Cartoonists With Attitude

David Brooks is paid more money than I will ever see in my own life to write this.

Once partisan reconciliation is used for this bill, it will be used for everything, now and forever. The Senate will be the House. The remnants of person-to-person relationships, with their sympathy and sentiment, will be snuffed out. We will live amid the relationships of group versus group, party versus party, inhumanity versus inhumanity.

And then, zombies.

I’m going to recommend stealing a technique Tom Tomorrow invented years ago and ask that you read this article, pretending the entire time that it is being read aloud at the front of a classroom by Billy from The Family Circus.

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If you haven’t been following the tale of the Texas Board of Education, who decided this week that the only way to ensure that schoolchildren grew up to be Republicans was to make sure they are stupid, it’s a frightening and tragic tale indeed. Adults can choose to be ignorant; forcing children to be should be a form of child abuse.

Occasionally stupidity makes me outright angry, and a perfect example is Mr. David Bradley of the aforementioned Board, who boasted what I’ve learned is actually a common right-wing talking point. See, since the Constitution doesn’t actually say “separation of church and state,” it’s not there. We don’t have an entire branch of the government devoted to interpreting things like that, after all. And they certainly haven’t already issued rulings saying just that.

So yeah, I’m angry. Angry that David Bradley is stupid and yet is in a position to affect the lives of, quite literally, millions of children. Angry at his obnoxious desire along with his colleagues to declare that history books are a partisan battlefield. But mostly I’m angry that no one else called him on the outright bullshit of his rhetorical “challenge,” in that he already knows the answer. Let’s be clear on this- David Bradley voted to hide the fact that Thomas Jefferson defined separation of church and state in the Constituion to then claim that no one ever defined separation of church and state in the Constituion.

I’m hopeful that we’ll hear a lot more about this story in the upcoming weeks. For now, I plan to keep contacting Bradley’s office and asking where my money is. The Children’s Defense Fund actually is devoted to helping kids, and would be a lot better of a help for Texas children than the members of the American Taliban burning their schoolbooks.

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I appreciate Josh Marshall’s optimism here, but if you really think anything is going to stop the narrative in November from being “Democrats DESTROYED!!!1!!1!1″ you’re insane. The election of President Scott Brown the other month should be the indicator of what even a single seat-flip to the Republicans is going to be treated as. My sphincter already clenches thinking what six or seven pickups is going to look like.

There’s nothing funnier-slash-scarier than the collision of two right-wing conspiracy theories that are completely incompatible with each other colliding like runaway trucks on a freeway. The big one this week has been the NY and L.A. Times’ coverage of an anti-abortion movement restoring a classic twist on banning women’s rights- claiming that it’s a secret plot to ethnically cleanse the black population of the United States.

Responses keep coming in to a New York Times article, originally published Friday, in which writer Shaila Dewan details a multi-pronged effort by anti-abortion advocates to convince black women that the “abortion industry” is racist, based on the fact that black women have a disproportionately high rate of abortion. Georgia Right to Life has partnered with the Radiance Foundation for a billboard campaign and accompanying website claiming that “Black children are an endangered species.” A documentary called Maafa 21, made by a white anti-choice activist, purports to draw parallels between abortion, eugenics, and slavery.

Now, as you all know from any blog or family member who listens to Glenn Beck, the entire fundraising operation of the Democrat [sic] Party is based on maintaining a complete reliance of black people on the federal government and special handouts thus guaranteeing their total support of the pro-government Mommy State party and… okay, I’m breaking into my own sarcasm for a moment to just make sure that everyone understands I’m sarcastically mocking this nonsense, right? Yes, of course this is all racist, insane bullshit. I’m just addressing the practical lack of logic in it, which is a lot, because there’s typically a lack of logic in the rhetoric of crazy people. We good? We good. Alright.

So I don’t get it. Liberals and their ilk want nothing more than a solid block of reliable, subservient votes from black people… and at the same time want to secretly euthanize all of them? This is an even more condensed version of a classic anti-choice claim, in that Democrats are somehow aborting their own voting bloc. Man, we totally fucked up that one, what with the 30-something generation born after the legalization of infanticide voting for a Democrat and a black guy for president. Better luck next time, everyone!

Alright, so here’s where it gets funny: the massive conspiracy to abort the minority population away? Yeah, that’s failing miserably.

Minorities make up nearly half the children born in the U.S., part of a historic trend in which minorities are expected to become the U.S. majority over the next 40 years.

In fact, demographers say this year could be the “tipping point” when the number of babies born to minorities outnumbers that of babies born to whites.

The numbers are growing because immigration to the U.S. has boosted the number of Hispanic women in their prime childbearing years. Minorities made up 48 percent of U.S. children born in 2008, the latest census estimates available, compared to 37 percent in 1990.

You know what I’m going to take a wee bit of a gamble on and guess isn’t following this story? Right-wingers happy about this.

Now, while there isn’t super-specific data the article clearly addresses that this rise in the “minority” population is more related to Hispanics than African-Americans, and I guess from a “what type of racist are you?” perspective, that… I dunno… matters? But this is a bizarre matter of unstoppable racist bullshit meeting immovable racist bullshit.

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It’s really weird- I used to be really big on the Oscars and this year I just didn’t care at all. I was happy Christoph Waltz won because he had the greatest performance I’ve ever seen in my life but that was pretty much it. I think Up was the best film of 2009 but know that there was no way it was getting the credit it deserved.

But I think I’ve also reached the point where I’m just sick of stupid Oscar hype. This year was so painfully predictable because of the clear campaigning and media angles that already established what was going to happen. At the risk of sounding insulting to him, we might as well just dub this the Heath Ledger effect: six months of “asking” if someone’s going to win probably means yes, they’re going to. I’m really sick of hearing about James Cameron’s previous marriages, what award would be a milestone for what race or gender, and of course how great a movie about how white people can fix everything is. Just hand out the awards with a press release and save the time. Also, get off my lawn.

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This pretty much sums up in one example why politics is at a standstill right now. Judd Gregg- the man who, mind you, was almost Commerce Secretary- is just making shit up. This has nothing to do with disagreeing with his politics. That would actually be a political argument. But this isn’t about issues. It’s about him being full of shit. He supported reconciliation before. Now he doesn’t. When he pretends this wasn’t the case, he’s full of shit.

Everyone know this. The news organizations pretending otherwise are full of shit. I understand this is far from the most intelligent and insightful analysis of current events I’ve made here but I really don’t know where to go with this.

Wow.

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People got angry at the Canadian Women’s Hockey Team for celebrating their gold medal with cigars and booze. That is apparently undignified in a sport usually priding itself on such honorable ceremonies as chugging beer out of the Stanley Cup after a season of punching each other’s teeth out. Because that’s how it works with women, the players were forced to apologize, since as you all know, the only time a woman has permission to express emotion about something important in her life is during a marriage proposal. In all other circumstances, please make sure to stay proper, ladies.

I would very much like a Starcraft 2 beta key. Can anyone help me with that?

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Republicans shocked to discover that things cost money.

My favorite part is Inhofe’s down-home folksy “I’m gonna call in my chits” to stop Bunning from filibustering a funding bill. “Calling in your chits?” It’s called (gasp!) voting with Democrats for cloture. Is that really hard to say? Answer: yes.

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While it’s heartening to hear rumblings about finally using reconciliation to pass health care reform, that it’s taken this long, and massive drops in approval ratings, to realize that does not bode well for Democratic enthusiasm to actually go through with it. I’ve been curious lately over how far Democrats will go to avoid being open about the few, and obvious, options they actually have to get anything done, and how silly they’ll look suggesting ways to avoid it.

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