He's back!

You may remember insane Tea Party candidate and Founding Father fetishist Rick Barber, who is running for Congress in Alabama. He was the guy complaining about IRS and Census oppression in front of a gun stroking Washington and calling for an armed uprising against the government. Gather your armies!

Well, he's back and this time he has a pedantic argument about the Whisky Act, an overlong rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, a girly slappy fight with Glenn Beck to enact and this time he brought Honest Abe with him.



So...... no... taxes? Because.... taxes are exactly like..... slavery? And..... the holocaust? THOSE GODDAMN BLACKS ARE GETTING FREE BAILOUT MEALS!

One minor historical quibble. You know that part where you reference slavery and the Civil War and how "We shed a lot of blood to stop that in the past, didn't we?". Yeah.... you're from Alabama. You didn't shed any blood to stop slavery. You people, your state, and your side shed blood to keep slavery. It was an important dividing point between the two sides. Us Northern homosexual liberals who are oppressing everyone with the tyranny of health care? We're the ones who fought against slavery. Also: Lincoln loved the shit out of taxes.

Anyway, keep it up, Rick. I await the next one with Teddy Roosevelt carrying a big stick and complaining about those damned Mexicans he fought and financial reform. I'm sure it's like... child murder or something.

It begins...

God love RNC Chairman Michael Steele. He may be massively incompetent and unfit to run the RNC, but he is entertainingly dim. Only he could set the bar on crazy Elena Kagan statements mere hours after she was announced as Obama's pick for the Supreme Court. It was tucked away in a little statement after a jag on the "liberal agenda" she supports. See if you can point it out.

Given Kagan's opposition to allowing military recruiters access to her law school's campus, her endorsement of the liberal agenda and her support for statements suggesting that the Constitution "as originally drafted and conceived, was 'defective,'" you can expect Senate Republicans to respectfully raise serious and tough questions to ensure the American people can thoroughly and thoughtfully examine Kagan's qualifications and legal philosophy before she is confirmed to a lifetime appointment.

It's right there at the end: her support for statements suggesting that the Constitution "as originally drafted and conceived, was 'defective,'". Why that look innocuous enough, you might be saying. He's just taking the same "liberals hate the Constitution" track that every Republican takes after a hard day of working to undermine the Constitution.

But you have to look a little deeper into Kagan's statement to get the full breadth and depth of Steele's stupidity. Oh yes, she did agree with and describe the Constitution as "defective", but she and the man she was agreeing with, Thurgood Marshall, might just have had a point.

Just one problem -- Kagan was writing about comments made by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. And Marshall was referring to slavery.
...
Marshall's speech gave particular note to the constitution's original definition of a slave as counting for only three-fifths of a person. Kagan wrote in her piece that "it was the role of the courts, in interpreting the Constitution, to protect the people who went unprotected by every other organ of government."

That's right, they were criticizing the part of the Constitution that legalizes slavery and treats blacks as three-fifths of a person. Now I know we have to pretend that the Constitution is an unflawed document handed down from God to Jesus On The Cross, who proceeded to sign his name all big like at the bottom with a blood soaked nail. But can we maybe agree that the parts that enshrined slavery and an entire race as second class citizens/fractional people were... I don't know... bad? Everyone doesn't have to do it. Maybe just people like, say, the black chairman of the RNC. No?

Still want to stick to that criticism of Kagan, Mike? Yes? Don't want to admit you didn't read anything she said before firing off a press release accusing her of not giving slavery its due? No? OK, then. Keep up the good work.

Perhaps I was too hasty...

You know earlier I awarded the understatement of the day the Jerusalem city officials over their "zoning issues" comment on the Middle East peace process. I think I might have jumped the gun. I clearly forgot about Southern Republican's capacity for racial insensitivity and treason celebration.

As you might be aware, April is Confederate History Month as so declared by Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. Quick historical recap: they seceded, piles of bodies, we put boot to ass, four score and seven, yay North! It is also African American Woman's Fitness Month, National Car Care Month, Irritable Bowel Syndrome Month, Holy Humor Month, Soy Foods Month, and National Straw Hat Month. It's a busy month. But in his declaration of National Traitor Appreciation Confederate History Month, Governor McDonnell forgot to leave out one tiny thing about the war that all previous governors seemed to have remembered. I'll let you guess which one. Hint: it involved the blacks.

McDonnell said Tuesday that the move was designed to promote tourism in the state, which next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the war. McDonnell said he did not include a reference to slavery because “there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.“

Yes, there were any number of aspects to the Civil War, Bob. Sure, there were other issues. Sure that business with the dark ones was kind of sort of tangentially involved with what Confederates appreciated. However I'm going to go out on a limb here and speak for historians: slavery... yeah it kinda was one of the larger issues. Some might say the largest one. I don't want to speak out of turn, but I think the consensus is in on that one.

So I think Bobby is in contention for Understatement of the Day. Yeah, reducing slavery into just one of the many issues and aspects surrounding the Civil War and one not even significant enough to warrant a mention? Yeah, that's going to fit in nicely.

I don't know, maybe we need to start up a National Southern Education About Slavery Month or Admitting You Are Celebrating Atrocities and Treason in Your Defense of the Confederacy Month. Maybe they could be this month. We'll just bump Prevent Lyme Disease in Dogs Month, National Pecan Month, or Women's Eye Health and Safety Month to May in order to free up some space.

Picture of the day

Part of a Time Magazine photo essay on the largest middle finger in human history and the biggest possible "fuck you" that one country could possibly give during a global recession, the newly rechristened Burj Khalifa, named after light hitting mid-eighties Pirates shortstop Sammy Khalifa.

If you're up for reading some more about the Burj, try the La Times article called A Temple to Hubris or this BBC article detailing the inhumane conditions it took to build the Burj and most of Dubai. It just shows what you can do when you dare to dream... and dare to spend way beyond your means... and dare to employ slave labor.

Like the pot calling the kettle batshit insane

Time to play one of our favorite games: Count the Crazy. Our returning contestant and undisputed heavyweight champion of lunacy is the House Representative from Minnesota's 6th district, Michele Bachmann.

Speaking to free market propagandists think tank, The Independence Institute, Bachmann said of health care reform:

“This cannot pass. What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass.”

Now, we all knew she was a loon. But an Emo loon? Trouble is, should she wish to make a public demonstration of this oath, she would enjoy the fully subsidized, comprehensive healthcare given to all members of Congress. Michele, you are like an onion. With mercury poisoning. So many layers. But wait, there's more!

“Something is way crazy out there,” Bachmann said in her remarks, billed as a “personal legislative briefing”...

She has become self-aware! Oh, and the clincher:

“This is slavery,” Bachmann said after claiming many Americans pay half their income to taxes. “It’s nothing more than slavery.”

What a gifted orator, saving the best for last. Only a Grade-A ingrate would wildly exaggerate the tax rate and then liken it to forced labor where human beings are considered property. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why Michele Bachmann remains the champ.