Rejoice, America! George W. Bush is back! And strangely, it’s not the Democrats who are trying to tie the current GOP to him; it’s the GOP themselves.

The chairmen of the two Republican campaign committees defended the presidency of George W. Bush in television appearances over the weekend, a preview of the GOP’s planned pushback against expected Democratic attacks on the last president.

“People had jobs when Republicans were not only in charge but George Bush was there,” said National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas) during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press”.

Oh right, everyone had a job when Bush was president! I remember that! Except I don’t. Because it didn’t happen. Here’s what the super-liberal Wall Street Journal had to say about Bush’s jobs record 11 days before he left office — from an article titled “Bush on jobs: The worst track record on record“:

President George W. Bush entered office in 2001 just as a recession was starting, and is preparing to leave in the middle of a long one. That’s almost 22 months of recession during his 96 months in office.

His job-creation record won’t look much better. The current President Bush, once taking account how long he’s been in office, shows the worst track record for job creation since the government began keeping records.

To put that in handy chart form, check out the job numbers from George W. Bush next to Obama’s numbers on jobs:

So who’s to blame? Who’s responsible for a complete collapse of the economy? Well, if you ask Americans, they say it’s George W. Bush.

Polling suggests that Bush is still broadly blamed for the current state of the economy, which almost certainly will be the top-of-the-mind voting issue this fall. Fifty nine percent of respondents from a Post/ABC News poll in April said Bush was more to blame for the current state of the economy while 25 percent put the blame on President Obama.

So he’s responsible for the terrible economy, for job loss, for the wars we’re still in, and, oh yeah, he’s wildly unpopular! In fact, the percentage of people who view him positively (29 percent in an NBC/WSJ poll) is lower than the percentage of people who view him very unfavorably.

So we have nothing but praise for Pete Sessions and John Cornyn. We hope they Keep tying themselves to George W. Bush. We hope they keep saying they’ll support extending his tax cuts for the wealthy, while fighting against providing unemployment benefits for out-of-work Americans. We hope they keep saying they’ll return to the policies George W. Bush championed (and John Cornyn voted for 90.8 percent of the time).

Sounds like a brilliant election strategy to us. We don’t miss George W. Bush the president, but it sure is nice to have him back for another election.

John Boehner – before the bill has passed – is already calling for its repeal.

Why?

Because he’s a total motherfucker.

I think it ought to be repealed,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner, in response to a question from TPMDC, at his weekly press conference Thursday.

Well good luck, fuckstick, but you have some serious problems. 1) This bill is broadly popular with Americans. 2) Some members of your own party like it. 3) Obama will sign the bill and make it law. 4) Even if you win majorities in the House and Senate this fall, Obama will veto any repeal you offer up. 5) You’ll never get 67 votes to override the veto.

So fuck off. Go support the economy by using a tanning bed and paying the 10 percent tax on it, dick.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, three weeks ago we wrote that teabaggers were missing an opportunity to prove they’re not racist assholes. Consider that opportunity missed. Permanently. From Talking Points Memo:

Tea Party activists are riding to Arizona’s rescue in the state’s time of need.

Conservative activists recently launched a “Buycott”, urging people to support and do business with several Arizona-based companies, including US Airways, Best Western, and U-Haul. And others are planning a rally to “Stand With Arizona.”

Any group that would prop up a shitty corporation such as US Airways may not be a racist, but it certainly is made up of dumb, undiscerning sons of bitches. On the count of three, name a worse airline.

Ha! You can’t do it. Moving on:

Gina Loudon, a St. Louis-based Tea Party leader, who helped get the Buycott off the ground and is tracking its impact, told TPMmuckraker that it likely has generated “hundreds of thousands of dollars,” in spending for the companies involved, but said she hadn’t yet had a chance to count the receipts she’s been sent. “The numbers are probably astounding, as soon as I have time to add them up,” she said.

Loudon recently helped organize similar Buycotts of Ford and Whole Foods, after both companies came under fire from progressive activists. “I can’t imagine right now in this American economy that anybody wants a boycott of anything,” she said. “I think it’s incredibly destructive.”

Sure. Teabaggers: Spend money you claim you don’t have in the effort to prop up companies that…

Oh, forget it. This Arizona story gets more and more retarded every day. But the best part is the following statement from the “Stand With Arizona.”

Arizona is under heavy fire from the left-wing bullies for trying to protect its own citizens from the ravages of illegal immigration. The entire state is being attacked as ‘racist,’ ‘nazi’ and ‘extremist.’ (Sound familiar?) The left-wing bullies believe they can target, isolate and neutralize Arizona, and thereby pressure the people of Arizona to stop enforcing the law.

Yes, it does sound familiar! That’s what teabaggers call Barack Obama each day and twice on Sunday!

But in all honesty, is anyone surprised that a group of people who think the tanning tax is racist can’t see the connection between the Arizona law and race-based discrimination?

If you’re not surprised, you’re thinking. If you answered, “THE TANNING TAX IS RACIST, F.U. COMMIE,” you’re a teabagger.

In Facebook messages visible to the world — not to mention their students — the teachers have called Christie fat, compared him to a genocidal dictator and wished he was dead. The postings are often riddled with bad grammar and misspellings.

“Never trust a fat f…,” read one profane post on the Facebook page, “New Jersey Teachers United Against Governor Chris Christie’s Pay Freeze,” which has some 69,000 fans, many of them teachers.

One educator, a librarian with a Master’s degree, described the cuts as “rediculous.”

Another pointed out that Christie’s late mother was a member of the teachers union: “It’s not right to bite the hand that feeds you. Oh I forgot it’s Chirs Christie, He’s so large I bet he’d bite anything that’s put in front of his face!”

While in fact it may be true that Christie would bite anything put in front of his face (because he’s fat), certainly Facebook is no place for assaults on decency. Have you no shame, teachers!? Think about the children! What will the next generation of New Jerseyans look like if you keep this up? (Answer: something like this)

Of course, not to be out-fist-pumped, Christie’s defenders also took to Facebook:

Christie’s supporters have responded with a Facebook page of their own. “Teachers need to sit down and shut up. They live in a dream world where they work 180 days a year,” it asserted. “Way overpaid to start with, they could never make it working in the real world.”

Oh, New Jersey. What would we ever do without you?

First: We’ve seen their signs and heard them speak and wonder just what degrees they could possibly hold.

Second: Go fuck yourselves, teabaggers.

But just for shits and giggles, let’s discuss their corporate sponsored document!

We, the undersigned, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.

Know what? There’s nothing inherently insane in that paragraph. Unless you count the fact that most of the things they’re asking for are fucking stupid.

Individual Liberty

Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.

A gripe against the health care purchase mandate, though veiled here. No surprise.

Limited Government

The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.

You’ll find lots of people with lots of different ideas about what government is or is not. Exactly how the government is increasing its power in the marketplace, we’re not sure, and of course the teabaggers are not specific here.

Economic Freedom

The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.

The free market also has the power to destroy the lives of many of its country’s citizens, but why let a little thing like regulating derivatives stop the free market? Just how many teabaggers are actually voting against their own self interests? Let’s start with Joe the Plumber.

1. Protect the Constitution

Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%)

Grow up.

2. Reject Cap & Trade

Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures. (72.20%)

Prove that Cap & Trade does any of those things, and we’re on board.

3. Demand a Balanced Budget

Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike. (69.69%)

Really? You want Medicare and Social Security but you don’t want to pay for them? Is that what we’re hearing? Check out this Boston Globe article if you think we’re being reductive.

While we’re at it, since teabaggers didn’t voice gripes when we went to war in Iraq – which we couldn’t pay for, by the way – we can only assume that you’ll be approving the tax hike to pay for it. Right?

4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform

Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution. (64.90%)

Syntax alert! The word “original” before the word “Constitution” is totally unnecessary because there’s only one Constitution. In fact, that’s why we capitalize it! The Articles of Confederation were a constitution, but since they didn’t work and there’s no one claiming that we would have been better with the Articles, there’s no reason to call the Constitution “original.” It’s just the Constitution.

Further: Teabaggers are idiots. Say we cap federal income tax at 13%. Person A makes $27,000 and therefore must pay $3,510 in federal income tax. Person B makes $1,270,000 a year. That person would owe $165,100 in income tax. Call me crazy, but I think Person A needs his $3,510 more than Person B needs his $165,100. Not saying Person A should be off the hook entirely. Just sayin’

Oh, just saying teabaggers are heartless assholes.

5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington

Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning. (63.37%)

We’re all for reducing the size of government. Thanks for enlarging it, George W. Bush! If someone can find a way to govern 307,000,000 people while reducing the size of the government and making it more efficient, rock ‘n’ roll. Our suggestion: Hire Jack Welch to do the audit. Of course, his fee and the fees of the people performing the audit will raise the debt by millions and perhaps billions of dollars, but you have to spend to cut sometimes.

6. End Runaway Government Spending

Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57%)

Also, demand the president have Congress declare war before, say, invading Iraq with no plan to contain costs or abruptly end soldiers’ lives needlessly.

Define “growth.” Also, look into the future and see when the next financial crisis is going to happen so that no one can authorize a TARP-like bill that dishes out taxpayer money that hasn’t been collected.

7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care

Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries. (56.39%)

“Defund” isn’t a word. This idea would be great, by the way, if there were government-run health care. Unless the teabaggers are talking about Medicare and Medicaid, which we assume they now want repealed.

8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy

Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs. (55.51%)

Vague. So, so, so vague. Explain, please.

9. Stop the Pork

Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%)

Since earmarks make up about 1% of the budget, they really aren’t a big problem. They’re more of a political problem than a fiscal problem. But since teabaggers seem to focus on the money that goes into them – and 1% of trillions of dollars is nothing to sneeze at – we can really focus attention elsewhere.

10. Stop the Tax Hikes

Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011. (53.38%)

How can you permanently repeal a tax hike if you also want to approve tax hikes with a two-thirds vote? (See #3.) THINK.

Ninety-five percent of American got a tax cut in 2009. That’s more Americans than Bush’s tax cuts ever benefited. And since the tax hikes the teabaggers are referring to will happen when Bush’s tax cuts expire, they can’t really blame Obama for that. But they will.

So that’s what we think of the Contract from America. But here’s what we dislike most: The fake signature at the bottom of it is from the America People.

We at SCFOM are Americans. Born and raised. We work. We pay taxes. We put up with teabaggers and their John Galt nonsense every day. They’ve gone too far this time. Kindly remove “The American People” from the signature line, or at least amend it to “The American People, except for Dave and Josh.”

We can’t speak for the rest of the country.

What started as a Web site that was intended to be a spot in which we as reporters (and consumers) could gripe about the state of reporting, news, politics, pop culture and sports has become a place where we gripe about the state of reporting, news, politics, pop culture and sports. So mission accomplished! USA! USA!

Yeah, yeah. We get a lot of crap for people not liking our points of view. What stuns us — though by this point, it shouldn’t — is how many people have opinions about the goings-on of this country — and other countries — without having any idea what the fuck they’re talking about. Just look at — let’s see — nearly any post and the comments that follow to see what we mean.

Some things we’ve learned:

• Jim Carrey’s not as dumb as we thought.
• The south is still fighting the Civil War.
• Everyone loves a good Sarah Palin post.
• Some people are so crazy that it’s amazing they can function.
• Virginia is for lovers, and Texas is for the batshit crazy (with a few notable exceptions, of course).
• Quentin Tarantino’s defenders, after coming across like dicks, can be kind of nice in a condescending way.
• Josh sunburns easily.
• Dave hates rednecks.
• Mexican Josh is a great addition to the team. (Also, he’s a real person, not just Josh in a sombrero.)
• Therapists love us. (Draw your own conclusions.)

So to our friends, thanks for being with us this year. There’s nothing like someone sending you a quick e-mail to let you know you’re “way off the fucking mark” but still agreeing to have breakfast with you Saturday to know that there’s still a way to have civil debate in this country. And to our detractors, we really do it all for you. So thank you. And fuck you, too.

The average income reported by the 400 highest-earning U.S. households grew to almost $345 million in 2007, up 31 percent from a year earlier, Internal Revenue Service statistics show.

The figures for 2007, the last year of an economic expansion, show that average income reported by the top 400 earners more than doubled from $131.1 million in 2001. That year, Congress adopted tax cuts urged by then-President George W. Bush that Democrats say disproportionately benefits the wealthy.

Each household in the top 400 of earners paid an average tax rate of 16.6 percent, the lowest since the agency began tracking the data in 1992, the statistics show. Their average effective tax rate was about half the 29.4 percent in 1993, the first year of President Bill Clinton’s administration, when taxes were increased.

As noted over at Think Progress, to put that in perspective, while the top 400 households in this country earned $138 billion in 2007, the 24 million households that make up the bottom fifth of the income ladder in this country earned a combined $247 billion.

Even more amazing, almost three-quarters of the top earners’ income comes in the form of capital gains, which are now taxed at a 15-percent rate because of Bush’s tax cuts.

Gee, is anyone out there an economist? We’re having a hard time figuring out where the Clinton budget surplus went. Socialism or not, we wouldn’t mind seeing the tax rate on these folks (and their capital gains) put back where they were during the Clinton administration. The transfer of the tax burden from wealth to work should be shifted back where it belongs.

We can’t make this shit up. Check out the source material for this piece:

It’s never too early to start hunting.

One has to wonder if there’s any irony in that lede sentence.

That’s the message in a bill state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, is carrying that encourages the purchase of lifetime hunting licenses for children younger than 2 years old.

If the “infant hunting” legislation were passed into law, permits would cost $125 for a Virginia citizen and be valid for the person’s lifetime so long as the individual passes a hunter education course at age 12.

At present, junior hunting licenses valid up to age 12 cost $250 for state residents.

Of course, the whole notion doesn’t reeeally make sense. Because:

There is no minimum hunting age in Virginia, but children younger than 12 must be supervised by a licensed adult hunter. While that concept might seem foreign to some, it isn’t uncommon for children to be exposed to hunting at an early age in his part of the state, said Deeds, a pro-gun Democrat.

So if there’s no minimum hunting age in Virginia, and hunters have to pass a hunter education course at 12 (Sample question: Should you shoot at something wearing what appears to be an orange hat?), what’s the point?

In addition to promoting hunting, which the state wildlife agency considers a population-management tool, Virginia receives a federal reimbursement of roughly $20 for each license it sells.

Ah. Exploiting children for financial gain. That’s charming. Finally, something that makes “Toddlers & Tiaras” seem not so evil. And if you don’t buy our view, just check out Stephen Colbert’s take.

Haiti. The country you don’t give a shit about. Then an earthquake hits. Then you give a shit. And now I’m stuck listening to a ton of sanctimonious “I donated” bullshit, as if I need someone to clue me in to the fact that a 7.0 earthquake in a poverty-stricken nation is a big deal.

Instead of telling everyone on Facebook and the news to sod off, here’s what Gawker recommends we all do. I think they nailed it.

The best, most effective way to help is to give money, as you may have already figured out. And social networks can be very effective in soliciting micro-donations; by early this morning, over $2 million had been donated to Red Cross relief efforts via text message, something that your friends undoubtedly promoted heavily (“Text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to @RedCross efforts in Haiti”). This is one of the best uses of social networks.

Somewhat less effective is broadcasting to everyone you know that you just texted HAITI to 90999 and donated $10 to @RedCross efforts in Haiti. Yes, you get to feel virtuous, and possibly remind people that they too should donate. But really, your friends will probably just roll their eyes at you and think you are being sanctimonious.

Know how many of those notes I’ve deleted from my Facebook page in the last 24 hours? Seriously, more than I can count. Eye rolling aplenty, believe me.

Occupying the bottom of the effectiveness ladder are even emptier gestures like a “Twitter moment of silence” for the victims of the earthquake (how would that work, exactly?) or the craze that swept through Facebook last week, when women were posting the color of their bra as their Facebook status to supposedly, again, “raise awareness” about breast cancer.

Look, I understand that not everyone is going to go out and save the world single-handedly and that a lot of people are looking for ways to make a difference in their own, small way. But then donate money or start a campaign or do a half-marathon for lymphoma and spam all your Facebook friends for donations (strangely effective!). Don’t think that by posting the color of your bra that you’re changing the world.

Don’t tell me you donated. Ask me to donate! I don’t really care what you did! I certainly don’t think more or less of you because you did or didn’t donate money to Haitian earthquake relief, but I’ll definitely think less of you when you tell me how great you are for having donated.