Saturday, October 5, 2013

Sarah Palin attempts to school the Mainstream Media in US Government 101. Turns out she is the one who slept through those lessons.

12:50 PM By


The above tweet showed up on Palin's account a couple of hours ago.

To be honest I was just going to ignore, especially since it only links to an article at Townhall attempting to blame the Democrats for the shutdown that Palin had no hand in writing, and I am tired of writing about her skinny wrinkled old ass.

However Philip Bump over at the Atlantic took notice, and since this was a growing meme within the conservative movement he decided to respond:

Since the debate over the budget began, a common argument from conservatives — renewed today by Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska — suggests that only the House has the right to decide what the budget should look like. This is obviously incorrect and easily corrected.

Palin jumps into the fray in her most recent Facebook exposition. "Gee Whiz," she writes, "If Even Little Ol' Me Understands U.S. Government 101 but MSM Doesn't…" Then she links to an essay by Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Foundation. It is titled, "Democrats Chose the Shutdown," and outlines a little of the ol' U.S. Government 101.

"You can check the Constitution of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which means that congressmen there have a right to decide whether or not they want to spend money on a particular government activity. ..."

" [T]he whole point of having a division of powers within the federal government is that each branch can decide independently what it wants to do or not do, regardless of what the other branches do, when exercising the powers specifically granted to that branch by the Constitution."

A related Examiner.com post, titled "Obamacare can be defunded without Senate approval," has gone viral among some conservatives. It doesn't take a lot to understand why this argument is compelling to Republicans. The House is the one part of the legislative branch that the party controls, so an argument that the Senate only has veto power over what the House wants to do with money is compelling. Ergo, "Democrats chose the shutdown," because the branch of Congress that's allowed to decide how to spend had that decision rejected.

It also doesn't take a lot to see why this is wrong. Sowell's essay appeared at the National Review's website. As did two essays from Matthew Franck, pointing out that Sowell's thesis (as conveyed by another conservative writer) is entirely wrong, in letter and spirit. Here's the most recent, bearing the evocative title, "Yet Again on the Origination Clause." Franck's argument, in its shortest form: The House isn't given the power to originate spending bills and, even if it were, it's only in consensus with the Senate.

After that civics lesson Bump goes on to provide documentation straight from the Constitution to back up his point. After which he takes one more well deserved dig at the Lunatic from Lake Lucille.

Point being: Sarah Palin is wrong. Whoever was screening students to see if they were ready for Constitution 101 fell down on the job.

So once again Palin wades into a battle that she is woefully ill prepared to wage, and ends up not only getting her ass handed to her, but the asses of those who she associated her name with as well.

Sarah Palin attempts to school the Mainstream Media in US Government 101. Turns out she is the one who slept through those lessons.
Dammit! What do I pay all those advisers for?


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