1: Jejune
2: Meretricious
3: Spendthrift
4: Crepuscular
Category: Uncategorized
The first [thing Michael Jordan’s oddly vindictive Hall of Fame induction speech makes clear] is that this induction was a formality that Jordan couldn’t enjoy the way a normal man might, since he’d lived almost half his life certain this moment was inevitable (it was like finally receiving a plaque for something he’d done in 1994). The second is that this speech was the last time anyone would think about Jordan as a living basketball player, and he knew it. Obviously, we’ll never stop talking about Jordan’s career, but — from now on — it will almost always be in reference to someone else.
Chuck Klosterman, writing for Grantland. One of the more perceptive paragraphs about sports (in general) and people like Jordan (in particular) that I’ve read.
Capital Gains Taxes make Baby Jesus Cry
Just a few details on the beliefs of those involved in Rick Perry’s Prayer Rally:
Oprah is a sign of the Apocalypse: In his channel on GOD TV, Mike Bickle
called Oprah a “forerunner to the harlot movement.”Blackbirds are dying because of gay soldiers: Dr. Cindy Jacobs recorded a
video declaring a connection between the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and
the sudden death of blackbirds in Beebee, Arkansas as a divine punishment.
She also called “girl-on-girl kissing” a “plague on society” and asked
divine forgiveness for the violation of a woman’s “natural use.”The Statue of Liberty is a “demonic idol” : In various sermons, John
Benefiel called the Statue of Liberty a “demonic idol.” He also expressed a
belief that homosexuality is a plot contrived by the Illuminati “to limit
the world population.”Hurricane Katrina was divine retribution for the city’s “sin”: John Hagee
Gay rights movement from the “pit of hell”: Dwight McKissic denounced
comparisons between the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement
because the latter is a “satanic anointment…inspired by the anti-Christ”
that comes from the “pit of hell.”Jesus actually opposed the minimum wage: Influential pastor David Barton
has made a name for himself by distorting Biblical text to support his claim
that Jesus opposed the minimum wage and the capital gains tax.
Frankly, I don’t see how anyone could have a problem with any of this. All perfectly reasonable stances for any and all putative nationwide candidates whom Serious People are begging to get into 2012.
Number Two
LA Times: “Investors are looking past the budget situation and realizing this is an austerity plan,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago. “We have an economy that’s struggling to stay afloat and we don’t have the ammunition to keep prodding it forward.”
Kevin Drum: Oh really? Now you tell us? There are really only two options here. (1) The Times is wrong. (2) The Times is right and America has the stupidest goddamn investors on the planet. For months they sat around cheering on the tea partiers and declaring solemnly that the federal budget was just like a household budget and we needed “real action” on the debt in order to build confidence in the economy. Then, suddenly, when they got it, they realized that what they really wanted wasn’t dumb slogans but actual policies that would help spur the recovery. And that means looser monetary policy and fiscal stimulus.
Lemkin: I’ll take #2 for $1000, Alex. Tea Klan nonsense works because it feels good. It’s fun to rage away and tilt at grand conspiratorial windmills. Never you mind that actions have consequences, many of which will have direct and painful consequences in your lives. FOXnews and its political wing, the GOP, have a President to defeat. Nothing else matters. Pure electoral nihilism.
Cuts from the Baseline are Still Cuts.
It is very amusing to watch people who typically spend a considerable portion of their day shrieking about inflation post a graph that has a discretionary spending rising at less than 2% per year in non-adjusted terms and then claim this doesn’t represent a cut in spending.
Inflation has a well known Liberal bias.
Here’s an idea: Democrats demand $100 billion in new tax revenue for every Democratic vote Boehner needs to pass this thing or we kill the hostage (e.g. ‘Merica).
Oh, and did we seem to have concluded an agreement just then? Sorry. We also want a Progressive Taxation amendment to the Constitution.
We’re seriously talking about defaulting on our debt, and cutting Medicare and Social Security, so that Google can keep paying its current 2.4 percent effective tax rate and GE, a company that received a $140 billion bailout en route to worldwide 2010 profits of $14 billion, can not only keep paying no taxes at all , but receive a $3.2 billion tax credit from the federal government. And nobody appears to give a shit. What the hell is wrong with people? Have we all lost our minds?
Matt Taibbi (via paxamericana)
No, Matt, we haven’t lost our minds. Instead, we’ve all been told for twenty years that government can do nothing right, that taxes are the root of all evil, and that anyone else receiving so much as one red cent of guvmint money is a freeloader and likely a sub-human of some variety.
No, Matt, we haven’t lost our minds. Instead, we’ve all been told for twenty years that government can do nothing right, that taxes are the root of all evil, and that anyone else receiving so much as one red cent of guvmint money is a freeloader and likely a sub-human of some variety.
Where’s the Left’s Grover Norquist, out there day in and day out agitating and extracting oaths over Social Security or Medicare or in favor of single payer health care? Where have they been for twenty years, messaging relentlessly, and not just when their pet subject is “in the news” for a week or two (and we’re lucky to get that)? Where have the folks been who organize guaranteed primary challenges of Democrats and Republicans who stray from their oaths? Where is the Progressive News Network, the most popular national news organ on television, daily vomiting outright lies and relentless spin tuned to the broader national political message and aimed squarely at the lowest common denominator?
Until some version of one or all these things show up: we will fail. This is why.
It is hard to come up with words that are strong enough to describe what an appalling display of misguided ego, inept negotiating postures, bad policy thinking, and utter disregard for the public interest are on display in [the debt ceiling] fiasco. But as a friend of mine likes to say, “Things always look darkest before they go completely black.”
Yves Smith, bringing the optimism.
It’s Congress that does the spending. The president is prohibited to do that. If he had the power to do that he would effectively be a dictator. There would be no reason for Congress to even come to Washington, D.C. He would be making the spending decisions … Clearly that’s unconstitutional.
Michele Bachmann, speaking to CNN’s American Morning.
Every now and then something true slips out of the GOP’s fetid maw. But, by all means, let’s pretend Obama and his “blank check” are what caused the current entirely invented “crisis.”
CNN’s headline for this small story? Why, of course it’s Bachmann Warns of ‘Dictator’ Obama. What other choice did they have?
Every now and then something true slips out of the GOP’s fetid maw. But, by all means, let’s pretend Obama and his “blank check” are what caused the current entirely invented “crisis.”
CNN’s headline for this small story? Why, of course it’s Bachmann Warns of ‘Dictator’ Obama. What other choice did they have?
In short, the Boehner plan would force policymakers to choose among cutting the incomes and health benefits of ordinary retirees, repealing the guts of health reform and leaving an estimated 34 million more Americans uninsured, and savaging the safety net for the poor. It would do so even as it shielded all tax breaks, including the many lucrative tax breaks for the wealthiest and most powerful individuals and corporations.
Robert Greenstein, writing about the “Boehner plan” at the nonpartisan CBPP.
Said it approximately one billion times: this isn’t some side affect. It’s the intended consequence. The debt ceiling is simply a useful construct for ramming the same old policy of “zero social safety net, all wealth and benefits to top 2%” GOP dream government setup. All it is, was, or ever will be. If they fix the debt ceiling this morning, they will be using the next federal budget (which will need to be done to have a government post-September) to push the exact same line by this afternoon.
The GOP does not care about deficits. If they did, they’d have taken any of the four increasingly huge deficit cutting plans offered them. They want low to nonexistent tax rates on the top 2%. Simple arithmetic will show anyone that this means eliminating the social safety net; as Ezra Klein has noted: the federal government is better thought of as an insurance conglomerate with a large standing army. To cut taxes to “GOP preferred” levels, services have to go. And to get rid of those hugely popular and helpful services, a large number of people using them have to be convinced said services (and government in general) aren’t working or even in their interest at all. This is the core GOP governing strategy in fifty words or less. Everything they have done and said in the past several decades of tight, lockstep messaging with the aid of the most popular “news” network on television has been aimed at and in service of making those 48 words reality.
Everyone not already up the ladder will kindly go die in the streets. Today they’re using the debt ceiling, tomorrow it will be the FY2012 budget, the next day it will be veterans benefits or whatever else comes to hand. And until they are forced to pay a steep political price for steadfastly using gridlock and economic hostage situations as a negotiating strategy, they will continue to use them. That Congressional and Executive Democrats seemingly haven’t figured this out yet is why they fail.
Said it approximately one billion times: this isn’t some side affect. It’s the intended consequence. The debt ceiling is simply a useful construct for ramming the same old policy of “zero social safety net, all wealth and benefits to top 2%” GOP dream government setup. All it is, was, or ever will be. If they fix the debt ceiling this morning, they will be using the next federal budget (which will need to be done to have a government post-September) to push the exact same line by this afternoon.
The GOP does not care about deficits. If they did, they’d have taken any of the four increasingly huge deficit cutting plans offered them. They want low to nonexistent tax rates on the top 2%. Simple arithmetic will show anyone that this means eliminating the social safety net; as Ezra Klein has noted: the federal government is better thought of as an insurance conglomerate with a large standing army. To cut taxes to “GOP preferred” levels, services have to go. And to get rid of those hugely popular and helpful services, a large number of people using them have to be convinced said services (and government in general) aren’t working or even in their interest at all. This is the core GOP governing strategy in fifty words or less. Everything they have done and said in the past several decades of tight, lockstep messaging with the aid of the most popular “news” network on television has been aimed at and in service of making those 48 words reality.
Everyone not already up the ladder will kindly go die in the streets. Today they’re using the debt ceiling, tomorrow it will be the FY2012 budget, the next day it will be veterans benefits or whatever else comes to hand. And until they are forced to pay a steep political price for steadfastly using gridlock and economic hostage situations as a negotiating strategy, they will continue to use them. That Congressional and Executive Democrats seemingly haven’t figured this out yet is why they fail.
Lemkin 