Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

No one could have predicted…

Petty moves from a petty man.

In after Baud. Damn.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

We will not go back.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

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Archives for 2003

What Are The Chances

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It is 11:15 EST as I write this, so tomorrow’s editorials are not out yet and I have nothing to read. It has been such a slow news day, I was trying to figure out what they would write about, when it dawned on me:

Be the first contestant to find a fawning editorial, praising Gore for his ‘bold stance’ against Bush today in his speech at NYU.

Winning entries must have some phrasing of the idea that “if Gore had spoken like this in 2000, he would be President.” Bonus points if the editorial throws in a mention of the Florida fiasco, extra bonus points if the editorial takes the opportunity to throw in their own potshots against Bush.

Winners, if female, will get my phone number (hopefully they will want it this time, unlike the last lucky lass.). Male winners will win nothing and like it.

*** Update ***

The trolls at TAPPED provides the goods:

Tapped never thought we’d find ourselves saying this, but Al Gore rocks. Today’s speech on Iraq to MoveOn.org was Gore’s first big foray into talking about foreign policy since the fall, and boy, was it worth the wait. Nuanced, sensitive, articulate and sharp as a tack — why couldn’t he have been like this when he was running for President?

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Blogger Awards

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It is August, and other than some flatulence from Al Gore and some chaos in California, news is slow. Thus we are going to have some Blogger Awards. You, my friends, get to participate. All you have to do is cut and paste the awards into an email to me, [email protected], send it to me by Monday, 18 August, and I will tally them and put them up. Please include the url of the bloggers you are voting for in your email with “BLOG AWARDS” in the subject line, as well as your blog name (if you have one). Winners will be rewarded with permalinks for a month. If I don’t get 50 submissions, I am not going to bother tallying them. Here are the categories:

BLOG Categories

1.) Most Underrated Blog

2.) Snarkiest Blog

3.) Most Consistently Pessimistic Blog

4.) Most Consistently Optimistic Blog

5.) Best Original Source Blog (posts are predominantly his/her own material)

6.) Best Researching Blogger (posts are always thoroughly linked, explained, and well-reasoned)

7.) Best Essayist

8.) Angriest Blog (The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler is not allowed as a choice. He has perfected the form. All other entries will be tallied)

9.) Most Creative Link Whore

10.) The Atrios Memorial Award for Left-Winger Who Thinks Raving Bush Hate Is Justified (Eschaton votes will not be tallied)

11.) The Damn the Clenis

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Damned Outrage

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This kind of thing is just infuriating (and completely a product of the damned gargantuan and indecipherable tax code):

Some of the nation’s biggest banks have sheltered hundreds of millions of dollars from state taxes by creating investment funds that didn’t sell shares publicly but paid tax-exempt dividends to the banks, Thursday’s Wall Street Journal reported.

A review of Securities and Exchange Commission (news – web sites) records shows that at least 10 major banks shifted more than $17 billion into such funds. Bank of America Corp. (BAC) alone transferred at least $8 billion into its fund, sheltering more than $750 million in income from 1999 through last May. The banks contend the funds were legitimate vehicles for raising investment capital, but many appear to have served little purpose beyond sheltering income. In effect, the funds converted interest income from the banks’ loan portfolios into tax-exempt dividends.

And, like all the corporate malfeasance that is being pinned erroneously on the Bush administration, you will never guess when it started:

All but one of the known funds — 11 in all — were set up with advice from KPMG LLP, an accounting firm whose tax shelter practices are under scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service. They were created in 1999 and 2000, but have been gradually shut down over the last two years, after the SEC and California revenue officials quietly began looking into the practice. It is not known if more such funds remain active. California officials, calling the maneuver ” outrageous” and “egregious,” are auditing several banks’ tax returns in an effort to recoup lost revenues and looking as far back as 1993. The officials declined to identify the banks, citing tax-confidentiality laws.

Here is the list of criminals:

SEC records show that the following 10 institutions created investment fund subsidiaries under the federal law that governs mutual funds: Washington Mutual Inc., the nation’s eighth largest bank; Bank of America, the third largest; Summit Bancorp, now part of Fleet Bank ; Zions First National Bank, now Zions Bancorp , which had two funds; Cathay Bancorp ; East-West Bancorp; City National Bank Corp.; NBT Bancorp ; Imperial Bank, now part of Comerica Inc.; and Chinatrust.

Throw the book at them.

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Economic News

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Good news (remember your grain of salt):

America’s business productivity soared in the second quarter of 2003 and new claims for unemployment benefits dropped to a six-month low last week, a double dose of good news as the economy tries to get back to full throttle…

Both the productivity and jobless claims figures were better than economists were expecting. They were forecasting productivity to grow at a 4 percent pace in the second quarter and for jobless claims to rise.

For the economy’s long-term health and rising living standards, solid productivity gains are crucial. They allow the economy to grow faster without triggering inflation. Companies can pay workers more without raising prices, which would eat up those wage gains. And, productivity gains also can bolster a company’s profitability.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress last month that it has been unusual for companies to achieve healthly gains in productivity when the performance of the overall economy has been so lackluster.

Thank goodness…

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Dean’s Pattern of Deception

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Gotta love old Howie trying to weasel out of this one- he should call Willie Jeff up and find out how he kept out of trouble all those years, except the Clintons are too busy trying to rescue Gray Davis. Any rate, Gov. Dean slipped a little white lie in front of a small audience the other night:

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said Wednesday that he misspoke when he told the AFL-CIO he never favored raising the retirement age for Social Security benefits to age 70.

Dean acknowledged that he had called for such an increase when the country was faced with a deficit in 1995, but said he no longer thinks it is necessary. He said former President Clinton set an example of balancing the budget without raising the retirement age.

“Clinton proved that if you run a decent economy and have a budget surplus and some jobs, then you don’t need to raise the age to extend the life of Social Security,” Dean said in a telephone interview after The Associated Press questioned conflicting statements he has made on the issue.

The current retirement age for receiving full program benefits is 65 years and two months. The retirement age will gradually rise to 67 over the next two decades.

Dean’s false statement came Tuesday night during an appearance at the AFL-CIO (search)’s Democratic presidential candidate forum.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (search) of Ohio, who favors taking it back to age 65, criticized Dean for saying he’d raise to 68 or 70. Dean responded, “I have never favored a Social Security retirement age of 70 nor do I favor one of 68.”

Not only did Dean lie about his position, but Dean is lying about mis-speaking. He thought he could just say it and get away with it, a la Clinton. And before you start this nonsense about him just making a little mistake, maybe you should remember this little flap that happened on June 22nd. You see, there is this famous news show called MEET THE PRESS with Tim Russert, and Dean appeared and had this exchange:

Russert: …calling for that, and this is what Howard Dean said.

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Mr. Irrelevant

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You remember Al Gore, right? The human sleeping aid? He is back and gave a speech to a bunch of malcontents at NYU. Here is a short version:

“Hi, my name is Al Gore. Look at big, stupid me.”

I don’t have the time or energy to go through and point out all the lies and nonsense, so here is the text of the speech, here is Brian Carnell dissecting Gore’s Lies.

Al Gore, Moderate Democrat. Snicker.

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Benedict Totten

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Anybody incapable of wondering why I find the Democrats utterly distasteful should take a look at Matt Yglesias’s dismissal of Michael J. Totten’s reasons for leaving the Democrat party:

One would think that a person so passionately interested in foreign affairs would have bothered to research the foreign policy views of the leading figures in the political party of which he is (for a little while more, at any rate) a member.

Faced with something like this, it’s hard to believe that there’s much going on here besides schtick. Totten’s gotten quite a lot of exposure in places like FrontPage and OpinionJournal as the author of left-bashing articles and it seems to have distorted his view of what his own positions are and how close they are to those of the Democratic Party.

Always pay attention to any statement started with the phrase “one would think” – what follows is almsot guaranteed to be followed by unparalleled arrogance or snarling condescension. Matt and his commenters don’t let us down.

At some point, Totten has to go from being an ex-Democrat-about-to-turn-Republican into a boring, garden variety Republican. At that point, his schtick will become very dull — who wantas to hear yet another tale of a Repub describing how nice it is to be Repub. — and he’ll have to find a new one.

Perhaps he could become a Democrat. Hey, it worked for Winston Churchill.

Posted by: Ikram Saeed at August 7, 2003 10:15 AM

and this gem:

Sounds like Totten’s angling for a traveling panel spot as a talking head. They love the “former” Democrat tag more than most to give the appearance of a “balanced” debate (think Chris Caddall [sp?] “Former” Democratic pollster who, at least for the time I could stand cable news shows, seemed everywhere).

A guy’s just gotta follow the market, right?

Posted by: Thumb at August 7, 2003 10:39 AM

It is simply INCOMPREHENSIBLE to Matt and his readers that maybe he just believes the Democrats are heading in the wrong direction- and it is utterly impossible to the same crew that maybe, just maybe, Totten is right. Instead, he is either wrong, ill-informed, or simply an opportunistic whore trying to capitalize in the pundit market.

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