Conservatives say stupid shit

[Stephen Maturin]

Does the fact that China owns so much of our debt constrain our foreign policy and national security decision making?
I don’t think so. I don’t think it has.

That just one example of the voluminous stupid shit-saying on display in Dick Cheney's recent interview with Playboy. And here the Rude Pundit describes why he's having trouble getting as worked up over Cheney's ghastliness these days:

Because when he read the Playboy interview with Cheney, the overwhelming feeling the Rude Pundit had was...well, let's put it this way: You know how your aunt had a dog, maybe a Spitz or a Shih Tzu, one of those nasty small-to-medium sized dogs that will bite you if it's feeling remotely pissy. And you know how you'd go over to your aunt's place with your parents when you were a kid, and they'd tell you to play with the dog, but the dog would scare the hell out of you and your fear would make it bite you, and you'd just hate the dog even more and the dog wouldn't care and just bite you? And you'd dread going to visit your aunt because you knew the dog would try to bite you? But then, years later, you're a young adult and you go to visit your aunt on your own. There's that damn dog, but, like your aunt, it's gotten older. It's blind, maybe deaf, incontinent, limping around, but the goddamned thing is still snarling at you. not that it could do anything about it. Now you know that it should just be put down at this point. It's just a sad thing, kept alive only because your aunt loves the dog for some reason. You, though, you now can look on this previously terrifying beast and think, "God, how pathetic you are." It's not pity as much as a feeling that you know the world has left this particular dog behind. There will be other vicious dogs, yes, sure, but this one is, thankfully, almost done. In the end, you realize just how superior you are to the dog because, at the end of the day, it's just a dog.

[Dingfod]

They forgot to add that the dog has a mechanical heart.

[Dingfod]

Mittney Rmoney, who used private email when he ran the SLC 2002 Olympics and as Governor of Massachusetts, says Hilary Clinton's email scandal nontroversy proves she is not fit to be President.

And he should be an expert on not being fit to be President.

[Dingfod]

Mittney Rmoney: Never read the comments.

Well, yeah, if you can't handle opposing viewpoints and/or can't resist responding to internet commenters because you're an entitled dickhead.

[The Man]

To be fair, Rmoney almost has a point. There are a lot of places where you really shouldn't read the comments. However, he's taking it to an absurd extreme, in order to avoid reading anything even vaguely critical of him. That's stupid.

Separation of church and state? Never heard of it.

[JoeP]

is turning into "42 reasons why everyone should leave the USA immediately" ...

[LadyShea]

There is no place to go! I have looked really hard!

[Nullifidian]

Apparently the GOP's "fiscal responsibility" encompasses paying state legislators to consider complete nonstarter legislation like this. Instead of mandatory religious observance, we should have mandatory classes in basic constitutional law for new legislators and not allow them to be seated before they pass the course. Admittedly, that may be just as legally suspect, but the difference is that at least I know that.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by Nullifidian

Apparently the GOP's "fiscal responsibility" encompasses paying state legislators to consider complete nonstarter legislation like this. Instead of mandatory religious observance, we should have mandatory classes in basic constitutional law for new legislators and not allow them to be seated before they pass the course. Admittedly, that may be just as legally suspect, but the difference is that at least I know that.

Hey! You have something in common with former Libertarian Presidential candidate Michael Badnarik!

One of his platforms of his campaign was that the 1st day. he would convene Congress, make them listen to *his* Constitution class, and require them to retake the oath of office (or some other oath, too lazy to look up all the details) with this new knowledge in mind.

I think the primary difference is that you'd want an actual Constitutional scholar to do the training.

[Dingfod]

Too bad we can't have a Constitutional scholar run the country. Wouldn't that just be crazy?

[Janet]

As I recall, Mike Badnarik was a sky-diving instructor and a space geek. He went to Space Camp with my sister on one of her many trips and later they all went sky-diving during a reunion. Call me crazy, but I don't think teaching sky-diving qualifies you for teaching Constitutional law.

However, in checking my facts with my sister, I am told that there is a Youtube video of his Constitution lecture out there. She also says his main day job was in computers, but she is vague on the details.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by Janet

As I recall, Mike Badnarik was a sky-diving instructor and a space geek. He went to Space Camp with my sister on one of her many trips and later they all went sky-diving during a reunion. Call me crazy, but I don't think teaching sky-diving qualifies you for teaching Constitutional law.

However, in checking my facts with my sister, I am told that there is a Youtube video of his Constitution lecture out there. She also says his main day job was in computers, but she is vague on the details.

Yeah, on another forum, one of the lawyers went through the "class" and found it comparable in quality to the "fringe on the flag means its an admiralty court" style legal scholarship. It stuck out in my memory.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

Too bad we can't have a Constitutional scholar run the country. Wouldn't that just be crazy?

Ted Cruz is also a Constitutional scholar! Maybe we could have him teach the class!

[Dingfod]

I was going to say that was impossible, that Rafael Sr. must have paid someone off, but then I remembered Justices Scalia and Thomas, so nevermind.

[The Man]

Faux News contributor: 9/11 was God's punishment for abortion

ed: Apparently anyone who criticises Indiana's discrimination law is paving the way for an anti-Christian genocide. Nice to see it took less than a week for the professional religious "victim" lobby to reach Godwin's Law.

[Ari]

Facinating how things shift, I remember years ago some liberals made the claim that it was the US's fault for 9-11 because of their foreign policies and they got slamed by conservatives for it, glad to know it's not that we keep bombing Islamic countries in a religious war but the gays.

(also it's funny when conservatives treat God like some mind control alien that will take over people's free will to use them to punish others in a way that's totally normal and not supernatural at all. We were all sad when God had most his powers taken away.)

[The Man]

I know taking shots at O'Reilly is like shooting fish in a barrel, but this. This is just breathtaking.

[Stephen Maturin]

So there's a rinky dink dispute under way in Oregon involving a gold miner and the federal Bureau of Land Management. The miner undisputedly owns the subsurface rights to the land in question. He also claims ownership of the surface rights, but the BLM says the surface interest was transferred to the feds back in 1961 by the person who then owned them.

Sounds pretty straightforward to me. Marshal your evidence of ownership, hire a lawyer with expertise in mining rights and get this mess resolved.

Right?

lol Of course not. Why retain counsel when you can do this:

Barclay, being suspicious of the federal agency, told KDRV that he'd enlisted the help of a local chapter of the Oath Keepers, a loose-knit national organization of current and former military and law enforcement officers who pledge to defend the Constitution against government overreach, to provide security on the property while he goes through the appeal process.

show spoiler

[Dingfod]

I understand he and his partner wants the Oathkeepers gone, regret calling them. And, to keep a mining claim active, you have to be able to show the claim is being worked. From what I've read, he may have a problem with that.

[BrotherMan]

Every time I see Oath Keepers I mix them up with the Promise Keepers. I wonder how that Venn Diagram would look.

[specious_reasons]

On the JREFUGEES facebook group, there's a guy who is 100% convinced that Chelsea Clinton's father is Webb Hubbell (Clinton family friend), and that it is an open secret among Clinton insiders.

This 35 year-old "news" is the most important thing in the world because he believes this is the best way to keep Hillary out of the White House.

The proof is awesome. It's things like, "no Clinton biographer has ever refuted this claim," "Bill Clinton stated to staffers that he was 'shooting blanks' so he couldn't have gotten that girl pregnant," and "Chelsea named her daughter 'Charlotte' as an obvious gesture of respect to the man who gave her life."

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

"Chelsea named her daughter 'Charlotte' as an obvious gesture of respect to the man who gave her life."

I think that broke my brain. What can his 'reasoning' possibly be to support this claim, except perhaps that Webb and Charlotte both have double consonants in the name? How is this a more reasonable inference than that Chelsea is a fan Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther or the Elective Affinities or is at heart a Girondist sympathizer who named her daughter after Charlotte Corday? Maybe she read Charlotte's Web at an impressionable age?

[davidm]

Obummer: No excuse for violence in Baltimore.

No, of course there isn't! There are only excuses for decades of violence against occupied Palestine, financed by the U.S. government, and violence against people of color by white police officers in cities across the nation since forever, and drone strikes that kill untold numbers of innocent people, the number covered up by the government unless the result is too obvious and glaring to paper over, and … etc. Oh, there are all sorts of excuses for those things!



Null changed his avatar!

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by Nullifidian

I think that broke my brain. What can his 'reasoning' possibly be to support this claim, except perhaps that Webb and Charlotte both have double consonants in the name? How is this a more reasonable inference than that Chelsea is a fan Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther or the Elective Affinities or is at heart a Girondist sympathizer who named her daughter after Charlotte Corday? Maybe she read Charlotte's Web at an impressionable age?

BTW, that's an actual quote, not a paraphrase.

I think you're on to something: Charlotte's Web --> Charlotte is a Webb!

Seriously, this whole thing never would even occur to me, Chelsea has always looked very much like Bill to me. Maybe that's because Hillary is so devious, she chose to breed with someone who would produce offspring that looks like Bill!

[BrotherMan]

Maybe that's because Hillary is so devious, she chose to breed with someone who would produce offspring that looks like Bill!

Diabolical!