On Your Earmarks, Get Set, Fail!
Special Ed, the blogger formerly known as Cap’n Ed Morrissey, has been spewing more bilge water to defend Sarah Palin from the earmark business. Rather than the resorting to the typical “blar blar blar POW sexist Democrats blar blar lipstick blar blar POW,” Special Ed has decided to go for the gusto with this argument: “Palin didn’t request any earmarks.”
Now you probably imagine that Ed is going to prove this vastly amusing premise by examining the fonts and kerning in appropriations legislation and claiming that they reveal that the Alaska earmarks actually came from the Governor of Connecticut. But Special Ed has decided to focus his keen intellect and kerning skills on the definition of “earmark.” You see, if you define “earmark” as an “earlobe tattoo,” for example, then it’s game over. Do ya see any earlobe tattoos on Palin? Huh? HUH?? Then she didn’t request any earmarks. So there, you silly liberals.
You think I’m kidding, don’t you? Sadly, no:
Earmarks are not equivalent to all federal spending … . If these requests did not come in earmark form, then Congress has the opportunity to vote directly on spending the money in Alaska based on the legitimacy of the projects. Earmarks, on the other hand, get slipped into bills without such Congressional scrutiny and are almost impossible to remove regardless of the uselessness of the project.
Palin didn’t ask for earmarks, but for federal funding for projects, which could have come from normal appropriations requests as well. The mechanism gets chosen by Alaska’s legislators, not by the Governor.
That is just out and out pathetic. Morrissey, who has less qualifications to talk about earmarks than Palin does to be a city sanitation supervisor, has, rather than drawing on any experience with the legislative process, shoved his stubby little fingers into his capacious posterior, pulled out a few dingleberries, and is waving them around as savory delicacies before, you know, eating them.
Although there is some disagreement around the edges about the definition of earmark, Special Ed has hit pretty wide of the mark. The Office of Management and Budget — which, by the way, is run by the White House and not by a band of deranged Palin-hating liberals — has the most concise and widely-accepted definition of an earmark.
Earmarks are funds provided by the Congress for projects or programs where the congressional direction (in bill or report language) circumvents the merit-based or competitive allocation process, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the Executive Branch to properly manage funds. Congress includes earmarks in appropriation bills – the annual spending bills that Congress enacts to allocate discretionary spending – and also in authorization bills.
Oops. Special Ed has indeed drooled on himself once more. An earmark is funding provided to specific locations without a request from the White House and without the ability of the White House to control or redirect those funds. They don’t occur in a special piece of legislation, as Ed apparently imagines (cf. “in earmark form”), titled “Earmark Appropriations” or some such. Funding headed to Alaska for specific projects at the direction of Congress are earmarks, whether or not they are in normal appropriations legislation or any other type of legislation.
Of course, Special Ed has a few concerns that perhaps he’s gotten things jumbled up and that his definition of earmark is a mash-up of things he learned watching Fox News and things he remembered from seeing late-night reruns of Gilligan’s Island, so he has a back-up plan:
Also, it’s pretty easy to miss the fact that Governors can’t earmark, because they aren’t members of Congress. Palin would have to rely on Ted Stevens, Lisa Murkowski, and Don Young to propose legislation for her funding requests, and none of these three have any hesitation to use earmarks rather than legislation.
Uh oh. The “technical” argument. Palin didn’t ask for the earmarks, the Alaska delegation did. Nevermind that Palin hired a lobbyist to ask the delegation for earmarks. Nevermind that (according to sources inside Lisa Murkowski’s office) Palin and her minions relentlessly called Murkowski’s office (and presumably those of Stevens and Young) on a near-daily basis to harangue them and ask where the money was. She didn’t “request” the earmarks.
This is a very useful argument, both for six-year olds and for wingnut bloggers. For example, Bush didn’t invade Iran Iraq, the soldiers did. Cheney isn’t responsible for torturing people, the torturers are. McCain doesn’t “own” three thousand houses, his wife does. I didn’t hit my sister, Mommy, the stick I was holding did.
The wingnuts are right- Bush didn’t invade Iran!
shit, the soldiers invaded iran? somebody stop the soldiers, god damn it!
What a pathetic fucking moron.
I used to read Captain’s Quarters until I found out “Captain Ed” was just a fat guy with nothing to do who liked to dress up like the Skipper and write about politics.
The wingnuts are right- Bush didn’t invade Iran!
…yet.
Coming up will be how it’s a good thing that there’s only one bank left, because that’s Bank of America, see?
And what could be wrong with that?
When we have to eat mud, they will tell us it’s chocolate.
Has everybody seen this?
“McCain invented the Blackberry”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0908/HoltzEakin_McCain_helped_create_BlackBerry.html#comments
I used to read Captain’s Quarters as well. I found it to at least be tolerable. Now I’m left to choose between HotAir and RedState. Oh, the choices!
Q. Do you know the difference between a hockey mom and an earmark?
A. An earmark never made Baby Jesus cry with all its lies.
Ding dong dilly, libs! It’s the Cool Coach once again, reporting to you from Wacky Wall Street that the fundamentals are still super solid in the US of A, regardless of what Obummer is crying about! Regardless of what you think about the economy, the real thinkers like Super Sowell and Golden Goldberg know that as long as McCainiacs are keeping the taxes low, there’s no Euroweenie that can stop us!
As for dissing on the Power Palin? Shame on you! She’s a SPREAD of CHANGE, busting up earmarks and refusing D.C. funny money! No pork here, no sir! Super Sarah’s on the march, and there’s nothing the loony libs here at Sadly, D’oh! can do about it!
Badoodle-boo yeah! You just got dished a SPREAD of TRUTH, libs! Urban out!
“If you start using this special definition I came up with then everyone else is lying! HAH! Take that EVERYONE ELSE!”
> She’s a SPREAD of CHANGE, busting up earmarks and refusing D.C. funny money! No pork here,
CUM said SPREAD and PORK.
Heh heh heh
Get lost, Flanders.
You just got dished a SPREAD of TRUTH, libs!
I DID got dished a spread of truth!
“reporting to you from Wacky Wall Street that the fundamentals are still super solid in the US of A”
You’re not even funny any more. You’re a pathetically ignorant piece of shit.
Shorter entire wingnut-0-sphere:
“Quiet! White people talking here! Quiet!”
And Palin never lied about the Bridge to Nowhere.
A Bridge to Nowhere would allow people or vehicles to cross over to ‘nowhere’ – that is, to the realm of non-existence. Since matter cannot be created or destroyed, such a bridge is physically impossible. Since such a bridge could never have existed, Palin’s support of it could never have existed. Therefore, all leftists are poopy-heads!
Next, I will prove that lies do not exist at all. I’m working on it.
“The fact is,” as your favorite misogynistic sockpuppet likes to proclaim, the Obots here are still up to their eyes in the hatred of both women and the true blue Appalachian core of Democrat America, the Reagan Democrats and Bubbas that Obama thinks erroneously that he can live without. So keep harping on Sarah Palin, as if she were the problem and your sexism somehow wasn’t. Keep harping on how eeeevil this woman is. Call her a bitch, go right ahead. But don’t be surprised, and don’t go whining to me when women walk straight away from your beloved party, the same party that has spat upon the “Democrat” moniker with every hate-filled line of Hillary tolerated, every vote for Hillary ignored. Sarah Palin might not be my kind of woman, but she is a woman, and it’s about time you Obots showed a little respect.
And to think these stupid fucks like “Captain Ed” live amongst us.
[Rolling eyes].
No wonder everything is so fucked up these days.
And she’s buying, with funds appropriated through the earmark process but not in any way requested by her, a stairway to heaven.
Wheee, Iris and Bucket! It’s a parody troll cameo fest!
<Troofy>Pirate p-shops are funny now? Christmas comes early!<Troofy>
Argghh, pretend that last tag was a close instead of an open. Being trapped inside nested parody trolls is frightening!
Hens love roosters
geese love ganders
everyone else loves ned flanders
Duh. You don’t invade until after you’ve bomb bomb bombed Iran.
Ahh, you liberals are melting down even more than I thought you were! How hilarious! 😉
Sarah Palin’s really under your skin, and all you got left is to lie about the economy. Too bad voters know it’s going just great, and that Palin is a true maverick!
November 4th is going to be great. Why don’t you get Michelle Obama to talk again? Everyone hates her!
my first earnest attempt at Fake Truth. feedback would be great.
-DN
Shorter The Truth
“I am panicking becasue we are running clowhnish hacks, so I will accuse you of being scared of an incompetent corrupt Goivernor”
Coach Urban Meyer, huh? “Spread of Truth,” huh? So Coach and Truth are boyfriends! Too bad they can’t get married since they love each other so much! Haw haw.
DN, that’s a pretty damn good imitation.
I couldn’t believe it wasn’t butter!
When she gets there she knows,
Even if Congress has closed,
With some lobbyists she can get the hundreds of millions of dollars that she came for.
(applause)
I am totally a sucker for fake Truth
Ooooo it makes me wonder
How sooooon until she blunders
“my first earnest attempt at Fake Truth. feedback would be great.”
Not even close. Guessie makes an effort to cross swords with you, and practices sly (though transparent) braggadocio. Guessie makes me want to punch him right in the mush; your attempt just made me snicker. 🙂
Not to be a dick or anything, but your Guessie came across more like a wayward drive-by Freeper who just wanted a war story to tell on internet bulletin boards about the time he totally pwned some terrorist-licking libtards. Unfortunately, he won’t be able to keep the details straight and will eventually be outed as a fraud when his story falls apart.
And as we wind on down Lehman’s
Our balance sheets redder than something that rhymes with Lehman’s
There walks a Palin we all know
Who fires everyone that don’t show
Proper respect to someone that can shot out gold…
Following the Captain’s logic, no governor in the Union has asked for earmarks. This means Palin is indistinguishable from the other 49 commanders in chiefs of their respective national guards. All 50 governors are reformers and anti-pork crusaders!
Nice work, Captain.
Arghhh. shot. shit. shat.
Fuck it. You know what I mean.
In updates, our call-center manager appropriations expert is now calling it the “earmark mechanism.”
So let’s see, she’s not asking for funding using the earmark mechanism but she’s apparently able to turn down funds appropriated throught the earmark mechanism, even though she, um, hasn’t.
But then, according to McCain, she can veto earmarks, mechanism or no, so I guess this is all moot.
He just wants to fuck Palin. Seriously,that’s what all this frothy wingnut boy nonsense is about.
Back to Special Ed: It’s always amusing to see the wingnut response to pending doom. If all else fails, redefine the word. Seriously, look how well it worked for Jonah. What is even more amusing is reading all the responses from Special Ed’s class, happy to grasp onto any bit of useless flotsam and jetsam that could possibly prop up their false hopes. Facts be damned! (New Republican motto, by the way.)
And Iris: Who are you? Are you somehow meaningful, or just some pushy misanthropic twit? (Staying gender neutral here, dontcha know…)
Hey Iris —
Read this:
Attacking Palin is not sexist.
After all these years of hearing how men think with their penises, it’s nice to hear from someone who thinks with their vagina. Next time, though, try using your brain.
I just wonder if there’s some kind of art-project he can do – to make use of all those freshly-split hairs, I mean. Must be damn near enough to build a replica of the Eiffel Tower there.
Palin reduced the pork – just not enough to knock Alaska off its podium as the hog-trough-olympics’ national champion. Just give her 2 or 3 more terms, & she’ll have her state all the way down to #2 – Scout’s Honor! Come on, trust her on this – she’s with the good old GOP, people – when have they ever lied to you?
“McCain/Palin 2008: A Kinder, Gentler Parasitism!”
“When a dog walks on its hind legs, people remark not on how well it does so, but on the very fact that it does so at all.”
– George Bernard Shaw (more or less, I think)
If a satire-tree in the forest becomes indistinguishable from the target of its joke, does it make a funny sound when it falls?
YMMV … but personally, I’m finding it ever harder to get on the chuckle-wagon when I see this stuff. The gosh-darn “Truckloads Of Pilfered Life-Savings & Swimming-Pools Of Human Blood” factor just keeps getting in the way of the theoretical boffo.
Can someone explain to me what the logic is behind attempts at successfully cloning malevolent stupidity?
Sort of kills the ha-ha factor for me the better it’s done.
If you think that’s a crap argument, then hey, why do it on such a 2-bit level? Don’t just ape some anonymous neocon troll. Go for the gold! Rob those graves, extract that DNA, warm up those incubation units & CLONE, BABY, CLONE! Why not Fake D’Aubisson, Fake Idi Amin, Fake Himmler & Fake Pol Pot too? Go for it, everyone! Now is the time to ignite 1,000 points of lulz!
I get the feeling Ed is the guy who’d say the Vietnam War is not actually a war, but a “police action,” and then make up definitions for both terms to prove his point.
DN, re: the Fake Truth: Too brief, and the smiley ruined it for me.
Special Ed’s reasoning makes perfect sense to me. Every day I nag my man to bring home a lot of money. Whenever he doesn’t come through, I call him a douchebag loser and make him sleep on the couch. But did I tell him to rob a bank? No. I never specifically told him how to get the money and I never asked him where it came from. If he does something unethical or criminal, it’s the douchebag’s own fault.
He bakes fresh rhymes. Daily. Basin’ up the world, chasin’ up the girlz, snitchez!
I’m so white I blind myself.
I’m so dull I put myself to sleep.
I’m sossszzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzz …
I am disturbed by the acronym that designates Coach Urban Meyer. I’d like to think it is unintentional.
I am disturbed by the acronym that designates Coach Urban Meyer. I’d like to think it is unintentional.
I wonder what the SPREAD would be on that wager.
[…] 16, 2008 by joe Money quote: Special Ed has decided to go for the gusto with this argument: “Palin didn’t request any […]
Okay. After reading Special Ed, NOW we’re confused.
Has anyone bothered to point out to this idiot that earmarks ARE legislation?
What you fail to recognize is that there’s a fundamental difference between asking for money and seeking funds.
Huge difference. No way are they similar. Not even in the same ballpark.
Now, watch me as I count the number of angels tap-dancing on the head of this pin.
A Bridge to Nowhere would allow people or vehicles to cross over to ‘nowhere’ – that is, to the realm of non-existence. Since matter cannot be created or destroyed, such a bridge is physically impossible.
The fact is that a literal Bridge to Nowhere features heavily in Mark Helprin’s second novel, ‘A Winter’s Tale’. You might find this ironic, or not, depending on your definition of ‘irony’.
… And I said, that’s not a wart on my bottom, that’s Captain Ed!
Thank you, you’ve been great.
He just wants to fuck Palin.
Correction: he wants to be pegged by Palin.
Watch this! I’ll show you what a real earmark looks like!
Oops. Special Ed has indeed drooled on himself once more. An earmark is funding provided to specific locations without a request from the White House and without the ability of the White House to control or redirect those funds.
There’s a reason what you are quoting says “executive branch,” and not “White House”. In normal spending, the White House has about as much to do with it as Congress. It’s the specific federal agencies who get to decide where exactly spending goes to, and they are supposed to do this in a non-political way. The White House intervening directly in such decisions would likely be seen as a politicization of the process.
The White House intervening directly in such decisions would likely be seen as a politicization of the process.
Of course, that would never happen.
“A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse, of course,
Unless, of course, the horse, of course,
Is the famous Special Ed!”
Morrissey, who has less qualifications to talk about earmarks than Palin does to be a city sanitation supervisor, has, rather than drawing on any experience with the legislative process, shoved his stubby little fingers into his capacious posterior, pulled out a few dingleberries, and is waving them around as savory delicacies before, you know, eating them.
Now that’s what I call a poop joke. Very nice.
She’s a SPREAD of CHANGE
I’d prefer a change of spread. Anyone tried wasabi mayonnaise? Damn that’s good.
Since matter cannot be created or destroyed, such a bridge is physically impossible.
For that, you need a Large Hardon Collider, yes?
I’d prefer a change of spread. Anyone tried wasabi mayonnaise? Damn that’s good.
I almost bought some at Trader Joe’s the other night but I couldn’t think of what I would spread it on. Or do you just eat it out of the jar?
That’s one funny parrot.
I almost bought some at Trader Joe’s the other night but I couldn’t think of what I would spread it on. Or do you just eat it out of the jar?
Crab cakes.
Try the veal.
Veal and wasabi mayonnaise, mmm.
You’re making me hungry, but the only thing I want is GWB’s sautéed brains.
the only thing I want is GWB’s sautéed brains.
Really not much there – not quite enough for a small appetizer. Kinda like eating a single oyster.
You wanna go for his liver. That fucker’s super-sized.
You wanna go for his liver. That fucker’s super-sized.
Tru dat … & given his capacity for disseminating pure shit, the man’s intestines would surely solve the global food shortage instantly – that is, if anyone could somehow convince all those starving people that a slow agonizing death was not the better option.
There’s a feeling I get
When I look to the east
And the bankers are crying for bailouts.
And it’s whispered that soon
If we don’t think of doom
That the POW guy will lead us to ponies.