… think how much fun this would be, if we did. You see, liberals are of the opinion that without strict regulation, we won’t know what to do and we’ll make a hash of things.

It’s NOT just an opinion, Markie

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=bailout&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c2coff=1&q=Iraq+war+debt&btnG=Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c2coff=1&q=mortgage+crisis&btnG=Search

How much money has to go down the shitter, Markie?

Nothin’ makes investors more confident than the fact that there’s no laws restricting them from being ripped off!

a claim that the German Economic Miracle, or Wirtshaftswunder, was caused by deregulation from the Nazi corporatist system
Really you should call that the 2nd German Economic Miracle, to distinguish it from the German Economic Miracle of the 1930s.

I heard about right wing twaddle from a sci fi author, and I just assumed it would be Orson Scott Card. I guess there’s more of them in the business than I thought.

Also, write out ‘Wirtschaftswunder” 100 times.

J. K. Galbraith said somewhere that the success of the German economy during the 1930s should be attributed not so much to the Keynesian policies applied by Reichsbank Chairman Hjalmar Schacht, and more to Schacht’s personal appearance of austerity and rectitude. But he probably said it more wittily than that.

And I don’t think that’s what ‘via’ means. not sure though, Latin’s older than I am and it can beat me up.

Also, write out ‘Wirtschaftswunder” 100 times.

Sure, you notice that compositional tic more than anything else. Because blog posts are illustrated with lithograph etchings simply all the time….

a claim that the German Economic Miracle, or Wirtshaftswunder, was caused by deregulation from the Nazi corporatist system
Really you should call that the 2nd German Economic Miracle, to distinguish it from the German Economic Miracle of the 1930s.

Well, to be fair, that was also a great period of liberation of the silent majority from the meddling of financial elites. You know, real salt-of-the-homeland Joe the Plumber stuff.

J. K. Galbraith said somewhere that the success of the German economy during the 1930s should be attributed not so much to the Keynesian policies applied by Reichsbank Chairman Hjalmar Schacht, and more to Schacht’s personal appearance of austerity and rectitude. But he probably said it more wittily than that.

To be completely fair, the Nazis basically had the same ideology in mind as the Bushies: nothing principled towards either markets or central planning, but the rule of a well-connected industrial clique over all other economic forces. In both cases, deficit spending was a major element of policy, a yawning pit filled first by politics (the ‘ownership society’ stuff under Bush and the Aryanization stuff under Hitler – both created evident growth in the tax base by purloining anything outside of that tax base that could be purloined and then very carefully gaming the system such that new firms and equity emerged immediately.) and then by warfare (witness the continual, ridiculous claims that Iraq would pay for itself by the Admin hawks). The Nazis to some extent were more successful – they did a lot more plundering under color of law – but to some extent were bogged down by their own ideology’s stridence about the absolute power of leadership. The industrialists that supported Hitler ultimately got burned; the industrialists and high-financiers that supported Bush did not. And in either case, without constant plunder the deficit spending regime would have collapsed – thus the urgent push for social security privatization.

Of course, Bush had more options, to be completely fair – it was much easier for him to finance a humongous debt than it was for Germany.

Also, as for the second Economic Miracle: kind of funny that the 50s and 60s were a period of massive economic growth for most of western Europe and in fact the point at which social democracy visibly began outperforming post-Stalin centralism, isn’t it? Why, it’s obviously the deregulation. What else could it be?

i’d rather listen to Bruce Sterling. i read something Larry Niven co-wrote with jerry (inferno) but SF writers aren’t the first place i turn for economic advice.

Wait, Does this mean we have Joe the Economic Miracle?

i would rather talk about how science fiction writers whose work i have enjoyed can have opposite political leanings. this includes orson scott card (enders game was good)

Picture for the One Milllleon dollar bill.

The American Buffoon.

You should have borrowed some of RB’s eyebrows of doom.

First, I am sorely disappointed in Pournelle. I have enjoyed some of his work. Something of a shame that he turns out to be another glibertarian shitbucket. At least Niven has the excuse of being born stupid-rich. Perhaps he was just waxing absurd. We all make numbnuts comments periodically. Except me, that is.

Second, Noonan sits somewhere below yeast on my scale of humanity. I have read very few of his public masturbations, and that has been a few too many. Perhaps the first bit of his that I read through, comments included, made me ill and angry and at a loss for words.

This little gem, wherein he seriously tries to argue that,
A) the Iraq War is like WWII,
B) because the country wasn’t really united behind WWII,
C) because really, not that many people actually fought in WWII, he bizarrely claims that only a million or so saw combat, a ridiculous notion, seeing that half that many died,
and D), it’s fine that he and his are only a handful left still clinging to the Conservative insanity, because it’s minorities like that that fight wars. WOLVERINES!!!

I just want to lock him in a cell with a dozen or so WWII era merchant mariners and watch him tell them that they never put anything on the line in that war, and then watch them beat him to death with their canes.

His inane belittlement of millions of American vets, my father included, makes me want to puke.

Did I miss something or wasn’t there this little thing called the “Marshall Plan”?

Those eyebrows are going to give me nightmares. Or maybe nightcaterpillars.

El Stupido!

I’d like to report this to the proper authorities:

http://jimtreacher.com/archives/001991.html

Scroll down for the fine comic and punchline.

“They won their elections. You just gotta deal with it!” (Nice use of “their”.)

First, I am sorely disappointed in Pournelle. I have enjoyed some of his work. Something of a shame that he turns out to be another glibertarian shitbucket. At least Niven has the excuse of being born stupid-rich. Perhaps he was just waxing absurd. We all make numbnuts comments periodically. Except me, that is.

Pournelle is a huge wingnut from way back, probably the more bug-fuck insane of him and Niven. When someone made it known that Ender’s Game and Speaker were basically written as if by a Mormon theodicy committee (worth noting (a) that the Mormon church was in such a bad way at the time that Udall, in spite of being basically the most leftist man in the running, was torpedoed early and hard by Carter for not breaking ties with the Mormons earlier over their race bullshit and (b) those two books read a lot less like Card’s other, more mediocre output than like each other), he basically had one of her friends jumped and had her shitnamed. (Via.) That and:

1) he spent most of his career in sci-fi conspicuously consuming early but not bleeding-edge electronics like a Cheneyesque version of an Apple fanboi – and got paid to do this for an audience;
2) his entire involvement in Star Wars was essentially Iran-Contra in reverse, with much less of the abuse of executive power and much more intended propaganda, dissembling, and out-and-out bullshit;
3) like every other wingnut in sci-fi, he’s absolutely obsessed with the perfidy of the Soviets and basically bought the neocon line on the Soviet ‘threat’ hook, line, and sinker; remember that he’s supposed to actually be some kind of military buff, so he has less excuse than Podhoretz to pretend Bolshevism overrules the laws of physics and economics;
4) and finally, like a good wingnut, he despises America and everything it stands for so much that any army he writes sympathetically is (a) unanswerable to civilians, (b) ruggedly fascist, and (c) whiter than an albino’s jizz.

Oh, and don’t even fucking get me started on him and Niven together. Just read the w.p. description of The Burning City and you’ll know why Djur & I find single words of it powerful talismans of rancid evil. He and Niven are dittohead shit-for-brains, with Niven being the bigger dittohead and Pournelle being the bigger shit-for-brains, but in general they’re roughly coterminous on my famous political graph, the Fat White Man Who Wears A Fucking Bowtie Index Of Freedom.

–Calvin Collidge cut taxes, the economy boomed
–JFK and LBJ cut taxes, the economy boomed
–Ronald Reagan cut taxes, the economy boomed
–George W. Bush cut taxes, the economy boomed

–Herbert Hoover and FDR raised taxes, the economy tanked
–George H.W. Bush raised taxes, the economy tanked

Tax hikes kill growth, tax cuts create growth. When people get to keep more of their money, it is good for everyone. Taxing the “wealthy” hurts us all in the end. Government isn’t the problem, government IS the problem, period.

Science Fiction writers tend to take an element of our society and exaggerate it for dramatic effect.

But, we all live in the here and now. One shouldn’t get confused.

And I want my robot maid!

I’d fix the economy overnight.

Tax hikes kill growth, tax cuts create growth.

Obviously, this explains why the economy tanked in the 1990s after Clinton’s tax hikes, and took 5 years to recover from a recession after GW Bush’s tax cuts.

Economics 101,

George W. Bush cut taxes, the economy boomed

This type of shit explains why you can’t finish first year economics.

Republican tax policies for the rich give all Americans unicorn marshmallow ponies, while “Democrat” policies turn our ponies into withered cactus-stick horses that are broken and boring, blech-stinky. BOO!

This has been a class on republican economic policy.

The Clinton tax hikes caused the 2001 recession.

The Clinton tax hikes caused the 2001 recession.

In much the same way that the sack of Rome by the Visogoths caused the Hindenburg fire.

Hannibal crossing the Alps caused those two satellites to collide.

You can’t argue with somebody like Flat Tax. It’s like a religion to them. They just know this stuff has to work.

“It’s like a religion to them”

Your faith in government to solve every problem is much more like a religion.

Hanx, Boosh!

Tax hikes kill growth, tax cuts create growth.

The Clinton tax hikes caused the 2001 recession.

This graph says you don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground.

Hey Markie!

The Web site for George W. Bush’s presidential library foundation – GeorgeWBushLibrary .com – is falling behind in online search results for “Bush library.”

The guy who’s beating him: his own dad. Even pages mocking the former president rank higher.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/22/bush-library-google/

HAHAHA

oh and

Only 25% to 30% of ex-Bush officials seeking full-time jobs have succeeded, estimated Eric Vautour, a Washington recruiter at Russell Reynolds Associates Inc. That “is much, much worse” than when Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton left the White House, he said. At least half those presidents’ senior staffers landed employment within a month after the administration ended, Mr. Vautour recalled.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/21/bush-officials-jobs/

It’s appears that the, “Don’t Blame us, we’re incompetent” strategy is paying off handsomely…

Government isn’t the problem, government IS the problem, period.

Incoherent troll is incoherent.

It is instructive that President Teleprompter and liberals keep whining that none of this is their fault.

When will you finally own what you do?

You know what’s funny? If Bush hadn’t run us into a massive fucking deficit, WE’D HAVE A SUBSTANTIAL PART OF THE TAX BASE WE COULD FUCKING CUT TO RESPOND TO THE RECESSION IN THE WAY THAT EVERY FUCKING ECONOMIST AGREES WE OUGHT TO.

But now we don’t, and we have to try and float our way out of a recession on loans, austerity measures, and tax and spending retargeting.

The debate isn’t between economists of differing factions, it’s between people actually capable of seeing reality and a pack of shrieking gibbons who think wishing hard enough at the economy will magically fucking regenerate gainful labor and earned wealth which have been fleeing the country with a vengeance since Reagan. Oh, and while we’re at it can we occupy a country Israel doesn’t like too??? HANX GUYZ

When will you finally own what you do?

Incidentally, if there was an implicit agreement over the troll not using a barrage of asinine pseudonyms to defeat killfiles, it seems to have been breached.

So exactly which army divisions and naval fleets are you thinking we should disband and decommission, when we reduce taxes to a flat rate and the federal budget shrinks to $1- trillion annually, Flat Tax? And you can kiss the Air Force goodbye; at $100 million a fighter, we simply can’t afford that.

What? Tax cuts have consequences.

It is instructive that President Teleprompter and liberals keep whining that none of this is their fault.

Obviously, we socialist gun-stealing nigger dykes know nothing about whining. After all, we didn’t win absolute control over all three branches of government and then proceed to blubber like angry toddlers about a history professor.

I believe the term for this is ‘two-faced weasels”?

By contrast, 74 percent of Republicans in the new poll expressed grave worry about the deficit, 29 points higher than in December when George W. Bush held the reins.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/

Or is it “Republican SOP”?

What? Tax cuts have consequences.

Of course they do. Gold! GOLD! GOOOOLD!!!

Incidentally, the increasing turbulence of the economy post-Reagan is directly attributable to the tax the Republicans like to pretend doesn’t exist: an unanticipated and close to confiscatory payroll withholding hike. Unless you’re making your money from a trust fund, Reagan is probably personally responsible for the majority of money taken out of your wallet by the government.

And somehow, the pre-Reagan capital gains and high-bracket rates managed to keep the US at the steadiest, strongest clip of growth in American history post-war. Why, it’s almost like the upper class had access to workers who made enough to actually educate themselves and make meaningful choices about their commute, producing a skilled and readily tapped labor pool anywhere in the country for our capitalists for nothing but 20% more of their second ten million.

Because, you know, tax cuts create growth, as long as they’re for rich people.

“So exactly which army divisions and naval fleets are you thinking we should disband and decommission, when we reduce taxes to a flat rate and the federal budget shrinks to $1- trillion annually, Flat Tax?”

We should eliminate the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the IRS (would be eliminated under a flat tax system) and end all agricultural subsidies.

Gee, that trillion dollars we spent on the Iraq war sure might have come in handy right about now. Just sayin’

And cut the non-defense related federal workforce by 10% across the board.

We should eliminate the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the IRS (would be eliminated under a flat tax system) and end all agricultural subsidies.

So, under your preferred system, we’ll have a nation of illiterates who can’t afford food or basic health care. So long as the richest people in the country pay no taxes, this will improve everyone’s lot. Because if there’s anything besides tax cuts that will help improve the lot of the rich, it’s sickly, underfed illiterate workers to run their businesses.

Yeah, that’s sure to restore health to our economy.

Since conservatives all say that World War II ended the Great Depression, here’s my plan:

1. We will produce large numbers of Jeeps, Sherman tanks and B-17s which will be shipped over to Europe to be systematically blown up.

2. We will produce vast numbers of aircraft carriers, destroyers and Liberty Ships which will be then sunk in the Pacific Ocean.

3. We will pay roughly 2.4 million people to march back and forth across Europe for the next 4 years.

He stood there glaring at the room as the now shattered Ming Vase came to rest. “Serves you stupid fuckers right for letting me anywhere near a Ming Vase”, he hissed, brushing the porcelain dust from eyebrows.

Oh please. More liberal scaremongering. We didn’t have any of those departments until very recently in history. Getting the federal government out of education ( a local/state matter) and healthcare (a private matter) doesn’t mean people won’t get healthcare or won’t be educated.

Hoooo–kay. I’ll bite.

Look, government money is NOT just collected, it is spent.

When the government buys a tank, it pays for someone to build the thing. This is why for a while, anyway military spending (hello, Reagan!) can be stimulative. The guy who gets paid to build something spends the money.

The same applies to many civilian projects — when you build a road, you pay people to do it, and people drive on the road to engage in some kind of economic activity. Rails do the same thing even more efficiently, and bridges, electrical grids– all that stuff has a purpose that gets filled and even makes people money. What the hell do you think the Hoover Dam does, anyway?

In theory, tax cuts would be stimulative because people would spend the money, but there are several problems:

1. People don’t always spend
2. It isn’t enough, even if you taxed people nothing — there’s not enough multiplier effect
3. You can’t finance all the stuff you need to keep an economy running, like police and fire and public education

It’s easier to build a bridge or something. You can disagree on the kind of project that works best, but the fact is when you offer someone a job that pays him a take home of $20K per year that’s a lot more stimulative than giving me a tax break that amounts to half that, as I am not spending all my money in one place. Nor am I hiring.

Also, if having no taxes were such a hot idea, the hugest, hugest growth would be in no-tax states like, say, Somalia. How’s that investment in the Somali market working out for ya? Oh right, you need a — what was that? functioning government to make a market work.

You all do understand the concept of protecting the weaker members of society from the stronger? Or is it okay with you if I put a gun to your head and take your money? After all, I was entrepreneurial enough to evade the cops and buy a gun. Yay capitalism!! My business plan is to rob you. Tough titties, you weren’t strong enough to stop me. And before yo go all Charles Bronson on me, I ask you have you ever killed anyone? Got his blood on you? Watched a kid’s brains drain? Seen the color of blood on the pavement?

Which gets us to Pournelle. Pournelle is a very specific species — he thinks technology in and of itself is a solution to everything, because he likes it and can’t see how anyone but the shiftless would lack access to it. He also figures that because he hasn’t joined a Klan group and never saw a cop beat up a black guy that racism doesn’t exist. His lack of ability to imagine what it is like in someone else’s skin is a big fialing for a science fiction writer. I mean, I have to ask if he has ever in his life spoken to an actual non-white person, or someone for whom an iPhone is y’know, expensive. I really wonder. The man has technologial chops, but misses the point on history.

Pournelle is in some ways a less humanistic version of Arthur C Clarke. Clarke at least was willing to offer that given the chance people would be logical. though later in his life I also wondered about whether he had spoken to any real humans that didn’t live on a compound in Sri Lanka. His depictions of women make me wonder if he was secretly gay or had just never met one. And when he touches on race he went from blithely ignorant — sort of forgivable for a Brit of his generation and upbringing — to creepy. But I have to balance that with at least his public statements repudiating such prejudices, so he gets points from me for trying.

damn you, HTML!

As for the food comment, the agricultural subsidies don’t go so people can get food. They go to make government-connected corporate farms fabulously wealthy growing an amount of corn no one can possibly consume (so its made into HFCS among other things).

Its so funny liberals think that without Daddy Government we would all be starving, sickly illiterates. It’s amazing our ancestors even made it under liberal logic.

Oh goody, I’ve always thought gunning down a few rich people would be fun.

If we’re gonna get rid of those pesky regulations, why not just go ALL in…

When will you finally own what you do?

This is central to my point.

Flat Tax said,

I’d fix the economy overnight.

With magic.

>>[Clarke’s] depictions of women make me wonder if he was secretly gay

Actually, yes. Or so I’ve read.

We should eliminate the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the IRS (would be eliminated under a flat tax system) and end all agricultural subsidies.

Entire farm service agency – 11b
This is a nice pet issue to pretend to care about, but cutting it is the equivalent of saving for a house by buying a smaller hamburger. It’s a ridiculous, impotent measure.

Department of Education – 63.5b
This includes federal funding for the GI bill, grants, and other entitlements, as well as federal backup funds for the states, almost all of which are currently locked in budget crises. While the amount of money gained from spitting in the faces of America’s veterans, pissing all over the various responsible, market-oriented state open budgets that were burned by the subprime crisis, and more or less ensuring riots that would make France in 1968 look like the Andy Griffith Show is in fact more than removing farm subsidies, but is still dwarfed by the current deficit.

The IRS: 7b
Doing away with the IRS is a talking point. The vast majority of its outgoing funds are writeoffs that no flat tax proposal has suggested doing away with; its administrative overhead is around 7 billion; the figure typically given in flat-tax publications is an agglomeration of returns, earned income credit, family credits, and write-offs, all of which are relatively uncontroversial.

Department of Health and Human Services – 738b
This seems like an admirable enough way to turn your name to ashes in the mouths of the reliably center-right, politically-active elderly (to whom the vast majority of HHS funding goes), and would be an especially nice way of greeting lower-middle-class students arriving home after the suspension of Pell grants.

TOTAL CUT BEFORE HHS: 82B
TOTAL CUT AFTER HHS: 820B

TOTAL DEFICIT AFTER REMOVAL OF SOCIAL INSURANCE TAXES EXCLUSIVE TO HHS: 1348B

CURRENT DEFICIT: $407B

PROPOSED DEFICIT: $528B

Congratulations! You’re a complete fucking idiot.

The smell of lube and bodily secretions is getting a bit rancid here.

Aside to Dahne:
I heard about right wing twaddle from a sci fi author, and I just assumed it would be Orson Scott Card. I guess there’s more of them in the business than I thought.

Ever read Norman Spinrad’s “The Iron Dream”?

To be fair I’m pretty sure the “The Iron Dream” is a work of parody.

The premise is that Adolf Hitler “after briefly dabbling in radical politics gave it up to become a science fiction writer”. It’s science fiction as if Hitler had written it.

“Blogs for Victo(r )y”?! Seriously? So, if called upon to convey a different, but cleverly similar, meaning, it could also be “Blogs for Victoy”? What’s a “victoy”? Something con-tards play with when they’re being extra-chickenhawky or something?

Boring squawking stupid troll is boringly squawkingly stupid. I demand to be entertained with funny.

Tax hikes on the upper classes always bring about economic success. That’s because the rich are generally stupid and venal and are utterly incapable of useful investment on their own.

[PS: Factoring the reduction in payroll proposed along with all IRS receipts still produces a deficit 50 billion higher than the current one. And that’s before you somehow raise $1259b in income taxes (and presumably 339b to replace the corporate tax as well) while taxing all incomes at an equal rate. The end result would probably be a tax cut of 1-2% further below Bush’s rates for the highest bracket and a tax hike of more than 15% for almost everyone else, a massive redistribution of wealth to put Lenin to shame. Svashei pobedoi, tovarischii!]

when will you scum-sucking liberals embrace bi-partisanship which means accepting the blame for everything, starting with the breakup of gondwanaland, which directly leads to the Bush – ahem, Obama recession.

Because, tax cuts:
cleared up my acne,
got me the girl!
did my homework,
walked the dog,
built this city,
recharged my batteries,
filled my car with gas,
got me that promotion!
washed that gray right outta my hair!
made Man. Utd. big and strong,
beat the Boche!
took out the garbage!
got me to the job on time!
made the US economy what it is today!!

Flat Tax has a great idea. Let’s look at all those other countries that spend more than half their budget on the military:
North Korea,
ummm… Iraq?

Shining examples, all of them!

That’s more like it.

“CURRENT DEFICIT: $407B

PROPOSED DEFICIT: $528B

Congratulations! You’re a complete fucking idiot.”

You’re an idiot for not realizing that tax revenues would go UP under the flat tax due to the economic growth it will create.

I’d like the liberals and “progressives” here to name ONE non-defense federal department they would cut or eliminate. Or even one non-defense program. Just one. I’m waiting!

Flat Tax has a great idea. Let’s look at all those other countries that spend more than half their budget on the military:
ummm… Iraq?

No, no, no, Iraq under its cruel and petty dictator Sodomy, who killed his own citizens without mercy.

Of course, slashing veterans’ entitlements, kicking anyone without a legacy out of college, and suddenly deciding that the oppressive payroll tax (you know, the one you’ve been paying for the last 28 years) is no longer actually paying for your well-being in your dotage, all in the middle of a depression, would surely only lead to morning in America again.

You’re an idiot for not realizing that tax revenues would go UP under the flat tax due to the economic growth it will create.

Because of magic.

I’d like the liberals and “progressives” here to name ONE non-defense federal department they would cut or eliminate. Or even one non-defense program. Just one. I’m waiting!

Why should they?Just ’cause you ordered it? Listen, we have a special name for people who pay undue attention to pipe dreams. They’re called “libertarians”.

JFK, LBJ and Reagan cut taxes, and revenues increased, Matt.

So Matt believes all current federal programs and departments are needed, not wasteful, and worth the money. Every single one. Wow.

Matt thinks I don’t exist in the federal government.

Matt doesn’t care what you think, dick head. Go cry to Neil Boortz, fanboy.

If I remember right (and please correct me if I’m off), seems to me that Reagan’s tax cuts tripled the national debt. And I KNOW that the Shrub and his allies magically transformed a surplus into world-record deficits by cutting taxes. However, we all know that deficits and government debt only matters if a Democrat is in charge, so I guess I’m out of line here…

An Obama-bot calling me a “fanboy”. Hilarious.

You’re an idiot for not realizing that tax revenues would go UP under the flat tax due to the economic growth it will create.

Do you have any idea how much growth you would need to generate to actually pay for a $500-billion-dollar deficit permanently? I’d ask you for a percentage, but that would be cruel, because you don’t fucking know anything.

Jesus, if you’re going to be this desperate to suck a man’s dick don’t go with Steve Forbes next time.

I’d like the liberals and “progressives” here to name ONE non-defense federal department they would cut or eliminate. Or even one non-defense program. Just one. I’m waiting!

Last I checked, the Navy wasn’t actually defending us from anything, but never mind that: cutting spending during a recession is irresponsible. It’s necessary to both cut taxes and increase spending; the purpose of government during a recession is to put money into the economy, because during a recession money gets tight and during boom years you’re supposed to raise taxes and cut spending. Bush, instead, did the exact opposite and, as per Econ 101, created an enormous bubble in whose shadow we now live.

But I don’t know, maybe the answer to our problems is taking 1.6 trillion dollars of receipts evenly out of 300 million people. That’d cut taxes for the upper bracket even more, thus creating even morerer growth. And surely if a single-earner home can pay 30% of their income they can find a way to give the government $8000 a year.

Liberals made their kids sing this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLprurE7EVI

And I’m the fanboy.

“But I don’t know, maybe the answer to our problems is taking 1.6 trillion dollars of receipts evenly out of 300 million people. That’d cut taxes for the upper bracket even more, thus creating even morerer growth. And surely if a single-earner home can pay 30% of their income they can find a way to give the government $8000 a year.”

Why not just give everyone a check for $1 million then?

Because of magic.

Watch me pull a rabbit outta my hat.
Nothing up my sleeve….
Presto!

Uh, I gotta get a different hat.

We could give every man, woman, and child in the USA $1 million cash and it would be magnitudes cheaper than the stimulus.

Someone trumpeting the “flat tax” scam impugning anyone’s ability to think for themselves. Laughable. Say, will this “flat tax” you speak of increase the mileage I get out of my laundry balls and gasoline pills? Will it run my perpetual motion machine?

Seriously, go ahead and try and get your neighbors to sign a petition asking the government to levy a flat fee of $8000 a person a year so they can leave our poor embattled corporations alone.

Also, if they agree to take away the evil IRS they get a bonus $35 all to themselves, hooray freedom!

Because of magic.

Watch me pull a policy proposal outta my ass.
Nothing up my sleeve…
Presto!

I gotta get a different ass.

Someone trumpeting the “flat tax” scam impugning anyone’s ability to think for themselves. Laughable. Say, will this “flat tax” you speak of increase the mileage I get out of my laundry balls and gasoline pills? Will it run my perpetual motion machine?

Finally the oppressive excise tax on wooden nickels & the White House night janitor will be gone forever. Mister Pelosi, tear down this wall.

We could give every man, woman, and child in the USA $1 million cash and it would be magnitudes cheaper than the stimulus.

I was not aware the stimulus had been pegged at 300 trillion dollars.

$1 million per person, huh, Waste, Fraud and Abuse? A good idea in theory, until you get to the supermarket and find hamburger at $2,000 a pound and toilet paper at $1,500 for a pack of six. And, so it begins.

On a related note, I’m lovin’ the comments to Noonan’s post on his blog. Looks like a lot of well-informed people are informing him his head is up his rectum.

See, this is your problem. You don’t fucking know math, and that’s the only reason the flat tax makes sense to you.

As one mathematical illiterate to a far sorrier case, let me offer you a piece of advice.

Stop holding opinions on fucking taxes. You don’t know anything and you’re only making it worse for those who do.

Jesus.

And for what it’s worth, I’m quite aware there’s plenty of fraud, abuse and waste in government. There are, after all, still plenty of conservatives in the halls of power who don’t give a shit about anyone who doesn’t make less than six figures a years. What I object to is being ordered around by someone who believes in the economic equivalent of “The Secret”. I mean, seriously, it’s not 1997 anymore and this isn’t Neil Boortz’s spot on the dial.

I’d like the liberals and “progressives” here to name ONE non-defense federal department they would cut or eliminate. Or even one non-defense program. Just one. I’m waiting!

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Maybe the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.

Anything else you’d like to demand?

Do away with regulations – great idea! What could go wrong?

. What I object to is being ordered around by someone who believes in the economic equivalent of “The Secret”.

As per usual, he does an excellent job of pretending to want the Department of Education burned for any reason besides hearing they let second-grade teachers not shave their armpits until actually confronted with numbers.

And the flat tax argument is always, always, always carried out in bad faith, because there’s no good-faith way to sell “How about all of you sell your houses so we can get another yacht” to the public. I hear wingnuts shrieking that taking out all the money the IRS wastes would solve the deficit. While it’s certainly possible to be a right-wing fuckwit without being completely innumerate (one imagines Dafydd ab Hugh is capable of adding 6″ to 6″ to get 12″, for instance), but flat-taxers are universally fanboys, mouth-breathers, and the idle rich.

I don’t think the supply side ideology is correct, but it’s possible to argue that. It’s not possible to argue that hiking taxes beyond half of the population’s ability to pay in order to give people a freer rein with their third billion is remotely acceptable, and there isn’t a flat-tax structure alternative to that.

I was thinking more along the lines of this.

Because companies are always run so well in the absence of regulation.

I really wish people would *think* about what they’re saying. The Glibertarian “gubmint bad” types are just plain fucking stupid. At least the real Libertarians have thought it out, even if they reach insane conclusions and leave out inconvenient details.

Reagan cut taxes, and revenues increased, Matt.

With apologies to our gracious hosts- Sadly, No!

According to a United States Department of the Treasury non-partisan economic study, the major tax bills enacted under Reagan, as a whole, significantly reduced (~-1% of GDP) government tax receipts.

Good catch, Till. Bhopal. And who’d like to ponder unregulated nuclear power plants?

I’d like the liberals and “progressives” here to name ONE non-defense federal blah blah blerg blockity blaarg blart fart fueks. Just one. I’m waiting!

I’d like you to fuck off and die. I’m waiting!

I’m waiting!

Would you please hold your breath while doing so? Thanks.

Of course my outburst was aimed at the troll, not MzNicky.

So, Flat Tax, you don’t believe in fucking? How about offing and dying? Wow.

Some NYGuy: 🙂

Please, please, please, wingnuts and flat-earthers, it’s time for you all to go John Galt.

Just do it to show all us BLAR-HAR LIE-BURULS how your perfect Randian society will be perfect. Do it because you keep threatening, and you should shit or get off the damn pot. Do it so we can have the amusement of watching everyone in New Objectivististan eat each other after three days.

From Eyebrow:

You see, liberals are of the opinion that without strict regulation, we won’t know what to do and we’ll make a hash of things. This liberal thinking changes completely when the subject turns to abortion and pornography, of course…

Ooh! Zing!

How did Thomas Friedman’s mustache migrate to Mark Noonan’s forehead?

Ronald Reagan raised taxes each and every year he was in office after the first year.

In his first year in office, he cut taxes, and unemployment skyrocketed.

Ronald Reagan then embarked on the biggest unfunded spending program in U.S. history, amassing more debt than all previous presidents combined.

And then, Reagan began continually raising taxes AND raising spending, like all Spend-Too-Much-But-Never-Tax-Enough Republicans.

…after his initial victories on tax cuts and defense, the revolution effectively stalled. Deficits started to balloon, the recession soon deepened, his party lost ground in the 1982 midterms, and thereafter Reagan never seriously tried to enact the radical domestic agenda he’d campaigned on. Rather than abolish the departments of Energy and Education, as he had promised to do if elected president, Reagan added a new cabinet-level department–one of the largest federal agencies–the Department of Veterans Affairs…

…Faced with looming deficits, Reagan raised taxes again in 1983 with a gasoline tax and once more in 1984, this time by $50 billion over three years, mainly through closing tax loopholes for business [NOTE: THIS WOULD BE LIKE OBAMA ROLLING BACK THE BUSH JR. TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH]. Despite the fact that such increases were anathema to conservatives–and probably cost Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, reelection — Reagan raised taxes a grand total of four times just between 1982-84.

This record flummoxes the best efforts of today’s Reagan hagiographers to explain away. Peter Wallison, for instance, after proclaiming that Reagan “stayed the course against changes in his economic plan,” later dismisses the president’s tax increases as “a modest rollback” that “seems to have been the result” of his accepting a Democratic promise to cut spending by twice that amount. (Whatever happened to “Trust, but verify”?)

Reagan continued these “modest rollbacks” in his second term. The historic Tax Reform Act of 1986, though it achieved the supply side goal of lowering individual income tax rates, was a startlingly progressive reform. The plan imposed the largest corporate tax increase in history — an act utterly unimaginable for any conservative to support today.

Just two years after declaring, “there is no justification” for taxing corporate income, Reagan raised corporate taxes by $120 billion over five years and closed corporate tax loopholes worth about $300 billion over that same period. In addition to broadening the tax base, the plan increased standard deductions and personal exemptions to the point that no family with an income below the poverty line would have to pay federal income tax.

Even at the time, conservatives within Reagan’s administration were aghast. According to Wall Street Journal reporters Jeffrey Birnbaum and Alan Murray, whose book Showdown at Gucci Gulch chronicles the 1986 measure, “the conservative president’s support for an effort once considered the bastion of liberals carried tremendous symbolic significance.” When Reagan’s conservative acting chief economic adviser, William Niskanen, was apprised of the plan he replied, “Walter Mondale would have been proud.”

So would Russell Long. In 1975, the Democratic senator from Louisiana had passed into law the earned income tax credit (EITC), essentially a wage subsidy for the working poor. Long’s measure was tiny to begin with and had dwindled to insignificance by the time Reagan agreed to expand it in 1986 as part of the tax reform act. Despite years of opposing social insurance programs, Reagan’s support of the EITC gave rise to what has become one of the most effective antipoverty measures the federal government has ever devised — by the late 1990s, the EITC was lifting 4.3 million people out of poverty every year. Reagan’s decision to expand it was “the most important anti-poverty measure enacted over the past decade,” wrote The Wall Street Journal’s Al Hunt. The exemption of millions of low-wage earners from income taxes through the EITC and other reforms in 1986 added a significant measure of progressivity to the tax code. As evidence of its popularity with liberals, Clinton dramatically expanded the EITC in 1993…

Ha, ha, ha. You little sh*ts can throw your sh*t fits all you want. Your 30 years of Reaganism are UP. Collect your dirty tissues and leave now.

It’s not that I’m not giving Reagan credit for sweeping all the redneck right wing whites of the South into the Republican fold begun by anti-Civil Rights resentment. It’s that they’ve done drained that well dry, the rest of the country outnumbers redneck Southern Republican white bitters, and you’ll take your god-damn 2006 and 2008 whoopin’s and learn to like ’em, ’cause you boys just begun to lose. Ain’t no more damn redneck Southern Republicans to prospect for, they done all yours.

This society under the O-administration is rapidly moving towards two classes of people–those that suck off the government tit and those who have to pay for the people who suck off the government tit.

How many of the liberals on here are government employees?

Reagan was a NET TAX CUTTER.

So those Egg Marketing Board creeps got to you too, eh?

You’d better run, egg!

Prejudice against the south and rural people is the last acceptable form of bigotry in polite society.

The Glibertarian “gubmint bad” types are just plain fucking stupid

Of course. Stupid people like Noonan are subsidized by business to put pro-business agitprop out there. I expect Noonan doesn’t even know that that is his function. He’s a deregulation marketer pushing idiotic ideas to idiots, who unfortunately vote.

On both the practical (if tax cuts worked the last 8 years would have us swimming in dough right now) and the theoretical (if lowering taxes makes more revenue then cut taxes to zero and get infinite munnies!), this “tax cut always good” stuff is only credible to the functionally retarded.

Isn’t this about the time Mikey shows up and admonishes us all for arguing with Newt’s clone(s)?

Newtclonian Republicans:Hip Hopping to a New America

Prejudice against the south and rural people Blatant racism is the last acceptable form one of the many acceptable forms of bigotry in polite consevative society.

Prejudice against the south and rural people is the last acceptable form of bigotry in polite society.

Absolutely. As a Southerner myself, I’ll be the first to admit my stupid region of the country caused huge damage by allowing the appointment and election of George W. Bush. George put all the conservative stupid ideas in practice, and damn near ruined the country.

I’d cheerfully surrender my right to vote in Presidential elections provided that franchise is revoked for everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line. It is clear we cannot run either the CSA or the USA.

Isn’t this about the time Mikey shows up and admonishes us all for arguing with Newt’s clone(s)?

Lately he’s been getting on TBogg, unless it’s a namestealer. I worry about the guy; seems like quite the personality change.

I’m just glad there’s no prejudice against Hollywood (and California in general), NYC, Massachusetts, etc. in polite society. I mean, it exists, but the society in which it exists is anything but polite.

Another funny thing about regional prejudices is how the rural parts of the country try to claim 9/11 as their own, even though for the most part it directly affected only the kinds of big city slickers that they normally fucking hate.

way to fix the economy is to suspend all regulations,

I’m late to the thread so I’m probably repeating here. Isn’t that pretty much the way we broke the economy?

Jerry Pournelle is and always was an asshat with a much higher opinion of himself than is warranted. I tried to have a discusssion with him at a con somewhere many many years ago and found it impossible to penetrate his exalted opinion of himself. What a dick.

Being referred to as a citizen of “Little Beirut” by Dickster and teh Insaniacs was perhaps one of my proudest moments.

sigh,…

That’s true, Rusty. It’s just the adrenaline junkie/macho bullshit “I wish they’d try that with me” attitude. That’s one of the (granted many) great ironies – the Republicans, supposedly the tough guys, are the ones scared shitless by 9/11. Cowards.

This society under the O-administration is rapidly moving towards two classes of people–those that suck off the government tit and those who have to pay for the people who suck off the government tit.

As opposed to society under the W-administration, in which a cabal of construction, contracting, and pseudo-defense executives drained billions of dollars from government coffers in the form of uncompetitive contracts during a deficit.

You know, because when we spend $7 billion to run the taxation system of the world’s biggest economy, that’s wasteful and a drain on the silent majority.. When you spend that much above market value on a development contract for a company the Cabinet owns voting stock in, the money comes out of nowhere and is rugged individualism.

Reagan was a NET TAX CUTTER.

Again, unless you’re on a trust fund or living in Mom’s basement, Reagan is personally responsible for most of what you pay in taxes. And unless you’re one of the tiny number (respectable enough pre-Reagan, but these days about as big as that of any other third-world country) who actually manage to make millions without going through a decade of education on federal loans, this will be true until the day you retire. And you think that’s almost perfect – if only he had taken that retirement away from you. Then you’d be happy.

Prejudice against the south and rural people is the last acceptable form of bigotry in polite society.

Nice going eliding those together, city-boy. You know, because them real Americans are just simple farm folk, sure’nuff, pining after simpler times in ol’ Dixie.

Isn’t this about the time Mikey shows up and admonishes us all for arguing with Newt’s clone(s)?

This is why I’ve set up the St. Jesus system. This way, anyone wishing to tone out responses to trolls can just killfile “St. Jesus|”. Trolls get slapped around just dandy, those of us completely uninterested in their pap can ignore it all without having to kf anyone actual, and it plays deserving tribute to our favorite invincible dunderhead, a man who once sneered that Gandhi was a vicious anti-black racist in the middle of a diatribe about Mugabe and Obama being the same person.

Being referred to as a citizen of “Little Beirut” by Dickster and teh Insaniacs was perhaps one of my proudest moments.

I lived in Little Beirut for three years. Amazing city. Full of not-real-Americans (per Palin), of course, but nice nonetheless.

That’s another one of those great ironies, PeeJ. They are protected and coddled by the system, but rather than acknowledge that they think they are self-made men. What a crock. Let’s drop Pournelle’s ass on a deserted island and come back three months later and see how all that “self made man” horsehockey is working out.

Another funny thing about regional prejudices is how the rural parts of the country try to claim 9/11 as their own, even though for the most part it directly affected only the kinds of big city slickers that they normally fucking hate.

9/11 affected them so deeply, as a matter of fact, that they just had to turn around and cut $83 million out of the already-overstretched NYC anti-terrorism budget in order to buy night-vision goggles for Utah park rangers and a SWAT hotline for the world’s second-biggest Belgian endive.

Let’s drop Pournelle’s ass on a deserted island and come back three months later and see how all that “self made man” horsehockey is working out.

Without their cushy government sinecures the grapes would wither on their vines. (h/t alec)

Prejudice against the south and rural people is the last acceptable form of bigotry in polite society.

As a Southerner born in bred, next to a tobacco farm, on well water, I’ll make fun of my stupid ass reactionary Dixie Republican neighbors as much as I damn well please. After all, I’m the one who’s had to put up with their stupid moronisms more than even the damage their idiot movement has dealt to this nation.

And the only time I worked for the government was when I served in the U.S. military, something that’s foreign to Republicans, who only believe in neo-Confederate treason as a driving principle.

Thank god at least Reagan learned eventually how to ignore you redneck right wingers and raise taxes at least a little bit, though he was addicted to the defense industry welfare teat.

Being referred to as a citizen of “Little Beirut” by Dickster and teh Insaniacs was perhaps one of my proudest moments.

I lived in Little Beirut for three years. Amazing city. Full of not-real-Americans (per Palin), of course, but nice nonetheless.

I know I say this a lot, but it’s really worth repeating: before the 2002-2006 political cycle (and even to some extent in 2004), both Muslims and Arab-Americans were more typically Republican than any minority group that hadn’t come primarily from a communist country. The GOP strategists pretty much accepted that one of their loyal model minorities would just have to be fallout in a campaign to het up the base – and that base was just too fucking stupid to accept any answer to the Middle East finer-grained than slapping the Koran and random Arabs with their wrinkly piss-soaked balls. And now the Arabs are Democrats. Amazing.

That’s another one of those great ironies, PeeJ. They are protected and coddled by the system, but rather than acknowledge that they think they are self-made men. What a crock. Let’s drop Pournelle’s ass on a deserted island and come back three months later and see how all that “self made man” horsehockey is working out.

My favorite thing about Pournelle has always been how much he hates what America actually stands for. Instead of getting worked up about the actual US military as your typical military dork will, or even a whitened-up version like the multinational uniracial version you see in early WWII movies, he has to beat his meat to Swedish imperialists and doughty little Hussites. Lord forbid we accept Truman integrating the Army. That would be Marxism, don’t you know.

I guess nobody noticed the “inbred” joke. Darn.

I guess nobody noticed the “inbred” joke. Darn.

I thought it was a typo, for all intensive purposes.

cid: I’d be willing to bet he lives in Fresno or somewhere, he just thinks of himself as a true American at heart, just like you adorable little people.

You know, like the (legitimately stupid) Palin affecting a mixture of Fargo and a patronizing European impression of a hillbilly to show how in touch with us real heartland-livin’ Americans she was.

“See? I say it “nuculur” too, just like you idiots!”

Doesn’t the name “Blogs For Victory” sound so…pre-restoration Germany?

To be fair I’m pretty sure the “The Iron Dream” is a work of parody.

Yes (I’d call it satire, myself)– I just wondered if Dahle had read it since it was Spinrad basically calling out the idea that there was a lot of right-wing authoritarian fantasizing in old-school SF.

I’d like the liberals and “progressives” here to name ONE non-defense federal department they would cut or eliminate. Or even one non-defense program. Just one. I’m waiting!

Subsidies to the oil companies leaps to mind.

The Flat Tax is a perfect example of the what I saw once in one of those Murphy’s Law collections “Everybody has a simple easy to understand solution that will not work.”

Subsidies to the oil companies leaps to mind.

Sugar subsidies, corn subsidies, irrigation projects for farmers stupid enough to farm desert land…

I think we need to abandon the leftist “uniform acceleration” under gravity and assume instead a constant rate of falling. This one change alone from a progressive acceleration rate to a flat and constant velocity would allow the economy to instantly multiply by gazillions since we would now be able to fly cheaply to space and mine the infinite resources of the asteroid belt.

“Nothin’ makes investors more confident than the fact that there’s no laws restricting them from being ripped off!”

Word. Savy investors long for the salad days of 1929, when you could get a stiffy just from gettin’ a peak at some gal’s ankles. What a bargain! Which was the style of the times.

How about we offer to cut federal subsidies to states like Alaska, Oklahoma, Montana, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and any other red state whose political leadership claims to be against government intervention into the economy?

After all, hard working citizens in real, economically productive states like New York and New Jersey and Massachusetts are sick and tired of having to hand welfare money to these failed conservative bastions.

I think we need to abandon the leftist “uniform acceleration” under gravity and assume instead a constant rate of falling.

The so-called “Principia Mathematica” is obviously a socialism manual.

Chances of me ever happening= Zero friggin percent.

I also love how wingnuts who claim liberals are miles out of the mainstream will then say we should start eliminating cabinet departments left and right and disband Congress for a few months (as Cartman-voiced crybaby Mark Levin did last week). Yeah, good luck with that, fellers.

Also, let’s not forget that Troofus promised he’d knock off the whole name-changing game. Ah well. That lasted all of like two threads.

I think we need to abandon the leftist “uniform acceleration” under gravity and assume instead a constant rate of falling.

I agree! It’s unfair to those of greater mass to think that momentum should apply more to those who have more!

Fun fact: because the national debt doesn’t just go away when you stop looking at it, the 10 trillion dollar debt Bush took out for his war, tax cuts, and thug thizzle, even at a preposterously low interest rate (say 2%) still represents a yearly deficit of $200 billion by itself. The problem was never going to be the principal running out; the problem is that consistent deficit spending results in consistent obligate debt outpayment.

I find it especially bittersweet that, after all the trolling by the miserable failure saying that Social Security was going to collapse, because of the oppressive payroll tax he and his have steadily and stealthily made a central part of US taxes, health and human services give an ultimate receipt. This isn’t just Forbes-level outdated, it’s Taft-level outdated.

Look, Nooners, if you guys want to set policy, try winning some elections sometime. We, the majority of voters in the country, chose representatives who believed in regulating markets to protect the country from the rampant greedheads’ worst. If you don’t want to bother about the elections bit, and you’re still not happy with the country, i.e. you don’t “love it”, we cordially invite you to “leave it”. You and your fellows can emigrate to your regulation-free utopia, and we will even start you out on the right foot by sending you all the salmonella-laced peanut butter, melamine-tainted dairy products, and chock-full-o-mercury canned fish we can recall. Enjoy, and best of luck! You’ll need it.

You and your fellows can emigrate to your regulation-free utopia, and we will even start you out on the right foot by sending you all the salmonella-laced peanut butter, melamine-tainted dairy products, and chock-full-o-mercury canned fish we can recall. Enjoy, and best of luck! You’ll need it.

The libertarian paradise of sunny Somalia awaits!

How about we offer to cut federal subsidies to states like Alaska, Oklahoma, Montana, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and any other red state whose political leadership claims to be against government intervention into the economy?

Hm.

How about, instead of a flat tax, a flat entitlement?

Each state gets back exactly as much in federal spending as it pays in in taxes each year.

“Nothin’ makes investors more confident than the fact that there’s no laws restricting them from being ripped off!”

Who needs laws when you can shake hands with financial advisors and look into their SOULS.

“And the only time I worked for the government was when I served in the U.S. military, something that’s foreign to Republicans, who only believe in neo-Confederate treason as a driving principle.”

Thanks for answering the question!

I see the rest of your lib cohorts can’t do the same–do you work for the government (federal, state, or local)?

Flat Tax has a great idea. Let’s look at all those other countries that spend more than half their budget on the military

The only one that probably comes close is North Korea. I don’t know what percentage of their budget it is, but it’s roughly 45% of GDP.

“Another funny thing about regional prejudices is how the rural parts of the country try to claim 9/11 as their own, even though for the most part it directly affected only the kinds of big city slickers that they normally fucking hate.”

I’m in Virginia.

You don’t hear much about the privatization of Social Security these days. I wonder why that is?

I’m in Virginia.

Um hm. Where ’bouts?

“Each state gets back exactly as much in federal spending as it pays in in taxes each year.”

As soon as you let the western states exploit their mineral resources as they see fit, sure! Oh, and eliminating agro subsidies would end most of that disparity between urban and rural states.

“”You don’t hear much about the privatization of Social Security these days. I wonder why that is?”

You will hear about the impending bankruptcy of both SS and Medicare soon enough, though.

The World Trade Center’s practically out in Poughkeepsie, too.

healthcare (a private matter)

So presumably the germs and viruses won’t make it through the fence of your gated community when half the country is running around with infectious diseases.

I’d like the liberals and “progressives” here to name ONE non-defense federal department they would cut or eliminate. Or even one non-defense program. Just one. I’m waiting!

Is the DEA a non-defense department?

Sugar subsidies, corn subsidies, irrigation projects for farmers stupid enough to farm desert land…

Back when we were an agricultural nation, having a department of agriculture made a lot of sense. Today, much of US agriculture is factory farming. Megafarms receive subsidies for not farming. Haiti is in deep shit largely because we subsidized rice growers here to ship cheap-ass rice to Haiti so that the native farming base collapsed and now they can’ grow their own food anymore.

“Current farm policies are obscenely expensive, doling out $25 billion in subsidies each year,” says Brian M. Riedl, an expert on the federal budget with The Heritage Foundation. “Most of the money goes to commercial farms, where average household income is $199,975 and average net worth is almost $2 million.

That’s from Heritage Foundation, of all places.

With grain prices soaring, farm income at record highs and the federal budget deficit widening, the subsidies and handouts given to American farmers would seem vulnerable to a serious pruning.

But it appears that farmers, at least so far, have succeeded in stopping the strongest effort in years to shrink the government safety net that doles out billions of dollars to them each year. –“Bountiful Harvest: Farm Lobby Beats Back Assault On Subsidies,” THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, March 27,

WSJ. Ahem.

The whole system should be scrapped and redesigned for the 21st century.

fick dich WP

I can hardly wait for the deregulation of everything. I’ll start small with a meth lab in the garage and end up with one the size of a Coors brewery. Sure the profits margin won’t be nearly as great as when it was illegal, but I’ll make it up in volume and lower overhead–no bribes to law enforcement. And of course the power of advertising, special discounts for people under 21 and using employees of the sex industry to introduce customers to a free taste. And it’s not like there’ll be any government-subsidized rehab to help people stop using.

Yaayyy unfettered capitalism.

Another reason to be against “stimulus”:

Obama is putting Joe Biden in charge of it. A man with a room temperature IQ who plagiarized from Robert Kennedy and socialist Neil Kinnock, a guy who didn’t even know what article of the Constitution gave power to the Executive Branch, the man who thought France kicked Hizbollah out of Lebanon. He’s going to be in charge of billions of dollars.

“Another funny thing about regional prejudices is how the rural parts of the country try to claim 9/11 as their own, even though for the most part it directly affected only the kinds of big city slickers that they normally fucking hate.”

I’m in Virginia.

Yep, right in the middle of a cow pasture. Seriously, are you for real?

Look, Fiscal Conservative/Flat Tax/Various Truth Sockpuppets, do us all a favor. Run Neal Boortz in 2012. Just do it. He’ll call for the elimination of half the cabinet, the installation of the Flat Tax, no regulations, and all matter of bathtub-drowned government to your heart’s content. It’ll be exactly what you want out of a candidate, out of a man. And then see the number of votes it gets you.

Enough books, enough think tanks, enough wingnut welfare. Sack up and attempt to get America to buy into your schemes.

And Virginny is all plantations and Suhthun Belles sighing on verandas, eh?

Pee Ess The people who work at the Pentagon are government workers, too.

As soon as you let the western states exploit their mineral resources as they see fit, sure!

Funny thing about those mineral resources. They’re of rather finite quantity. Once they’re all dug up, that’s it. Nothing, nada, zilch, zero, zip.

Unless you happen to believe:

1. God’s going to put more copper ore in that ground at some point.

or

2. The Rapture’s going to happen pretty soon so it doesn’t matter.*

*I wish I was joking here but Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior pretty much believed that.

“Is the DEA a non-defense department?”

Yes. States should make laws over what drugs are legal and illegal, not the feds. So, I agree.

Blah blah, Biden’s a dummy, blah blah.

And that Biden-plagiarized-Kinnock line is bullshit, and you know it. He had been quoting and citing Kinnock for weeks in Campaign ’88. Forgot the citation one time in a speech. Oh noes.

Hey, look who’s making fun of Biden’s intellect! It’s Bush’s butt-buddy!

I can hardly wait for the deregulation of everything. I’ll start small with a meth lab in the garage and end up with one the size of a Coors brewery.

I just want a still. *sniffle* That said, I’m all for cutting the ATF down to TF, or hell, just F.

a guy who didn’t even know what article of the Constitution gave power to the Executive Branch

Seeing how this occurred mere seconds after Sarah Palin defended Dick Cheney’s view of government, your outrage is misplaced.

Hey, I’m all for a state exploiting it’s resources as it sees fit!

So long as it doesn’t pollute the environment for everyone else, go ahead and knock yourself out if you think that will replace federal tax bennies.

Of course, that implies those states will pay for their own military bases and such…trust me, I have no problem with the great state of North Dakota buying it’s own F-16 fighters!

Hey, Cheney and Palin don’t give a fuck what article of the Constitution gives power to the Executive Branch. That’s totally different.

“Of course, that implies those states will pay for their own military bases and such…trust me, I have no problem with the great state of North Dakota buying it’s own F-16 fighters!”

Defense spending is a legitimate federal expenditure, constitutionally mandated. Unlike a provision in a “stimulus” bill protecting a species of field mouse from San Francisco.

Another reason to be against “stimulus”:

Obama is putting Joe Biden in charge of it. A man with a room temperature IQ who plagiarized from Robert Kennedy and socialist Neil Kinnock, a guy who didn’t even know what article of the Constitution gave power to the Executive Branch, the man who thought France kicked Hizbollah out of Lebanon. He’s going to be in charge of billions of dollars.

Why, the thought of those 300 trillion taxpayer dollars going anywhere near his greasy wop hairplugs is enough to startle me half to death!!

I can hardly wait for the deregulation of everything. I’ll start small with a meth lab in the garage and end up with one the size of a Coors brewery.

I’m buying an Abrams tank. Fuck my neighbors.

Yes. States should make laws over what drugs are legal and illegal, not the feds. So, I agree.

Why stop at the State level? Why not at the county or city level? Or maybe at the neighborhood level? I’m pretty sure I could talk my condo association into legalizing pot.

Defense spending is a legitimate federal expenditure, constitutionally mandated. Unlike a provision in a “stimulus” bill protecting a species of field mouse from San Francisco. completely loaded with pork, a fact lost on the Boortzo crowd.

I urge you to Google “gay field mouse rape wave”.

Doesn’t the name “Blogs For Victory” sound so…pre-restoration Germany?

It always makes me think of the Firesign Theater:

“Shoes for industry! Shoes for the dead!”

“Why stop at the State level? Why not at the county or city level? Or maybe at the neighborhood level? I’m pretty sure I could talk my condo association into legalizing pot.”

Because states have the proper legal authority to regulate that kind of thing. If a state wanted to delegate it to the local level, sure, they could do it.

I’m a successful entrepreneur. You?

Did y’all know you can clearly see the Washington Monument from the Pentagon? Pretty cool.

Biden couldn’t even get his own sites URL correct, LOL! He said “.org” when it was “.gov”. Dumbass.

We tried that whole “states rights” thing. It didn’t work out so well for certain demographics in certain states as I recall.

Hey, I’m all for a state exploiting it’s resources as it sees fit!

If the Federal government paid for the land directly, like they did for the Louisiana Purchase and Seward’s Folly, or indirectly, like the Mexican Cession, why should only the states reap the benefits? Pay it back, motherfuckers!

Defense spending is a legitimate federal expenditure, constitutionally mandated.

The Constitution was not written so General Electric could charge the American taxpayer $1500 for a tack hammer. I know you consider it a living document and all, but it has limits.

Unlike a provision in a “stimulus” bill protecting a species of field mouse from San Francisco.

No such provision exists; this is an invention of the Washington Times, the flagship publication of Reverend Moon’s Unification Church (you know, the ones with the mass marriages? Goes on and on about the penis being a snake, boasts about being greater than Jesus? You know, the guy who does the Republican Party’s publishing these days.), and either you got it from them or you uncritically passed it along from someone who did.

But even in that stupid lie, it’s not a field mouse. I can accept that you can’t add two and two without a head start and a call to the local Party, and I can even accept that you’re so intellectually bankrupt you need debate pointers from Moonies, but can you at least parrot their talking points accurately?

Defense spending is a legitimate federal expenditure, constitutionally mandated

Goodness, we have all forgotten how much the founding fathers LOVED the idea of standing armies! We’re so silly!

Defense spending is a legitimate federal expenditure, constitutionally mandated.

Yup.

And we should be spending more where it’s required and less where the people don’t live, idjit.

Biden couldn’t even get his own sites URL correct, LOL! He said “.org” when it was “.gov”. Dumbass.

So first you try and call him stupid, and now you paint him as technically illiterate. I guess next you’re going to accuse him of stealing pretty dresses from the Party and arguing incoherently for an asinine tax system.

Hi, Fiscal Conservative. It’s nice seeing you again.

We hate to be a bother, but just to remind you: We heard your lines back in November and still didn’t vote for you. So if you want to go ahead and leave, that’d be great. Toodles!

“gay field mouse rape wave”

Band name!

So first you try and call him stupid, and now you paint him as technically illiterate.

It’s true. Biden clearly forgot the Internet was a series of tubes…

It’s a good thing Mark Noonan isn’t paid for his ideas.

Did one of my killfile residents actually claim that defense spending is “constitutionally mandated”? BWA HA HA!!!!

Congress has the power under Art. I, sec. 8 to spend for the common defense, but is not mandated to do so.

The instant I saw that Scrotumface was citing “A science-fiction author”, I just knew that it would be Pournelle, whose only claim to fame even in the sci-fi ghetto is from riding on Larry Niven’s coattails.

I like how he still thinks Virginia is part of real America. McCain won by a resounding margin of -7%, after all.

Obama will do one good thing for race relations:

By the end of his single term, it will be perfectly acceptable to question a black politicians intelligence in polite company.

It’s all about meeeeeeeeeeee!

McCain won by a resounding margin of -7%, after all.

Oh yeah! I should bookmark that.

Also, using ‘fiscal conservative’ is especially amusing in that
a) ‘fiscal’ specifically implies budgetary concerns, unlike the broader ‘financial’
b) his fiscally-conservative plan is to kill the only big entitlement program that pays for itself out of spite, and then to chaotically reorganize the tax system, with the end result being at best a bigger deficit than before
c) he even managed to spell it without choking on his own fingers

By the end of his single term, it will be perfectly acceptable to question a black politicians intelligence in polite company.

You can do that now. What you can’t do, however, is assume a black politician is lacking in intelligence simply because he or she is black or got where he or she is simply because of “white liberal guilt” or “affirmative action”. Course, you can still do that now, but most folks, politely or not, will think you’re a pea-brained, racist jackass.

Hey, I’m all for a state exploiting it’s resources as it sees fit!

If the Federal government paid for the land directly, like they did for the Louisiana Purchase and Seward’s Folly, or indirectly, like the Mexican Cession, why should only the states reap the benefits? Pay it back, motherfuckers!

Now hang on here – what about federal outlays for the Army and stuff, which appropriated the remaining continental US from the colonists and original inhabitants? We need to use some full-cost accounting for this kind of thing – no cherry-picking!

I have no problem with the great state of North Dakota buying it’s own F-16 fighters!

The states used to do that at one point. The Air National Guard was mostly state funded at one time.

The problem was you had states operating things like F-100s and KC-97s which were badly obsolete even in the 1970s. There was really no point even having them since they would have lasted about 5 minutes an a conflict.

After Vietnam the Air Force came up with the “Total Force Concept” which gave all the Air Guard units the same planes as the Air Force.

This came at a steep price tag because to afford things like F-16s and C-5s the Air Guard had to receive about 2/3 of its funding from the federal government.

FC, we seem to be completely out of touch with you. You needn’t bother responding as we are quite happy with the situation.

PS – Best luck in the next election! You’re going to need it!

Kenga, we gave them casinos and 40 acres and a mule…how much more could they want???? 😉

I look eagerly forward to the post-Obama utopia in which we will return to civilization, speaking in hushed tones of the dictatorial rule of Flavor-Flavor Sese Seko and his giant blue lips.

“b) his fiscally-conservative plan is to kill the only big entitlement program that pays for itself out of spite, ”

Social Security doesn’t pay for itself. That’s a total myth. It’s bankrupt for a reason.

What is BHO going to do about entitlement spending? Do the libs have any plans for that at all to prevent it form bankrupting us?

It’s so funny hearing these white ringers whine about spending but not say a word in apology for Bush’s failure in Iraq.

Any other government employees?

A trillion bucks on people you’ll never meet in a land you’ll never be able to visit safely, but not a buck on your neighbor down the road whose losing his house.

Ain’t THAT America?

Pfft. I make the Iraq War look like chump change. And just wait until the boomers retire!

Also, fuck you WP you goddamn piece of shit. Is anybody else having the posting too quickly problem this morning? As in, on EVERY GODDAMN FUCKING COMMENT I try to make. Opera? Is it you, my dear beloved Opera?

That’s the one thing I dislike about Opera – it’s so standards compliant that a shitload of pisspoorly coded sites just don’t
‘t work well if at all.

That is entitlement spending makes the Iraq War look like chump change.

“b) his fiscally-conservative plan is to kill the only big entitlement program that pays for itself out of spite, ”

Social Security doesn’t pay for itself. That’s a total myth. It’s bankrupt for a reason.

Social Security is the enormous post-Reagan payroll tax’s raison d’etre, and as such it pays its way just fine. Although I guess it might not be with the boomers retiring.

What is BHO going to do about entitlement spending? Do the libs have any plans for that at all to prevent it form bankrupting us?

Well, presumably we giant welfare broods will finally live our parents’ dreams, buying pink cadillacs of our own with Joe Biden’s $300,000,000,000,000 entitlementplug.

Psst. Hey libs!

I don’t exist!

One wonders why Republicans funded the Bush deficit with money that “doesn’t exist”…

So whats the plan for me, then, when boomers do retire?

A trillion bucks on people you’ll never meet in a land you’ll never be able to visit safely, but not a buck on your neighbor down the road whose losing his house.

You’re assuming they actually care about other human beings. All that spending in Iraq was just so’s conservative warpigs could pretend they were G.I. Joe, and frankly, I think most of ’em would happily see their neighbors’ houses blown the fuck up. Especially those “neighbors” who just aren’t right for the neighborhood, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Bush has made sure that we won’t be retiring any time soon, son.

You know, you never managed to fool anyone with that ‘oh god it’s a nightmarish crisis again!!’ business. It lost Republicans stupid enough to treat it like a campaign issue seats.

And when McCain wasn’t race-baiting by proxy he was doing exactly what you’re doing, whining about a few million dollars which still ultimately get spent domestically while (a) his own party pumps a trillion dollars into largely foreign debt and (b) the deficit continues to expand and expand.

You finally went broke overestimating the stupidity of the American people. Maybe Montenegro is hungry for the free market, I don’t know.

PLEASE!!! You don’t understand! It’s all Bush’s fault! Don’t throw us out! Bu–Bush!! 🙁

Hey look, the Pentagon! Right over there across the Potomac. HEY GUYS! *waves*

I’ve grown tired of his desperate digging through old GOP talking points and Moonie personals sites, so I propose something new: let’s figure out why he’s got a hair acrosst his ass about agriculture subsidies.

I think he believes that’s where they grow blacks.

I wish people would quit misreading me. “Mandated,” indeed. Bah.

What this country needs is more funding for public schools, which I guess I also “mandate.”

PLEASE!!! You don’t understand! It’s all Bush’s fault! Don’t throw us out! Bu–Bush!! 🙁

I know, right? I plan on bookmarking this 300 trillion times, just to make sure.

PLEASE!!! You don’t understand! It’s all Bush’s fault! Don’t throw us out! Bu–Bush!! 🙁

You mean everything that’s gone bad the past 8 years won’t be Clinton’s fault anymore? Far out.

During the Terror, political prisoners used to write letters to Stalin detailing their plight thinking that if only Stalin knew what was going on and what his underlings were doing, he would stop it. I sense a little bit of that kind of logic among BHO’s supporters. As his supporters find it harder and harder to defend his administration, they start to say how BO is being screwed by the Dems in Congress and almost always by the evil Clintons. Putting Joe Biden in charge of the stimulus will just encourage that kind of thinking. When the stimulus fails, which it will, Biden and the governors will be convenient scapegoats for BHO and his more dedicated supporters.

Clinton’s fault? Heck, they’re still stuck on Jimmy freakin’ Carter 30 years after the fact!

I figure we get to blame things on Bush until roughly 2038.

SS is not bankrupt. Yet another dipshit talking point for the giullible and easily confused. FC, you can change the subject as much as you want and if it’s all done just to fulfill your pathetic need for attention that'[s ok, we undeestand. But jeezus fucking battered and fried christ on a stick, at least get some talking points that aren’t mere fantasy.

It must be troofus the doofus. No one else can be so lame and inept for so long.

Fiscal Conservative said,
February 23, 2009 at 19:26
Blart blart [citation needed]

Remember that promise BHO made to not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250K? You can put that next to the promise to end coercive inerrogation, renditions, and holding terrorists without trial.

I’d toss in his promise to have 2-day public review of all bills before signing, but no one ever believed that one anyway.

Obama at least has the benefit of not being completely batshit insane.

Hey, remember when Bush promised to get bin Laden “dead or alive”? Good times, good times.

Jeez, when I come here and see there’s already 230 comments, I know someone’s been throwing troll-seed out on the sidewalk for the nasty flocks of trolls.

C’mon, people.

Obama at least has the benefit of not being completely batshit insane.

Yes, but remember, he’s not-white, so to conservatives, that means everything he says is suspect. ‘Cause of all the hippety-hop and terrorist fist-jabbing and whitey hating, ya know.

Bookmark this, libs: no new taxes.

Heck, they’re still stuck on Jimmy freakin’ Carter 30 years after the fact!

I think that’s mostly because he speaks out on the Middle East in a way that offends their racism fucked-up end-times superstition delicate sensibilities.

And really, what does Jimmy Carter know about the Middle East? Certainly not as much as, say, a Neil Boortz or a Glen Beck.

g,
Hey, I got the day off and every other site I read’s talking about the Oscars. Besides, it’s fun watching St. Jesus feed this doofus his lunch.

You can understand the reason I post here if you realize that I use 4 guidelines in making my posts:

1. I write blatant lies and opinions, but mainly questions, that are easily refuted – but that refutation will take some time away from your day.
2. If you answer my questions I ignore them and ask other questions.
3. If I run out of questions I just recycle the same ones.
4. If I can’t think of recycled questions to ask you I listen to OxyRush. He never runs out of lies.

I’ve made a note on my calendar for January 21st, 2038 to “Stop blaming things on Bush”.

Why do you think the word LIBERAL is so close to LIE?

Huh? Huh? Answer THAT one, evil liburls!

I’ve made a note on my calendar for January 21st, 2038 to “Stop blaming things on Bush”.

Not using the Mayan calendar, eh Major?

g: I’ve been ill, and the handle I’m using (along with anyone else using similar ones) is a specific courtesy allowing easy killfiling of troll-whupping.

I’d strongly advise no one deal with the trolls without one. After all, I like pie.

No, but I am stocking up on hockey masks and crossbows because I think we’ll be living in Mad Max by then.

LIBERAL:LIE?
Hmm, okay, you’ve made an excellent pointother steaming pile of poop.

Besides, you can’t spell conservative without shit for brains .

After Vietnam the Air Force came up with the “Total Force Concept” which gave all the Air Guard units the same planes as the Air Force.

This came at a steep price tag because to afford things like F-16s and C-5s the Air Guard had to receive about 2/3 of its funding from the federal government.

That came in real handy when right wingers and hawks were looking for ways to channel military and logistical equipments to terrorists and death squads in Central America and Southern Africa — so when Congress forbid direct U.S. military transfers, Reagan was able to help his evangelical Guatemalan generals continue their campaign to have their troops bash Mayan babies’ heads into rocks and poles despite the ban on direct federal assistance. He got his buddies in state governments to have their National Guards transfer equipment to the killers.

As his supporters find it harder and harder to defend his administration

Bookmark this, Troofus:

A new polling analysis from Gallup shows a very interesting piece of data within the slight decline of President Obama’s approval rating, down from its 68% honeymoon rating when he took office, to 63% now. Not only is the dip fueled solely by a fall in Republican support — in fact, his ratings have gone up slightly among everyone else.

Between the polling sample from January 21-25, compared to February 9-15, Obama’s ratings went from 90% to 94% among self-identified liberal Democrats, from 87% to 88% among moderate Dems, from 80% to 84% with conservative Dems, and from 47% to 50% among independents. On the other hand, his approval fell from 53% to 47% moderate Republicans, with a plummet of 36% down to 22% with conservative Republicans.

In other words, it’s only wingnuts like you who don’t approve of the way Obama is handling his job. Wingnuts like you = The ones who mustered nationwide anti-stimulus protests that numbered, in full, in the hundreds. Awesome.

PLEASE!!! You don’t understand! It’s all Bush’s fault! Don’t throw us out! Bu–Bush!! 🙁

Oh yes, please keep thinking that the American people will just stop pinning our current situation on George W. Bush. Tell us to Bookmark this(TM), in fact.

Here’s a hint: Polls matter. People like you spend the entire summer and early fall pretending like they didn’t, and now you have President Obama.

This is an awesome rant:

The Academy Awards are increasingly ignored not because the award show itself is long and boring. It was always that. It’s because the movies have made themselves increasingly irrelevant. In one film after another, we are told that the world in front of our eyes isn’t really there, that instead the world is really as the left imagines it. In the world as it is, a religion of violent intolerance has risen up against the freest, most moral civilization ever established on earth. In the movies, we’re the bad guys and Islamists are the persecuted ones. In the world as it is, an American president sacrificed his popularity to free 30 million people from a crushing tyranny of government sponsored rape, torture and murder. In the movies, that president is a degraded fool and a lowlife.

Look at me!

(S,N! brass: Remember when you threatened Truth with bannination unless he knocked this off?)

I can’t wait until 2010 and 2012.

Hell, I can’t wait until this year when we win back the Governorships of New Jersey and Virginia!

In Virginia you’re probably going to nominate Terry McAulliffe! ROFL!

That came in real handy when right wingers and hawks were looking for ways to channel military and logistical equipments to terrorists and death squads in Central America and Southern Africa — so when Congress forbid direct U.S. military transfers, Reagan was able to help his evangelical Guatemalan generals continue their campaign to have their troops bash Mayan babies’ heads into rocks and poles despite the ban on direct federal assistance. He got his buddies in state governments to have their National Guards transfer equipment to the killers.

While it makes fairly little difference there, in the US it’s worth bearing in mind when US involvement in Central America was at its ugliest, we forbade direct military transfers because they were in the habit of killing Americans. On top of everything else wrong with it, Reagan’s decision to run guns to the Iranian pariah-state in exchange for hostages his dumb ass got captured by Hezbollah – and then proceed and use that money to bankroll and equip phalangist death-squads – was basically a Presidential blessing of the murder of American journalists and clergy.

The outrage over that, I think, was somewhat drowned by the stupefying realization that the President had raised a private army and used it to equip a hostile power in exchange for terrorist money – and it never became part of our history, our discussion of the issue – but there is a rock-solid non-partisan reason behind Reagan having to grabass around with the contras.

Between the polling sample from January 21-25, compared to February 9-15, Obama’s ratings went from 90% to 94% among self-identified liberal Democrats, from 87% to 88% among moderate Dems, from 80% to 84% with conservative Dems, and from 47% to 50% among independents.

Hee hee hee hee heeeeeee!!!!

And I’ll bet if you take the South out, his support among non-Dixie Republicans is constant or rising too!

This is not even to say anything of the massive, well-identified gap in party registration – the long primaries basically meant that a lot of states had one party’s registration advantage not just toppled but demolished. Which is one of the many reasons McCain won Virginia by -7% of the vote.

Hell, I can’t wait until this year when we win back the Governorships of New Jersey and Virginia!

Somebody bookmark this for me.

the freest, most moral civilization ever established on earth.

You see that kind of thing, you simply need to read no further.

This is an awesome rant:

I am unable to suspend my disbelief.

From alec’s Marshall plan link, way back at the top:

The reconstruction plan, developed at a meeting of the participating European states, was established on July 12, 1947. It offered the same aid to the USSR and its allies, but they did not accept it.

Well, that explains the Republican governors, like Jindal, who are refusing the stimulus money. They’re just emulating the Soviets. No Amerikkkan interference in our planned economy, comrades!

I’ve made a note on my calendar for January 21st, 2038 to “Stop blaming things on Bush”

It’s somehow fitting that science fiction has been mentioned in this thread, since when it comes to assigning credit or blame to presidents, time is bent and warped in truly inexplicable ways. Clinton was to blame for everything for the past eight years, whereas Obama assumed responsibility for the recession before he even took office. On the other hand, if there is a recovery from the current recession within the next couple of years, it will become the “Bush Recovery”.

This somehow involves several parallel time streams, or perhaps dimensions, which all interact in ways that cannot be comprehended. Perhaps wormholes are a part of it.

the freest, most moral civilization ever established on earth.

You see that kind of thing, you simply need to read no further.

Thing is, even if there’s some veracity to this statement, it’s like being proud of having the nicest doubelwide in the trailer park.

Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity. Trickle-down. Supply-side. Cutting taxes always leads to prosperity.

Good God, it looks like the Big Hollywood live blogged the Oscars last night.

It’s because the movies have made themselves increasingly irrelevant.

Except for those listed among the NRO’s top 25 conservative movies of the last 25 years. They are irrefutable proof of we are currently experiencing a Conservative Cinematic Renaissance.

the freest, most moral civilization ever established on earth.

…the kindest, bravest, warmest, freest, most moral civilization ever established on earth.

They are irrefutable proof of we are currently experiencing a Conservative Cinematic Renaissance.

I imagine Jonah Goldberg watching Kung-Fu Panda and wiping away the tears as the fat fool proves his worth.

And don’t forget the “philosophical” angle:

Liberals “believe people are basically good.”

Conservatives “know people are basically sinful.”

That’s why conservatives want an unfettered, free market. Because those basically sinful capitalists will NOT inevitably create a system characterized by greed, bribery, and corruption because…um…

That’s why conservatives want an unfettered, free market. Because competition, conducted by basically sinful capitalists who don’t need laws to control their b–

That’s why (etc. Continue until head essplodes.)

That’s why (etc. Continue until head essplodes.)

That’s why conservatives support the greed of government: because when the government is controlling all the income of everything everywhere then it’s the bestest and most greatest corporation ever and TOTALLY RULES!

Jerry Pournelle has always been a glibertarian fuckbucket. For me his one redeeming quality was his immature sense of humor. His kneejerk anti-collectivist bullshit in “Lucifer’s Hammer” (co-written with Lerry Niven) was tempered by his Beavis-like decision to name a Russian communist astronaut “Colonel Jakov”. Jakov, get it? Get it? Heh, heh, heh, heh…

Clinton’s fault? Heck, they’re still stuck on Jimmy freakin’ Carter 30 years after the fact! I figure we get to blame things on Bush until roughly 2038.

I still hear or read just about every single day that FDR started the Depression. And no, we don’t get to blame anything on Bush ever because shut up, that’s why.

In one film after another, we are told that the world in front of our eyes isn’t really there…

…because Wall-E was a documentary!

Battle on, Battered Americans of America.

Keeping fighting all, our time is coming.
The American people are our audience.

Peace, out.

That’s the guy who’s been spun more than once on KCRW, which gives him Lib-Artist cred.

Which is one of the many reasons McCain won Virginia by -7% of the vote.

He won a lot of states that way, so many that he won the Electoral College by -192

Keeping fighting all, our time is coming.

I am keeping laughing comrade, HA HA!

During the Terror, political prisoners used to write letters to Stalin detailing their plight thinking that if only Stalin knew what was going on and what his underlings were doing, he would stop it. I sense a little bit of that kind of logic among BHO’s supporters.

Things were simplier under the Bush years, where no one had the least illusion the man gave a shit at all about what was happening to anyone:

He asked her real difficult questions like, ‘What would you say to Governor Bush?'” “What was her answer?” I wonder. “‘Please,'” Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, “‘don’t kill me.'” I must have looked shocked — ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel — because he immediately stops smirking.

Bush provided amusing descriptions of photographs Wednesday night during the annual dinner of the Radio and Television News Correspondents Association. Some showed the president in awkward poses as he looked behind furniture in the Oval Office. For those photos, Bush told the audience, “Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere … nope, no weapons over there … maybe under here?”

the Presidential Daily Briefing that Bush received in 2001, titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US,” which he ignored, dismissing his CIA briefer: “Well, you’ve covered your ass now.” Before then, the administration had shunted aside the terrorist issue as something tainted by association with Bill Clinton. Counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke was ignored and demoted, pushed off the National Security Council Principals Committee. Despite Clarke’s urgent entreaties the Principals Committee discussed terrorism only once, deciding at Rumsfeld’s behest not to fly Predator drones for surveillance over Osama bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan.

Oh I did find one person Bush cared about:

“Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house–he’s lost his entire house,” cracked Bush, “there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.”

Dan D: God, don’t remind us. Those and so many other horrible memories of Chimpy’s Reign were just starting to finally fade.

Nah. My complaints are much more parochial than that. I used to find S,N to be fun, entertaining, at once thoughtful and hilarious.

I no longer find it that – or at least much more rarely, and unreliably.

Yeah, I whined and sniveled and snapped a few times, ’cause I felt like I was losing something valuable, and I didn’t want to lose it. But it seems as if, to a large degree, I did.

Hey, if you guys like what this has evolved into, you’re lucky. If you think the best use of this community is to have the same stupid arguments with the same stupid trolls, over and over again, well, whatever works for you. Enjoy yourselves. I just find it unpleasant.

It’s not you, darlin. It’s me…

mikey

Terry Goodkind is also a glibertarian fucknut. A real Randian too.

well, seriously.

How could Bush be responsible for anything bad because Republican policies ALWAYS result in ponies and unicorns and flowers and ice cream that helps you lose weight and gives you 4 hour erections?

Any bad results MUST come from liberals. Or unions. Or the ghey.

It’s idiomatic. That’s the word, right?

I have been amusing myself by reading how the economies of the Baltic states — poster babes of the Flat Tax revolution — have been weathering the global recession. The shorter version involves words like “Belly up”, “dead in the water”, “turned to custard” and so on. They seem to be just behind Ireland in the race down the gurgler.

Wait, you mean these trolls are ALL. ONE. GUY?

I better get my shit moat in shape….

“Any bad results MUST come from liberals. Or unions.”

Heh. Indeed! For once, you’re correct.

BTW, you forgot ACORN!

Wait, you mean these trolls are ALL. ONE. GUY?

Not just the trolls and you know it. Sadly pathetic.

By the way, the graphic in the post is great.

Damn liberals and their fixation with having big government interfere in the lives of the Schiavos.

They even held a special session of congress on Easter, and the liberal Democratic president left one of his many vacations to fly to his part time job in DC and sign the act federalizing the case of a single person.

That’s how I remember it anyway.

Hey, if you guys like what this has evolved into, you’re lucky. If you think the best use of this community is to have the same stupid arguments with the same stupid trolls, over and over again, well, whatever works for you. Enjoy yourselves. I just find it unpleasant.

Make sure to stick around and tell us this in every other future thread, too!

the liberal Democratic president left one of his many vacations to fly to his part time job in DC and sign the act federalizing the case of a single person.

He also flew past 250,000 screaming, starving people in New Orleans to help his heir-apparent celebrate his birthday.

Lawnguylander–where are you pal! I finally started doing what you always wanted me to do, write negatively (or at least mockingly) of Pammycakes and her new BFF Spencer but now the kooks have come out of the shadows to try and get me! Come on over and either enjoy the mockery or have at it with the Atlas fans!

Hey, how did Atlas get two black eyes? She shrugged.

OK, sorry, just had to. Sorry to go off-topic, I just wanted to find Lawnguy.

Hey, how did Atlas get two black eyes? She shrugged.

Heh heh heh…

Pournelle, whose only claim to fame even in the sci-fi ghetto is from riding on Larry Niven’s coattails.

I actually first heard of him through his somewhat rambly columns in Byte magazine. Then again, I wasn’t much of an SF reader.

Because blog posts are illustrated with lithograph etchings simply all the time….
I Would it be pedantic to point out the result is more like an engraving than a lithograph? (cf Jacques Mellan).
I say this in fullness of admiration for the graphic, and it is shameful. I say shameful that J– is the only other person to comment onit.

Righteous man–she’s pretty banged up right now due to her outrage over a reporter raking her over the coals and calling her an “anti-Muslim maniac”. The truth hurts? Is that what that’s about? It’s still funny no matter what. Here’s my round-up of the critiques and the controversy…LOL…just if anyone cares to see it. She was practically crying on the keyboard though, I just HAD to:

http://govvs.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-shock-atlas-upset-over-negative.html

What do you Sadly writers do when people you guys write about start getting on your case? I mean, I can take it and all, but still. I’m curious about that one.

Terry Goodkind is also a glibertarian fucknut. A real Randian too.

I waded through six of his 1000-page overblown fantasy novels. Around the 5th one he starts bringing on the glibertarianism but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. It’s the 6th book where really opens the glibertarian floodgates.

That’s 6000 pages of my life I’ll never get back.

“I heard about right wing twaddle from a sci fi author, and I just assumed it would be Orson Scott Card. I guess there’s more of them in the business than I thought.”

Man, there seem to be a lot of right wing to far-right assholes in the world of Sci-Fi, doesn’t there? Some years back, Playboy did one of their 20 Questions interview features with Ray Bradbury, and leafing through it, I was a little surprised to come across the following exchange: The interviewer asked Bradbury about censorship issues and Bradbury responded something along the lines that all censorship everywhere was thanks to the wicked blacks, the evil gays and the Satanic feminists. The interviewer then sited specific instances of recent censorship cases, which – to say the least – didn’t exactly support Bradbury’s claim, and the old darling contemptuously dismissed the man’s comment, snarling, “Yes, yes, yes! But really, all censorship is because of the wicked blacks, the evil gays and the Satanic feminists.” Wow.

Go ahead and argue with me, “liberals.” Validation of my existence and getting your goat are what I’m posting for.

But . . . what are you getting out of it?

Proving, once again, that Christian right voters are dumb scum.

Pain took a number of hits back home, some of them from fellow Republicans, during February.

They first criticized her for flying to Washington for the white-tie Alfalfa Club dinner, headlined by President Obama.

“There’s no one more basic need than to feed Alaskans,” state Sen. Jay Ramras (R) told local television station KTUU. “I have got little tolerance, and I bet they had a whole lot better dinner at the Alfalfa Club than what they’re eating tonight in Emmonak and Kotlik.”

When Palin returned, lawmakers found her husband, Todd, in contempt for refusing to testify about his role in the firing of a state trooper, and her attorney general resigned amid criticism that he protected government employees from the official Troopergate probe. And last week, state officials ordered Palin to pay $18,000 in back taxes on travel expenses she incurred while commuting between her home in Wasilla and the state capitol, Juneau.

[…]

Palin has remained popular with Alaskan voters, at least up until this month.

More than six in 10 Alaskans approve of the job she’s been doing, which is about twice as many as those who disapprove, Moore said. He added that those numbers probably won’t change because of the state’s large number of conservative Christian voters, the pollster added. They may like her even more after her aid mission to western Alaska since she traveled with evangelical leader Franklin Graham, he said.

“She has a very large and solid loyal base and it’s going to take a volcano eruption to make a severe change,” Moore said.

We could give every man, woman, and child in the USA $1 million cash and it would be magnitudes cheaper than the stimulus.

BllaaaaarrrrrrhhhhhHaaaarrrrrrHaaaarrrrr………

Okay, that’s when I said “I’s had alls what I can stands, and I can’t stands no more!” Bothering to argue with someone of differing political views is one thing. Bothering to argue with someone who asserts incorrect, simple second-grade math as fact is quite another.

Really, folks. Let it die a slow death, suffocating on cheetohs in the corner of some basement.

Man, there seem to be a lot of right wing to far-right assholes in the world of Sci-Fi, doesn’t there?
It may be that they are simply more obvious, on account of turning their books into Kulturkampf manifestos.
Fred Pohl’s mind still seems to be working, if that’s any consolation.

[Clarke’s] depictions of women make me wonder if he was secretly gay
‘Secretly’??

Y;know, I’m w/ mikey on this. Whatever the motivation of these troll(s), they merely recite lame, unworthy of refutation talking points.

And, again, how any of you think you are somehow “slapping down” or “pwning” any of these doofuses is beyond me. This may be some hold-over from USE.NET or whatever that crap many of you refer to w/ such nostalgia, but no amount of imaginary domination, here or in WoWeaseldicks, is going to make any difference. You’re not suddenly going to convince a literal “dittohead” to stop being one w/ some clever argument, or even facts. Ms. & Mr. Wingnut are, according to the latest theories, hard-wired that way.

So stop wasting your keystrokes on these ninnies. Go to some shitpile like BIg Ho, w/ their new advanced, extra stupid, “reply to, nested” comments system & rant & rave at those jerks if you think “pwning” them (Which you don’t. Their mind-set pretty much requires that physical violence be done to them before they will change their minds.) is a big deal.

Seriously, no one here of any gray matter whatsoever believes a thing any of the ninnies type, & it’s possible the ninnies know better as well. Go volunteer at a shelter (for homeless people or homeless animals, we’re much the same) or something if you have this much time on your hands.

I stopped reading Goodkind after all the S&M in Wizard’s First Rule. I know the genre is “fantasy” but c’mon…

Make sure to stick around and tell us this in every other future thread, too!

Yeah, I totally appreciate fucking concern trolls trying to guilt-shame a snarkblog into changing what it always has been into something more palatable for his delicate constitution.

Fuck off, mikey, you wanker.

Yeah, I totally appreciate fucking concern trolls trying to guilt-shame a snarkblog into changing what it always has been into something more palatable for his delicate constitution.

No, this place actually used to be funny.

Fuck off, mikey, you wanker.

And that someone would say that is all the proof you need.

All we need now is a retarded zero-comment meme and concern for everyone’s great-aunt’s sister’s cousin’s cat and we’ll have comment threads on the caliber of FDL.

Bust out the two-inch font and a bit of tabloid sensibility we could be HuffPo!

Wow, lotsa weird stuff goin’ on, is it too late to be talkin’ ’bout Southerners?

Call ’em racist cousin-humpin throwbacks to an uglier time, but them folks sure do know their whiskey… Except them Bulleits.

Holy Jumpin Jehosophat! I’ve enjoyed some fine bourbons, and some less-than-fine bourbons – but today I got my first taste of Bulleit Bourbon Kentucky Fronteir Whiskey, and let me tell you, I don’t like it one bit. No, siree – tastes like vanilla and salt – which is a fine thing to be putting in yer bakin’ but as a whiskey – ‘taint no good. Not that I’m going to stop drinking it – at least not until the bottle’s gone – but next time it’s back to the old standards.

You know what’s a great, conservative-value-loving movie? Kill Smoochy.

Because I said so.

This is great, not only have republicans created their own alternate reality, they even get their mail there. Now if they can only be induced to permanently, physically, move there, all will be well.

how the economies of the Baltic states — poster babes of the Flat Tax revolution

Lowering income taxes without raising taxes on real estate will just result in increased rents and land values.

People forget that there are 3 elements in an economy: wages to labor, interest to capital, and rent to land owners.

The latter has the power to suck all the vibrancy out of an economy; cf California, and “Progress & Poverty”.

Brandi: In a really, really late reply, no, I haven’t read The Iron Dream. I have heard about it, but not that particular point, which is an interesting one. I’ll have to dig it up.

Fiscal Conservative said,

Prejudice against the south and rural people is the last acceptable form of bigotry in polite society.

It isn’t “prejudice” against the South. Prejudice means making a judgement BEFORE you know the facts — “pre-” + “judice”, get it? The rest of us figured out long ago that the actual facts (racism, treason, …) justify the “against” part.

Taking economic advice from Jerry Pournelle: what could possibly go wrong?

Zero regulations = libertarian fapfest.

Does martial law count as a regulation? When you’re paying protection-racket rates to rent-a-cops, hiring a PI to investigate every new client in advance, & having your inventory spot-checked for radiation, lead, arsenic, etc., you’ll need an electron microscope to find your profits. Assuming you can stay alive long enough to look for them, that is.

The award for epic trollfail goes to:

Government isn’t the problem, government IS the problem, period.

Mathfail runner-up:

We could give every man, woman, and child in the USA $1 million cash and it would be magnitudes cheaper than the stimulus.

Ah, trolls. There’s a reason they’ve bred here of late … their neocon hero Bush ruled the roost for a long time, & fucked the pooch without a rubber – then they tried to keep their glorious reign of error intact, but they lost. To a black guy. Whose middle name is HUSSEIN. Did you think that would mellow them out? If the options are them taking it out on the Sadlynauts or on their own families, I think I know which option I find more palatable.

They’re not going to go away, & they’re not going to give a flying fuck whether you reply or not. Personally, I don’t think snark can survive without them … I’ve seen replies to them on the threads here that I found almost heartbreakingly beautiful – silk purses from sow’s arseholes.

YMMV, but seeing a bunch of genetic also-rans who voted for the pro-war/pro-torture/pro-naked-barbarism ticket coming here & passionately venting their primal butthurt isn’t exactly pure torment, to put it mildly. Yes, I feel their pain … & it sort of tickles.

You want to see the banhammer come down? Okay: CONCERN-TROLLS FIRST. “This place USED to be funny” is now at least as tiresome as the worst cut-&-paste pixelcide from the bloody trolls – who at least produce some primo unintentional LOLpoints on a semi-regular basis. When wingnut-trolls whine, it can be a serindipitous fountain of funny, but when concern-trolls do it, Baby Jesus strangles a puppy.

Tehanu: The “prejudiced” part comes when you use your prior judgment of some and apply it to the whole. There are many Southerners who are not racist or “treasonous.” If you think that as Southerner I am those things, then you are prejudiced against me.

Lex (Agent of Chaos) Azagthoth said,

February 23, 2009 at 21:36 (kill)

Lex, I’m very happy that you’ve become a thorn in her side. Thanks for the invitation and I’ll come by and visit more often. But I don’t know how you do it. I can only digest so much of that woman’s work before the black dog starts growling at me. In a thick L.I. accent.

Brandi: In a really, really late reply, no, I haven’t read The Iron Dream. I have heard about it, but not that particular point, which is an interesting one. I’ll have to dig it up.

Late reply to the late reply: it’s an oddie. I’m not sure if it’ll give you a good idea of Spinrad’s writing style, because he does a very good job of imitating a certain type of rather cheesy vintage pulp. In some of his other works he can get playful with language almost to the point of exasperation (Child of Fortune comes to mind, though I liked it as a sort of whacked-out bildungsroman).

I feel bad about going so self-consiciously OT in a thread so full of sciffy sciffiness – but I hereby recant my previous ill statements about the Bulleits. I’m a third of the way down the bottle, and it’s grown on me. Salt and vanilla – you’d think that that sort of thing just wouldn’t work in a whiskey – but the third one tastes a whole lot less salty. The salt just leaves you thirsty for a fourth.

I’m now enjoying the other flavors and characterst-hics of this fine Kentucky Straight Bourbon. So a tip of the hat to them Bulleits for crafting a fine distilled spirit that’s only enjoyed when already on the way to pants-off drunkitude. And on a school night nonetheless!!!

In closing, PENIS