Yes, Virginia, They Really Do Believe This Shit

What is it with the Republican governors on the East Coast and their love of drug-tests? Nikki Haley (R-SC) wants to drug test the unemployed now and her comments are illustrative of her true feelings on the subject.

Witness:

"I so want drug testing. I so want it," Haley said during a Thursday question-and-answer session at the Lexington Rotary Club. She noted that the government had to make sure it would be feasible: "We have to make sure this works. We have to see what the return is on it. And, we have to see federally and legally if we can do it."

Now I understand that maybe I read a little too much into things, but one has to wonder why she wants it so bad.

Is it because it's an effective policy that deals with a real problem? No, because "we have to make sure this works." (It should go without saying that drug testing the unemployed is ridiculously redundant. Employers do that already.)

She doesn't even know if she has the authority to do it!

It helps to sell the policy, of course, when you just flat-out lie:

"Down on River Site, they were hiring a few hundred people, and when we sat down and talked to them -- this was back before the campaign -- when we sat down and talked to them, they said of everybody they interviewed, half of them failed a drug test, and of the half that was left, of that 50 percent, the other half couldn't read and write properly," Haley said.

Turns out Haley's exagerrating by, oh, 49%. Not only that, but she's so confused about the drug test procedures "down on River Site" that maybe she shouldn't opine about them.

"Half the people who applied for a job last year or year 2009 did not fail the drug test," [Jim Giusti, a spokesman for the Department of Energy] said. "At the peak of hiring under the Recovery Act we had less than 1 percent of those hired test positive."

The River Site doesn't even test applicants. "We only test them when they have been accepted," Giusti said.

See, Governor Haley? Employers recognize a limit as to when they should, and should not, be collecting cups of pee. Why can't you?

I'd also like to highlight this particular quote, which I think provides a window into the Republican mindset. Haley says in what's probably a throwaway soundbite:

"We don't have an unemployment problem. We have an education and poverty problem."

The unemployment rate in South Carolina is 10.9%. Um, you most definitely have an unemployment problem, Governor.

If you have an education and poverty problem, too, well...good luck with that. Because drug tests won't help.

(There have been many times over the last couple of years that I have thanked my lucky stars I live in Colorado. We've got our ideological kooks too --Tom Tancredo, Doug Bruce-- but they're kind of where they should be...on the fringes. They are not, as in FL and SC, in the governor's mansion.)

Assassins of Youth

Here's the new song from Wayne Static. Yeah, there's no more Static X. He fired all those guys and started his own thing that sounds like...Static X.

Not sure this song really kills it, but I'm curious to hear the rest of the record.

Check out that beard. To grow a beard that long takes commitment, man. So does rocking the finger-in-a-light-socket hairdo for a decade.

Screw It

I'm posting a kittie pic.

When they get bigger and the novelty wears off you can expect less of this. But right now...they're just too cut, I'm sorry.

Yes, Virginia, They Really Do Believe This Shit

And I quote:

Registering (welfare recipients) to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country.

Of course, homeboy lives in an alternate universe.

I got a hearty laugh when I read this, though:

...as I write in my new book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama's ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers...

Dude, ACORN doesn't even exist anymore.

You wanna talk about ripping off American Taxpayers? Let's talk about the last ten years, fool.

Ha!

"David Lauren, son of fashion mogul Ralph Lauren, and Lauren Bush, niece of former President George W. Bush, were married Sunday in a lavish ceremony in Colorado."

That's awesome.

Too bad, though, that she's going the hyphenate route.

Can Dish It Out....

But they can't take it.

A tea party group called on President Barack Obama to rebuke Teamsters President Jim Hoffa for urging him to use supporters at a Labor Day rally as an army to march and “take out” tea partyers, describing the remarks as “a call for violence.”

A call to violence???

Seriously, Tea Baggers should shut off their radios and turn on their brains. The right wing noise machine literally makes them stupid.

Jim Hoffa's full quote:

"Everybody here has a vote," Hoffa said Monday. "If we go back and we keep the eye on the prize. Let's take these sons of bitches out and give America back to America where we belong."

You got that? Using your vote to "take these sons of bitches out" is a call to violence.

Showing up at a Tea Party rally with an AR-15 is not.

The Cat Dude

Oh Lord, what have I gotten myself into. It's been over a year since I've had any pets in the house. So what do I do?

Get a couple kitties.

This one I'm calling Sadie. She's not sure what to make of me yet, but she digs my house.

And here's Smoke. I was told that Smoke was a boy, but nope...she's a girl. She's also the more affectionate of the two and has already bonded with me to the point that she'll come sit in my hand if I offer it.

I'm only going to put them on Youtube if they do something really cute, I promise.

Keith Olbermann - Just Another Dumb Lefty

Keith Olbermann, you fool.

Keith:

Olbermann said that Obama had given a huge gift to polluters and corporations, and had delivered an equally large "whack across the knees" to his base.

"It seems, in short, to reduce his campaign logic to 'what are you going to do, vote for Rick Perry?'"

"Whack across the knees," huh? Is that the new "slap in the face?" What, no one uses "thrown under the bus" anymore?

It's almost as if Olbermann is unaware of how demonized the EPA has become among the talk radio set. Memo to Keith: There are vast numbers of people who think the EPA stands for "Job-killing Regulations" not "Environmental Protection Agency." Yes, we know they're wrong, but those people vote and the people they vote for want to get rid of the EPA period, not just these smog regs.

Can we rationally explain to these people that the government has an interest in protecting the environment? No. Can we find common ground where we can agree on regulations that are as effective as they are unobtrusive? No.

We are not dealing with rational, cooperative people. Witness John Boehner, who said:

"But it is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to stopping Washington Democrats' agenda of tax hikes, more government `stimulus' spending and increased regulations, which are all making it harder to create more American jobs."

See that, Keith?

It takes a lot of temerity to complain about an agenda of "increased regulations" when the regulations aren't actually increasing. Imagine what Boehner would have said if the regulations were implemented! My guess? The exact same thing, only louder.

And half this country would think he had a point.

Proof We Live in a Dumb Country

I usually reserve my political animus for right-wing nonsense, but that doesn't mean I enjoy listening to leftist kvetching like this:

The deals Obama has made with the Republicans have therefore contributed to the jobs crisis. The Republicans of course know this and surely have a chuckle about it in private. Obama makes videos bragging about the single biggest budget cut in history.

It's true that Obama has not been the Great Lefty Hope that singlehandedly made unions relevant again, jailed all millionaires, disbanded the military, and opened an aquarium at the White House to save the dolphins. But then again, he's President of the United States, not President of the United Utopia.

Yes, we all know the Republicans want to prolong the economic misery just long enough to elect Rick Perry/Mitt Romney/Michelle Bachmann/Whoever next year. They've made no secret of that, even though their constituents don't seem to notice or care. But these are also the same clowns who spent Election Day 2008 to April 2011 talking about birth certificate conspiracies.

Maybe this time there really is a wolf, but after WMD in Iraq, Obama's foreign birth, and all the other untrue things right-wingers believe, why should we trust them?

And I hate to break it to this guy, but presidential politics is a zero-sum game. The Republicans know this, which is why they've all gone rabid about making Obama a one-termer, but these lefties? Turn your back on Obama and see what happens, you dummies.

Here's a hint: President Rick Perry. Yee-fucking-haw!