Category Archives: Uncategorized
From The Mouths Of Babes
Bieber babbles:
"I really don't believe in abortion," Bieber says. "It's like killing a baby?" How about in cases of rape? "Um. Well, I think that's really sad, but everything happens for a reason."
Update:
Booo... Rolling Stone was sloppy. The full quote is:
“Well, I think that's really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don't know how that would be a reason. I guess I haven't been in that position, so I wouldn't be able to judge that.”
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Penny Pinching Pension Pilfering Plutocrat Pfluffers
Is inflation out of control? No, not even close. Are our creditors closing our accounts? No, because our creditors know that all we need to do to pay them off is raise taxes or get out of this recession. When growth picks back up deficits will shrink. The deficit is not a problem in the first place. The whole thing is just a ruse.
Meanwhile, unemployment remains sky-high and so do corporate profits. Everything is rosy except for the American worker, and to them fiscal conservatives and pundits like Sullivan say “Austerity Now” like some grotesque mimicry of that Seinfeld episode. All the hand-wringing over structural unemployment and so forth is just cover for supply-side nonsense that’s captured the American psyche from pundit and politician on down. What we are witnessing is a balance-sheet recession and a crisis of demand. Or at least that’s what all the evidence and data points to.
But it’s easier for people who do not have to cash an unemployment check or who will never rely on Social Security to say that what we need now is actually entitlement reform, austerity, and – of course – more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans.
Yes, the whole thing is just a ruse. It’s a ruse that happens to (completely coincidentally, i’m sure) line up perfectly with the boilerplate criticisms the GOP makes every time a Democrat becomes President: tax and spend! Unaffordable! Mortgaging our children's future!
But this time, the GOP was able to turn that boilerplate into electoral gold thanks to the dumb-ass Teatards and the MSM’s fascination with them. The Teatards took their grade-school economic theories and understanding of the Constitution and whipped themselves into a lather over their own imaginary monsters.
But there is no real crisis. There is a temporary balance issue that can be solved very easily, and will be as soon as the recession ends. And everybody knows it except those who are fiscally-paranoid-conservative by nature, and those who just don’t know WTF they’re talking about (ie. the hordes of Teabagger parrots). This is why the official GOP is being cowardly about proposing real cuts, and it’s why Obama is being careful to avoid proposing substantial cuts to anything. They all know it’s a ruse, but it’s one the public has fallen for. And they know that you can never win by telling people they’re dumb, and you can’t win by cutting entitlements. So, they dance.
It’s all a fucking game.
I Can Haz Child Labor?
Unseriousness
Andrew Sullivan is back from having his conservatism re-charged. And he's mad at Obama for not being a "responsible" conservative budget-slasher. And he's mad a Republican Paul Ryan for not being a "serious" and "concerned" budget-slasher:
And yet no specifics on Medicare or defense yet. Hmmm. So let Ryan propose a budget that exposes Obama's irresponsibility and complacency. Let him be the leader Obama refuses to be. Let's see the real entitlement and defense cuts the US needs if it is to avoid default or a long slide into debt-ridden stagnation. Obama has doubled down on the unseriousness of the GOP on the debt, by revealing his own total lack of concern. He is calling their bluff at the country's and the next generation's expense.
The real question now is: will the GOP call Obama's bluff? Or do they have as little courage as he does? I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but I'd sure love to be proven wrong.
No, the real question is why budget hawks pretend to not understand how politics works.
If Obama was to propose a 0.1% reduction in Medicare services, nobody in either party would vote for it. Everybody knows that if they did vote for a 0.1% reduction in Medicare, it would be used against them in the 2012 campaign. And, at the same time, everybody wants the other guy to vote for it, so that they could use it against him in the 2012 campaign. It's not about Obama being "responsible", it's about the fact that cutting Medicare is political suicide for either party. All politicians know that people want Medicare (and Social Security), and they don't want it cut, and they hate people who even talk about cutting it. The constituency for actual budget hawkery is limited to wealthy political pundits.
But, budget hawks refuse to acknowledge this. The budget hawks - possessed of great stores of self-proclaimed clarity-of-thought and seriousness-of-outlook - know what's good for the masses, and want politicians to take away the very things that people time and time again say that they want. The budget hawks think serious politicians would sacrifice their careers instead of trying to do what the people who elected them demanded.
But like it or not, budget hawks, that's not how democracy works. There isn't going to be a Great Honest Responsible Leader who will step up and force people to take their medicine. It's a difficult problem and it's going to be a long, messy, compromise-filled struggle to solve it.