Graphic via New York Times, text below from James Fallows at The Atlantic:

It’s based on data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Its significance is not partisan (who’s “to blame” for the deficit) but intellectual. It demonstrates the utter incoherence of being very concerned about a structural federal deficit but ruling out of consideration the policy that was largest single contributor to that deficit, namely the Bush-era tax cuts.

An additional significance of the chart: it identifies policy changes, the things over which Congress and Administration have some control, as opposed to largely external shocks—like the repercussions of the 9/11 attacks or the deep worldwide recession following the 2008 financial crisis. Those external events make a big difference in the deficit, and they are the major reason why deficits have increased faster in absolute terms during Obama’s first two years than during the last two under Bush. (In a recession, tax revenues plunge, and government spending goes up - partly because of automatic programs like unemployment insurance, and partly in a deliberate attempt to keep the recession from getting worse.) If you want, you could even put the spending for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in this category: those were policy choices, but right or wrong they came in response to an external shock. 

The point is that governments can respond to but not control external shocks. That’s why we call them “shocks.” Governments can control their policies. And the policy that did the most to magnify future deficits is the Bush-era tax cuts. You could argue that the stimulative effect of those cuts is worth it (“deficits don’t matter” etc). But you cannot logically argue that we absolutely must reduce deficits, but that we absolutely must also preserve every penny of those tax cuts. Which I believe precisely describes the House Republican position.

After the jump, from a previous “The Chart That Should…” positing, an illustration of the respective roles of external shock and deliberate policy change in creating the deficit.

Obama is a fucking idiot the way he’s played his hand on the debt ceiling. He appears to be an ineffectual fool trying to broker peace with a bunch of schoolyard bullies. The whole thing is so Planet of the Apes. When Mitch McConnell (sensibly, for all parties) tried to offer him the political cover to raise it on his own, he should have jumped at the chance. Now look at the mess he’s in. When is the guy going to act like a Democrat (at the very least!)? It’s becoming harder and harder to support him or even give a shit what happens to his presidency anymore (I’m sure I’ll change my tune closer to November 2012, but voting for Obama with the same “passion” I felt for John Kerry is not something I imagined happening a couple of years ago…)

How the Deficit Got This Big (New York Times)

 
Idiot redneck “preacher” Damon Thompson is ignorant, bigoted and proud of it. He makes his living spewing mono-syllabic hatred towards a group of people (gays) who he personally, has probably never had any direct experience with (unless, of course, what they say about the most vocal homophobes is true. I hadn’t considered that).

Thompson’s “flock” are the people for whom the Tea Party movement—or the Ku Klux Klan—is a step beyond them intellectually. As one YouTube commenter quipped “This is Christianity for meth-heads!”

Well put. If advanced beings from the future ever arrive on Earth, you can bet Damon Thompson would be the first one to want to burn them at the stake. What this hillbilly ignoramous doesn’t realize is that when “the queers” are re-broadcasting his message to hundreds of thousands of people across the Internet, the people watching are just laughing at him. Pointing and laughing at the dumb hick.

To the average person watching his YouTube clips, Damon Thompson just appears to be a brainless hillbilly moron. No more, no less. He’s as compelling as a drunk racist and possessing half the charisma. There is nothing, not one thing, that is even remotely interesting about him. His “message” is trite and inconsequential. People are just laughing at him. Eventually we’ll never hear his name again and no one will even remember him. He doesn’t even distinguish himself as a decent enough gay-basher to achieve any real prominence in the field. Not with the likes of Bryan Fischer around. Thompson is an inarticulate dud by comparison.

(A note to Damon: You look like a smelly hobo, dude. I could have sworn I saw flies buzzing around your head in the video clip. Have you ever considered going on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? I think they could really help you. I know they could. Your personal grooming and hygiene is deplorable, m’fren…)
 

 
Via Jesus Needs New P.R.

 
In case you missed it, some fantastic reporting from The Rachel Maddow Show (by way of Right Wing Watch) on Rick Perry’s wingnut Woodstock, “The Response.”

What will future people think of this era? (Provided of course, these crazy assholes don’t kill us all first)
 

 
At the National Education Leadership Conference in 2004, Michele Bachmann, then Minnesota State Senator, gave a lecture on the effects of same-sex marriage on education. It’s as stupid you you might imagine.

There is not a whole lot of nuance in her words describing homosexuality and LGBT people, is there?

“I am not here bashing people who are homosexuals, who are lesbians, who are bisexual, who are transgendered. We need to have profound compassion for the people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life, and sexual identity disorders. This is a very real issue. It’s not funny, it’s sad. Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle—we have a member of our family that is. This is not funny. It’s a very sad life. It’s part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It’s anything but gay.”

Funny, but her brand of “profound compassion” sounds just like Christianist bigotry to me. Exactly like it, in fact. Is there ANY discernable difference?

Here’s another winner. Bachmann on hate-monger Fred Phelps:

“I almost think that the gay community has hired this guy, or created this guy, to do what he does. He is their best friend.”

Noted and quoted.
 

 
Via Dump Bachmann

 
A look at some of the deranged Christianist leaders supporting the prayer and fasting event Texas Governor Rick Perry is sponsoring along with the American Family Association, the anti-gay/anti-Islam/anti-modern world far-right religious organization that hates pretty much everybody except other Christian white people. It’ll be the Woodstock of wingnuts this August in Houston!

Earlier this year, Rick Perry asked all Texans to pray it would rain for three whole days to relieve drought conditions and halt raging fires. Maybe Texans didn’t pray hard enough, because it didn’t work. Now he wants the entire country to get together, as Americans, to pray to the invisible man in the sky so that he will solve our nation’s seemingly intractable problems! Sounds like a plan to me. Not a very good one, but a plan nevertheless.

This video was put together by Right Wing Watch but it almost plays like it was cut by one of the Everything is Terrible collective. No wonder young people are leaving religion behind in record numbers. I just pray Perry never holds an elected office higher than governor of Texas.
 

 
The highly controversial new law in Wisconsin gutting collective bargaining rights for state union workers is now in effect and already changes are afoot in the dairy state. Not good ones.

Via Think Progress:

As the Madison Capital Times reports, “Besides losing their right to negotiate over the percentage of their paycheck that will go toward health care and retirement, unions also lost the ability to claim work as a ‘union-only’ job, opening the door for private workers and evidently even inmates to step in and take their place.” Inmates are not paid for their work, but may receive time off of their sentences.

The law went into effect last week, and Racine County is already using inmates to do landscaping, painting, and another basic maintenance around the county that was previously done by county workers. The union had successfully sued to stop the country from using prison labor for these jobs last year, but with [Governor Scott] Walker’s new law, they have no recourse.

The use of free inmate labor to replace public sector workers is truly a disturbing trend. That’s right folks. Forget about the off-shore outsourcing of jobs. Forget about China’s cheap labor. India’s, too. And don’t blame the Mexicans and illegal immigrants for taking your job, either, bub.

Nope. We’ve got a bigger problem now: How are Americans going to compete in the jobs marketplace against slave labor?

Deeply unpopular Gov. Scott Walker promised to create 250,000 new jobs in Wisconsin during his term in office, but he didn’t say these jobs would be created in the county jails!

This is what you get when you vote Republican.

 
This is going to be the greatest presidential election cycle in American history, I just know it:

In light of Marcus Bachmann’s spike in popularity on gay and gay-friendly blogs across the U.S., internet dating megasite Gaydar.net is offering the the husband of Tea Party presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-MN) a complimentary lifetime membership. As a rep at Gaydar HQ explains, “Marcus Bachmann is popping up on everyone else’s gaydar, we figure he might want to be on the real Gaydar! With over six million members, we like to think Gaydar is the picture of inclusivity–from swarthy barbarians to piggy politicos–all are welcome!”

Niiiiice.

 
Bristol Palin, 20,  the CEO of BSMP, a lobbying, public relations and political consulting services firm, discusses her memoirs, Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far on CBN.

What has Bristol Palin done in her life except get pregnant, go on Dancing With the Stars and have some ill-advised plastic surgery? Seems like that would merit more a magazine article than an entire book...

And who would buy Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far and actually READ it? Someone who “reads” and who is literate, isn’t going to give a rat’s ass about a book by a 20-year-old idiot. No wonder the publishing industry is in the doldrums: They’re publishing books specifically targeted to PEOPLE WHO DO NOT READ. That seems like a good idea.

Then again, what do I know?

“How do you explain the viciousness and the bias of the liberal media against you and your family?

Um, how’s about ‘cos they’re pathologically shameless snowbilly grifters transparently desperate for the public’s attention and being able to “capitalize” on their rapidly ending moment in the sun?

The more pertinent question to ask is why the rightwing media builds up someone like Bristol Palin in the first place? She’s an odd role model for the Christian Broadcasting Network to push, that’s for sure. This interview is ridiculous, especially towards the end. That interviewer is a real pro, too. She acts like she can’t believe she’s in the presence of such an important celebrity. Then again, in the world of CBN, Bristol Palin kinda IS a big celebrity. This video says so much about America, don’t you think?

Via Joe.My.God.

 
Rep. Michele Bachmann delivers a kooky and meandering entreaty to the Lord her God during the Family Research Council’s 2009 “Prayercast” event to thwart passage of healthcare reform legislation. GOD DOESN’T WANT EVERYONE TO HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE, HIPPIE!

Towards the end, when Lou Engle starts talking it gets truly spooky. I wish they were all wearing hooded robes like monks in that part (in my mind, they were wearing them).

Engle, if his name doesn’t ring a bell, is the asshat who traveled to Uganda to help promote the so-called “Kill the Gays” law there. He’s been called “the unofficial prayer leader of the Republican Party,” a distinction I for one feel he richly deserves!
 

 
Via Right Wing Watch

 
This is not a parody, even though it’s kind of, sort of… (not really) funny. I guess it’s laugh at it funny.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s also vile and pure evil, but this puppy is also so patently ridiculous that it’s very, very close to being a self-parody. Crank up the volume on the absurdities therein about 5%—not even—and it could be an Onion video.

But it’s not.

Note that the name to send the money to is that of loathsome bigot, Sid Roth, a Jew for Jesus-type who is the host of his own idiotic Christianist pukefest called It’s Supernatural! The book was written by his frequent guest and crony, Dr. Michael Brown.

For quite reasonable, uh, reasons, I normally strongly suspect all anti-gay Christianists of being closet cases themselves. The more they are against gay rights, I say the more likely they’re smoking “Tina” with rent boys. It seems to be a natural law or something, doesn’t it? For the record, though, I don’t feel this way about Sid Roth. I don’t think Roth is a closeted gay man at all. I just think Sid Roth is a fucking idiot.

In the end, it’s assholes like Sid Roth, his buddy Michael Brown and the likes of Bryan Fischer and Tony Perkins who are their cause’s own worst enemies. They themselves are actually hastening the day when homosexual men and women across America will have the same civil rights that the rest of us enjoy. By consistently turning out hateful, idiotic nonsense like this, they are performing the same task for today’s younger people—who will want NOTHING to do with Christianity if this is how it defines itself—as those hateful little Chick Christian comics did for my generation. I’ll say it again: It’s guys like this, who by virtue of being so repulsive and bigoted, simply turn young people off Christianity altogether.

No matter what these guys come up with, our side always wins in the end: Because they are wrong.
 

 
Bonus moronic Sid Roth clip: “Man Proves Hell is Real (Includes Live Action Hell)”
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds
The Supernatural Evil Spell of Homosexuality
 
Via On Knees for Jesus