Today's Douchey Congresscritter

Mr Stephen Fincher (R-TN08).

Wikipedia:

A seventh generation farmer, Fincher is a managing partner in Fincher Farms, a family business that grows cotton, corn, soybeans, and wheat on more than 2,500 acres in western Tennessee. The company has received $8.9 million in farm subsidies over the past decade, mostly from the cotton program, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.[6][7][8] Fincher received a $13,650 grant to help buy grain hauling and storage equipment from the state Department of Agriculture in 2009 as part of the Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program.[9]

Barre Montpelier Times Argus:

The House bill cuts projected spending in farm and nutrition programs by nearly $40 billion over the next 10 years. Just over half, $20.5 billion, would come from cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps. The Senate voted to cut spending by $23 billion, with $4.1 billion of the cuts coming from the food stamp program.

 --and--

Rep. Stephen Fincher, R-Tenn., then quoted a verse from the 26th chapter of Matthew, saying the “poor will always be with us” in his defense of cuts to the food stamps program.

Fincher said obligations to take care of the poor should be left to churches, not the government.

--and--

A report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan Washington research group, said the cuts in the food stamp program would eliminate 2 million people from the program, most of them children and older people. The report said the cuts would come in addition to a reduction that food stamp recipients would experience starting Nov. 1, when benefits that were increased under the 2008 economic stimulus expire.

“Placing the SNAP cuts in this farm bill on top of the benefit cuts that will take effect in November is likely to put substantial numbers of poor families at risk of food insecurity,” the report said.

I had to look up the bible quote, thinking the full text would say something to contradict Mr Felcher Fincher.  But it didn't, and I admit to being a bit surprised.

Matthew 26:

⁶ While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, ⁷ a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.

⁸ When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. ⁹ “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.”

¹⁰ Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. ¹¹ The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. ¹² When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. ¹³ Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

So now it occurs to me that while quoting the bible out of context is a useful thing for guys like Fincher, sometimes they can get an even bigger boost from the passages that reveal the simple fact that Jesus could be just as douchebaggily self-centered and prickish as they are.

Well played, sir.

hat tip = Wonkette

Today's Irony Lesson

Today's Wingnut Media Bite

Ben Shapiro (of the epic fail "Friends of Hamas" incident) runs this:

...which leads Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs to ponder: "I think young Ben is honestly intimidated. Cowed, even. His dissent is being chilled. You can tell by the giant 73-pixel all-caps screaming headline."

That's the game these deep-fried-guano-for-brains-whiney-butt pussies play all the time.  Shapiro is so intimidated; Obama has everybody so flummoxed and shivery that...what, exactly?  If they weren't so afraid - so intimidated - they'd do something more than run their horseshit headlines in the eleventy-seven point fonts they're using now?  Like what?  What're they calling on people to do?

And when might we expect the Press Poodles to fucking call 'em on this?

A Certain Lesson

Totally unfettered Free Market Capitalism at it's finest:

A California doctor who duped patients out of more than $1 million after claiming her herbal supplements could cure cancer has been jailed for 14 years.

Christine Daniel charged patients up to $100,000 for six months of treatment, which she claimed could also cure diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

'Daniel robbed victims of more than money – she also stole their hopes and dreams for a cure,' U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said after the doctor was sentenced.

A little interference from an oppressive gubmint might've come in right handy for somebody like Paula Middlebrooks.  The good doctor charged her $60,000 for "treatment" with a concoction consisting mainly of Beef Flavoring Extract and a Sunscreen Preservative.  And then, not long after "Dr" Daniel triumphantly declared she'd been cured, Middlebrooks died - her breast cancer having spread through her body unchecked.

Christine Daniel doesn't get any more paydays for ruining any more lives - not for the 15 years of her prison sentence anyway.  But what stopped her was the criminal justice system.  It wasn't the market; it wasn't the invisible hand; and it sure as fuck wasn't Angie's List.

Today's Pix

Louie The Loon

'Cuz some of 'em really are just that dumb, I give you the incomparable Mr Louie Gohmert (R-Wackysburg TX).

(at about 3:30..."cast aspersions on my asparagus") hat tip = Crooks & Liars

Beat The Press

Fitch The Homeless

"Where is - like - the Douchebag Section?"

High Calorie Content Warning

...because this is just too damned sweet.

BP wants Prime Minister David Cameron to intervene over the escalating cost of compensating US companies for the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster in 2010.
BBC business editor Robert Peston has learned that BP feels its financial recovery is in jeopardy because the compensation system is being abused.

The financial burden of paying fictitious and inflated claims may even make BP a takeover target, it fears.

BP hopes Mr Cameron will raise the issue with the US government.

BP shits on EPA every chance they get, and then they stiff-arm every government agency trying to help with Deepwater Horizon, but now that they're being held to account for their fuckup, they go cryin' to Parliament to save their asses.

Meanwhile, back in the boardrooms of Big US Oil - those guys are (probably) using every nickel in the Government Affairs budget to get Local, State and Federal agencies to keep the pressure on BP, and it shouldn't surprise anybody if it turns out (eg) Exxon's lending a bit of a hand directly to squeeze a few extra bucks out of BP "for the good of our hard-working local independent job-creatin' small business owners".  Of course they do that kind of thing quietly and very carefully.

They're happy to get some Gubmint Assistance in order to fuck over a competitor and improve their market position, but they have to be careful not to disturb the rubes - above all else, they must never upset the delicate framing of "government is always bad except when it serves the interests of Business".

("and in cases like this, we're gonna let you pretend you're one of us").

And let's also not ignore the fairly obvious Tort Reform angle to all of this as well.

hat tip = Democratic Underground

The KrugMan Speaks

Outlook: a bit less than bleak.

Paul Krugman on the new CBO report on our Debt-Crisis-That-Isn't-Really-Real:

Why, it’s almost as if the real goal was to make sure that benefits get cut even if the fiscal outlook improves.

Meanwhile, our policy discourse has been dominated for years by what turns out to be a false alarm. To the millions of Americans who are out of work and may never get another job thanks to premature fiscal austerity, the VSPs would like to say, “oopsies!”

So let's review.  Here's a partial list of what the Serious Thinkers in the GOP have been telling us for what's getting to be a very long time:

• Tax revenues will go up if we cut taxes.
• Spending will go up if we cut back on spending.
• Getting a stimulus effect of $.60 per dollar in tax cuts is better than getting a stimulus effect of $1.10 per dollar of Federal spending.
• Cutting future Soc Sec benefits now is how we prevent cutting Soc Sec benefits in the future.

Hit the fuckers again, Dr K.  Lookin' good.

Honesty

It's Always Something

Everything costs something.

Is It Really Real? - updated

So, right on schedule, The Curse of the Second Term comes home to Obamaland.

The IRS thing is a bit lame when I stop to think that every Prez (at least since Kennedy) has used the threat of an IRS audit to fuck with their political enemies.

And scooping up the AP phone records has a good solid stink to it too, even tho' it's pretty easy to remember how lotsa people tho't that was just peachy under FISA and USA PATRIOT Act.  Yeah, it sucks, but c'mon.

I'm not saying we shouldn't slap some people around if they've pulled some shit - but I will say a coupla things that I think oughta get said.

First, this is a game of power.  If you give anybody the power to fuck with people, you'll need to try a little harder not to act surprised when they start fucking with people. Power will be abused.

Second, stop giving them that kinda power.  The laws they're hiding behind can be changed.  We can do that here in God's America.  Maybe we could try evoking a little of that Star-Spangled American Exceptionalism we hear so much about (that nobody seems to understand very well).

ie: These little games are played everywhere, all the time - we're supposed to be THE EXCEPTION.  See how that works?

Today's Pix

Today's Stoopid

This is the pic somebody working for The Director of Communications chose for the White House's twitter account:

Now, if you're a Wingnut, then it has to be perfectly obvious that Obama is sending a subtle message to his fellow-Islamists that the plan is proceeding apace, and that the US is on the verge of collapse, and Death To America, my bruthuhs!

What this is actually - is what visitors to the Oval Office see when they're standing in front of Obama's desk and they happen to look up at the ceiling above them.

So yeah.  Obama's trying to kill us all by making it possible for everybody to get decent healthcare insurance; and by dis-entangling us from foreign wars; and by making sure the banks work properly; and why even bother debunking this crap?  I need to stop.

Don't be such a fucking rube.