News Roundup for 7/22/09

Pffft! You call that an emergency?

-Headline of the day-
"Blackburn: 'We're not going to cry "emergency" every time we have a Katrina.'"

In what is always a highly competitive field, the dumbest statement of the day may have been made by TN Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn. At issue was "paygo" -- the proposition that congress has to come up with money to pay for new spending (or tax cuts) before it goes up for a vote. Blackburn argued that if we have to have paygo, which borrow-and-spend Republicans positively hate, we're going to have to have some sort of enforcement. See, emergency spending is exempt from paygo rules -- for obvious reasons -- so we need to make sure that every piddlin' little thing doesn't get blown up into some sort of a phony-baloney "emergency."

"Let's agree that we’re going to have PAYGO enforcement," she said. "That we're not going to cry 'emergency' every time we have a Katrina, every time we have a Tsunami, every time we have a need for extra spending, that we don't go call for a special appropriation that allows us to circumvent the PAYGO rules."

If a Katrina or a tsunami is an emergency-in-quotes-only, what the hell qualifies as a bona fide emergency? Can you imagine if Blackburn ran her local 911? "Oh, your house is on fire? Cry me a river, Baby-Pants! Call back when it's being attacked by werewolves or sucked into a Black Hole..."

Remember "compassionate conservatism?" Yeah, there's a reason they don't talk about that anymore... (Think Progress, with video)


-Bonus HotD-
"Concealed-weapons amendment shot down."

Ha ha! Get it?

Anyway, the Senate voted against an amendment to a military spending bill that would've allowed concealed carry across state lines. Now America is doomed to become a anarchic, crime-ridden hell -- think of something out of a Mad Max movie.

How bad is this for the nation? Consider that my own state of Wisconsin doesn't allow concealed carry at all (we also don't have capital punishment) and we rank 42nd out of 51 (stats include DC) in terms of violent crime per capita.

You want that? (The Hill)


-On a related note...-
The vote just makes it that much easier for Barack Obama to kill your grandma.

And he totally wants to, according to the fringe right. Probably because he's a secret Muslim terr'ist from Kenya.

Is there any conspiracy theory too crazy for a wingnut to fall for? It's an open question. When one comes up, I'll let you know. But it hasn't happened yet. (Doug Ross)