The definition of is

By Capt. Fogg

It's funny how the things that characterized the United States in its best and most prosperous years are being characterized as bad for the country and a one way valve in the sewer pipe that leads to Marxism, while the days before we had things like unemployment insurance saw poverty, hopelessness, homelessness, broken families, social unrest and egregious injustice far beyond anything we've had in generations.

Why, for instance, are unemployment benefits bad for America? Because they encourage people to stay jobless, said smiling Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) Yes, I've noticed that the families living in old cars, scrounging in dumpsters, and sleeping in the woods or in shelters are really living the Life of Riley in increasing numbers these days, taking vacations in the sun while hard working Republican senators who have free health care have to support them. I mean that we were once the most productive people on earth even with social security, unemployment and disability benefits doesn't really tell us anything, does it?

Of course, being of the same party, Republican Senate Whip Kyl would likely have defended most anything fellow Republican Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) said that was an attack on one of those things that makes us a nation rather than a bunch of individuals looking out for themselves alone. Unemployment benefits are one of those things: things that make us a society with common goals and values rather than serfs doing without to support the lifestyles of corporate barons -- and senators.

Of course, to a Republican, a hypothetical reason for something to be bad is more to be believed and waved about as a tribal emblem than any mere empirical observation to the contrary. Unemployment insurance makes people lazy and unwilling to work, just like life insurance makes them want to die, health insurance makes them want to have surgery and liability insurance makes them suicidal drivers -- and insurance itself, being a system for pooling risk, taking a small amount from each participant so that no individual has a catastrophic loss, must therefore be Communism. The true Randian Monad will never accept any cost that might benefit anyone else as well as himself -- right? Of course the idea of insurance is saved from Communism only if instead of a 3% administration fee, someone makes 30 or 40% from it: the more money, the more justified by the grace of profit, amen. Unemployment insurance

doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work,

says the senator, but of course that depends on what the definition if is is. If is denotes observable reality, the statement is shaky for want of evidence. If is denotes adherence to ad hoc dogma nailed together as an obstructive barricade, then perhaps Kyl makes sense. I'll leave it up to you as to whether you believe his peremptory proclamation or your lying eyes.

If you do side with Mister Jingles from Arizona, I'd like to ask you why, if we can't afford to temporarily keep the unemployed from starvation without running the risk of irreversible Communism and the irretrievable loss of precious bodily fluids, why then can we can bail out millionaires and give them special tax relief without similar concerns? After all, experience dismisses the argument that they will create jobs with the extra millions and shows that they will buy unregulated derivatives, invest in hedge funds and pump up the market until it crashes. Kyl? Are you listening, Kyl?

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Top Ten Cloves: Things that can happen when Earth gets knocked off its axis

By J. Thomas Duffy 

News Item: Chilean quake shifted Earth's axis: NASA scientist 

10. Warren Buffett sneaks out his annual report, glossing over his boners 

9. Disgraced, election-losing, Jack Abramoff-toadie Ralph Reed starts thinking about running for Congress 

8. New York Times fawns over teabagger 

7. Harold Ford bails out of running for Senate (and someone thinks Larry "Kuddles" Kudlow should run) 

6. PlayStation 3 goes screwy 

5. Right-wing Freakshower Ann Althouse gives President Obama beer-drinking advice 

4. Jim Bunning hides in "Senator's Only" elevators and gives people the middle finger 

3. People start putting up "Miss Me Yet" billboards to honor The Commander Guy 

2. A certain new senator longs to wear his retro pink leather shorts 

1. Canada breaks out the Inflatable Beavers




(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

"Tough shit"

By Creature

Your GOP:

As Democratic senators asked again and again for unanimous consent for a vote on a 30-day extension Thursday night, Bunning refused to go along.

And when Sen. Jeff Merkely (D-Ore.) begged him to drop his objection, Politico reports, Bunning replied: "Tough shit."

It's not like people are suffering, or anything. What an ass.

**********

For today, let's annoint him our Worst Human Being in the World. HuffPo has more. -- MJWS

Feudin' Kentucky: Bunning vs. McConnell

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Contrary to earlier reports, and we reported on them here, Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning, one of the craziest and most embattled Republicans going, is apparently intent on running for re-election next year after all.

While state SoS and Mitch McConnell ally Trey Grayson has formed the obligatory exploratory committee, with Bunning's (genuine?) blessing (and Grayson claims he will only run if Bunning steps aside), Bunning has been busy heaping blame on the Senate minority leader:

Sen. Jim Bunning [yesterday] renewed his attacks on his fellow Kentucky Republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, accusing him of selfishness and being responsible for lost GOP seats in the Senate.

"Good God, he wants to run everybody," Bunning said of McConnell during a conference call with reporters.

*****

He said: "Do you realize that under our dynamic leadership of our leader, we have gone from 55 and probably to 40 (Senate seats) in two election cycles, and if the tea leaves that I read are correct, we will wind up with about 36 after this election cycle.

"So if leadership means anything, it means you don't lose... approximately 19 seats in three election cycles with good leadership."

Come to think of it, that's not crazy at all.

With Bunning hopefully running, the race is certainly winnable for the Democrats. For that reason alone, I wish him the best as he looks ahead to 2010. (Keep fighting, Senator. Don't give in, or up.)

In the meantime, though, maybe he can reinvent himself as a speaker of truth to Republican power.

It's nothing if not compelling political entertainment.

Yer out

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It isn't good new for the Democrats, who saw the 2010 Senate election in Kentucky as an opening against a deeply unpopular Republican incumbent and who will now likely face a tougher task winning in that red state against a different and much more popular opponent (state SoS Trey Grayson), but I welcome Jim Bunning's (possibly impending -- his minions are denying it) retirement.

The HoF pitcher, who played mostly with the Tigers and Phillies (and who threw a perfect game), is one of the craziest (and most dimwitted) Republicans on Capitol Hill (which is saying something). In 2006, Time magazine named him one of the five worst senators (which is also saying something). (See also his Wikipedia page.)

So, sure, it would nice if the reports were wrong and he stood for re-election as an easy target next year, but I suppose what's bad for the Democrats can be good, in a way, for American democracy. (Besides, Democrats intend to work hard to pick up the seat whether it's Bunning or Grayson, or anyone else. They may just have to work a little harder now.)

Craziest Republican of the Day: Jim Bunning

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For pulling a Bill Frist and diagnosing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Gingsburg from afar. "Bad cancer. The kind that you don't get better," said the Republican senator from Kentucky over the weekend, addressing the Hardin County Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner. "Even though she was operated on, usually, nine months is the longest that anybody would live after (being diagnosed) with pancreatic cancer." The difference, though, is that at least Frist, who "diagnosed" Terri Schiavo from watching her on video, is a doctor, whereas Bunning is a former professional baseball player.

As Steve Benen points out -- and he's one of the best at identifying crazy Republicans -- Bunning "doesn't really know what he's talking about. Ginsburg's cancer was caught early and she had surgery to remove a small tumor that had not spread. It's obviously a serious, life-threatening matter, but the American Cancer Society notes that 'people diagnosed with Stage 1 pancreatic cancer have between a 21 and 37 percent chance of living for more than five years with the disease.'" Furthermore, "[p]redicting the death of a Supreme Court justice, in the context of judicial politics, doesn't exactly scream 'class.' Note to Bunning: better to remain silent and be thought a fool than speak and remove all doubt."

Some fools cannot help but prove themselves to be fools, however, and Bunning removed all doubt a long, long time ago.