Today's Toon

From Clay Bennett:

The Krugman Speaks

..for a good long time, and says a lot of great stuff.



I guess a coupla main points for me are these:

• We have to stop allowing ourselves to be made to believe that Democracy and Capitalism are interchangeable terms.
• We have to understand just how close we're coming to letting the Bain-type Vultures pull off a corporate takeover of our government. (Don't think so?  Think about the assets owned by the USA, and then try not to think about that fat and juicy Pension Fund we've got, just layin' there ready for some smart buzzards to swoop in and pick it clean.  What's happening now - what's been happening for 25 years - is classic Bain Capital / Henry Kravitz leveraged buyout bullshit.)

Today's Pix

Heard Today

When the facts are with you, argue the facts.
When the facts are against you, argue the law.
When the facts and the law are against you, pound the table.

The Professional Left Podcast.

Just A Reminder

Reagan was shot by a random douche-nozzle carrying a legal gun; and he was shot while  being guarded by well armed and very well trained professionals who were hand-picked because they were at the top of their game.



And now, this:


And:


Questions?

Today's Jon Stewart

If it was any less tragic, it wouldn't be funny.

Calling All Wait Staff

Honest - I'm not advocating actually spitting in anybody's food and/or drinks, but dang; wouldn't it be just a tiny bit satisfying?

Today's Gun Nut

A guy named Keith Ratliff was a major player on YouTube, advocating the glories of guns and fun-with-a-gun and the importance of having a gun for personal protection, etc.

Mr Ratliff was found dead of a single gunshot wound to the head last week in Georgia.

kentucky.com:

A Frankfort man who was a business partner of the popular YouTube video channel personality known as FPSRussia was found shot to death last week at their firearms business in Carnesville, Ga., a sheriff there said Tuesday.
Franklin County, Ga., Sheriff Steve Thomas said he was investigating the death of Keith Ratliff, 32, as a homicide. Ratliff, who his family said commuted between Frankfort and Georgia, was found Thursday with a single gunshot wound to the head.

Thomas said Tuesday that no arrests had been made. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also is investigating, he said.

So, we can just let all that sink in for a short moment.

It really sucks for his family; and his friends; and for whoever else is affected by the ripples created whenever anybody connected to any other human is suddenly gone.

I didn't know Ratliff, and while I won't be celebrating his death, I'm not gonna be shy about pointing out the simple fact that the irony here is thick enough to choke a fuckin' hippo.

ad more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/01/08/2468950/frankfort-man-who-died-in-georgia.html#storylink=cpy

A Quick Reminder

...from truthout.com about something that needs to stay near the top of our priorities list:

The problem, of course, is our health care system – although “system” seems like a flattering word for this greed-driven, anarchic three-ring circus. Our health care system – guess we’ll need to call it that for lack of an alternativer – is the worst in the developed world. It costs far more, provides much less, and has worse outcomes than any system that’s even remotely comparable.

--and--

If we spent the same on health as the average developed country (as a percentage of GDP) that would inject more than a trillion dollars per year into other parts of the economy.

The "clear-eyed, pragmatic grownups" (mostly Repubs calling themselves conservative) are full o' shit.

Today's Quote

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) on Monday mocked the 67 House Republicans who voted against disaster relief funds for the victims of Hurricane Sanday. “It’s the same 67 over and over again,” he noted on The Stephanie Miller Show. “It’s the bath salts caucus, the people that would rather eat your face than raise taxes on the rich.”

Above The Law

Elizabeth Warren is on 'em like the sun covers Dixie - and my mad crush on that woman continues unabated.

“Beginning in 2008, the federal government poured billions of dollars into AIG to save it from bankruptcy. AIG’s reckless bets nearly crashed our entire economy. Taxpayers across this country saved AIG from ruin, and it would be outrageous for this company to turn around and sue the federal government because they think the deal wasn’t generous enough. Even today, the government provides an ongoing, stealth bailout, propping up AIG with special tax breaks — tax breaks that Congress should stop. AIG should thank American taxpayers for their help, not bite the hand that fed them for helping them out in a crisis.“

The violence that some of these fuckwads did to our economy is criminal.  And while I'm trying to reform my hard-ass Ayn Rand reactionary self, I have to wonder: when do we get to hang a few of these jag-offs?

The Krugman Speaks

The true sign of competence (if not genius) is the ability to explain some of the high-brain complicated stuff in a way that makes it understandable to guys like me.

(This not to be confused with the usual mode of Repubs to dumb everything down so as to give the rubes the comfortable feeling that anybody with a GED and the "common sense of the country-folk" could run this joint).

Anyway - Paul Krugman at NYT (re: the Trillion Dollar Coin):

There seem to be two kinds of objections. One is that it would be undignified. Here’s how to think about that: we have a situation in which a terrorist may be about to walk into a crowded room and threaten to blow up a bomb he’s holding. It turns out, however, that the Secret Service has figured out a way to disarm this maniac — a way that for some reason will require that the Secretary of the Treasury briefly wear a clown suit. (My fictional plotting skills have let me down, but there has to be some way to work this in). And the response of the nervous Nellies is, “My god, we can’t dress the secretary up as a clown!” Even when it will make him a hero who saves the day?

The other objection is the apparently primordial fear that mocking the monetary gods will bring terrible retribution.

 --and--

The other side of this debate has been predicting runaway inflation for more than four years, as the monetary base has tripled. The same people predicted soaring interest rates from government borrowing. Meanwhile, the liquidity-trap people like me predicted what would actually happen: low inflation and low rates. This has to be the most decisive real-world test of opposing theories ever.

"Them Damned Libruls" have been right about a lot.

Sweet Justice

It won't work because mocking the law (even when the law is down on its fucking knees begging to be mocked) can be really dangerous.  That said - go get 'em, tiger.

Addicting Info:

The designated carpool lane on Highway 101 near Frieman’s northern California home is specified to be for “two people or more” during rush hour. The police say Frieman was driving alone, but rather than pay the $478 fine, he plans to head to court on Monday to challenge the ticket. His reasoning? He had his papers of incorporation with him and since the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are people, there were two people in the car.

Just As I Tho't

Gosh - y'mean anything that gets to be too big and too powerful always ends up being kinda bad for most of us?

And, if we don't constantly revisit and re-examine and re-interpret history we run a much greater risk of being cynically manipulated, if not flat-out hornswoggled?



Here's a question:  "Conservatives" are always yammerin' about what a bad thing it is when Government gets too big - and one of the main arguments is that "centralized power is never a good thing" - but where are they when we know with near-absolute certainty that Big Banks (just to take one good example) are ridiculously inefficient, and that the inefficiency in our financial system is a major drag on the US economy?  Where the fuck are all those anti-centralized-planning yahoos when there's really something to worry about?

Today's Gun Nut

Nothing better than this from Wonkette:

So here is one of those stories where the initial impression — “Maybe-crazy teacher was toting around an AR-15 just like the one used in the Newtown massacre!” — sounds like perfect Wonketfodder, and then you start looking at it more and finally you kind of throw your hands up in the air and wish you’d gone back to re-reading Scud: The Disposable Assassin, where it’s clear who the bad guys are. In keeping with Wonkette Policy, we will not be making fun of possibly-mentally-ill high school teacher Steven Davis, “a beloved science and math teacher at Mount Anthony Union High School” in Bennington, Vermont. Davis surrendered a Bushmaster AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to police and was hospitalized for observation last week after neighbors spotted him carrying the weapon to his car; he also had posted several rambling, maybe-threatening videos to YouTube and his wife had taken their children from their home and gotten a protection order against him. Judges don’t grant those on a whim.

--and--

(One of the few brightly lit zones of moral clarity here: Wayne LaPierre sucks ass.) 

Pass The Bleach, Please

Posted on Democratic Underground and Addicting Info:

According to Google Translate, the bottom sign says: "you must have a permit to play in this field. violators will be at risk from police action".

And of course, that translates to "Whites Only" in a de facto kinda way; ie: most white people can't read Spanish so they'll ignore the warning.  Hell, most white people can't read much English, and a boatload of the ones who can read English "don't give a fuck what the gubmint says I ain't allowed to do".

So anyway, when the Spanish-speakers show up, they're likely to assume the white kids have the necessary permission and since they're mostly decent law-abiding folk, they'll turn away (can you say, "self-deportation"?).

According to snopes.com it's legit, but the school district superintendent says it was just a big oops - she and her husband grabbed the tool box and took the thing down as soon as she was made aware of it.

The remaining question is whether or not it was any kind of deliberate attempt to maintain/re-establish White Supremacy.

Driftglass and BlueGal have a great segment on this week's podcast about important (and subtle) differences between White Supremacy and straight up Racism:

The Professional Left, episode 161

Today's Tweet

This is a screen shot from twitter.

Check out the rest of them at :#bothsidesdont

hat tip = Professional Left Podcast #160

The Parade Of Fail

La Vita Loca

Inheritance

We're starting to get more flack about "the death tax", and of course, the frame is that we simply must protect the children of the small business owner or the family farmer from losing everything to the Tax Man when the patriarch croaks.  And I'd go along with it if there was any real truth to it.  But there isn't, so I can't.

The National Memo:

You may have heard of the estate tax, but chances are you will never have to pay it, especially now that the Senate has set the exemption at $5 million.

That means that if you inherit an estate, likely because you were born with the right last name, you won’t have to pay taxes on any of it unless its value is over $5,000,000 — then you’ll pay 40 percent on the amount above that, about the same as the new top rate on high earners. And that $5,000,000 exemption will be adjusted for inflation yearly.

The argument I find truly bogus is the one revolving around, "that money's already been taxed..." cuz that one's just pretty dumb.  Every dollar has already been taxed.  The dollar you spend at the movies is an after-tax dollar; so is the dollar you spend on rent or food or gas etc etc etc.  These arguments are in favor of the Ownership Class grabbing more for themselves and leaving less for everybody else.

I have great sympathy for anybody who survives the tragedy of losing a family provider, and we have to make sure we take care of people who need taking care of, so let's be at least a little careful with how we set it up; intergenerational wealth transfer is a good and important thing - we have to put some limits on it though.

So I'm thoroughly unconvinced that a first son or the designated heiress to the family business deserves to be handed a multimillion dollar enterprise at no cost, owing solely to their choosing the right joint to be born into.  Here's a thought: Come up with a business plan, go to the bank, borrow the bucks and let's see if you're as good at farming as your dad was.

Any other way of doing things is anti-competitive, anti-meritocratic, and pushes us all back towards the kind of imperial aristocracy we're supposed to be resisting.