Unemployed = Lazy, Alcoholic, Drug Addict

The entries for the new SHITTERS (Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say) category don't stop coming. The latest is from GOP representative Blake Farenthold (R-TX). Via Think Progress.

Drug testing for recipients of various welfare programs, I really think that’s something that needs to be considered. We’ve gotta, you know, nobody wants to starve anybody. Everybody wants to help folks out. But we’ve got a system where you can stay on unemployment for an awfully long time. And I think we need to create a system of decreasing benefits over time to encourage you to get a job. I think anybody who’s had an alcoholic in their life or somebody with a drug problem, realizes that until things get bad enough there’s no incentive to change. I think that we’re so generous in some of our social problems that people are unwilling to get a job outside in the heat. Rather than get 15 dollars to go get roofing they’d rather get 9 or 10 dollars in benefits. I think drug testing is not an unreasonable requirement to get benefits.

Think Progress does an excellent job of breaking down the many ways in which this is an idiotic statement, so I invite you to click the link above to see for yourself.

Douche Tuberville

Another entry for the SHITTERS (Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say) label. A conversation between two great American minds: Sean Hannity, host of Hannity on Faux News, and his guest Tommy Tuberville, Texas Tech football coach. Via Think Progress.

HANNITY: He (Obama) could just get the birth certificate and it’d all over and I’m just curious why he wouldn’t do that?

TUBERVILLE: We’ve got enough controversy in this country, I don’t know why he wouldn’t just step up and say here it is.

HANNITY: Move on.

TUBERVILLE: Obviously there’s got to be something on there that he doesn’t want anyone to see. I don’t understand it. I’m an American. I don’t understand why we just go through this. I think it just continues to divide the country. [Emphasis added]

I agree, the birth certificate controversy continues to divide the country. It divides it between sensible people with better things to do (like fixing the country after 8 year of reckless Bush policies), and racist, hateful, and IQ-depleted sore losers who will not accord to the president the legitimacy that the record number of votes he earned in 2008 would have accorded to any white Republican.

P.S. I should say that Mr. Tuberville's political affiliation is uknown to me, but I am willing to take a leap of faith and chalk him under "Republican" since this "birtherism" is a predominantly Republican endeavor and because if you, a sport coach, choose to be a guest on Hannity, chances are you are a Republican.

Tom Tancredo: Obama Withheld Birth Certificate To Make Republicans Look "Nuts"

According to former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, President Obama withheld his birth certificate to make the Republican Party look "like nuts".

Tancredo's theory omits one important and self-evident fact: many Republicans in Congress or running for office do not need anyone's help to look nuts. All they have to do is move their lips, and something nuts will naturally flow.

Think of Sarah Palin's saying that she was fit for foreign policy because she can see Russia from her house. That of course is like saying that I am fit to be an astronaut because I can see the moon from my apartment.

Or think of The Donald, the bankruptcy expert who would be president if he can find enough nut-job Republicans to vote for him, who basically said that America needs a man with the balls to call 1 billion plus Chinese "motherfuckers" because of their unfavorable trade policy to America (while neglecting to mention that part of his clothing line is made in... yes, China.)

But if two examples are not enough for you, go to this YouTube gallery of Republican horrors, ten minutes of hard-to-endure, inane, offensive, and bat-shit crazy statements by a variety of Republican characters, including common folk.

The Townhall Protests No One Is Talking About

Remember all the folks that showed up at townhall meetings across the country in 2009 to protest against "Obama-care"? Of course you do, because the so-called liberal media covered them like a heating blanket on a hypothermia patient.

Well, there is similar backlash now against Republican representatives who voted for the "Ryan budget", a budget proposal so extreme that it would end Medicare and cut the top marginal tax rate for the wealthiest Americans by 10% percent (down to 25%). In townhalls across America, constituents are showing up to express their displeasure with their elected representatives, often grilling politicians who are totally unprepared for the barrage of tough--and sensible--questions. But have you heard about it? I doubt it, because the so-called liberal media--with a few notable exceptions like Cenk Uygur and Rachel Maddow, is covering these protests not "like" a blanket but "with" a sheet. The sheet usually reserved for corpses in a morgue. Because, after all, you don't bite the hand that feeds, do you?

The protests are also aimed at Republican support for subsidies to oil companies, which keep posting record profits quarter after quarter.

Well, here is a list of such townhall protests that Think Progress has reported on:

Freshman GOP Rep. Hultgren Dumbfounded After Constituent Grills Him On Oil Subsidies

Town Hall Citizens Confront Rep. Grimm Over Vote To Kill Medicare And Give More Tax Cuts To Rich

GOP Freshman Ends First Town Hall After Tough Questions On Tax Cuts For The Wealthy: ‘We’re Done’

Constituents Challenge Rep. Huizenga: ‘Your Party Has Become Of The Rich, By The Rich, For The Rich!’

Town Halls Spawn Main Street Movement Pushback On Republican Ideas

14-Year-Old Challenges Rep. Frank Guinta On Privatized Medicare: ‘What Am I Going To Do?’

Rep. Barletta Laughs At Constituents Who Question His Support For Oil Subsidies

Town Hall Attendees Tell GOP Rep. That Ending Medicare Is ‘Unconscionable,’ Demand ‘Tax The Rich!’

And that is just a partial list.

Be incensed, the situation demands it. And act upon your rage in November 2012. Vote th bums out that were voted in in 2010. It did not take them long to show their true colors.

Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say

I am going to start using a label named Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic, Things That Excrementous Republicans Say, or SHITTERS for short. At any point, you will be able to go to the list of labels on the right side of The Daily Fuel to bring up all the stupid, horrible, idiotic things that excrementous Republicans have said. I promise you it will be a veritable gallery of horrors.

If you would like to contribute a submission to this gallery of horrors, use the comment feature. (Please source your comments.)

We begin with Sally Kern, Oklahoma GOP lawmaker:

We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.” (via Think Progress)

Ezra Klein Hits The Nail On The Head

Shortly before President Obama hopefully put the birther controversy to rest by making his original birth certificate public (but don't count on it, more conspiracy theories will surface), Ezra Klein correctly identifies the birthplace of Obama's policies in an astute analysis of the President's work in his first two years at the White House.

Those Who Elected This Other Douchebag Should Also Be Ashamed

Douchebaggery is a favorite Republican trait that some Democrats seem eager to embrace. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) embodies Republican douchebaggery to a tee. To understand what I mean, just watch these two clips from last night's The Daily Show.

The Daily Show - Friends Without Benefits
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire,The Daily Show on FB

The Daily Show - Friends Without Benefits - 9/11 Responders
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire,The Daily Show on FB

Sensible people often decry the fact that too many politicians waste a lot of time tackling non-issues, such as the birthers who claim that President Obama has not released his long-form birth certificate. But the real problem is that there are as many politicians who proudly come up with crackpot ideas, like Congressman Stearn's, that do affect the lives of Americans in dramatic and destructive ways. The fact that even a usually sensible politician like Rep. Waxman (D-CA), who has often been on the right (left) side of many issues, are quick to jump on the bandwagon of stupidity is demoralizing to say the least. How Rep. Waxman could be so wrong about such a ridiculous idea as the Stearns amendment to the Zadroga Bill is a question the congressman will have to answer to his conscience and to those who voted for him.

Those Who Elected This Douchebag Should Be Ashamed

Douchebag is probably not a strong enough epiteth for this piece of work who goes by the name of Paul LePage, Governor of the crazy state of Maine. What did he do to deserve me calling him names? For starters, LePage is in favor of relaxing Maine's child labor laws. Yes, because at a time where unemployment is still rampant, what the country needs is for children to enter the workforce and the clock being turned back to the 19th century.

But perhaps I misunderstand LePage. Perhaps he is a humanitarian and a realist who knows that if Republican wish-list policies are implemented, only the children of patrician class will be able to afford private school 20 years from now (there would no longer be any public schools), and everybody else had better get ready for a life of toil that should begin at 14 or earlier and end at 75 or later, since Republicans are also hell-bent on destroying Social Security.

LePage belongs in hell, but not the imaginary one that Christians believe in; a real one, where he should lose everything he has earned so far and has to make ends meet for the rest of his life on minimum wage, with no benefits, no Medicaid, and no Social Security to boot. Let him experience in the present a little taste of the future he wants to help build for future generations of Maine children.

The Only Serious Plan To Cut The Deficit

Paul Ryan and President Obama are both demagoguing on how to address the deficit. I don't say so, Paul Krugman does. I don't have a Nobel Prize, he does.

In Let's Take a Hike, Krugamn also says that the only serious plan to address the deficit and balance the national budget comes from... are you ready? The Congressional Progressive Caucus. Yes, progressives, a.k.a. liberals, the very people accused by Fox and by Republicans marionettes in Congress of wanting to destroy America. Imagine that.

Refute Ted Rall... If You Can

Someone had to say it, Ted Rall did it: "The family budget talking point is a fascinating meme that reflects a rarely considered national blind spot." Like their government, Americans live on debt.

The Truth About Taxes According to the Wall Street Journal? Yeah, Right.

The opinion of the Wall Street Journal is given way too much weight in discussions about the economy. I have often heard the distinction made that the WSJ has excellent reporters and a daft editorial board. Perhaps it is so. But the reporting will suffer if the editorial board is populated by idiots in service of the rich who write the kind of idiocies that Jeffrey Sachs exposes in this short op-ed for the Huffington Post.

Jon Kyl's Factually Depressing Behavior

Jon Kyl is the moron from Arizona, a U.S. Senator no less, who less than a couple of weeks ago entertained millions of discerning Americans with his naked lie or error (not intended as factual statement, according to a spokesperson) about the percentage of Planned Parenthood's business which is categorized as abortion: 90% according to Sen. Kyl, 3% if you let boring things like facts bog your rhetoric down.

Well, now Kyl has expunged his not-so-factual statement from the Congressional Record. Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post explains how, and what it says about lawmakers.

Krugman: Patients Are Not Consumers

It's a distinction that nowhere else in the civilized world would need to be made, but in the United States it takes a Nobel Prize winner to remind us: Patients are not consumers, and to nonchalantly use the two words interchangeably shows the level of corruption that big finance has brought upon us.

Medicare Isn't The Problem: It's The Solution

Robert Reich reminds the President, and all of us in the process, that Medicare is part of the solution in fixing America's fiscal problems. The only problem is that the right-wing echo chamber is fine-tuned to make Americans believe just the opposite.

Framing the Budget Debate

Robert Reich, with a much needed reminder that Paul Ryan and the Republicans' idea of how to fix the deficit is radical and extreme, and that much, most of America--in fact, is in line with the Democrats' suggestions for righting the financial course.

Tax Day Is Gone, But Not The Silly Rhetoric

Republicans like to pretend that they know how to fix the deficit and budget problems: just slash taxes and spending, and tax revenues will grow and the deficit will decline. That is their recipe for fiscal success. Except that it omits facts: yes, slashing spending could reduce the deficit (at the expense of the neediest Americans, including children--because the culture of life... well, you know all about that holy crap) but the if the revenue side continues to falter, largely because of Republican fiscal policy, then how much exactly needs to be slashed.

NPR had a more realistic take of things yesterday, on Tax Day. You can read it or listen to it. The report is called Looking At Who Pays What In Taxes.

Frankly, I am fed up with Republicans telling me that taxes for the rich need to be cut, when the amount of taxes they actually pay has declined from 26 to 17% over the last 20 years and their income has grown more than that of any other income group. You should be too.

Oh, By The Way...

I'm back. :-)

One of the Most Interesting Discussions on Anthropology You'll Ever Hear

From today's edition of NPR's Science Friday: Richard Leakey Reflects On Human Past--And Future. After you click the link, you can stream audio from the top left corner of the page.

Note how the first comment on the page (currently) reads: "How does Richard Leakey discount the Bible? Genesis chapter 1 verse 26? Or all other passages of the Bible? How about the other guy with language evolution.... Genesis chapter 11 verses 1 --9??????? There is no way to leave God out of creating the universe. God caused the Big bang and He will take us out with a big bang........ Any one else believe this too????????????". Oh dear.

Bring Out The Dunce Caps

As the political season is heating up in view of the upcoming presidential election cycle, our old friend The Constructive Curmudgeon has picked his front runner for the Republican Party.


Looks like it's gonna be another fun election season!

Oh, and check out Michele Bachmann's PolitiFact file. I can already savor the Bachmann/Kyl 2012 ticket!