Jimmy Zuma
- Location
- Washington, District of Columbia,
- Birthday
- August 01
- Bio
- After ten years haunting online political forums and much longer as a disability rights advocate, Jimmy Zuma started the online political journal, Smart v. Stupid. Since then, he has emerged as one of the left’s most direct new voices.
Almost immediately, Jimmy was offered the opportunity to join the political team at Technorati where he writes DC Water Cooler, a weekly feature on what the politicians and pundits are talking about. Most recently, his columns began appearing in the Tucson Sentinel in Tucson Arizona. He is also an occasional contributor to OpEd News.
Jimmy's goal is to return vetting to the marketplace of ideas, by elevating the status of smart ideas and debunking dumb ones.
MY RECENT POSTS
- Why “Income Inequality” is
a losing issue and how to fix
it
May 25, 2012 08:17AM - How the Supreme Court ruined
your child’s civics
education
May 17, 2012 10:26PM - Charting the rise of stupidity
May 11, 2012 08:12AM - The ignoble death of Arizona
racist J.T. Ready
May 03, 2012 08:22PM - Mitt Romney’s “bless his
little heart” strategy in
post-raci
April 27, 2012 08:18AM
MY RECENT COMMENTS
- “"Aspirational lunacy," a
perfect description.”
May 25, 2012 12:37PM - “You could ask Amy, Tom.
She was directly involved in
the
effort to recall
Pearce.…”
May 04, 2012 11:55PM - “I watched Ann Romney say
that Mitt only put the dog on
the
roof that one time
--…”
April 20, 2012 01:16PM - “Got a good chuckle out
of this one,
Steve.
But let's not
go overboard. All we
kno…”
April 20, 2012 01:11PM - “That was a great story
that caught my eye --
immediately --
in the email
newslett…”
April 20, 2012 12:06PM
Jimmy Zuma's Links
- Author's Blog
- The Average Liberal
- Smart v. Stupid
With Occupy Wall Street sputtering during its spring reboot, it
looks like the movement that dominated last year’s political
discussion may not repeat. That’s not entirely unexpected.
OWS promoted two concepts, one that resonated with Americans
and one that didn’t. 
The… Read full post »
How the Supreme Court ruined your child’s civics education
Excerpted from the forthcoming book, The Rise of Stupidity – how dumb ideas are remaking America in their own image
In the 1980s the United States was in one of its periodic
one-step-forward, two-steps-back conservative retrenchments. The
battles for
Civil Rights and the Vietnam… Read full post »
Charting the rise of stupidity
The following is excerpted from the forthcoming book, The Rise of Stupidity – how dumb ideas are remaking America in their own image.
The joke goes, “If Rick Perry wants Texas to secede, let’s pay him to go. If he takes Florida too, I’d give him a… Read full post »
The ignoble death of Arizona racist J.T. Ready
Last week I offered Russell Pearce’s anti-Mexican jihad as an example of the kind of overt racism that is no longer tolerated in politics. Now just a few days later we learn that J.T. Ready, Arizona’s leading white supremacist, appears to have killed himself. He also allegedly murder… Read full post »
Mitt Romney’s “bless his little heart” strategy in post-raci
Now that Mitt Romney is the presumptive Republican nominee,
we’re starting to get indications of his general election
strategy. Apart from 
trying to etch-a-sketch
the radical-right positions he took in the primary, what is
emerging is an election strategy based on two tactics: be… Read full post »
Ted Nugent just said some really crazy stuff. But he has a very
important reason to get himself in the news. He’s launching
his own line of Ted
Nugent brand ammunition.
Despite his nutty ranting, you actually have nothing to fear from Ted Nugent. In Nugent-world he’s a… Read full post »
Marco Rubio to GOP: Kill me now, OK?
The endorsement of Mitt Romney by Florida Senator Marco Rubio
signals the end of the Republican primary. He joins other tea party
darlings, 
among them Utah Senator Mike Lee and South
Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, in bowing to the inevitability of a
Romney candidacy.… Read full post »
Trayvon Martin and Florida’s Right to Murder Law
Florida’s law makes it dead easy to get away with murder
Trayvon Martin was 17 when he was killed –
almost a man. But anyone who heard
his screams for help on the 911 tape, followed by gunshots,
knows that a child was killed that… Read full post »
Democracy lost: unraveling Limbaugh from his boycott
To be fair, Rush Limbaugh and his legion of “ditto heads” have a point. Whenever I think of him, my mind automatically adds the honorific “that asshole” to his name as in “that asshole Rush Limbaugh.” Back when I used to care what he said, I frequently called Limba… Read full post »
On Syria McCain reminds us why we voted for Obama
Arizona Senator John McCain is at it again. This week he upbraided Defense Secretary Leon Panetta for failing to deploy US troops to fight in the ongoing civil war in Syria. McCain could hardly contain himself as Panetta finished his opening remarks, squirming like a first-grader needing a… Read full post »
AZ primary exit polls: A moderate conservative is emerging
You could be forgiven for imagining that everyone in Arizona is as rabid as the Governor, Jan Brewer. If you live in the rest of the country – especially anywhere in Blue America – it is easy to believe that the
megalomaniacal sheriffs,
illegal-stomping senators, and finge… Read full post »
Is birth control the new third rail of politics?
The heart stopping moment in the CNN Arizona Republican debate came when a citizen named T’sah posed a simple, online question,
The… Read full post »
A Mormon, a nutbag and a lunatic walk into a bar…
The low quality of Republican candidates continues to haunt the party. Each remaining contender for the nomination is wildly weird, each more hooker than prom date.
First up, the strangely robotic Mitt Romney (R—Finance Industry). Kind of out of touch,… Read full post »
US Constitution: the Bishops don’t get a veto
A civics lesson for John Boehner and the Bishops
The first thing you need to know is that bishops don’t get
a veto. Given the hyperbolic rhetoric now spewing from the likes of
Boehner, Gingrich and 
Santorum, you could be forgiven for
believing that churches… Read full post »
Mainstream pundits join the War on Stupid
Arguably, few blogs have garnered more criticism – simply
for their name – than my blog Smart v. Stupid. The usual gripe is
that it is arrogant to name and shame stupid (even though anyone
who read the blog would know we criticize stupid ideas not
stupid people.
… Read full post »
Sucks to be you, Evangelicals
Evangelical politicians are the guys who gather up
money and power by claiming God speaks to them. They prefer to be
called “social 
conservatives” as if they are
not entirely driven by religious fundamentalism. They have had a
pretty sucky week. After a long string… Read full post »
Today, most Americans see conflict between the rich and us
The United States has always had a culturally-enforced
taboo: don’t speak ill of the rich. If anyone thought or said
that the rich don’t play fair, they were simply a sore loser.
This taboo lasted much… Read full post »
The Republican religious war
Make no mistake – if Mitt Romney was a Baptist this thing would be over. But Citizen’s United unleashed a ton of Mormon money and Evangelicals are running scared.
What’s playing out in the GOP today isn’t a battle between moderates and conservatives – the party no longe… Read full post »
America dodges Armageddon
The life-altering events that didn’t happen in 2011
Our brave democracy survived 2011. But our brightest conservatives warn us that it was close. According to them, the end of our democracy is (still) just around the corner. Luckily, here’s some really bad stuff that didn&rsq… Read full post »
John Boehner – After the dead man walks
There is finally a tax cut deal. But not before Republicans started bleeding from the eyeballs. House Speaker John Boehner is in for a good cry. Or six.
Half a year ago, no one could have imagined this newly
competitive political landscape. Sure, teabag-terrorist
governors like Wisco… Read full post »
Hey Democrats, zip it!
There is an old adage in sales, “When the spouse is
selling your product for you, smile and nod and be quiet.”
Well, “be quiet” is actually the phrase that goes by
the initials, STFU. But you get the idea—the best 
person to make your… Read full post »
Here’s the latest wrap-up of the Republican primary polls.
- Gingrich leads—toping one third of likely “R” voters in several states.
- Tea-partyers break for Gingrich, despite all they’ve advocated up to now.
- Religious intolerance is alive and well.
- More … Read full post »
Quick, what are the top ten performing retail stocks this year?
Number one is Dollar Tree, one of those stores where everything costs a dollar, everything has “China” somewhere on the label, and quality is never the point–of–purchase reason. Number three is Dollar General… Read full post »
Whenever a campaign-killing allegation erupts—Bachmann’s Medicaid billing, Cain’s serial sexual harassment, Ron Paul’s eyebrow falling off, and now Gingrich’s lobbying scandal, the perp is quick to blame a Democratic conspiracy. OK, Ron Paul didn&… Read full post »
The day the tea party died
Once or twice a year too many political bombshells happen
to pick just one. This was one of those weeks. But unlike other
news-filled weeks, this one weaves a single narrative, the decline
of the tea party. Let’s dig in…
You’d have to be an RNC official to… Read full post »
Jeanette DeMain
Major Mojo
Jack Blackshear
Bob Calhoun
Steven Rockford
Kate Flannery
Salon.com