Saturday Open Thread [7.26.14]

How much more proof do you need that these wingnuts are over their heads? This fool of a Congressman from Florida (GOP, naturally) thinks that the State Department and Commerce Department employees sitting in front of him are actually representatives of the government of India. Apparently because it can’t be possible for the US Government to employ people of Indian descent:

In an intensely awkward congressional hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday, freshman Rep. Curt Clawson misidentified two senior U.S. government officials as representatives of the Indian government.

The two officials, Nisha Biswal and Arun Kumar, are Americans who hold senior positions at the State Department and Commerce Department, respectively. Although both Biswal and Kumar were introduced as U.S. officials by the chairman of the Asia and Pacific subcommittee, Clawson repeatedly asked them questions about “your country” and “your government,” in reference to the state of India.

Frankly, I don’t know how the kid sitting behind this idiot ever kept a straight face.

More GOP DERP — on Friday the House passed a bill that specifically expands the tax exemption for kids to upper-middle class families, while letting the kid exemption for low-income families expire. Right? So that if you follow this logic, the GOP is making a new place at the trough for people who don’t need it while telling low-income working people that their kids aren’t worth the tax credit.

“The big winners would be the more-affluent families who would become newly eligible for the [child tax credit],” tax experts at the CBPP noted Tuesday. “The losers would be millions of low-income families who are doing exactly what policymakers often say they want these people to do—working, even at low-wage jobs.”

Then there is this bit of DERP from PETA — I never know how to characterize this group. And I want to be sympathetic to whatever it is they stand for, but they always seem to be working their privilege for themselves, not for anything useful:

Now, an unlikely group seems to think it can step in and solve this systemic problem. PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, announced in a blog post on Thursday that it will offer financial assistance to 10 families who can’t afford their water bills — if the families go vegan, that is.
“[W]ith the help of a generous PETA member, we have come up with one small way to assist Detroit residents and save animals, too,” PETA writes in its post. “Thanks to this donor, PETA will be able to pay off the water bills for 10 families who commit to going vegan for one month. We’ll also help them get started by giving each family a basket of healthy vegan foods and recipes.”

I don’t know WTF going vegan has to do with getting your water turned back on. But for an organization that bills itself as trying to gain more respect for animals, it looks to me that they need to figure out how to respect actual humans first.

This weekend is the 20th Anniversary of the People’s Festival for Peace in Wilmington in honor of Bob Marley. If you are looking for something fun to do this weekend, this is usually a really good music festival and I think the weather should be good too.