Kansas congresscritter Todd Tiahrt prides himself on being a bedrock fiscal conservative. “We simply cannot trust the administration or the powers of Washington to voluntarily control spending,” he says.

Take his office. In 2008, Tiahrt spent $1.26 million running the joint. But thanks to recession-inspired belt-tightening, his 2009 budget was a mere $1.41 million.

Now that might look to you like an 11 percent jump. But you’re not taking into account perfectly understandable mitigating circumstances:

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Helen Smith, “a psychologist specializing in forensic issues” in Knoxville, Tennessee, poses today’s question:

Why are liberals unable to sympathize with conservatives? I offer three possibilities.

1. Lies about Iraq, lies about torture, lies about “Death Panels,” lies about climate change, lies about the Census, lies about upper-class tax cuts, lies about the Senate Parliamentarian, lies about the “Death Tax,” lies about the job performance of emergency-management administrators, lies about commonly used parliamentary procedures, lies about the birthplace and political views of democratically elected Presidents, lies about the Congressional Budget Office, lies about “defending” legally recognized cohabitation, lies about arbitrarily incarcerated foreign nationals, lies about decorated war veterans, lies about the nature of human sexual desire, lies about the political ambitions of evening cable-news hosts, lies about the agency of former Presidents in the dissolution of Communist nation-states, lies about the journalistic integrity of politically driven cable channels, lies about the size of racist protest crowds, lies about the efficiency of government programs that have been starved of revenue, lies about scientific theories of species development, lies about Leviticus being elective, lies about the racism of tanning-bed taxes, lies about plans to move to Costa Rica, lies about the lies they told yesterday, and lies about the nutritional value of ketchup.

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1. “Someone should paint a target on her back.”

2. “Next time you see her bus, pull it over and deliver a message for me.”

3. “People like her should be taught a lesson.”

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WorldNetDaily is out with its monthly Freedom Index, which measures — well, we’re not sure what it measures, but it’s at 46.7, dangerously close to its December low of 46.4, which makes us afraid for some vague reason.

We must be afraid, because WND tells us that “Democrats rammed through a bill that essentially nationalizes health care,” which certainly sounds bad, especially since they didn’t. So when that automated pollster rings our phone, we’ll be sure to express our WND-fueled fear in the strongest possible terms.

Although since one of the questions asks about the government spying on us, perhaps we should hang up.

But it’s another question that interests us:

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This has been around a couple weeks, but what the heck — it’s Friday, and we’ve lost track of who’s threatening whom. If you’re at work, we recommend you crank up your audio so everyone around you can hear it clearly. You’re welcome.

TPM has resorted to a dynamic Google map to track reports of major threats and vandalism — you’re invited to call it domestic terrorism — against Democrats.

Something like this really calls for a pool. And to get us started, Sarah Palin has provided the first entry:

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While we accept that the new healthcare law is an improvement over what preceded it, we’ve never been fans of the “individual mandate”. We understand the actuarial realities underpinning it, and we’re happy that those less fortunate than us will qualify for higher subsidies than we’re looking at.

But like we’ve said: Please don’t compare it to car insurance.

To which we now add: And please don’t compare it to militias.

We’re looking at you, ThinkProgress:

The truth… is that the Second Militia Act of 1792 required a significant percentage of the U.S. civilian population to purchase a long list of military equipment.

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