Yes. You are shocked.
Very quickly, and to get this out of the way: the Online Left is babbling about supposedly-cut Texas firefighting budgets, mostly because they lack the research skills – or possibly, the native intelligence – to tell the difference between a $109 million Forest Service/Wildfire Fighting budget in 2010/2011, and a $196 million Forest Service/Wildfire Fighting budget for 2012/2013 (the 2012 fiscal year started at the beginning of this month). Fortunately, Battleswarm Blog can both think and do research – as seen here and here – which means that I don’t have to do any of the heavy lifting this time. Bottom line: never, ever stop just because you got the answer that you wanted.
[UPDATE: Via WILLisms, via @bdomenech, comes another reading error from the netroots. Tthat some of the n-dimensional geniuses over on that side of the blogosphere looked at last year’s Forest Service budget and inexplicably failed to notice that it included a one-time new equipment allocation: which caused them to mistake this year’s budget as a reduction. What makes it particularly funny is that the allocation was due to stimulus funds… which meant that in their haste to go negative, the netroots completely messed up the opportunity to make a positive argument about their policy positions. And they wonder why nobody respects them…]
But. Since we’re talking about supposed derelictions of duty, how about we talk about some of the stuff that the federal government is doing? – Or, more accurately, what the federal government is not doing. Continue reading Netroots blame wrong people for Texas wildfire problems.