Image by Tancread via Flickr
Second edition of our weekly installment taking a quick look at the most idiotic actions of American politicians for the week. This week’s winner should be fairly obvious, but let’s start with our runners-up:
Dishonorable Mention — Glenn Beck speaks out against Van Jones for Jones’ opposition to police brutality.
Apparently, Mr. Beck can’t differentiate the difference between blaming all of the potential issues of the New York Police department (or any police department in general) with the use of a single incident as an example of how police in general shouldn’t operate. Once again, Beck is treading in the deep end of the crazy pool.
5th Place — John Boehner mistakenly claims jobs added this quarter were from recently passed tax cuts not from the Stimulus.
Despite no corroborating evidence (through correlation or causation) that tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations have ever led to a single person being hired. Even if tax cuts did somehow, against all rational explanation, lead to an increase in jobs the fact that they were extended in December 2010. Boehner doesn’t seem to comprehend that the economy of a country is a slow moving behemoth. A law passed a half before the data in question began being collected would have little to no effect on the economy that quickly.
4th Place — Michelle Bachmann says shut down the government if the budget bill doesn’t de-fund Planned Parenthood after saying she doesn’t want a shut down.
As per usual, Conservatives say one thing, then do another, then walk back their comments or say something else entirely and try to pretend they didn’t say the first thing. It’s as though they don’t understand or don’t care that we live in an information age now. Nearly every word they say and do in public is recorded. There is barely anything that they do outside of closed doors that is not on the record. Just another of the increasingly commonplace instances of Republicans practicing and reveling in blatant hypocrisy.
3rd Place — Wisconsin police physically remove protesters from the capital building. This is not something that should be excused. This is not something that belongs in America. This is not something that should be accepted as the right action. This is not something that was right. “I was just following orders” is not a justification for this action. This is something that should be remembered by rational Americans when you go to vote in 2012.
Police violate protesters Constitutional rights, drag them from Wisconsin capital ( Image credit Huffington Post )
2nd Place — Americans across the Internet that celebrated instead of condemned the actions of Wisconsin police removing lawful, peaceful protesters from the capital building. Congratulating an anti-democratic, Unconstitutional impingement of an American citizen’s right to peacefully assemble is an absolute and unimaginable shame. Ignorant people that have been cowed into this type of behavior are one of the greatest of the growing threats to our democracy and our freedom. I refuse to link to the sites doing this because I will not give them the benefit of site hits which bring them advertising revenue.
1st Place — Wisconsin Republicans who violated a standing state statute known as the “Open Meetings” law and passed the anti-union bill with no regard for democracy without the state’s Senate Democrats present. In doing so they have laid bare the true goal of their intentions. By stripping this provision out of the so-called “budget repair bill” and passing it by itself, they have revealed that they have no interest in actually addressing financial issues. The leading State Senate Republican on camera this was about 2012, not the budget.
– “Left of Center”
Truth Not Fear 