Ten Years Of Hell

Ken Mehlman

...is a complete asshole.

He presided over a political party whose platform was openly hostile to the basic principles of equality at the foundation of the USofA.

He led the re-election team for Jr Bush in 2004 which had, at it's core, a campaign strategy of fear and hatred - with one of the main themes being the demonization gays and gay marriage in order to motivate voters.

From Ambinder at The Atlantic:

"It's taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life," said Mehlman, now an executive vice-president with the New York City-based private equity firm, KKR. "Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I've told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they've been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that's made me a happier and better person. It's something I wish I had done years ago."

What a dick.

It's The Hypocrisy, Stupid

Whenever you get a politician like Gingrich or Little Quayle preaching "this great nation" or "Family Values" or harpin' on "I was raised right", remember this little tidbit about Leo Strauss and see if you can catch just a glimmer of the truth hiding behind the tower of bullshit.

Betcha Can't

Krugman Speaks

Under no circumstances should we revert and put the Repubs back in charge - they're either crazy or evil or something else.  When I look back on what was happening all thru the 90s and then especially what was going on with Junior Bush, I feel a little sick.  It's important to remember that it's possible Junior wasn't the fuckup he seems to have been.  There's a fair probability that he did it all on purpose - he didn't really know what was going on; he's just an empty vessel, incapable of fully understanding the damage resulting from his policy decisions.  He did what he was told to do by all those really smart guys he had around him.

Those smart guys are still with us, and Professor Krugman explains a little about what they're up to.

Late last year the conventional wisdom on economic policy took a hard right turn. Even though the world’s major economies had barely begun to recover, even though unemployment remained disastrously high across much of America and Europe, creating jobs was no longer on the agenda. Instead, we were told, governments had to turn all their attention to reducing budget deficits.

Skeptics pointed out that slashing spending in a depressed economy does little to improve long-run budget prospects, and may actually make them worse by depressing economic growth. But the apostles of austerity — sometimes referred to as “austerians” — brushed aside all attempts to do the math. Never mind the numbers, they declared: immediate spending cuts were needed to ward off the “bond vigilantes,” investors who would pull the plug on spendthrift governments, driving up their borrowing costs and precipitating a crisis. Look at Greece, they said.

Don't get fooled again.

God Love The Onion

FDA Approves Depressant Drug For The Annoyingly Cheerful

Corporatization

Poster

Peace Train

It kinda sucks when a US President pulls people out of harm's way and it's like nobody even notices. I wanted to post something the other day when it was all happening, but I'm just now getting to it.

I guess I can hope there's something positive in this kind of non-reaction - like maybe peace is making a comeback(?), but I think it has more to do with trying to avoid having to take some real responsibility for the war if we can pretend we have more important things on our minds.

Anyway:

The Fix Is In

From a story in NYT, Balloon Juice posts this:

 Far from being able to take advantage of market forces, our wheat farmer friends are cowed into inaction because our markets are fickle and unreliable and prone to manipulation. This is fundamentally no different from the average joe trying to invest wisely in stocks- he can’t because the game is rigged. Our current system is anything but a free market. A free market would mean that people would be able to act with adequate information. We’re a nation being held hostage by these Galtian super-geniuses like Rick Santelli at the CME and that idiot blowhard Jim Cramer.

Oy

Somebody please tell me this is satire.

OMG

Tea-Partiers may actually be as dumb as we thought.

By way of Dayton Daily News:

DAYTON — About 30 local businesses are participating in a program to link conservative consumers with businesses owned by conservatives to help support the Tea Party.

Donald Hutchinson, a businessman and Tea Party supporter, calls his initiative the Tea Party Exchange Inc.

Tea Party supporters who obtain a TPX-Great American card — similar to a customer-loyalty card consumers can attach to key rings — and show it at a participating business can get a discount on the company’s services. The local merchant then gives 5 percent of the sale revenue to the local Tea party chapter to help fund rallies.

So the business owners are actually willing to drive off some whole-number percentage of their customers and prospects; AND they're willing to pay 5% of what's left of their Sales Revenues in order to support a political party?  They're volunteering to pay an additional tax (cuz a tax is exactly what it is) to an organization that has shown a particular animosity toward good business investments like paving the streets and enforcing the law and educating the labor pool;  and they WANT to pay this additional tax so they can try to avoid paying taxes?

Here's my guess: it's so absolutely counter-intuitive, and the rubes have swallowed so much right wing jiz already, that it's almost automatic for them; they will absolutely eat it up.

Comparing Tax Cut Proposals

Applied Ayn Rand

The logical extreme in Rand's Objectivism is perfectly illustrated by Eric Hague here.
To wit:

When little Aiden toddled up our daughter Johanna and asked to play with her Elmo ball, he was, admittedly, very sweet and polite. I think his exact words were, "Have a ball, peas [sic]?" And I'm sure you were very proud of him for using his manners.

To be sure, I was equally proud when Johanna yelled, "No! Looter!" right in his looter face, and then only marginally less proud when she sort of shoved him.

The thing is, in this family we take the philosophies of Ayn Rand seriously. We conspicuously reward ourselves for our own hard work, we never give to charity, and we only pay our taxes very, very begrudgingly.

Don't let anybody tell you we need to put the Free Marketeers back in charge.  These people are thieves and hustlers who blow the smoke of Ayn Rand's rhetoric in your face while using the implied deadly force of the law to pick your pockets.

As usual, they do almost exactly the opposite of they say they're doing.

Don't Make Me Laugh