These are the headlines that try readers' souls. An urban legend, like hell, is not easily conquered, as Mike Parry's continued campaigning against an imaginary EPA dust rule demonstrates.
One has to hand it to Huckle Media, publishers of the Owatonna People's Press, for at least putting Senator Mike Parry's notion of "common sense" within quotation marks. In Parry discusses ‘common sense’ there's this gem:
“Does it make good common sense for Congressman Walz to vote against agriculture?” Parry asked. “It’s exactly what he’s done. He voted against the Cambodian and Panama trade agreements. That’s about a $9 billion export market for this state of Minnesota.”
Parry said Walz has supported the Environmental Protection Agency, which Parry says wants to control the dust coming out of the back of a combine.
Perhaps Parry should take a refresher course on both his talking points and geography (perhaps he could sit in on one of Walz's guest social studies classes in district schools). Presumably, Parry is talking about the Colombian free trade agreement. Colombia and Cambodia? Close enough, one supposes; they both begin with a "C."
Walz wasn't against agriculture, but concerned about other issues. The Rochester Post Bulletin reported in October:
Walz voted for the South Korea Free Trade Agreement saying it will benefit farmers in southern Minnesota. But he voted against agreements with Colombia and Panama. He said he has serious concerns about Colombia's human rights record and corruption and instability in Panama.
“I believe that as the leader of the free world, the United States must be guided in its trade policy by our values,” he said in a written statement.
No doubt Parry is guided by his values, too: he's a ALEC member willing not only to allow corporations write the bills he introduces, but to craft fiscal notes for budgets in which work might be outsourced to them. Lovely.
And then there's that complete nonsense about combine dust. Since this is Mike Parry, it's not surprising that he keeps spouting material that was stale in November, as BSP noted in Emo Senator: battling phantom EPA dust menace key to Parry's totally straightforward campaign:
Bluestem agrees that a rule against combine dust would be devastating to farmers. However, far more devastating to the political process is basing campaigns on pure cow flops, as legendary Minnesota politician Magnus Johnson liked to point out about the Republican platform of his time.
Parry is riding that manure spreader. The Washington Post reported in Bill to ban phantom EPA dust rule approved by House panel:
Earlier this year, Republicans found what they saw as an ideal talking point to illustrate a federal bureaucracy gone batty.
The Environmental Protection Agency, they warned, was trying to regulate something only God could control: the dust in the wind.
“Now, here comes my favorite of the crazy regulatory acts. The EPA is now proposing rules to regulate dust,” Rep. John Carter (R-Tex.) said on the House floor. He said Texas is full of dusty roads: “The EPA is now saying you can be fined for driving home every night on your gravel road.”
There was just one flaw in this argument: It was not true.
The EPA’s new dust rule did not exist. It never did.
Still, the specter of this rule has spurred three bills to prevent it , one of which was approved Thursday by a House subcommittee. It sparked a late-night battle on the Senate floor. GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain cited it in a debate as a reason to eliminate the EPA.
The hubbub over this phantom rule — surely one of the most controversial regulations that never was — involved a slow-moving federal agency and a Republican Party with the EPA in its crosshairs.
"Common sense" like that possessed by Mike Parry makes nincompoopery completely redundant.
Photoshop image: Fiddle-dee-dee on geography and facts, Flouncette O'Parry. Image by Tild
Bonus: Some campaign advice from Weird Al Yankovic:
Words fail me. Each time I try to determine who is the more delusional -- or reality-avoiding, or amoral -- of the two, Mike Parry or Allen Quist, I can only resort to trying to plot their positions on this chart: http://vagabondscholar.blogspot.com/2010/11/stupid-evil-crazy-vortex.html
As I said in the comments to that post:
-- I want to note that the effects of long-term chronic cognitive dissonance tend to lead a person into the center of the vortex. That is, if they didn't start out stupid and/or crazy, the perceived need to justify actions they know in their hearts to be immoral winds up taxing their intellect and their sanity.
-- This is how someone like Alan Dershowitz, who started out as a brilliant man, can wind up being reduced to defending Glenn Reynolds' and Sarah Palin's abuse of the term "blood libel", something even known conservative Abe Foxman won't do.
-- This is how Victor Davis Hanson can go from being a moderately-respected historian to the intellectual equivalent of a troll under a bridge.
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | Feb 12, 2012 at 11:19 AM