How Much Does Idiocy Cost?

In this case, $20k:

A federal judge in Georgia has ordered the US Attorney to collect a $20,000 judgment against Orly Taitz after the Birther attorney failed to pay the fine -- which she appealed -- within 30 days.

Here's the full order from Judge Clay Land, of the US District Court in the Middle District Of Georgia:

"Orly Taitz has failed to pay the $20,000.00 sanction ordered by the Court on October 13, 2009. Accordingly, the Clerk is ordered to enter final judgment in favor of the United States of America and against Orly Taitz in the principal amount of $20,000.00. The United States Attorney is authorized and directed to collect the judgment as provided by law.

IT IS SO ORDERED, this 13th day of November, 2009."

Land imposed the fine a month ago, citing repeated frivolous filings by Taitz in the suit, which was originally about a claim by Taitz's Army captain client that she should not have to follow deployment orders because Barack Obama is not legitimately president. In an interview with TPMmuckraker that same day, a defiant Taitz declared she would not pay the fine.

I Love This

God help me -- I do love it so:

In what could be a nightmare scenario for Republican Party officials, conservative activists are gearing up to challenge leading GOP candidates in more than a dozen key House and Senate races in 2010.

Conservatives and tea party activists had already set their sights on some of the GOP’s top Senate recruits — a list that includes Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida, former Rep. Rob Simmons in Connecticut and Rep. Mark Kirk in Illinois, among others.

But their success in Tuesday’s upstate New York special election, where grass-roots efforts pushed GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava to drop out of the race and helped Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman surge into the lead on the eve of Election Day, has generated more money and enthusiasm than organizers ever imagined.

Activists predict a wave that could roll from California to Kentucky to New Hampshire and that could leave even some GOP incumbents — Utah Sen. Bob Bennett is one — facing unexpectedly fierce challenges from their right flank. ***

The imminent civil war within the ranks of the GOP is going to be great. Moderate Republicans will almost certainly have to adopt radical, far right positions in order to appease the tea-bagging birther lunatics.

Go Palin and Limbaugh!

Speaking of Palin, this is pretty funny:

According to a new book, Sarah from Alaska by Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe, tensions within Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign "boiled over on Election Night last November when Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, repeatedly ignored directions from senior staffers who told her she would not be delivering her own concession speech," CNN reports.

"Palin's speechwriter Matthew Scully had prepared a brief speech for the then-Alaska governor to deliver while introducing McCain, before he gave his concession speech at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix. But after conferring in his suite with senior advisers Mark Salter, Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt, McCain nixed the idea of having Palin speak before him."

Even though Schmidt broke the news to Palin, she told to a staff member: "I'm speaking. I've got the remarks. Figure it out." * * *

Palin ended up not speaking, so I guess they figured it out.

This Is A Real Problem For The GOP

Folks are still blaming Bush for the bad economy (and this is from a Fox News poll!):

Asked which president is “more responsible for the current state of the economy,” only 18 percent say President Obama. Fifty-eight percent say former President George W. Bush. Nine percent blame both of them. Republicans are the only subgroup of voters who blame Obama, and only by a six-point margin of 35 percent to 29 percent.

What’s striking about this is that the numbers have only marginally gotten worse for President Obama in the three months since Fox News last asked this question. In July, it was 16 percent who blamed Obama and 61 percent who blamed Bush. That is, needless to say, not what Fox News viewers hear when they tune into the network. But it’s essential to understanding why the president remains popular and why Republicans are failing to really capitalize on economic gloom.

Unless things start getting better soon (and they probably won't), Obama will eventually get the blame for all this. But I am nonetheless amazed that all the talk from Limbaugh and Company about how this is Obama's economy really hasn't sunk in much. Maybe that has something to do with this Obama statement from last July:

"I love the folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, 'Well, this is Obama's economy,'" the president told an outdoor crowd at Macomb Community College, veering off his scripted words. "That's fine. Give it to me. My job is to solve problems, not to stand on the sidelines and harp and gripe."

I Guess This Kinda Backfired

Blue Cross/Blue Shield customers in North Carolina are a little pissed off right now (from AmericaBlog):

First, they learned their rates will rise by an average of 11 percent next year.

Next, they opened a slick flier from the insurer urging them to send an enclosed pre-printed, postage-paid note to Sen. Kay Hagan denouncing what the company says is unfair competition that would be imposed by a government-backed insurance plan. The so-called public option is likely to be considered by Congress in the health-care overhaul debate.

"No matter what you call it, if the federal government intervenes in the private health insurance market, it's a slippery slope to a single-payer system," the BCBS flier read. "Who wants that?"

Plenty of people, it turns out.

Indignant Blue Cross customers have rebelled against the insurer's message, complaining that their premium dollars have funded such a campaign.

They've hit the Internet in a flurry of e-mails to friends and neighbors throughout the state. They've called Hagan's office to voice support for a public option. They've marked through the Blue Cross message on their postcards to instead vouch support, then dropped them in the mail -- in at least one case taped to a brick -- to be paid on Blue Cross' dime. Or dimes.

Breaking News: Louisiana Justice Of The Peace Actually Lets Black Folks Inside His Home

From MSNBC:

A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

Neither Bardwell nor the couple immediately returned phone calls from The Associated Press. But Bardwell told the Daily Star of Hammond that he was not a racist.

"I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house," Bardwell said. "My main concern is for the children." * * *

And hold on to your hats -- he even lets negroes use his bathroom:

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

Is it too late to nominate this guy for an NAACP Image Award?

Quote Of The Week

"Hey, we weren't paid to evaluate the effects of the entire bill, but rather a small slice of it."

From a statement put out last night by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the author of a report for the insurance industry which claimed that health care costs would increase in a big way if Democratic reforms were enacted.

I've reevaluated World War II using the PricewaterhouseCoopers methodology; and focusing solely on the Pearl Harbor attack, I've concluded that the United States lost.

Konnichiwa.

Hilarious (With Update)

The radical, America-hating right-wing extremists in this country are furious that Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize:

For Obama's critics, * * * the Nobel Prize has touched a far more bitter nerve -- affirming their firmly-held beliefs that the president is more symbolism than substance and that he's accomplished little of note on the international stage except to serve as an emblem of U.S. repentance for the Bush years.

"This fully exposes the illusion that is Barack Obama," conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh told Politico via e-mail. "And with this 'award' the elites of the world are urging Obama, THE MAN OF PEACE, to not do the surge in Afghanistan, not take action against Iran and its nuclear program and to basically continue his intentions to emasculate the United States... They love a weakened, neutered U.S and this is their way of promoting that concept. I think God has a great sense of humor, too."

"I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota," wrote Erick Erickson, of the site RedState.com, "but that is the only thing I can think of for this news."

"Obama isn't the first American president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, but he's the first to win it without having accomplished anything," wrote John Miller, of the National Review. "Obama's award is simply the projection of wishful thinking."

"The prize seems not just premature but embarrassing," wrote Mark Krikorian, also on The National Review, "this just reinforces the Saturday Night Live meme that Obama has done nothing. This really might be his Carter whacking-the-bunny-rabbit moment."

Indeed, an online petition was started just hours after the announcement was made, objecting to the "absurd decision to award B. Obama Nobel Peace Prize."

And so, in the immediate aftermath, the meme had already been established -- seconded by the usual purveyors of conventional wisdom -- that the Nobel Prize was more burden than benefit for the White House. The conclusion: the president needed to turn the prize down.

"I predict right now that he will find a way to basically turn it down," Time Magazine's Mark Halperin told MSNBC's Morning Joe. "I think he is going to say, I share this with the world or whatever. I don't think he'll embrace this. Because there is no upside."

"The damage is done," added Mika Brzezinski shortly thereafter.

Obama's response to all this was perfect. He said that he did not think he deserved to be in the company of the others who had won it before him and that he wasn't certain he had done enough to earn the award, but that he will "accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the challenges of the 21st century."

I also enjoyed the DNC's take on this:

"The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists -- the Taliban and Hamas this morning -- in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize," wrote DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse. "Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize -- an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride -- unless of course you are the Republican Party. The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn. It's no wonder only 20 percent of Americans admit to being Republicans anymore - it's an embarrassing label to claim."

Beautiful.

UPDATE: Here's what John McCain had to say about all this:

JOHN KING: The president of the United States, who a year ago this weekend was your campaign rival heading into the final month of the campaign, is the Nobel Peace laureate for 2009. Deserved?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Oh, I’m sure that the president is very honored to receive this award. And Nobel Committee, I can’t divine all their intentions, but I think part of their decision-making was expectations. And I’m sure the president understands that he now has even more to live up to. But as Americans, we’re proud when our president receives an award of that prestigious category.

KING: Did it surprise you, a little more than eight months into office, at a time when, yes, he has set some lofty goals around the world, but he has not won more NATO troops for Afghanistan, he has not convinced the Israelis to do what he says is necessary to sit down with the Palestinians? Were you surprised?

MCCAIN: Well, I think all of us were surprised at — at the decision. But I — I think Americans are always pleased when their president is recognized by something on this order.

Well said.