We as a nation have reached the point where congresspeople are introducing bills specifically saying that the government can't mint magic platinum coins

Well, okay, they aren't talking about magic coins, per se.  What they are talking about is trillion dollar platinum coins which the Treasury can mint because of a loophole in an older law allowing them to make commemorative coins of whatever value.  Our government, right now, is talking about whether or not we are allowed to make a trillion dollar coin so that we can turn around and give ourselves this coin so that we have a trillion dollars.  To be clear, this isn't just people being all "oh yeah let's give ourselves a trillion bucks for shits and giggles"; the government previously passed all these bills saying it was okay for us to spend money and now we actually have to send the check.  Which: we can't right now, because somebody decided that all of a sudden it was funny to actually debate not raising the debt ceiling, because I guess it's pretty hilarious when Obama has to put on his sincere face and talk about looming financial crises so that we can do the governmental equivalent of paying our credit card bill. 

Anyway, someone came up with this idea where we avoid the entire debate over whether we can give ourselves more money to pay the bills by minting a commemorative trillion-dollar coin, since these commemorative coins are not subject to approval by Congress, and at present Congress works about as efficiently as a group discussion in a 6th-grade sex ed class.  This proposal has understandably alarmed some members of Congress who were hoping to have a big symbolic fight about the debt ceiling for approximately the 39th time this month.  Notably, Greg Walden (R-OR) has announced a bill that will specifically prohibit the government from minting "high-value platinum coins".  Per his website:

“Some people are in denial about the need to reduce spending and balance the budget. This scheme to mint trillion dollar platinum coins is absurd and dangerous, and would be laughable if the proponents weren’t so serious about it as a solution. I’m introducing a bill to stop it in its tracks,” Rep. Walden said.

Even the proponents of the coin don't seem to regard it as a "serious" solution.  As Paul Krugman said in today's column,

"Should President Obama be willing to print a $1 trillion platinum coin if Republicans try to force America into default? Yes, absolutely. He will, after all, be faced with a choice between two alternatives: one that’s silly but benign, the other that’s equally silly but both vile and disastrous." 

So, yes, the coin thing is silly.  However, the alternative is for us to turn around and tell all of the foreign countries and federal workers that we owe money to that we purchased goods and services from them, but actually we won't be paying.  This would understandably upset a few people.  On the plus side, pissing off foreign countries might give us a chance to use this ginormous military we've been spending so much on, so that's a plus for efficiency, I guess?

“My wife and I have owned and operated a small business since 1986. When it came time to pay the bills, we couldn’t just mint a coin to create more money out of thin air. We sat down and figured out how to balance the books. That’s what Washington needs to do as well. My bill will take the coin scheme off the table by disallowing the Treasury to mint platinum coins as a way to pay down the debt. We must reduce spending and get our fiscal house in order,” Rep. Walden said.

OK, let me explain why this argument is totally ludicrous.  You are comparing the government to a family business, which is not an inherently awful comparison.  But, you are comparing not buying something (in the case of you and your wife deciding how to balance the books) with not paying for it (which is what will happen if we don't raise the debt ceiling or, barring that, mint a silly $1,000,000,000,000 coin).  Congress has already approved all of the various things the money will be used for--in fact, most of the spending is mandated by law.  The current debate is literally about whether they will let the money (which was already committed to be spent) actually be sent to the people we owe.  To go back to your business comparison, let's have you role-play Congress, and your wife will play President Obama.

So, last month, you were all "hey Prez, we gotta get a new truck for the business," so your President-wife Obama went out and bought a truck.  Then yesterday, the bill showed up, so your wife says "welp, time to pay this," and you're like "whoa, I didn't say we could PAY for this--I just wanted to buy it!"  Because of that, you're now divorced and desperately alone, because it's hard to find people that are into roleplaying where one party is dressed up as a bilateral legislative chamber.  

"So then this goes into--where?  No, wait, that feels wrong.  Do all 535 of these people really have to be here?"

To recap: I may have some issues with staying on point.  Basically, though, raising the debt ceiling is just a way to pay for the things we already agreed to pay for.  When Walden says, "My bill will take the coin scheme off the table by disallowing the Treasury to mint platinum coins as a way to pay down the debt," he's demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of what this idea would do--no one's advocating that we just print up a bunch of coins and then throw them in the air while screaming "DEBT FREE!".  They just need a way to allow the government to spend the money that we have in effect already spent.  If only Harry Potter were real, we might have a magical alternative, but at present all we have is silly coins.

Which one of these is not like the others?

The GOP has released its slate of House Committee Chairmen, and...well, see if you can spot the different one:

GOP Committee Chairman "Guess Who?" proved to be extremely difficult.

Of course, it's a trick question, because there is no different one, because they're all white men.  You have to wonder if the GOP learned anything from an election where their presidential candidate polled at around 7% among blacks, 27% among Hispanics, and 44% among women (source, source).  Looks like Romney decided not to share those binders of his with his House colleagues.

Fun with non-existent Constitutional loopholes, featuring Judson Phillips

Judson Phillips is upset that Obama won the election.  Unlike most disappointed Republicans, though, he's got a bold plan to fix things.  He's discussing this plan over at WND, which some of you may recognize as the "media outlet" responsible for propagating the birther conspiracy and Joseph Farah's mustache.

I believe that if left untrimmed, it would just continue to grow outward horizontally forever.

What's the way forward, Judson?

We have one last, final chance to save America. We have one last, final chance to stop Barack Obama. One final chance.

This should be good.  Let me go make some popcorn.

What is this final chance? Will the Republicans step up to the plate and do what is necessary?

Barack Obama has not yet been re-elected president.

I can't wait to see whether this article will rely more on denial, anger, bargaining, or depression!  Based on that sentence, it definitely won't be acceptance.

Yes, the election is over – but remember, a presidential election in America is not by popular vote. We vote for the candidate, but what we are really doing is voting for the electors who will meet on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December.

That is when the actual re-election of the president occurs.

OK.  I guess technically, that's accurate, although it is already clear that your "plan" is to find an absurd loophole based on a misreading of the Constitution regarding the Electoral College.  At this point, it may help to have a better idea of who Judson Phillips is; he's the founder of Tea Party Nation, which has a wide variety of goals, of which most are summed up in this screenshot of their website (purple highlights are me, pointing out the more inane items):

Alright, the twinkie thing is pretty good.  I see you, Tea Party Nation.

Anyway, let's move on!  So far, I get that Judson wants us to understand that the actual re-election hasn't occurred yet, but even if it hasn't, is there any chance that Obama won't win the Electoral College at this point?

Is there a way to stop this?

I don't know, Judson!  You tell me.

Yes, there is.

(Tea) Party time!

And the best part – this is totally constitutional.

The 12th Amendment of the Constitution as well as Article II of the Constitution govern the Electoral College.

According to the 12th Amendment, for the Electoral College to be able to select the president, it must have a quorum of two-thirds of the states voting. If enough states refuse to participate, the Electoral College will not have a quorum. If the Electoral College does not have a quorum or otherwise cannot vote or decide, then the responsibility for selecting the president and vice president devolves to the Congress.

The House of Representatives selects the president and the Senate selects the vice president.

Since the Republicans hold a majority in the House, presumably they would vote for Mitt Romney, and the Democrats in the Senate would vote for Joe Biden for vice president.

So, first of all, this is all entirely untrue.  The 2/3 quorum refers to what is required in the House of Representatives to vote on things like who will be president IF the electoral college can't decide on a president for whatever reason.  Having 1/3 of the electors refuse to show up will do nothing.  Second of all, do you not feel at least a little weird about basically advocating a course that would circumvent our entire electoral process?  Not only will it not work because you got the law wrong, but also this sounds like the kind of thing that happens in countries run by people whose names rhyme with Gladimir Bootin.

Democratic process?  Nah, that doesn't sound fun at all.

Can this work?

All together now!

No, Judson, no.  It can't.

Sure it can.

Sigh.  I'm not going out and finding more gifs just for you, Judson.

Democrats have actually set this precedent of refusing to participate to deny Republicans a quorum. They did this in Wisconsin and in Texas. Why can’t we do this with the Electoral College?

Like I said, it's because that's not how the rules work in the Electoral College.

[Several paragraphs redacted for being further explanation of Judson's incorrect understanding of the Electoral College]

It does not matter who gets credit for this. The credit is not important. Using our last chance to defeat Barack Obama is important.

You guys, I'm pretty sure Judson wants some credit for his terrible wrong idea.

Far too often the Republican Party seems more interested in losing gracefully than winning and governing.

Fox's election night coverage would like a word.

This is our last chance. We the people must contact the electors, party officials and secretaries of state from every red state and insist that they refuse to participate in the Electoral College.

We can still save America and use the Constitution to do it. But this truly is our last chance.

We can still save America!  By refusing to participate in our Constitutionally created democratic institutions!


UPDATE: Before I finished writing this, it appears that someone alerted Judson to the fact that the entire basis of his article is incorrect, since this disclaimer appeared at the top:

Editor’s note: Since this column was posted it has been discovered that the premise presented about the Electoral College and the Constitution is in error. According to the 12th Amendment, a two-thirds quorum is required in the House of Representatives, not the Electoral College.

In true WND style, while they do acknowledge an error, they won't change the initial article to reflect the true facts, and put up a vague disclaimer that isn't clear as to how much of the article depended on that one fact.  Journalism!

When it comes to claiming voter fraud, dream big

Prior to the election, Dean Chambers had a site called Unskewed Polling.  You may remember them as the group that claimed to believe this would be the outcome of the election:

I tried to make sure this was the correct prediction, but unsurprisingly, the site has been taken down.

One might expect that Chambers would take a few months off to recover from his glaringly incorrect predictions and maybe learn math, but he's back with another web venture: BarackOFraudo.com!  No, really, that's what he called it.  It looks like this:

O'Fraudo?  Is that a reference to Irish heritage?  Why?  Is O'Fraudo supposed to sound like Obama?  What the hell, man.

Ignoring the terrible site design--no, just kidding, I'm not going to ignore that.  First of all, there are random links everywhere, 90% of which are broken and go to a 404 not found page.  The image in the upper left is a link, which takes you directly back to the same page it appears on.  Click on the words "Barack O'Fraudo?"  Also a link back to the same page.  You'll note that in the maroon links running horizontally across the top, the first one is slightly lower than the rest.  Why?  Because the blank space contains the words "QStar Network", but for some reason the letters are white on a white background.  His coding is so bad that I couldn't copy-paste any text from the article, because he kept leaving open html tags everywhere and making everything go wonky. 

Of the many, many links, most are about various voter fraud items; for some reason some of them reference voter fraud in 2008 (which, okay, that's semi-related to your crazy person point), and some of them reference voter fraud by Obama Kerry Gore Clinton Dukakis Mondale Jimmy Carter, in 1980, which is 32 years ago.  Why?

If the 1980 election could have been handed to Jimmy Carter by stealing fewer than 2 million votes, less than 3 percent nationwide, then the much closer election of 2012 won by just 2.6 percent in the popular vote and fewer than 400,000 votes in the four key swing stats that denied Mitt Romney the presidency, could easily have been stolen by various methods of vote fraud and ballot-box stuffing.

Okay, the argument is that if we assume Jimmy Carter could have stolen the election by somehow getting 2 million fraudulent votes, then it'd be totally feasible for Obama to do the same, since he only needed 400,000.  Why is that an argument?  This is entirely made up.

Note: This is a scenario, we are NOT suggesting there was any vote fraud in the 1980 election. 

Does anything mean anything?  What are words?  What is life?

What the hell was the point of that?  "If we assume a thing that we are not assuming then this other thing is presumably assumable."  So far, Dean's evidence for voter fraud is that he created an imagination picture where it could have theoretically happened before and if that were true, it could happen again.  Madness.  Anyway, Dean goes on to lay out a whole scenario where Carter could have hypothetically committed voter fraud--it's batshit crazy, and the whole point is that the existence of a theoretical election theft proves that it could happen again, or something.  I can't even paraphrase it without sounding ridiculous.  

Anyway, Dean's main point, aside from showing us how Jimmy Carter helped Barack Obama steal the 1980 election or something, is that the 2012 election is dubious, as some states were affected by (gasp) VOTER FRAUD, as shown:

If Obama had just stolen 63 more electoral votes from Romney, "Obama Fraud" could have placed second in the election.

Shockingly, Dean gives very little evidence to explain why he believes these 4 states were stolen; here's literally the entirety of what he has to say about it.

Evidence of vote fraud is very much like that. Those who engage in it are slick and do all they can to hide it, so the evidence is often quite circumstantial. In fact, often the circumstantial evidence is all the evidence we have, such was finding tens of thousands of bogus votes in the ballot box, we didn't see someone actually put them there, but they are found, they are there, and they are clearly evidence of vote fraud. Such is true of the voting divisions where Obama gets 100 percent of the votes cast. As if anyone REALLY believes that is legitimate...

Let's break down his points:

• We don't have evidence of voter fraud, which is evidence of voter fraud because vote frauders are slick and good at hiding their work, so the lack of evidence proves it's happening
• I didn't see people put all those ballots in, so fraud (note: I don't understand what he's saying with "we didn't see someone actually put them there, but they are found, they are there, and they are clearly evidence of vote fraud." If anyone does, please let me know).
• Obama swept districts that are often swept by Democrats?  As if!

That's all of them.  I guess it's not surprising that the guy who kept saying that the polls were skewed would go ahead and say the vote was skewed after the polls turned out to be right.  Let's close with a quote that Dean uses on his site:

"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."
           -Henry David Thoreau

I give up.

 

Simile of the day, regarding live explosives

Jim Clingan of Illinois, regarding how to handle live explosives:

I have been around finding old live ammunition before. The only grenades I've ever run across had already been discharged. In this situation there were one too many danger signs there, so we didn't even stand around the thing. It's like being in a room with an elephant with diarrhea. You gotta' give them plenty of room. That's what we did with that box.

John Schnatter and Mitt Romney really get America

Rather than quietly raise the price of his goods like every merchant since forever has done, Papa John Schnatter has decided to publicly declare that because of Obamacare, his pizzas will now cost between 11 and 14 cents more apiece.

Fourteen cents?  How will I afford pizza and clothes?  Fine, I'll forgo pants.

Perhaps more significantly, he's also going to cut part-time employee hours to avoid having to insure them under the new law.  It's confusing why all of this is necessary, because according to Forbes a price raise of about 4 cents a pizza would cover the entire $5-8 million that the Papa says he'll be losing, without needing to cut hours.  The other reason that this is a little odd:

As someone who has eaten Papa John's pizza, I can confirm that the toilet-seat shaped driveway is appropriate.

That would be Padre John's place of residence, covering 40,000 square feet with a golf course, pool, lake, 22-car underground garage, and what I can only speculate is an underground network of tunnels like that wizard bank in Harry Potter, because why the fuck not.  I have trouble telling whether a particular really huge mansion is impressive compared to other really huge mansions, so it was fortunate that Mitt "some of my best friends own NFL franchises" Romney weighed in to tell us how great Johnny Boy's place really is:

Who would’ve imagined pizza could build this? This is really something. Don’t you love this country? What a home this is, what grounds these are, the pool, the golf course...This is a real tribute to America, to entrepreneurship.

America!  What, do some of you people not even have lakes on your property?

Anyway, I get that there are all kinds of considerations that go into a decision like this, and I know absolutely zero about running a giant pizza company, so maybe other people should be consulted and all that.

"We'll have every pizza, every day, cost $9.99.  No, this isn't related to Obamacare, it's just a good idea."

What I don't get is why make this so public, other than to show everyone that you can throw the biggest hissy fit about Obama's re-election?  Papa John's is now being threatened by boycotts and some very angry young people on Facebook.  Papa John's stock has dropped in value by 4.2% over the past few days, so if these actions were taken in the name of helping Papa John's shareholders, they aren't really working.  All that this is accomplishing is pissing off a lot of people and making Papa and the brand look bad, just so he can publicly air out his political disagreements.  There's no way that ends well for them-

I never thought "supporting gay rights" and "liking chicken" would be diametrically opposed political views

Ah.  Yeah.  Maybe the Papa is just a secret genius.

Test status: Successful!

Two Republican voters have been arrested for voter fraud, allegedly because they wanted to test how easy it was to get away with.  As they discovered, it's not that easy.  Incidentally, searching google news for "voter fraud 2012" yields seven results about cases where Republican individuals or groups committed voter fraud, two results where Republican candidates who lost are claiming they lost due to voter fraud, one result of John McCain saying voter fraud doesn't actually happen much, and one result of a spider causing voting machine issues.  Based on my findings, concerns about voter fraud can be ranked like so:

1.

2.

(Actually, it wasn't Jose Canseco.  It was someone else named Canseco who claimed he lost because of voter fraud.  This picture only came up because google thinks it's relevant to any story about a Canseco)

    

3.

Seriously you guys, fucking spiders are in voting machines.  I'm not voting again until I can vote from a plastic bubble inside my house, with the caveat that someone must personally check the bubble for spiders first.