The Mental Giants At The Helm

Moe Lane at RedState:

This is one of those 'funny when it happens to other countries' stories.  Some background: Senator Tom Harkin (D) of Iowa, having happily participated in saddling the American people with trillions of dollars of generational debt at the behest of his liberal party leadership, has decided to make things right for folks by introducing a bill to cap ATM fees.

Gee.  Thanks, Tommie.

Anyway, the bill died, but not before Senator Ben Nelson (D) of Nebraska reminded us that he lives in a wonderful, magic bubble land where things just sort of… happen… for him.  By invisible gnomes, no doubt:

The Nebraska Democrat pleaded ignorance when asked this week whether Congress should cap ATM fees. Nelson said that while he's no fan of unnecessary fees, he's unfamiliar with the charges.

"I've never used an ATM, so I don't know what the fees are," Nelson said, adding that he gets his cash from bank tellers, just not automatic ones. "It's true, I don't know how to use one.

"But I could learn how to do it just like I've . . . I swipe to get my own gas, buy groceries. I know about the holograms."

As Andrew Malcolm helpfully notes, "Hologram is Nelson for bar codes, those collections of little black lines on virtually every single product sold in America that tell genies inside magical little scanning machines how much to charge the purchaser in American currency." In other words, Andrew is as amused-appalled as I am at the thought that the good people of Nebraska continue to elect this man to the Senate. Although it may be that they've decided that electing him keeps him out of Nebraska; while that's a definite argument, it's kind of hard on the rest of the country…

Moe Lane

PS: He's not up until 2012, more's the pity.

And people like Nelson are the mental giants running the biggest economy, the most powerful military, and the driving force in the world today?!

Egad.

There's my two cents.