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

Too True

From Mother Jones yesterday:

Seen today on West 93rd Street: a mother in a greengrocer's buying a yellow apple. Her toddler was struggling with the concept. "Apples are RED!" he kept insisting. The patient mom took time and explained, "all apples are not the same. Here is a yellow one!" Clearly uncomfortable with the truth in front of him, the little fellow insisted on the old reality.

The maternal moment reminded me of the current political scene: About 20 percent of the electorate are having a rough time accepting realities that take them out of their comfort zone. Glenn Beck viewers, for example, don't like that we NEED immigration in the United States; you CAN'T cut taxes during wars and depressions; human sexuality is NOT all the same; multinational corporations ARE the Big Brother you think the government is; and they ARE behind global warming, which IS real; Medicare and Social Security ARE government programs; etc.

What Glenn and the Beckerheads need, of course, is a patient mommy to explain reality to them. They used to have this when their media choices were limited to professional outlets. But now, why bother, when with FOX News they can see the "reality" they choose? And all apples can be red for always. 'Night, Mother.

Monkey-nomics

I'm sending this one around to some folks I know, wondering how long before somebody who misses the whole point rolls into full outrage mode over spending tax-payer dollars teaching monkeys the principles of Market Economics.

Marketing

Ending The War(s)

Here's the simplest and probably fastest way to get us disentangled from Iraq and Af-Pak.

1)  Take all the operations people who're actually involved with the prosecution of the war efforts, and put them under a new departmental heading - call it the "Department of Foreign Welfare and Security".

2) Tell the Republicans and Fox News that there's a new poll of everybody at 5 different Wal-Marts, 3 Tractor Pulls, and 8 Swap Meets, and the results are overwhelmingly against handouts for ragheads.  (a simple "leak" to MIchelle Malkin &/or Andrew Breitbart should do the trick here)

3) Approach Boehner and McConnell on the sly and propose a secret deal - tell 'em you won't oppose their effort to kill The Dept of Foreign Welfare and Security in exchange for their pledge to hold off eliminating Education and Energy for some number of election cycles.

These guys don't check on much of anything, and when they do, it's pretty obvious that the facts don't really matter to them anyway.

Go ahead - give it a shot.  Let's see.

Time To Get Real

We need to get back to a saner and more common-sensical approach to governing.  The radical policies of Reaganism and Clinton/Rubin Triangulation, the Gingrich Republicans and the Junior Bush Administration have brought us down.

We should start by remembering and admitting that you have to pay for the things you want.

Hmmm

Click on the image to see larger

Wikileaks re Af-Pak

There's a fair level of agreement that not much that's truly new was revealed about the war efforts in the 92,000 documents leaked to the world via Wikileaks.  The main concern (beyond the usual political theatrics) is that much is revealed about the approach we take putting Intelligence and Policy-making Decisions together; and that means that other countries' intel communities will get a leg up on us.  There's also an argument that says even those countries we consider friends will regard us with greater suspicion because we allowed the leaks without retribution against the leakers and so we're less trustworthy than we were before blah blah blah.

One - were we ever really all that trustworthy?  And did any country (friend or not) ever place any great trust in us to begin with?  This one just tries to perpetuate the myth of "America: The World's Goodguy".

Two - if government is supposed to operate more like a business, then this is actually a great opportunity for improvement.  If you think you're losing the confidence of your customers because of the way you've been conducting your business, then the smart thing to do is to consider making some changes in the way you conduct business.

Just sayin'.

DIY Dentistry

Pure genius.

Dear Mr President,

If you're looking for a Democrat with some balls, check out Mr Weiner from NY.

Maybe the Great Minds working in the Whitehouse put him up to it, but I've seen this guy before, and I'm thinkin' he knows how and when to do this all on his own. And I'm thinkin' this level of frustration is partly a result of some weakass shit from Raum Emmanuel and the Dem leadership.

Also too, this is exactly what you and Reid and Pelosi need to do; you need to make the Repubs stand up and vote NO every fucking day on every fucking thing you can come up with.

You ran on some pretty specific issues, and you got elected because 53% of us agreed with a lot of your positions. Put the whole agenda forward and make 'em all vote against every item.



Update
PS) I mentioned that you won the office with 53% support - I need you to stop trying to dig into the numbers to see if that support is hard or soft; or if it can be parsed into so many subsegments or whatever. I'm not Blanche Lincoln or Ben Nelson or any of those Congress Critters - you don't have to check with me 4 times a day like some 13-year-old on Facebook to be sure I'm with you. Just do the fucking job we sent you there to do, will ya!?!

Crock Of The Week

And then, there was Part 2: