News Roundup for 4/14/10

Welfare queen

-Headline of the day-
"Ouch: Tea Party rally cost taxpayers almost $14,000."

The gummint spends too much on socialism! And no one knows that better than the superduper-patriotic teabaggers. Why do you think all their signs are mispelled? They don't want to waste the taxpayers' money by going to the lie-berry and looking up words like "fascism." Every E before I is a victory for the common man.

This is true of every moment of their lives -- except for the part where they're out in public, dressed like Thomas Paine and making a big deal about how much they hate gummint spending. When they're doing that, gummint spending is cool. According to the report, "As Michele Bachmann riled a group of feisty Tea Partiers to rail against taxes and government spending, taxpayers were quietly forced to pick up a $13,600 tab for their festivities."

"For the sound, staging and equipment," the article states, "Bachmann (R-MN) was financially assisted by taxpayer-funded allowances from Reps. Todd Akin (R-MO), Tom Price (R-GA), and Steve King (R-IA)." So the teabaggers were shrieking about runaway spending, while sucking at the public teat.

Still, they've got a big ol' revolution to wage! Did the founders start their revolution without high-end public address systems and concert lighting?

Yeah, I don't think so. (Raw Story)


-Speaking of big honkin' wastes of taxpayer money-
The new healthcare reform law is totally unconstitutional. Never mind that a University of Washington panel failed to find any constitutional law expert who could argue this point-- it's totally unconstitutional. Period. 'cause people who don't like it say so, that's why.

So when Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker declined to sue over this big socialist healthcare takeover, Governor Sonny Perdue -- whose previous claim to fame was asking Georgians to do a rain dance -- took matters into his own hands and hired a lawyer to do what the Georgian AG would not.

When he declined to sue, Thurbert said, "Considering the state‘s severe budgetary crisis, with vital services like education and law enforcement being cut deeply, I cannot justify a decision to initiate expensive and time-consuming litigation that I believe has no legal merit." Screw that, Sonny said. There's plenty of money to throw at a lost wingnut cause! Georgia's facing more than a billion dollar budget shortfall, but the governor knows that if everyone shakes the loose change out of their couches and sells all their cans to the recycling center, they can scrape together enough money to blow on a frivolous suit no sane person believes stands a chance in hell.

Teabags forever! w00t! (Think Progress)


-Headline of the day-
"Library Of Congress To Record Entirety Of Global Retardation."

That's right, the Library of Congress is archiving every single tweet sent on Twitter from 2006 until the end of time.

If you're one of those people who get all freaked out about what someone's wearing on American Idol, now would probably be a good time to stop twitterpating this like it was the most important thing in the world. Posterity is watching and you're embarrassing us all.

If you want to see how to tweet rationally, with dignity, and with the funereal gravity such a historic activity requires, check out my Twitter feed. Especially tweets like this and this.

I'm like a proper British butler in a movie or something -- because our children and our children's children deserve no less. (Wonkette)