Sadly, No!

Where were we? Oh right, Donald Hank.

America lacks standing
By Donald Hank

[…]

The Constitution was further undermined by G.W. Bush when he decided that, as chief law enforcer, he could pick and choose which of his constitutional duties to fulfill and chose not to comply with his duty to defend our borders.

See, you can often tell the cuisine of wingnuttery that one of these characters has been consuming by the particular ancient, Snopes-worthy arguments that he or she cites. Like the anti-tax argument earlier, this is rural-nativist, right-populist stuff, literally descendant from Free-Silverism. It’s almost charming in this late era of Coulter and Limbaugh. Also charming is how Bush is almost out of office, so they’ve stopped worshipping him as the earthly manifestation of God and Reagan, and are now looking around for things to blame on him.

As it happens, the Constitutional duty to protect against ‘invasion’ is specified in Article IV, Section 4. By careful word-twisting and cheeseparing, this has been claimed to apply not only to attacking foreign armies, but equally to individual, unarmed and even friendly foreign civilians, such as those who cross the border to pick lettuce.

As bad Constitutional arguments go, it’s not quite as shoddy as asserting that we can’t know for certain whether the framers were actually writing ‘f’ or ‘s,’ and therefore since there’s no such ratifying body as ‘Congreff,’ the government cannot legally prevent you from mounting a .50 caliber Browning machine gun out the tailgate of your unregistered ’89 Jeep Cherokee, or what-have-you. But it’s heading in that direction.

He suggested this was his duty as a Christian, saying on national TV, first, “they are good people looking for a better way of life”…and ending with “it [letting undocumented stay illegally] is good for our soul.”

Everyone who is truly a Christian knows that okay, no, illegal immigrants are bad people who are looking for a worse way of life — and that letting them [move in next door and start dating your daughter, if ‘dating’ is what you want to call it when a young lady goes God-knows-where every night and comes home smelling of cigarettes and pico-de-goddamn-gallo] is good for our souls arseholes.

Or in other words, first nobody came for the illegal immigrants, and I am not an illegal immigrant, so gosh darn it, I am saying something.

Bush thereby not only overstepped his constitutional bounds but also donned the clerical hat, as though America had anointed him as their Pope, not their president. And here is where “conservatives” got egg on their faces. Many gave him a pass, believing in their hearts that Bush was sent by God as their “ruler” rather than lending him power with the reservation that he uphold the Constitution, as must be done in a Republic. Thus it wasn’t Bush who failed. It was American Christians.

This is not an either/or kind of blog. We like to think in terms of both/and.
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Doop-de-doop, surfin’ the Internet, mindin’ my own business.

America lacks standing
By Donald Hank

Well, the Donofrio case against Obama (one of the many court cases the media refused to tell you about for months), demanding the showing of a real birth certificate, has failed,

Yowza. Will Peak, I say, will Peak Wingnut never come?

Anyway, we demand that Hank show us a real column.

and I am getting…

No wait, because it’s seeming at this point that a ‘real birth certificate’ means one that has never been questioned as false — a ‘vault copy’ which loses its authenticity when removed for scrutiny from the vault. It’s all starting to coalesce into sort of a zen thing: Obama must show his real face before he was born.

Speaking of conspiracy theories, how about this one. Malkin, Ace, Charles Johnson, and many other prominent Internet wingnuts have been trying to halt the right wing’s mad Tarantella over the various birth certificate stories while simultaneously screaming in kind of a ragged chorus at Andrew Sullivan, who has been asking questions about Sarah Palin’s last pregnancy.

This is, on one hand, because the Obama stories promise nothing for the right but collective shame and embarrassment as Americans begin to tire of the flimsy blame-narratives and the prevailingly spiteward orientation of modern conservatism; while on the other hand, let’s be honest, Sarah Palin is a brazen, bare-faced liar who will stand right in front of you and tell astonishing, flat-out lies, such that, really, who even knows what sort of crazy ’70s-sitcom deception she’s capable of attempting?

And no, no, let’s be honest: Her story is deeply weird, if not impossible, and despite what she’s said, Palin has not provided a single molecule of readily available official documentation, except for one apparently nonofficial piece of paper from a doctor. In other words, what I’m getting at is that Obama was almost certainly born where and when he says he was born, and to the same parents, and so forth; while Sarah Palin is a liar who is acting like she has something to hide.

Actually, that isn’t much of a conspiracy theory, lacking as it does a conspiracy (outside of Palin’s immediate family and GOP enablers, which, you know, let’s be honest, etc.).

and I am getting near-frantic emails from conservatives who had entertained hopes that Donofrio, and hence, justice for all, would prevail.

Oh right, Hank’s still here.

Here is what I am telling them:

The constitutional damage was first done in 1913 with the institution of the Federal Reserve and income tax, and was almost total by 1973 with Roe v Wade, when some justices unlawfully decided that the Constitution affords a right to kill, and there was no general outcry.

Well, that’s leaving a lot out. I mean, if we’re talking right-wing causes célèbres of the 20th Century, let’s at least fill it out a little. The Federal income tax was instituted by Woodrow Wilson at the behest of a conspiracy of international bankers, in order to devalue the dollar and discourage productive work — i.e., as part of their generational quest to destroy white, Anglo-Saxon civilization with what one might delicately call a hoy-bubbi-bubbi and a deedle-deidle-dum, not to mention a shmeis on the tuchis.

What about the Free Silver movement? Does no memory remain of the Vatican’s secret war on America, conducted by the Papal puppetmaster of the cabbage-scented Mick and the organ-grinding, mustachioed Wop? What of the ever-plotting Freemasons? What indeed about the Jews, not to mention their Soviet masters, not to mention the protocols of their elders? What of the literal treason of Dwight David Eisenhower, as minutely laid out in pamphlets and radio broadsides, at water coolers and from pulpits and in secret meetings of Concerned Americans, for literal years on end?

Why, it’s almost as if decades from now, somebody might say “Terri Schaivo,” and future wingnuts might not immediately know exactly what they mean.

But as Hank reminds us, we’re here now, and so is he:

They stopped defending the unborn, but I wasn’t an unborn so I said nothing…

This is like one of those logic puzzles. As an unborn, wouldn’t he have said something like “eeep” or “glub-glub,” if indeed vocalisms are available as a means of fetal expression (as opposed to kicking), and how would that have helped? More to the point, why didn’t he say something when he was an unborn, instead of denying responsibility later?

Plus, we know quite well where this Marty Niemöller formulation is going. Some wingnut encountered that Niemöller quote awhile ago, probably while watching a History Channel show about Nazis, and ever since, the rest of the wingnuts have been misapplying it in a sweeping upspiral of thoughtlessness and illiteracy. It’s heading toward a stupescendo — a crescendo of stupid — that will somehow exceed the maladroitness of any Niemöllerism that is producible in the laboratory.

For instance, “Then they came for the mutes, but I wasn’t a mute, so I didn’t say anything.” It will be way worse than that, so be ready when it comes.

Um, gotta go. We’ll be back with Part II of our Donald Hank epic before long.

Just when you thought it was over:

Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz “natural born citizen” case referred to full court by Justice Scalia (about Obama’s foreign father)
By Arlen Williams

Justice Scalia, by referring Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz to committee on Dec. 12 may allow the Supreme Court to decide upon Barack Obama’s status as a presidential candidate before the currently scheduled Electoral College election day, December 15.

While it would be a clever stunt indeed for Scalia, et al., to descend to the level of jurisprudence of Bush v Gore, and to rule that. . .um, that like it or not, Joe Biden will be our next president? That the election is somehow nullified and we have to do it all over again? That McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, should be installed as president? Or maybe all they could reasonably accomplish would be to tie things up for a few weeks so that Bush can stay in office 1% longer — or maybe it’s all preparation for a Republican military coup; I honestly give up at this point.

No, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Scalia is probably doing this procedurally, in order to make the suit go efficiently bye-bye and to prevent these Mirth Certificate wackamaroons from bothering each Justice, in turn, forever and for the rest of their lives. I mean, let’s think way, way outside the box here. Let’s get real, real gone for a change.

This case is essentially similar to the case of Leo Donofrio, who assisted Connecticut lawyer, Cort Wrotnoski, in drafting it. According to Donofrio, the basis is very much the same (not essentially about the birth certificate, but regarding a foreign father) and it includes additional corroborative research and/or reasoning.

We’ll go with ‘or.’

Also, the history of this case is less problematic for the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) than the Donofrio case, due to a suspicious misfiling of the latter case by a New Jersey judge which may have provoked a question of standing before the Supreme Court.

A suspicious misfiling — why, this explains why the case was denied. It seems likely that the judge was a liberal. Myriad and sinister are the liberals’ plots against America, of which this is but one.

We would like, by way of commentary, to reproduce Arlen Williams’s official RenewAmerica contributor photo:

Above: ‘BAKED’?

Who are these people, and aren’t they late for the Vril saucer evacuation?

Update: Here’s Confederate Yankee:

Just When You Thought It Was Over…

…Scalia adds another Obama citizenship case to the Supreme Court’s Dec. 12 docket, Wrotnowski Vs. Bysiewicz.

Let the fun and games begin continue!

By Jiminy, now he’s stealing titles via time machine.

Now I’m down a line. Um, here’s an unfinished joke. Some guy has the grafitti tag, ‘Typo,’ and he writes it like TYOP. Maybe show the tag first, like written on the side of a train or something. And in a caption, some other kid is pointing at it like, “You spelled it wrong,” or actually maybe that overdoes it.

Shorter Confederate Yankee:

Obama Should Respect the Secret Service Enough to Release His Vault Copy Birth Certificate

• Obama should release a so-called ‘vault copy’ of his birth certificate, otherwise our attempts to assassinate him will prove his lack of respect for those assigned to stop us from trying to assassinate him.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

* Ulp.

Shorter Jayme Evans:

The Usurper’s New Clothes

• A favorite tactic of Communists, liberals, and others on the left is to pathetically try to smear conservatives as extremists or crackpots, when actually ding, bonk, ah-oogah, fwee, ee-yi-ee-yi-ee-yi, that’s-all-folks [burp] Obama.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

Shorter Stop The ACLU:

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Obama Citizenship Challenge

• Call me a kook, but why won’t Obama show anyone a copy of his birth certificate that we on the right have meticulously examined?

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

It’s December 7th every day, and we don’t know why!

We moved to a new server a few days ago, and as you can see, the transition has been more interesting than perhaps one would like for it to have been.

There’s new stuff up every day, as usual, but the main page somehow keeps reverting to December 7th, and then not doing that for awhile, but then doing it again. We’re working to fix this, with steamed eyeglasses and spinning propeller beanies, and/or plumber’s craCK, OR SOME DAMMIT I HIT THE CAPS LOck key. Dammit, that’s annoying.

Item: As of 10:50 EST, December 12th, the most recent post is here, and if clicking that link doesn’t magically cause the main page to leap into the present (as it sometimes seems to do), all the intervening stuff can be seen by navigating in a backwardsly direction via the links at the top of the page. -G

Shorter Jackie **GINGRICH** Cushman:

It’s Still A Wonderful Life

• It still is a wonderful life when you get paid by the Heritage Foundation to summarize the plot of a movie that everyone has seen three dozen times. The fact that I am the daughter of Newt Gingrich is completely and utterly irrelevant, thank you very much.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

GON OUT
BACKSON
BISY
BACKSON

Cf.

Say, how’s the bailout going?

Some bailout holdings down $9 billion

Stock intended to eventually earn taxpayers a profit as part of the Bush administration’s massive bank bailout has lost a third of its value — about $9 billion — in barely one month, according to an Associated Press analysis. Shares in virtually every bank that received federal money have remained below the prices the government negotiated.

Most of the Treasury Department’s investments since late October have been in preferred bank stocks, more than $180 billion worth, with investments in giants like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, and many small community banks. But the government also negotiated options to buy up to 1.2 billion shares of common bank stock that was valued at $27 billion.

The Treasury Department said it did not expect these common stock options to be profitable immediately and negotiated them so taxpayers could share in the wealth if the bank stocks recover.

Now, however, the value of that common stock is worth less than $18 billion. If the government exercised all its warrants to purchase the stock today, it would lose money on 51 of its 53 agreements. Taxpayers would be out $9.1 billion.

Oh.

You know, it’s nice that we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars to keep rich people from feeling bad about themselves, but I think I’ve come up with an even better plan: we take all the money left over in TARP and we set it on fire.

Just think of all the homes we could heat with that money. Imagine how much better this country would be if we converted all our cars to run on currency. After all, could there be any greener fuel than cold hard cash?

I’m not saying this solution would be perfect — I mean, burning $350 billion of our money supply doesn’t sound like a healthy way to grow an economy — but it’s better than what we’re doing now.

UPDATE: Alternatively, we could just use the money to prop up a pile of worthless shit and tell people that it’s the most valuable commodity in the world. Since the late ’90s, our economy has run entirely on this principle (e.g., that mortgage derivatives and pets.com shares would keep growing in value forever), and I see no reason to change that now. List your ideas for worthless commodities that we can use taxpayer dollars to prop up in the comments. My vote goes to…

…POGs!

…the person in the comments who suggested Beanie Babies has the right idea. This could be balanced out by reviving the Furby as well.

UPDATE II: Atrios tells me that:

Just under 10% of all mortgages are delinquent or in foreclosure.

My solution: let people get kicked out of their homes. We can then move them into new apartment complexes constructed entirely from POGs. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

GAVIN ADDS: And there’s also the shocking unemployment news today, sure.

See, everyone’s getting so excited, but this is just one of those high-spirited George W. Bush practical jokes that we’ve come so well to appreciate.

Remember when he got to the White House, and his people made up a story that the Clintons had trashed the place, removing ‘W’ keys from the keyboards and writing on the bathroom walls, and all that? That was a good one!

Now with the $8.5 trillion in bailouts, when Obama gets to the White House, all the money will be gone from the US Treasury, and stuffed into the pockets of the same arrogant bubbleheads responsible for cratering the economy, who will then squander it in short-sighted and selfish ways designed to give each of them a short-term advantage over their competitors, in effect taking a leaf blower to it all and blowing it into a giant, blazing fireplace of Fail — after which everyone will agree to act surprised.

It’ll be like, “Here’s your US Government, Mr. Obama. We took the dollar signs off the keyboards.”

The Washington Post seeks that elusive final victory

• The MSM seems obsessed with talking about President Bush’s supposed “mistakes,” when they could be asking far more pressing and important questions about Bill Clinton’s penis.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™