read the whole article and am aware that it was childish tactical manuevering, for those eager to leave a comment before you finish the post. Please finish the post before you correct me.) You didn’t think they’re “pro-life” because life and motherhood are sacred, right? At the end of the day, remember this: Bitches are always trying to get away with something, so come out swinging even on the most mundane things. After all, honoring mothers on Mother’s Day started in the U.S. as part of that hippy-dippy peace movement crap, which resulted in women getting the right to vote. So it’s not for nothing that congressional Republicans think first you respect motherhood, and then you’ll be treating women like they’re human.

The explanation of all this is that it was a tactical move to bring the House to a standstill. But was it purely a coincidence that they took a stand against mothers?

Whoops. We haven’t had a good one like this in, oh, a few weeks. This NY pol was not only fornicating outside the marital bond, he was procreating with a sex partner other than his wife. He receives bonus points for being charged with driving while intoxicated! (NYT):

Representative Vito J. Fossella, a Staten Island Republican who was arrested on May 1 in Alexandria, Va., and charged with drunken driving, issued a statement on Thursday acknowledging that he had had an extramarital affair with Laura Fay, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, and that the two of them have a 3-year-old daughter together.

The prospect that Mr. Fossella could face a mandatory jail sentence if convicted had already threatened to bring to an end his decade-long career in the House, where Mr. Fossella is the only Republican representing New York City.

…Mr. Fossella, 43, was driving with a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit when he was pulled over. He faces a mandatory five days in jail if convicted.

…In the Democratic stronghold of St. George, the neighborhood nearest the ferry to Manhattan, patrons at the Cargo Cafe weighed in on the scandal.

“Vito Fossella’s behavior is a disgrace to himself, his family and to Staten Island,” said an anesthesiologist, Dr. John Ferguson, 44. “Given the fact that he votes along the Bush-Cheney line 90 percent of the time, which means he sees himself as a moral values candidate, I find his behavior completely, but not surprisingly, hypocritical. He should resign immediately.”

You have to read Howie Klein’s take on this one.

Hat tip, Linda.

From Echidne, a jaw-dropping tale from the fundie vs. reason battleground in our public schools.

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.

“I get a call the middle of the day from the supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue. You can’t take any more assignments. You need to come in right away,’” he said.

When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell that went much farther than he’d hoped.

“I said, ‘Well Pat, can you explain this to me?’ ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’ [he said]. Wizardry?” he asked.

Read that next to this post by tristero, to really get that he’s not kidding when he says this.

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Oh man, the more I hear about this movie Expelled, the funnier it gets.

The producers of “Expelled” spent two years interviewing scores of scientists, doctors, philosophers, and public leaders, including University of Minnesota biology professor P.Z. Myers, who does not support alternative theories of evolution. The clip of “Imagine,” which is audible for approximately 15 seconds, is used in a segment of the documentary in which the film’s narrator and author Ben Stein comments on statements made by Myers and others about the place of religion. In the documentary Stein says: “Dr. Myers would like you to think that he’s being original but he’s merely lifting a page out of John Lennon’s songbook.” This is followed by an audio clip of Lennon’s song “Imagine,” specifically, the lyrics “Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too.”

That wingnuts have held a grudge against that song for 37 years tells you how small their world really is. Did they really think the plebes could be sheltered from doubt in god if that damn former Beatle hadn’t penetrated the Berlin wall of religious censorship? Or do they really think John Lennon invented atheism?

The more I hear about this movie, the more clear it becomes that it’s patched together using email forwards.

Atrios:

…to put it another way, if you think people should get an extra $40 this summer (an extremely optimistic view of what a gas tax holiday might save them), then give them an extra $40.

I will personally give $40* just to shut somebody up. If I have to listen to one more person-on-the-street spin Obama’s utter good sense and lack of pandering into some sort of reverse inside-the-beltway out-of-touch move, I may just torch an Expedition.

* Offer expires May 4, 2008.

*
That’s right: Gordon Smith, 2-term Senator, fake maverick, is running on a platform of change.

There’s a relatively obscure (at least in the US) musical from the 1990s called The Fix, and as I recovered from the early-morning shock of hearing this bullshit, I recalled a song called I See the Future, in which empty-suit Cal gives his first speech while running for city council:

I see the future,
I see a day when we are one
I see tomorrow
I see us striving for the sun
I see us working toward the promise
and answering the call
I see the future
I see the future
and I see it in the faces of the young

Of course, just like in real life the vacuous media and bored public eat it up.
———
* Transcript of the offending passage: Jeff Merkley, Steve Novick: More of the same, when it’s time for change.

I can’t decide between this image that was broadcast on Fox News to illustrate a story about Clinton wanting some Lincoln-Douglas debates with Obama:

Or Chris Muir’s idea about where those crazy ladies keep their Glocks so they’ll be easily accessible:

I actually wedge mine between my anti-gravity titties, with holster embedded via a quick outpatient surgery.

Help me, Pandagonians—which is funnier?

Any other country at any other time, and there’d be nothing complex about this:

Democrat Barack Obama took a hit yesterday when rival Hillary Rodham Clinton put up an Indiana TV ad highlighting his opposition to a summer-long suspension of the gas tax. Today he fought back with an ad that says the suspension would save consumers maybe $25 and wouldn’t bring down prices…

I’m here to tell you the truth. We could suspend the gas tax for 6 months, but that’s not going to bring down gas prices long-term. You’re gonna save about 25, 30 dollars…or half a tank of gas. That’s typical of how Washington works. There’s a problem, everybody’s upset about gas prices – let’s find some short-term, quick-fix, that we can say we did something even though, even though we’re not really doing anything.

Democratic support of the gas tax repeal is kind of typical: “We scoffed at Bush in 2000 for offering everyone ‘only’ a $300 refund, but we’re willing to smear each other over $30.” Democrats: Like Republicans, but 1/10th.

And of course, we wouldn’t even get that $30; the Tax Policy Center says prices would rebound almost “immediately.”

“Unless the goal is to temporarily boost profits for petroleum refineries and foreign producers, the proposal makes no sense,” says Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center.

And at least Hillary wants to replace the money with taxes on the oil companies, as unlikely as that notion is. McCain, as far as I know, offers no such compensation. Either way, as Matthew Yglesias notes, this kind of “[policy] gimmickry” is harmful to America:

But when national leaders act as if they believe current fuel costs are a passing phenomenon to be weathered with short-term measures, then at least some voters are going to believe them and make bad personal and political decisions that we can ill afford. A lot of electoral gambits are nonsense without being actually harmful, but McCain and Clinton are making problems worse just with their rhetoric.

(Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to see, say, truck drivers offered a repeal and consumers offered a boost in gas tax, but the average voter who doesn’t drive for a living would have to be crazy to make a gas tax suspension some sort of make-it-or-break-it issue.

The average American voter.

Would have to be…crazy.

Ah, shit.)

As Richard at All Spin Zone notes, shouldn’t there be an investigation by officials into this? Inciting a riot is a felony. Here’s Rushbo:

He said the riots would ensure a Democrat is not elected as president, and his listeners have a responsibility to make sure it happens.

“Riots in Denver, the Democrat Convention would see to it that we don’t elect Democrats,” Limbaugh said during Wednesday’s radio broadcast. He then went on to say that’s the best thing that could happen to the country…

…Limbaugh said with massive riots in Denver, which he called “Operation Chaos,” the people on the far left would look bad.

“We do, hopefully, the right thing for the sake of this country. We’re the only one in charge of our affairs. We don’t farm out our defense if we elect Democrats … and riots in Denver, at the Democratic Convention will see to it we don’t elect Democrats. And that’s the best damn thing that can happen to this country, as far as I can think,” Limbaugh said…

Richard:

Someone needs to tell me the difference between Rush Limbaugh and Moqtada al-Sadr (above and beyond the fact that al-Sadr is an ordained cleric, and Limbaugh is just an ordained asswipe). And I want to know how Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, etc. etc. can continue getting away with inspiring their listeners to violence, yet are never called on it by either the Republican Party leadership or law enforcement authorities.

If you feel so moved, you can contact the Colorado Attorney General’s office and express your concerns. At a minimum, inciting to riot is a serious offense. When the call goes out from someone of Limbaugh’s stature, who has legions of loyal dittoheads hanging on his every word, it’s very, very likely that his “call to arms” could motivate some right wing crackpots to action.

Note this is not an exaggeration — Mr. Hillbilly Heroin could be in a heap of trouble. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper realizes that a line has been crossed, saying “Anyone who would call for riots in an American city has clearly lost their bearings.”

Why does Rush Limbaugh hate America?
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He’s at it again. This time the “like-minded man” with Concerned Women for America is comparing homosexuality to smoking, drinking, toking and hitting the crack pipe. This, friends, is how he objects to the Day of Silence.

Can you imagine officials at a middle school, junior high or high school setting aside a day to promote “tolerance” for heavy smoking and drinking among children? How about a day where teachers encourage kids to “embrace who they are,” pick up that crack pipe and give it a stiff toke?

Neither can I. The public would go ballistic, and for good reason.

But that hasn’t stopped officials in thousands of schools across the country from promoting other politically correct and socially “in-vogue” behaviors that - both statistically and manifestly - are every bit as dangerous as the aforementioned frowned-upon behaviors.

That’s exactly what the homosexual activist “Day of Silence” is all about - advancing, through clever, feel-good propaganda, full acceptance among children of the homosexual lifestyle.

More below the fold.
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Just wanted to alert you that the master of electoral disaster has decided the Republican party just doesn’t cut it any more. Alan Keyes made his announcement of a possible third party run before a “throng” of supporters.

Speaking to a group of about 60 people in the Lincoln Ballroom at Genetti’s Best Western Inn in Hazleton, Keyes, 57, said he could no longer stay in a party that has lost its way.

He said the “Republican Party has come to a dark and confused place.”

Though he stood in front of a red, white and blue banner that read, “We need Alan Keyes for president,” Keyes did not say he was running this fall. He hinted at that possibility and mentioned the Constitution Party as a potential fit for him, but stopped short of making that announcement official.

These days, Little Ricky Santorum, who went down in flaming defeat in his Pennsylvania U.S. Senate re-election bid in 2006, earns his living these days bashing all things related to Islam. He recently appeared at a Yale Political Union to debate the “War on Islamic Extremism.” The reception was, well, less than a standing ovation. (Yale Daily News):

Amid a chorus of condemning hisses, supportive banging and outright laughter, former Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum argued for war with radical Islam at the Yale Political Union debate Thursday night.

…Santorum seemed to remain unfazed by any skepticism in the audience and only got louder as he argued for the origins of Islamic extremism in the religion’s founding.

He offered a contrast between Jesus Christ and Muhammed as the basis for the irreconcilable differences between Christianity, which he linked to the West, and Islam, which he linked to the Middle East.

“The greatest Christian, the Messiah, is Jesus — he never ruled a country, never forced anyone to convert,” Santorum said. “Islam, on the other hand, was founded by Muhammed who went on to conquer much of the Middle East and Northern Africa.”

He pointed to how Muslim leaders of Spain, centuries ago, gave nonbelievers the option of converting or facing death. He did not mention the Spanish Inquisition, and he excused episodes of Christian violence as “misguidance.” This message did not sit well with some in the audience who did not appreciate what they termed a “history lesson.”

“I don’t think Rick Santorum is qualified to give us a lecture on the history of Islam,” Benjamin Chaidell ’11 said. “He oversimplifies the religion of Islam and the struggle against Islam as an ‘us vs. them’ phenomenon.”

Hat tip, Bob in Raleigh.

Thanks to Roy for paying attention to Lileks’ continuing mental degradation. Roy wisely realizes that Lileks really is the true representation of the asshole who leans conservative, kind of hates himself for it because even he can tells he’s something of an asshole, and then doubles up the grumping in an effort to drown out the voices inside telling him that it doesn’t have to be this way. Or that’s what I’m telling myself is his disfunction this week.

Anyway, there are few things worse than when Lileks thinks he’s being clever, except of course that it’s also slightly awesome because it gives you a glimpse into the mind of someone who devotes 75% of his waking hours to rationalization. This review of “There Will Be Blood” tells us much about the mindset of a conservative who has replaced grumping with actual thought.

It kept my attention, and I enjoyed watching it, even though I felt myself disengaging from it by degrees in the last hour. Let’s just not tell ourselves that it’s a mark of great artistic insight to have the character get more insular and nasty as he gets richer, shall we?

Oooooh, insightful. Next he’ll be complaining that lovers in movies look starry-eyed, or that death causes the characters grief. Perhaps the rich in movies are portrayed as nasty and insular for a good reason? Hell, Lileks isn’t even rich, but being comfortably middle class has turned him into a person that hunkers down in his home, fearful that post-modernists and hippies are going to kick in his door for an interracial love-in. There are a few rich people who are good and kind, of course, but movies talk either in characters or symbols, and since “There Will Be Blood” was a film heavy with symbolism, it would have been, what’s the word?—moronic for the character that symbolized wealthy capitalists to be anything but power-hungry and crazy.

Look, mega-wealth is irrational, and yet it’s the source of 95% of the political problems we have nowadays. It doesn’t make sense that people who have enough money to live in the lap of luxury should want more all the time, and should do everything to cut taxes and cut corners and tweak the market to get rich quick and cut corners to the tune of something like the Enron scandal. And that’s what they do. The logic of mega-wealth is the sort of thing that only springs from nastiness and insularity, a total lack of perspective.

Brad of Sadly, No! (his last name’s Reed! Who knew?) writes on Alternet about Obama’s “elitism” “problem”:

Bloomberg columnist Margaret Colson said that Obama’s low bowling score was a “doozy” of a mistake, since voters apparently want someone who’s good at “looking, acting, or sounding like the locals, eating homemade specialties, even if it’s funnel cake and smoked meat products, or wearing a Teamsters or Yankees cap for the first time.” Yeah, Barack, come on — you don’t want these people to know that your life is a billion times more interesting than theirs! You’re running for president!

You know what to do.

Update: By the way, I’d like to see even one of these armchair bowling coaches judged on their athletic, such as bowling is, skill. Some people choke in their own professional sport in front of a few million people (including TV, obviously). Obama choked at something most Americans do a few times a year in front of, effectively, 300 million people. Frankly, I’m somewhat impressed he didn’t hit one of his secret service agents in the groin on the backswing.