Daily Grumble

Today's reading of the Constitution on the floor of the U.S. House is the most asinine bit of grandstanding faux patriotism since BeckStock. From Twitter: "Just need more USA flags and 'We're Number One' foam fingers during Constitution reading to make it complete." I think they should insert the word "totally" wherever it's hilarious.

J.K. Rowling Wants To Pay Her Share

Unlike many of Britain's uber-wealthy, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling isn't dodging her taxes by setting up a home in another country.

I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s. A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism.

Yes, that IS a notion of patriotism that we like.

Right-Wing Comes Swinging For Fox News Anchor Shepard Smith

Today's top story on World Net Daily, the most widely-read conservative site in nation, is not an alarmed recapping of yesterday's Holocaust Memorial shooting, but rather a blistering attack on Fox News anchor Shepard Smith for his righteous worry about the alarming state of an increasingly extremist-laden America in which even the nationality of our president is questioned.

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, host of the top-rated evening cable newscast, believes Americans challenging the eligibility of Barack Obama to hold the office of president are "crazies," saying "there is no truth whatsoever" to the suggestion Obama is not a "natural born citizen." Smith made the remark during analysis of today's shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where an elderly gunman opened fire with a rifle, killing a security guard before himself being shot. Police were probing an alleged white supremacist, James von Brunn, as the assailant. During his interview with Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Smith said: "There are these crazies out there who want to pretend [Obama's] not a citizen of the United States, who want to pretend that his religion is something they see as in some way troublesome to them and all of us. And there is a group perpetuating this thought, and there is a culture to which you can attach yourself very easily through the Internet. ... We know it's absolutely – there is no truth whatsoever – zero – to any of those ideas, yet they live within the computer and they fester in people's minds."

WND then goes on to dig up ten year-old dirt on Smith, going into great detail about a completely unrelated parking incident in which he struck a woman with his car. Because that is more important than decrying a racist murder in the nation's capital. Most of the emails that Smith reads on-air in the clip below probably came from Free Republic, where members are staging a letter writing campaign calling for his dismissal for his "anti-patriot rantings."