Absurdity Today

From a while back.

Another One Bites The Dust

Y'know how the Wingnuts are always slamming Obama because he's so anti-Israel that he's at best borderline anti-semitic?  Yeah, well - maybe not.

From CNN:

When President Barack Obama visits Israel next month, he'll be awarded the Presidential Medal of Distinction, Israeli President Shimon Peres' office announced Monday.

Obama, the first sitting U.S. president to receive the recognition, will be awarded the medal for making "a unique and significant contribution to strengthening the State of Israel and the security of its citizens," according to a release announcing the news.

There's always the very high probability that the Israelis are trying to play Obama (like they try to do with every Prez) in an effort to make him look less even-handed in the eyes of the Palestinians, which of course serves to put up a united front, with the US and Israel standing together against the whatever.

On one other hand, Obama handed a Medal of Freedom to Peres not long ago, so maybe it's quid pro quo - but seeing as how none of this shit happens by accident, we'll have to wait to see what gives, and try to figure it out after whatever happens happens, because there's just no fuckin' way we'll be getting any kind of meaningful analysis out of the Press Poodles on this.

My Hero

Charlie Pierce is pretty amazing, talking about the GOP problem.

If you want to know where the abandoned wrath is going to focus in the next election, this is the issue -- and there's nothing Marco Rubio can do to stop it, in case you were wondering. It is now past cliche to note that the Republican party, and the conservative movement that gives it most of its money and all of its intellectual energy, is presently reaping what it sowed, that the chickens have returned clamorously to the roost, and that crows doth sit upon the capitol. However, for that dynamic to have a material focus on the 2014 midterms, it needs a focus. Now, you might think that would be guns, but the party and most of its elected members are on roughly the same page as the NRA as nearly as I can tell. However, the Republicans have looked at the demographics of the last election and they have made a concerted -- and very public -- effort to reform themselves on this issue because they would rather not become the Whigs of the 21st Century. As is obvious from the highlighted excerpt above, guns have their salience as an intraparty issue only when they can be connected to the issue of illegal immigration, not the other way around. In this formulation, you will note, the right to bear arms is yet another "free government benefit" that the "illiterate invaders" want.

Just fucking brilliant is all that is.

Djesus Uncrossed

Today's Animation

A golden oldie:

Another One Bites The Dust

hat tip = Democratic Underground

It suddenly occurs to me that all those goofy emails that fly around with all those Urban Myths about kidnapped kids and sharks attacking helicopters and rocket-powered Chevy Impalas are actually pretty useful when it comes to getting certain people prepared to accept and internalize certain political indoctrination.

The notion of tax flight “is almost entirely bogus — it’s a myth,” said Jon Shure, director of state fiscal studies at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit research group in Washington. “The anecdotal coverage makes it seem like people are leaving in droves because of high taxes. They’re not. There are a lot of low-tax states, and you don’t see millionaires flocking there.”

Despite the allure of low taxes, Mr. Depardieu hasn’t been seen in Russia since picking up his passport and seems to be hedging his bets by maintaining a residence in Belgium. Meanwhile, Russian billionaires are snapping up trophy properties in high-tax London, New York and Beverly Hills, Calif.

Read the whole thing at NYT.

A Nagging Question

It pops into my mind a lot.  And it's being asked straight out by more and more bloggers and pundits, which may eventually get the Press Poodles to consider asking it as well - tho' we probably shouldn't be holding our breath on that one.

"The Right" has told us all kinds of lies in all kinds of ways about all kinds things.

Trickle down
The Evil Empire
Clinton sold cocaine and killed Vince Foster
Banking regulations are holding us back

Environmental regulations are holding us back

FCC regulations are holding us back

Tax cuts pay for themselves
WMD in Iraq; we'll be greeted as liberators; connection between Saddam and 9/11
Social Security is bankrupting the country
China owns most of our Federal Debt
Rich people are over-taxed
Climate Change is a hoax
Cutting SNAP and WIC and Head Start helps poor people
Death Panels

So here's the question:  When can we expect the people who've gotten practically everything wrong for 30 years to be held accountable for having gotten practically everything wrong for 30 fucking years!?!

Krugman

The Professional Left Podcast

d r i f t g l a s s

Since Sandy hook

Update from Slate, via Addicting Info:

Today is February 17th, 65 days since Sandy Hook…and in that time there have been 1863 gun violence murders in this country – over 28 per day. The butcher’s bill – the tally of deaths – is aggregated by the folks at Slate and @GunDeaths and is accomplished by the magic of crowdsourcing – social media, twitter and email all backed by local content that provides the details.

And here's a look at what's been happening here in Virginia:


(note: the filtering isn't all that easy, but once you figure it out, it's not bad at all)

Home Seems So Far Away

How far I am from the land where I was born!
Immense nostalgia invades my thoughts;
And seeing myself so lonely and sad like a leaf in the wind,
I want to cry, I want to die from this feeling.
Oh Land of the Sun! I yearn to see you!
Now that I'm so far from you, I live without light and love;
And seeing myself so lonely and sad like a leaf in the wind,
I want to cry, I want to die from this feeling.

Tell Your Daughters

I know a girl
She puts the color inside of my world
But she's just like a maze
Where all of the walls all continually change
And I've done all I can
To stand on her steps with my heart in my hands
Now I'm starting to see
Maybe it's got nothing to do with me

Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Oh, you see that skin?
It's the same she's been standing in
Since the day she saw him walking away
Now she's left
Cleaning up the mess he made

So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Boys, you can break
You'll find out how much they can take
Boys will be strong
And boys soldier on
But boys would be gone without the warmth from
A womans good, good heart

On behalf of every man
Looking out for every girl
You are the god and the weight of her world

So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Today's Carlin

The Growing Litany Of Stoopid

(Paraphrasing a post at DU)

Hispanics are lazy AND stealing all the jobs. At the same time. Lazy, but also taking all the jobs because they work so much AND because they are lazy. Are you following me?

If we give all the money to the rich and don't tax them at all, eventually it will trickle down and the rich will give us back some of the money we gave them before. Totally.

Also, if we subsidize rich people and/or companies, they'll use the money wisely and they'll create jobs for all of us.  But if we subsidize poor people, they'll just piss it away and have a bunch of crack babies who grow up to be Democrats and vote themselves more government handouts.

Guns don't kill people, video games featuring guns kill people.

Tax-and-Spend is bad. Except taxes that we spend on defense contractors - then it's good because Jesus.  Anybody who disagrees is a lousy commie.

I Got Yer Supply Side Right Here

"Supply Side" actually means that you try to boost demand by lowering the cost of goods and services.  If the price of everything is lower, then people who aren't making much of a decent wage (Low-Enders) can buy what they need, and have a few bucks left over for Christmas and Birthdays etc.  And the people who do make a decent wage (Middlers) can spend at an even higher rate on the Discretionary side.  Pretty cool model, but eventually, you get to a point where you've milked every fractional penny of margin out of the Volume Buying Discount, and then you have to figure out how to keep making it possible for the people your Big Box store has put out of work to go on buying the shit they need.

Wal-Mart is another one of the monsters we've created by swallowing the hog-slop known as Reaganomics.  We're now trapped in almost exactly the kind of downward spiral the Progressives and The New Dealers tried to fix in the first 35 years of the 20th century by building in some safeguards and firestops - and we've been supporting all kinds of bogus ideas in the last 30 years that strip away those safety features.

I'll say it again - I'm a capitalist because God's a capitalist: I have to take in enough calories to build up a surplus so I have the energy to do the work required to get my next meal.  And I'm in favor of regulation because God's in favor of regulation: without a pancreas, I can't regulate my blood sugar, and I die.  Without a hypothalamus, I can't regulate my body temperature, and I die.  Without the lower part my brain stem, I can't regulate my heart rate, and I fucking die.

But, let's get back to Wal-Mart via Business Insider:

Wal-Mart is facing a scary reality: the ailing finances of its core customers, Brian Sozzi, chief equities analyst at NBG Productions, told us.

"Wal-Mart shoppers are the barometer of the U.S. consumer, and these emails reflect common sense about customers," Sozzi told us. "The consumer isn't mentally or physically ready to spend on discretionary inventory and there's no reason to be optimistic."

hat tip = Democratic Underground

What's Wrong With Those Guys?

A good long look at what's happening inside the GOP from NYT Magazine:

One afternoon last month, I flew with Anderson to Columbus, Ohio, to watch her conduct two focus groups. The first consisted of 10 single, middle-class women in their 20s; the second, of 10 20-something men who were either jobless or employed but seeking better work. All of them voted for Obama but did not identify themselves as committed Democrats and were sufficiently ambivalent about the president’s performance that Anderson deemed them within reach of the Republicans. Each group sat around a large conference table with the pollster, while I viewed the proceedings from behind a panel of one-way glass.

The all-female focus group began with a sobering assessment of the Obama economy. All of the women spoke gloomily about the prospect of paying off student loans, about what they believed to be Social Security’s likely insolvency and about their children’s schooling. A few of them bitterly opined that the Democrats care little about the working class but lavish the poor with federal aid. “You get more off welfare than you would at a minimum-wage job,” observed one of them. Another added, “And if you have a kid, you’re set up for life!”

About an hour into the session, Anderson walked up to a whiteboard and took out a magic marker. “I’m going to write down a word, and you guys free-associate with whatever comes to mind,” she said. The first word she wrote was “Democrat.”

“Young people,” one woman called out. “Liberal,” another said. Followed by: “Diverse.” “Bill Clinton.” “Change.” “Open-mind.” “Spending.” “Handouts.” “Green.” “More science-based.”

When Anderson then wrote “Republican,” the outburst was immediate and vehement: “Corporate greed.” “Old.” “Middle-aged white men.” “Rich.” “Religious.” “Conservative.” “Hypocritical.” “Military retirees.” “Narrow-minded.” “Rigid.” “Not progressive.” “Polarizing.” “Stuck in their ways.” “Farmers.”

Anderson concluded the group on a somewhat beseeching note. “Let’s talk about Republicans,” she said. “What if anything could they do to earn your vote?”

A self-identified anti-abortion, “very conservative” 27-year-old Obama voter named Gretchen replied: “Don’t be so right wing! You know, on abortion, they’re so out there. That all-or-nothing type of thing, that’s the way Romney came across. And you know, come up with ways to compromise.”

“What would be the sign to you that the Republican Party is moving in the right direction?” Anderson asked them.

“Maybe actually pass something?” suggested a 28-year-old schoolteacher named Courtney, who also identified herself as conservative.

The session with the young men was equally jarring. None of them expressed great enthusiasm for Obama. But their depiction of Republicans was even more lacerating than the women’s had been. “Racist,” “out of touch” and “hateful” made the list — “and put ‘1950s’ on there too!” one called out.

Showing a reverence for understatement, Anderson said: “A lot of those words you used to describe Republicans are negative. What could they say or do to make you feel more positive about the Republican Party?”

“Be more pro-science,” said a 22-year-old moderate named Jack. “Embrace technology and change.”

“Stick to your strong suit,” advised Nick, a 23-year-old African-American. “Clearly social issues aren’t your strong suit. Stop trying to fight the battle that’s already been fought and trying to bring back a movement. Get over it — you lost.”

So at least two things to think about here - for me anyway.  First is that it's clearer now that the GOP elders are more than a little frightened about the monster they've created.  Driftglass is always on about this; Repubs have been cultivating and encouraging the radical wingnuts for a long time; it was OK as long as they were good little soldiers on Election Day, but now that they're taking over the party apparatus, the bosses are pretty freaked.

But second, we're hearing more and more about just how narrow the GOP Brand-Appeal has become.  And we're hearing it in different terms - like in the vein of "there's something wrong with one of our political parties".  So even though the muzzles on the Press Poodles are loosened a bit, the story is still being buried inside very long articles that few of us will be able to spend the ergs or the time or the bother to read.

hat tip = Democratic Underground

One other thing - what really happened with Dick Armey?  He got his knickers horribly twisted in a very public cat fight during his breakup with Freedom Works (Davie and Chuckles Koch).  Guys who play at that level don't throw tantrums.  Makes me wonder.
(You can catch up with that one at MoJo)

Today's Pix