Krugbot was right

It turns out some in the White House aren't receptive to the idea that not only were their tactics to get the stimulus worthy of criticism, but that all their hard work went into something that, economically speaking, wasn't as useful as it could have been. Perhaps, deep down, they regret not listening to the massive brainpower of one Paul "Make the stimulus bigger for the love of Christ" Krugman and are just bitterly clinging to the fact that it got passed as some sort of affirmation of the rightness of their plan. Like Rahm Emanuel is doing!

“They have never worked the legislative process,” Emanuel said of critics like the Times columnist Paul Krugman, who argued that Obama’s concessions to Senate Republicans—in particular, the tax cuts, which will do little to stimulate the economy—produced a package that wasn’t large enough to respond to the magnitude of the recession. “How many bills has he passed?”
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Now, my view is that Krugman as an economist is not wrong. But in the art of the possible, of the deal, he is wrong. He couldn’t get his legislation.”

The stimulus bill was essentially held hostage to the whims of Collins, Snowe, and Specter, but if Al Franken, the apparent winner of the disputed Minnesota Senate race, had been seated in Washington, and if Ted Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, had been regularly available to vote, the White House would have needed only one Republican to pass the measure. “No disrespect to Paul Krugman,” Emanuel went on, “but has he figured out how to seat the Minnesota senator?” (Franken’s victory is the subject of an ongoing court challenge by his opponent, Norm Coleman, which the national Republican Party has been happy to help finance.) “Write a fucking column on how to seat the son of a bitch. I would be fascinated with that column. O.K.?” Emanuel stood up theatrically and gestured toward his seat with open palms. “Anytime they want, they can have it,” he said of those who are critical of his legislative strategies. “I give them my chair.”

Ah yes, the old "sure he was 100% right, but I'm going to act like a dick and bitch about things that wouldn't have made a difference in the outcome as if they're relevant to the discussion" gambit. Always successful. Always classy.

Fucking Krugman, with his economically astute observations, where does he get off trying to suggest a way to make sure a trillion dollars isn't misspent? The Nobel winning motherfucker can't even seat Al Franken, which while technically more the domain of say.....Harry Reid, is still a massive strike against Krugman. Don't even try and remember that Al Franken wouldn't have made 60 votes and they still would have needed to convince Republicans to join up, nor the fact that it was a couple Dem Senators that went off to play 'centrist', just keep yelling as if having a bad strategy and not getting what the country needed are the fault of a guy who suggested that maybe ceding ground at the start of the process and not even attempting to get the right bill passed weren't the smartest ideas.

For his part, Krugman resisted the urge to fire a gun over Rahm's head and yell "Princeton represent, motherfuckers!"

Eh. The question is why Obama didn't ask for what the economy needed, then bargain from there. My view is that Collins et al would have demanded $100 billion in cuts from whatever they started from; and that's not the case he answers.

Which is econo-speak for "You shit the bed by letting morons dictate the process with random numbers and desires to look like they were doing something. Don't hate a playa for pointing it out!" Here's a suggestion, next time something with the economy goes bad and Krugman starts yelling "Fire!!!" and "Abort!!!!", listen to him in the first place instead of bitching about him after you've decided to go for some half measure.

Chuck Norris on Prop 8

Not Gay

Chuck Norris, from his new post over on Townhall with other intellectual heavyweights like Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager and Ann Coulter, decided to pontificate on Prop 8. His black belt conservative thesis: gays should shut up and take it, right schmights.

First, there’s the obvious inability of the minority to accept the will of the majority. Californians have spoken twice, through the elections in 2000 and 2008. Nearly every county across the state (including Los Angeles County) voted to amend the state constitution in favor of traditional marriage.

Nevertheless, bitter activists simply cannot accept the outcome as being truly reflective of the general public. So they have placed the brainwashing blame upon the crusading and misleading zealotry of those religious villains: the Catholics, evangelical Protestants, and especially Mormons, who allegedly are robbing the rights of American citizens by merely executing their right to vote and standing upon their moral convictions and traditional views.
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There were many of us who passionately opposed Obama, but you don’t see us protesting in the streets or crying “unfair.” Rather, we are submitting to a democratic process and now asking how we can support “our” president.

First off Chuck, and I don't know if this is an easy thing to pick up breaking boards and kicking concrete blocks, people don't really respond well to the denial of basic civil rights with a well timed "get over it." They also don't tend to said denial with a shoulder shrug and a "Well if the majority doesn't want us to have basic rights, then I guess it's OK." Giving the majority what it wants no matter what isn't the principle this country was founded on, it was protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority. At least that's what we pretended when blacks and women got their day in the sun.

Secondly, stripping a group of people from basic rights and protections and refusing to recognize their relationships as valid isn't the same thing as the guy you wanted not getting elected. That's a whole different kind of savate kick. Furthermore, if the religious groups that spent tens of millions of dollars to codify discrimination into the California State Constitution didn't want any blowback, protests, or boycotts from their involvement, well then they shouldn't have stuck their millions into the fight to strip people of rights. Some people just weren't going to like being revoked to second class status and some of those people were going to blame the Mormon church who provided half the donations to Pro-Prop 8 groups and decided to meddle one state over. That's part of a Democracy too, Chuck. Try and think about that when you're doing the DVD commentray for Walker, Texas Ranger Season 17. Then maybe pontificate on how getting mad over people getting mad over having their rights stripped from them, probably isn't the thing to be mad about, from a historical perspective.

Onward Christian Soldiers

From the "hardly surprising" file comes today's CNN piece on Army Specialist Jeremy Hall. In a lawsuit filed against the DOD and Defense Secretary Robert Gates in March, Spc. Hall claims he suffered systematic derision, exclusion, and threats of violence at the hands his fellow troops.

It's not that Hall was a poor soldier -- the Spc. served two tours and had a near-perfect record -- or that his patriotism and sense of duty wavered in the face of deteriorating conditions and escalating troop deaths. No, Hall's offense? His refusal to embrace Evangelical Christianity.

His sudden lack of faith, he said, cost him his military career and put his life at risk. Hall said his life was threatened by other troops and the military assigned a full-time bodyguard to protect him out of fear for his safety.
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Two years ago on Thanksgiving Day, after refusing to pray at his table, Hall said he was told to go sit somewhere else. In another incident, when he was nearly killed during an attack on his Humvee, he said another soldier asked him, "Do you believe in Jesus now?"

More disconcerting is that Hall's experience is in no way unique, according to Michael Weinstein, a retired Air Force officer and atheist who founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation:

"Our Pentagon, our Pentacostalgon, is refusing to realize that when you put the uniform on, there's only one religious faith: patriotism"...

Makes one wonder how long it'll be before Don't Ask Don't Tell is expanded to include atheists. After all, one must first embrace Jesus Christ and The Bible before gearing up, shipping out, and violating the Fifth Commandment.***

***Note: I'm referring here to the Fifth Commandment as stated in the Roman Catholic Decalogue, as that was the spooky, prehistoric bullshit forced on me personally as a youth. Protestants and Jews (i.e. heathens) may feel free to consult #6 on their list of holy no-nos.