Meanwhile over in Greater Wingnuttia

There is a full throated Defense of Herbert Hoover in effect at Das Korner. 

Apparently Hoover was a hardcore Progressive and is totally misunderstood. Basically he was a Democrat, but not as bad as FDR if you want to know.  If you don't believe any of this and are unwilling to take Jonah Goldberg's word on this, he says Amity Shales has got his back.

Whatever. 

By all accounts Hoover was an intellegent and capable man who served his country ably during relief efforts for the disastrous flood of 1927.  And it was not Heckuva Job Good, it was far better. 

He ably organized food relief during and then after WWI to Europe when millions were starving.

 After World WarII, President Truman turned to Hoover to lead nutrition programs in Europe. He was a capable man.  

And of course, he also is ranked higher than George Bush in the Presidential Rankings.  Can anyone imagine a future President turning to George Bush and saying to George:

"You are the only one with the brain power and ability to get this important job done.  America needs You, the World needs you George."

Didn't think so.

But by all accounts he gets less than good marks from the American People, especially those living in Hoovervilles relying on Hoover Hogs (jack rabbits) for their next meal or using Hoover Blankets (newspapers) for their bed at night. 

To travel between Hoovervilles, people would ride in Hoover Wagons (Horse drawn Automobiles w/o gas), and in honor of Hoover, folks would fly Hoover Flags (pants with the pockets turned inside out).

So folks back then had issues with Herber Hoover and they had a way of expressing those issues. Maybe they all worked for the liberal media. But most likely they all did not.

But as I mentioned above, Herbert Hoover ranks higher than George Bush in the Presidential Rankings.  And by all accounts George Bush deserves a lower ranking than Hoover eventhough there are far fewer Bushboros today then there were Hoovervilles back then.

We are gonna need some New Wingnuts and Pronto!

Fact of the Day

It is, rather, a crueler demographic point. The dirty little secret of conservative talk radio is that the average age of listeners is 67 and rising, according to Sinton—the Fox News audience, likewise, is in its mid-60s: “What sort of continuing power do you have as your audience strokes out?”

You can begin to make plausibly large statements about the end of—or at least a crisis in—conservative media. “There are fewer advertisers, fewer listeners, shrinking networks, shallower penetration,” says Sinton. “A lowering tide lowers all ships.”

Uh-oh, a lowering tide lowers all ships.  And he’s not talking about the Bush Bust and the failings of Supply Side economics coming home to roost.  He’s talking about a trending demographic decline in the number of Wingnuts.  

Could there be a serious Wingnut Shortage on our Horizon?  Will it soon be time to dust off the Endangered Species Act and add the Wingnutus-Americanus for protection as a potentially threatened species?

David Brooks once speculated that McCain would face a serious Wingnut shortage to staff key administration positions if he were elected.  I think Bobo was just being alarmist. I don’t think the Wingnutus-Americanus will become extinct within the next 4-8 years.  

One the lighter side of things, I was listening to the AM talk radio this morning and some guy called in to say that now that the Guvmint was telling the defunct corporations how run their businesses, the days of people wearing brown shirts and black arm bands was just around the corner.  And no it wasn't Senator Bob Corker calling in to the radio program, or at least I think it was not him.

WHEREISBOBCORKER??????

RED ALERT --- RED ALERT --- RED ALERT --- RED ALERT --- RED ALERT --- RED ALERT --- RED ALERT ---  RED ALERT  --- RED AL……..

The Following Red Alert has been issued. 

It appears that Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) has been kidnapped and replaced with an Evil Clone that is now mocking The Corker Doctrine and condemning the Government’s dismissal of the way overcompensated and ineffective General Motors CEO. Code Red is in effect.

As everybody knows, Sen Bob Corker is the Father of the Corker Doctrine which holds that:

American Workers at troubled companies should receive no more in pay and benefits than workers who work at comparable foreign companies.

The Corker Doctrine is a new economic law of the Free Market discovered by Sen. Bob Corker and a matter of utmost principal required in order for the Free Market to remain Free.  

To remain sacrosanct, and unbastardized in the least, the Corker Doctrine must apply equally to both White Collar and Blue Collar workers.  If The Doctrine were to be enforced against one group of workers and not the other group of workers it would be manifestly unfair.  

Senator Corker, a man of great decency and principal, would never rail against workers on the factory floor without requiring equal sacrifice from those in management who manifestly screwed their product line up.  A person doing such, would be a hypocrite or a clone.  

Therefore, just 60 days after George Bush left town, I can be left with no other conclusion that Human Cloning nobly prevented by Bush, is underway in the Capital and Bob Corker is its first victim.

The Real Bob Corker must be underground somewhere because he would not be so shameless to lambaste compensation received by blue collar workers calling for cuts, while defending the overcompensated and ineffectual management at GM which got the Company into trouble in the first Place.  This is intellectually inconsistent and beneath the dignity of the Real Bob Corker.

I repeat, A Red Alert has been issued.  Be on the look out for Cloning Related Activities and or middle aged white guys perhaps wrapped in duct tape being held in the trunk of a General Motors Car.

WHEREISBOB???????

 RED ALERT --- RED ALERT --- RED ALERT --- RED AL……..

WTF is Wrong with The GOP – Part 1

I’m trying to figure out how or just what lead to the Republican Party’s failure in the last 2 elections despite having institutional strength in an increasingly one-party GOP dominated South.

Apparently I am one of the few thinking about this.  This seems more and more true when I read that Andrew Brietbart is blaming a conspiracy in the blogosphere for the Republican meltdown and Rush Limbaugh is denying the existence of a Republican Meltdown in spite of losing the Presidency, over 50 seats in the house and fourteen seats in the Senate. I guess first there is denial, then there is anger, then bargaining and it does not appear we are quite to the third stage yet.

Yes, I know there was unbridled incompetence, corruption, a zealous faith in a phony ideology and George Bush all involved in the GOP Meltdown.  Maybe that is a toxic combination that was too devastating to overcome.  But still there had to be other decisions along the way that sealed this outcome.  The stunning incompetence and the corruption were certainly important, don’t get me wrong, but they really are just symptoms of something larger.  I mean the Party couldn’t have started out writing blistering incompetence and corruption into the party platform, could it?     

So let’s look at where the Republicans are these days. 

The current Republican coalition has seen better days.  In the last 4 decades it has been successful after implementing the Southern Strategy and target marketing the Party to white voters in the South.  This had benefits in re-aligning the South and its electoral votes with the GOP away from the historical alignment with the Democrats. But this Strategy also had drawbacks because the GOP had to write off the black vote. This basically meant the GOP needed about two thirds or so of the white vote to win an election on average nationwide.  In recent years coded race based marketing efforts from the Southern Strategy have faded in favor to marketing efforts targeted toward religious Fundamentalists.  This addition of white Protestant fundamentalists to the GOP coalition kept the Party’s percentage of the white vote from falling too far and kept the GOP rolling until recently.

But demographics tell us that the GOP cannot count on white super majorities forever.  As the civil rights era recedes from memory it would seem that resentment over the issue of Race is bringing declining returns at the ballot box and having fun with the fundamentalists only works for so long before scaring the bejeesus out of other white voters needed to make up the super majority.   

Complicating matters further, the Party (or the Base) for whatever reason, has tried to replicate Pete Wilson’s Prop 187 fiasco by pissing off people on immigration, with Losers like El Dimbo vetoing Bush’s outreach and barring the door from letting Latinos into the Big Tent. 

Younger voters turned off by incompetence, corruption, and fundamentalism of both the religious and market based variety have tuned out the GOP in the last two elections and are moving away from parity support with the GOP, to solidly behind the Democrats.  

All these factors, with the white vote decreasing in terms of the over all electorate while the GOP is increasingly reliant upon needing supermajorities to win elections portend that the Party must change or go the way of the Whigs.  I Vote for the Whig model but parties are remarkably resilient at changing to accommodate the electorate so we cannot count the GOP out.  They are down, in more ways than one can count, but not out. 

To be continued…..

A sign of the times?

EEOC employee morale declines as workload grows

A survey of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission employees suggests that morale is decreasing as the agency's workload is reaching record levels.

Respondents to a January survey conducted by the American Federation of Government Employees Council 216, which represents EEOC workers, said they needed more support to deal with a rising pile of employment discrimination claims. The union posted the survey on its Web site: 200 employees participated.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents said the number of front-line employees at EEOC was inadequate, and 35 percent said the number was so low it constituted a crisis. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said morale in their office was at the lowest levels possible.

Agency staffing has decreased by 25 percent since 2001, falling from 2,850 to 2,150. Meanwhile, the caseload is growing.

I can understand why the Bush Bust has led to a spike in claims.  People get let go in higher numbers as the unemployment rates climbs and are not fully sure why they got the pink slip. Discrimination may be present in some instances but absent in others.

However WTF is up with the staffing cuts at the EEOC?  Staffing levels are 25% lower than they were 8 years ago?  This is a prime example of the Disastrous Reign of Error that was the Bush Administration.

The thing about it is that inadequate resources here don’t really mean there’ll be fewer claims or lawsuits based upon employment discrimination.  What it does is lead to is an exaggeration of the extremes.  This means that bogus cases that should get properly invested and then dismissed, slip through  the system with less than thorough consideration further burdening businesses, while meritorious cases that should get promoted whither and die because they were without the proper resources to determine merit.

Typical Bushism.  Everything he and his apparatchiks touched eventually got a dose of the reverse midas touch.

Dueling Quotes – One of these two are not like the other

The Question of the Day: one of these two people is not from the “Reality Based Community.”  Guess which one.

Mr. Bush seems uniquely resolved to be as courageous as the times require and as helpful as they allow. There is a profound authenticity to him, and a fearlessness too.

A steady hand on the helm in high seas, a knowledge of where we must go and why, a resolve to achieve safe harbor. More and more this presidency is feeling like a gift. ~ Peggy Noonan.

 or:

" Every time you had a conversation with him, he would make it clear the subject was important. Bush would say, I care about this. Let’s get this done. But it was like a ship whose wheel is not attached to the rudder." ~ David Kuo

Pretty easy question if you chose the former over the latter quotation then you correct guessed that Peggy Noonan is not member of the Reality Based Community.  Rather she is a valued contributor to the Op Ed page of the WSJ and apparently still Employed to shape public opinion.  Believe it or not.

Winston Churchill once said something to the effect of “Liberal Constitutional Democracy is a real shitty form of government, but it is a hell of a lot better than the alternatives.** 

The election of George Bush, Twice, proves this statement undoubtedly true.  Doing business as a democracy means the people have the right to make and do make mistakes, but man electing Bush twice?  Those were two doozies of mistakes.  We can’t absolve the voters of all responsibility for these mistakes, but they did have some help in making them (see Noonan above). Oh well, live and learn.    

Some of us looked at George Bush early on and saw that there was no there there, just a 40 watt bulb.  Others looked at Bush and either saw God’s Will on Earth implemented by the steady hand of Bush or were just plain bullshitting the public with drivel. I wonder if Noonan has come to grips with the depths of her Wingnuttery? 

**I’m paraphrasing and too lazy to use the Google.

I wonder what he thinks about Bush then...?

Dueling quotes.

Cheney on Obama: "he'll never make it in the Major Leagues."

Cheney on Clinton: "he's very much the little man in the Big Suit."

Well if this is true, what thoughts would Cheney reveal about Bush if was hooked up to the rack? Couldn't be good that is for sure.

Better yet how would Cheney fare under the same standard of review given that he's pretty much been wrong about all the big decisions of the last 8 years, from choosing Saddam Hussein instead Bin Laden as public enemy number one, to the assessment that Saddam was gonna get us unless we got him first, to happy Iraqis, to the pronouncement that deficits don't matter, to everything really? 

 I'd say if we applied the Cheney standard to Dick Cheney, he'd rate as a pretty big fuck up.

Legendary Wingnuttery --- A Titan Speaks

I thought of that yesterday when Gov. Bush took the podium in Austin, relaxed and in something like command. These days he's Bush in bloom, expansive and settled, and the selection of Dick Cheney reflects his new confidence. Some bad luck (a Concorde down, a Mideast peace process gone bust) and some leaking (never let your father call the doctor and expect the neighbors not to hear) dulled the impact of the announcement, but it was still the story of the day, not only on its own terms but because of what it revealed about Mr. Bush. He didn't choose someone who'll help him win, he chose a man who'll help him govern. He is certain he is going to win. He is thinking of the future.  Thus the choice. If you were president, Dick Cheney is precisely the kind of man you'd want working down the hall.

[...]

The choice of Dick Cheney seems so grounded, mature and constructive that, as a citizen, I am astonished. An adult has been picked for an adult job. We appear to be entering a new era. Perhaps it will be called the restoration. ~ Peggy Noonan, May 2001.

For starters Cheney chose himself, everyone knows this. And he was a total disaster.  He shot a guy in the face and was walking heart attack waiting to happen leaving poor Ol'Bush in a perpetual state of worry at the possibillity about being one heart beat away from the Presidency.  Seriously.

Looking back at this period of time, Cultural Anthropologists are going to have their work cut out for them because the Wingnuttery was that bad.  I mean seriously, the Bush Era called "The Restoration?" 

This is just too much Wingnuttery not to be clinical.  But one thing we do know is that on the important issues of the day, like staying out of Jail, Cheney was always thinking ahead: 

Once, in the summer of 1992, I was invited to a dinner upstairs in the White House. I'd never been there before, and wondered what I'd see. I saw a handful of people talking politics, commenting on the upcoming election, and sat near Dick Cheney, whom I did not know and who was sitting quietly on a sofa listening to everyone. He looked grave and friendly. President Bush's sister turned to him and said she hoped he would someday write a book, and hoped he was keeping a diary. He sort of winced, and looked down. No, he said, "unfortunately you can't keep diaries in a position like mine anymore." He explained that anything he wrote could be subpoenaed or become evidence in some potential legal action. "So you can't keep and recount your thoughts anymore."

But Diary aside, he might want to avoid traveling to Europe and especially Spain ever again.

Things I did not Realize

Headline of the Day: Despite Significant Vacancies, Obama Outpaces Bush in Nominations

According to this Obama is nominating and filling vaccancies at a higher rate than the last President. I hope that they are qualified and not either syncophants or hapless ideolgues.  That woud be a pleasant change.

Speaking of Bush Nominees, what was the deal with Bush always going on about person's best qualification was that s/he had a "Good Heart" or was a "Good Person." Even the Onion got in on the Act mocking Bush as someone who would nominate the next person that walked through a doorway as long as he had a good heart.

Oh well,  ideally a nominee for a high post would have a good heart, what ever that means, and at the same time be the best qualified and capable person to fill the post.  But that was not the case with the last guy in the White House.

There is no other conclusion that Bush Administration was only a big joke from the start.  Bush would nominate somebody and stand in front of the camera and praise his nominee's Good Heart only to leave the public trust standing holding the bag some years later as the wages of incompetence come due with sensational effect.

What's more is that it is almost inconcievable that people could have fallen for it not just once but twice.  Because you know what they say, fool me once shame on you, fool you twice, ....... uh, well you just can't get fooled again. 

That's Cold Man, Really Cold

" Every time you had a conversation with him, he would make it clear the subject was important. Bush would say, I care about this. Let’s get this done. But it was like a ship whose wheel is not attached to the rudder."

David Kuo, on working for George Bush.

Quotes for the Day

“I'm encouraged by some of the peaceful demonstrations we are seeing from Boston Tea Parties and other things.  People are going to have to show their alarm and their outrage in ways we haven't done in America in years, because Washington is ignoring their constituents. We're ignoring the people who sent us here, and we're saying one thing and doing another.” Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC)

But it gets worse, when Poor Ol'Jim learns that the Guvmint is going to provide employment opportunities and pay folks without jobs to pitch in to provide some community service.

“(hiring folks now for community service) is unimaginable at a time when we have such a difficult economy and we are borrowing and spending so much.” Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC)

Uh Jim, these jobs are not unimaginable. It is happened before and it was called the Civillian Conservation Corp and it built public projects all over the American SouthEast including South Carolina.  

The Poor Dude probably went to an underfunded school system.  

Don't hate the Wingnut, hate the Game.

Blogline of the Day

Real Republican Principles are the Path to Economic Recovery

by Mike Pence (R-IN)

House Republicans laid out our blueprint yesterday for economic recovery that curbs spending, creates jobs, lowers taxes, controls debt and is built on principles of growth.

The “Republican Road to Recovery ” is a blueprint for a substantive, comprehensive budget alternative that will be introduced on the floor of the House of Representatives next week

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't it Republican Principles that lead to the Bush Bust?  

I seem to remember that Reckless Deregulation, Market Fundamentalism, and a blind and faithful Devotation to Tax Cuts as a means of raising revenue were all on center stage leading up to the Great Bush Bust.

But now Mike Pence expects us to believe that the proper path to recovery is to stay the course with more of that Old Time Religion fortified with extra Bush Style Economics?  

If these nutters are anything, they are predictable.

Man is Born Free and Virtuous but Enslaved by Lessons Learned from Antiquity

I was thinking about the recent Speech by El Dimbo, the Dear AM Radio Leader Rush Limbaugh, in which El Dimbo pronounces in effect, That Man is Born Free and Virtuous, Only to Become Bound in Chains by classical liberalism.  "The Speech" as it was framed by Hugh Hewitt, drew rave reviews amoung the nuttier varieties of Wingnut-Americans.  Not only were the reveiws rave, it was proclaimed by Hewitt , who by all accounts is intellent and thoughtful in addition to being a certifiable loon, that "The Speech" would be talked about for decades. 

Well let's go and re-examine the central premise of "The Speech."

In what is a 180 degree shift from the Bush-Cheney Era and it reliance on the One Percent Doctrine, El Dimbo rejected the teachings of Thomas Hobbes so favored by the former administration outright in favor of a Right-Wing Interpretation of Jean Jacques Rousseau's General Will.  In effect El Dimbo declared, Man is Born Good but only becomes Corrupted by the Government.  If not for the Government, Man would know True Freedom and Thus Liberty.  However, unfortunately for El Dimbo, western civilization has created insidious governmental institutions through the trial of the ages, which among other functions, protect the rights of the minority from the momentary passions of the Majority by ensuring Free Speech, Free Assembly, a Free Press, a Freedom to practice the religion of one's choice, Freedom to bear Arms, and Due Process of Law among other rights.

In place of all of Liberal Constitution Democracy and these so-called rights, El Dimbo would substitute the General Conservative Will, the supposedly infallible will of the majority.  Since man is born pure and virtuous, the institutions of the Government, its rules are but an artifice and only serve to perpetuate the interest of the Government to the exclusion of the interests of the governed.

According to El Dimbo, when the conservative will of the governed becomes the Law, a State will need few Laws as only that which are needed are felt by the many and thus passage ascertained in such modesty in proportion to their want.

Does it follow from all of this that the general conservative will is exterminated or corrupted? Not at all accordingly to El Dimbo: conservatism is always constant, unalterable and pure; it is what it is, but it cannot be subordinated to other wills which encroach upon its sphere. Each man, in detaching his interest from the common interest, sees clearly that he cannot entirely separate them from conservatism because it is eternal. And as such, this will, The Conservative General Will, brings Justice and order.  It is formless like water, its justice flows and can only be restrainted by the chains of Constitutional Liberal Democracy which turns the virtuous born freeman into Bondsman in chains suboordinated to Classical Liberalism.

Thus "The Speech" will be revered for decades, or perhaps ridiculed, because man is not born virtuous and pure. Man needs the restaints gleaned from lessons learned by our forefathers back through antiquity.  Man should learn the lessons of the past rather than rely on will of the moment as El Dimbo urges.  But for El Dimbo, urges are everything, as he elucidates that The Conservative General Will is the rule of the passions. 

Thus to Authoritarian Wingnut Ideologues the passion of the moment and the maxim "if it feels good, do it" rules all. So to it are the Right Wing Rousseauists sometimes known as fascists. 

He was talking about Bush K-Lo, Get a Clue

When Brazil's El Presidente Blames the Bust Bust on "White People with Blue Eyes," it goes right over K-Lo's head.

Not Surprising that K-Lo would miss the reference.  It seemed obvious to me that he was laying the blame for the Bush Bust with, well, Bush.

Magnetic Refrigerator Poetry - Palinisms Return!

"No, things have changed…..  But complaining? Or whining? Absolutely not. But I am going to call it like I see it. It doesn't do any good to whine about any of this. But I can call it like I see it. Sometimes it gets me in a lot of trouble when I speak candidly, and I speak from the heart  and I do such a thing. But I am going to."

"And there was that media slant this go round. "And unless things change, the GOP had really better can stand together, cause we got that on the battlefield also. I call it like I see it and like I lived it on the campaign trail. Not complaining, but dealing with reality."

"Those are the cards that are dealt us, and we had better learn to play that hand and do things right and do things better."

~  SarahPalin

Makes sense to me. Glad she cleared that up.

The Bushboro --- The New Hooverville?

The Bushboro or BushBorough, Definition:

A Shantytown of temporary dwellings, named after Former President George W. Bush which people are moving into after losing their employment and then homes due to The Great Bush Bust.

Bushborough used in a sentence:

After turning my 401k into a 101k, a greedy bank foreclosed on my home and now I’m moving to a shanty in a Bushboro, just like my grand parents moved to a Hooverville during The Great Depression.

I wish it were not true, but Hoovervilles have re-emerged, thankfully on a smaller scale, and are starting to dot the landscape:

Like a dozen or so other cities across the nation, Fresno is dealing with an unhappy déjà vu: the arrival of modern-day Hoovervilles, illegal encampments of homeless people that are reminiscent, on a far smaller scale, of Depression-era shantytowns. At his news conference on Tuesday night, President Obama was asked directly about the tent cities and responded by saying that it was “not acceptable for children and families to be without a roof over their heads in a country as wealthy as ours.”

While encampments and street living have always been a part of the landscape in big cities like Los Angeles and New York, these new tent cities have taken root — or grown from smaller enclaves of the homeless as more people lose jobs and housing — in such disparate places as Nashville, Olympia, Wash., and St. Petersburg, Fla.

I wonder if there will be a chapter on Bushboros, aka the new Hoovervilles, in the new Bush Book.

Hip and/or Hop Republicans on the RISE!

Yeah, that is the ticket:

GOP National Committee Chairman Michael Steele told CNN Wednesday he'd consider running for president someday, but stressed he has never given serious thought to a potential White House bid.

Speaking to CNN's Don Lemon, Steele said he may decide to seek the presidency at some point if he determines that's "where God wants me to be."

In a dog fight between Willard Romney, Sarah Palin, Volcano Man Jindal, Ol' Huck, I'd say that the Grand Master O'DISaster, Michael Steele, has a real shot at winning the GOP Nomination. Or not.  

Quote of the Day

"How many watched the President's news conference last night? ... He got a little testy there, you know. When he was asked why he waited three days to speak out against the AIG bonuses, President Obama said he likes to know what he's talking about before he speaks. So, yet another reversal of the Bush policies." ~ Jay Leno

Passage of the Day --- The Bush Bust and the Bush Book

"If we saw the world only through presidential eyes, the Great Depression would be Europe's fault, not Herbert Hoover's; liberals and other scoundrels were to blame for Richard Nixon's fall; and James Buchanan was a great man worthy of the president who succeeded him, Abraham Lincoln.

[...]

The most disliked presidents were capable of the most prolonged defenses. Nixon wrote book after book after his resignation. Hoover needed three volumes, not only to absolve himself of the Depression, but to tear down the New Deal and its beloved, martyred creator, Franklin Roosevelt." ~ Source.

So if, according to Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression was like totally Europe's fault and not Hoover's in any manner,  who do you think Bush will Blame to try to pin the Bush Bust upon? How about Phil Gramm?

One Thing I do know is that Bush is not going to go anywhere near writing a Three Volume Hagiography Book to absolve his screw ups legacy. 

Decision Points....An Inside Look at 12 Fateful Decisions that Shaped the Bush Administration

It has just been announced that George Bush has a book deal for “Decision Points," a survey of 12 fateful Decisions of the Bush Administration. The book is scheduled for 2010. 

Lucky for you I have the inside scoop on what those Decision probably will be when published.  So without further adieu, I have a sneak peek of the TOP decisions under consideration to make the top 12 Tateful Decisions.  

The early front runners for the top 12 fateful Bush decisions are: 

• Operation Manimal  - Taking on the Menace of Animal Human Hybrids.
  
  
• Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL)  - Starting a Preventive War in Iraq. Later Renamed Operation Iraqi Freedom for obvious reasons.
  
  
• Operation Charge Not Kept – The Effort to Restore Honor and Integrity to the White House.
  
  
• Operation Lavender Menace – Saving the Sacred Institution of Marriage from sure destruction by the Gays and/or Newt  Gingrich.
  
  
• Operation Mars Bitches! – M.A.R.S. Announcing a Mission to Mars (based on the Movie) so deal with that.
  
  
• Operation Dead or Alive! – The Decision to move the Central Front in the war against Bin Laden to Iraq, presumably hoping he’d show up there.
  
  
• The War on Taro - Getting the Island Nations of Tonga and Fiji to join the Coalition of the Willing.
  
  
• The War on Surpluses and Budgetary Discipline – Bankrupting future generations by borrowing trillions to finance rampant spending, taxcuts for the super wealthy and the Preventive War in Iraq.
  
  
• Operation Heckuva a Job – Ensuring that the FEMA response to the 4 Hurricanes that hit Florida right before the 2004 election was top notch.
  
  
• Operation Splendid Little War -  Modernizing the Quaint Geneva Convention and tactics like the Water Cure from qualifying as Torture to An Enhanced Coercive Interrogation Technique that we can all be proud of!
  
  
• Operation Sea Turtle - Establishing a Large Marine Reserve near the Hawaiian seacoast.
  
  
• Operation Bush Bust – The Decision tackle tough challenges instead of passing Problems on to Future Generations.

So far these are the Top Twelve.  I will repost with updates if and when changes to the list arise.

Foxnews Defense to the Rescue... is it the last best hope?

Can the Recent Precedent established by the First Circuit Court of Appeals save State Representative Stacey Campfield (R-TN) from defamation charges?  Inquiring minds want to KNOW! 

As we know, Foxnews has used the Foxnews Defense to escape defamation lawsuits for reporting fake news as fact by pleading extreme stupidity.  A sympathetic court will extend to First Amendment's protection to news reported in error, protecting those too stupid from knowing fact from fiction.

Now everybody knows that Campfield is one of the zanier Wingnuts in all of Greater Wingnuttia.  Referring to himself as “The Legislator,” he’s made the news for his harassment of the State Black Caucus, for allegations of being a slum lord when it was reported that tenants of a Campfield owned property lived in a house full of sewage, for proposed legislation to require abortion providers to issue death certificates after abortions and to top things off you have reports of Campfield’s willingness to lend the dignity of his office to a support a suit challenging President Obama’s Birth Certificate. 

The dude is one seriously busy wingnut.

But back to the Foxnews Defense as a possible life saver for Campfield.  Way back in October Campfield reportedly published bad things on his blog about a Democratic candidate for a State House seat.  Among these bad statements were allegations that the Democrat had a record of Drug Arrests.  The Democrat subsequently lost the election for an open state house seat by just 391 votes! He then filed a libel suit against The Wingnut Legislator asking for $750,000 in damages. 

Well at first blush you may think things look bleak for The Wingnut Legislator.  The lack of, or presence of, drug arrests should be fairly easy to prove.  They either happened or did not happen. If the drug arrests never happened, the allegations of drug arrests are False and could lead to a serious payout of damages by the Wingnut Legislator.  

But there is hope for the Wingnut Legislator, and that hope is the Foxnews Defense which holds that if defendant was too stupid and I mean really, really, fucking stupid to form the requisite intent, then he may be off the hook just like a Foxnews on air personality.  

So herein lies Campfield salvation.  All his attorney has to do is show that Campfield is incredibly stupid and/or gullible, so much so that he believed the drug arrests may have occurred.   It’d be like that episode of Seinfeld where George works under the premise that a false statement is not a Lie if you believe it is true (or in our case example are so stupid as being unable to tell that it is not true).

This is the perfect defense for Campfield!  All his attorney needs to do is to introduce accounts of all the stupid things Campfield has done and said over the years. He needs to give examples.  He needs to be persuasive and show just how gullible The Wingnut Legislator is.  For a start, he can use the example of Campfield being duped by the phony Obama Birth Certificate claims.  Slum Dunk Baby, this should be an easy burden to prove for the defense attorney. 

Now all Campfield needs to do is to keep his mouth shut and nod everytime his attorney characterizes him as being too stupid to form the requisite intent to slander the Democrat.

Should be an open and shut case, that is, if Campfield does not blow it.  Wingnuts everywhere gotta be grateful for that Foxnews Defense.