Tax Day Tea Parties raison d’être:
On April 15th, hundreds of thousands of citizens gathered in more than 800 cities to voice their opposition to out of control spending at all levels of government. Organized in all 50 states by Americans from all walks of life, these “tea parties” were a true grassroots protest of irresponsible fiscal policies and intrusive government.
Medicare’s near future:
Politicians and the media focus on Social Security’s financial health, but Medicare’s future liabilities are far more ominous, at more than $89 trillion. Medicare’s total unfunded liability is more than five times larger than that of Social Security. In fact, the new Medicare prescription drug benefit enacted in 2006 (Part D) alone adds some $17 trillion to the projected Medicare shortfall – an amount greater than all of Social Security’s unfunded obligations.
The GOP’s position:
“We need to protect Medicare and not cut it in the name of health reform,” Steele said at the head of a list of principles he issued for this fall’s debate on healthcare.
Wow. It is almost as if this was all cynical partisan politics on the part of the GOP, and the libertarians and teabagging fools got totally played.
If only Obama had been more bipartisan, I bet this could have been avoided.
cmorenc
Didn’t Thomas Frank write the definitive work on the general dynamics of how this all works, how the GOP manages to pull this sort of crap off? “Whats the Matter with Kansas?”
me
To say they got played is to imply they were trying to actually accomplish something,
Thomas Levenson
You know, it may yet dawn on the anti-abortion zealots and the tax-me-not buffoons, and even the small business crowd that the GOP has used them for cannon fodder in the election ground wars, cash and a reliably ignorable body of votes while ignoring their actual agenda at every point that it conflicts with elite power.
But on the evidence so far….probably not.
gypsy howell
Yes, but Part D funnels billions back to Big Pharma, so it’s all good.
I wonder why no one ever asks what the unfunded future liabilities of the military are? I’d love to see that number.
SenyorDave
They will never, ever learn. Because at the end of the day all that matters is that the Democrats are supported by “those people” (put in ethnic group du jour)
geg6
These people lack enough self-awareness to ever figure out how badly they’ve been played. The GOP has been doing this exact thing for the last 40 years. They never learn.
Sloth
Yes. Republican Fiscal Responsibility.
Crashman06
Eh, libertarians don’t actually WANT to see their ideas put into practice. They just want to bitch, complain and claim they have some superior knowledge about the way the world works over the rest of us. The last thing they want to do is see their ideas fail miserably.
Demo Woman
Let’s not forget that insurance companies are subsidized for MediCare Advantage.
The Republican platform has been built on fear, not what’s good for the country.
gypsy howell
@Thomas Levenson:
Does it occur to you that the Democratic party is doing the same thing to us?
Wouldn’t it be great if someday all of us rubes — from “far left” to “wackjob right” — finally got it through our thick heads that our government is playing us ALL for fools?
Until then, we’re all just pawns in their game to extract our blood sweat and tears for their own profit.
Comrade Dread
No. Some of us jumped ship on that titanic wreck back in 02-03.
cleek
@gypsy howell: this.
also. as such. and.
joe from Lowell
The libertarians realize that the Republicans are simply lying for immediate political effect, as part of the effort to sink health care. So they’re pretty much on board.
Watch for Ron Bailey or somebody to find a way to sneak Steele’s Mediscare line into some libertarianish-sounding argument. Just as long as it gets out there.
Kathy
I know that this is a terrible thought and that millions of innocent elderly will get hit badly if health insurance reform tanks and brings Obama down. I truly do NOT want that to happen. HOWEVER, if it does, I will thoroughly enjoy the sight of every old teabagger medicare recipient getting the letter from Sarah Palin saying that she made the shocking discovery that the “guvmint” is actually running medicare and out of the goodness of her heart she is ending the program immediately.
Morbo
@me: Indeed, it’s pretty charitable to take the tea partiers’ motives at face value. Sure there were probably a handful of people who watched Rick Santelli’s IGMFU rant and agreed. But surely there was no shortage of people protesting “black democrat president.”
Brian J
I don’t know how accurate that number is. I’m not saying it’s simply made up, only that assumptions go into these numbers that can make them drastically different when you get them from different organizations. When you consider the fact that it’s a supposedly conservative outfit, it makes me stop for a moment.
Still, there are big financing issues looming with Medicare. Everybody has acknowledged this. Of course, as we’ve seen over the last few months, the Democrats have identified a pretty strong source of problems: fee-for-service practices. As far as I’ve seen, nobody has come close to showing the results of that famous article in The New Yorker about the two Texas towns is wrong. So here we have a big source of savings that won’t do much, if anything, to deny people care, and could in fact make them healthier by not over treating them, and what do the Republicans do? The decide to demagogue this issue worse than the Democrats ever could. These fucking assholes refuse to even try to govern responsibly. Instead, they try to claim it will be impossible to stand up to seniors and/or that the only solution is to destroy the program entirely. Fuck them, fuck their leaders, fuck the stupid “principles” they stand on. I hope they take a beating for generations to come.
This also makes me think that anybody who says Social Security is a big source of the nation’s future fiscal woes is overstating the problem by quite a bit. Assuming the shortfalls are even that large, the solutions to put the program back into solvency aren’t complex.
Brian J
There’s a world of difference between failure to implement preferred policies because of a lack of cajones, general fecklessness, or political forces to great to withstand and using issues like abortion and banning the Bible to scare the masses every two to four years. What people mean when they say the Republicans are playing much of their base is that they never actually want to see abortion banned, because they’d lose it as a campaign issue. On the other hand, Democrats actually want to see universal coverage.
gopher2b
“In fact, the new Medicare prescription drug benefit enacted in 2006 (Part D) alone adds some $17 trillion to the projected Medicare shortfall – an amount greater than all of Social Security’s unfunded obligations.”
I hate George W. Bush so much.
Tom Levenson
@Brian J: What he said.
Brian J
I find myself far more irritated at the Democrats who voted for this bill a few years ago when it was (a) unfunded and (b) more expensive than it had to be and who now, for whatever reason, are bitching that there’s just not enough money to fund national coverage. Perhaps it’s for no other reason than I expected more of them.
burnspbesq
The fundamental problem — well, one of the fundamental problems — is that forty years of Republican demagoguery has made it impossible to have an intelligent conversation about taxes. The things we want to do have costs. Those costs cannot be made to magically disappear, and should not be kicked down the road to become the next generation’s albatross. But you can’t talk about that, other than in vague generalities that don’t lead to action.
raff
Speaking of suckers (but not directly related to the teabaggers), it seems Sarah Palin’s Asian keynote speaker gig is almost certainly a Borat-style setup. From Business Insider:
The CLSA intended to mock Palin by letting her ramble on about things she doesn’t remotely understand, laughing at her all the while. Palin is a global joke. Awesome.
Tom Levenson
@Brian J: What he said.
@gypsy howell: And in fact, there is a control group here. Look to two more or less reliable Democratic identity/issue voting blocks: African Americans and LBGT folks. The Dems have hardly been perfect on civil rights and (in the early days especially) support for such projects as HIV/AIDS research and programs.
But do you doubt that the party pursued those ends, sought votes in Congress on key issues and made serious, if far from complete progress on the questions central to those groups?
By contrast, or so at least it seems to me hoping that these folks on the other side crash and burn — there has been a lot of lip service on the GOP side to abortion bans and teaching of ID in school and constraining the size of government, but do you really think the core of the Washington GOP (as opposed to more grass roots folks) actually wants to reap the whirlwind of a complete ban on abortion; a true reduction in the scope and cost of medicare and so on?
I don’t.
Sloth
@gopher2b:
Hell, we the American people let him get away with this.
And we still ARE.
All this crap about a public option being too expensive, etc, needs to be reframed against Medicare Part D.
And frankly, everyone who voted for that plan should be turfed out of office, which comes down to the cloture vote, yes?
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=1&vote=00457
Biden, Baucus, Reird, Feinstein, Jeffords, Landrieu, Lincoln, Wyden, etc.
fliegr
@raff: pleasepleaseplease let this be true, and let there be video. The expression on her mug as it (very) slowly dawns on her will be priceless.
James K. Polk, Esq.
@fliegr: http://www.businessinsider.com/sara-palin-just-another-clsa-practical-joke-2009-9
Not a joke!
cleek
i should know better than to speak for groups of which i am not a part, but from what i gather, the LGBT crowd is pretty frustrated with the federal Dems, for a whole host of reasons (DADT, DOMA, etc.). the Dems barely even give lip service to those concerns, once the election’s over.
and how many anti-war folk are happy with the way the Dems have handled things since… oh… ever ? what’s the last war the Dems stopped ?
civil liberties ? torture ? privacy ? the Dems are terrible on these, despite promising to fix things, when they’re looking for votes.
the Dems consistently fail to deliver on issues that matter to their core constituencies.
Zifnab
@Brian J: This. Yes.
If the Democratic Party had been campaigning on Civil Rights for the last 40 years, but never actually passed desegregation or the Voting Rights Act or anti-discrimination laws, you could talk this shit about the party.
If clean energy bills never made it out of committee, but billions of tax payer dollars always seemed to find their ways into non-profit “Clean Energy Think Tanks” that just funneled money back to political coffers, you could might have a point.
But, truth be told, the Dems have made actual legislative headway in the last two years. We’ve seen the minimum wage go up. We saw the Ledbetter bill get passed (finally). We’re looking at the phantom chance of a real public option and a real chance at scraping some of the more common insurance abuses. Immigration will be back on the table some time next year. And we still have an auto industry.
There are some trademark issues – health care and carbon taxes – that are having a tough time getting through. But people were saying back in 2008 that this was going to be a ridiculously tough fight. The most optimistic analysts saw us at not much farther ahead of where we are today. We’re combating one of the most lucrative industries in the US, with an entire party in their back pocket, trying to pass legislation that hinges on half a dozen weak-kneed and heavily subsidized corporate owned “moderate” allies.
You’re mad that David hasn’t killed Goliath yet, and when the barbarians are at the gate I can feel your concern. But there’s a big leap between a hard fight lost and rubes getting played.
Crashman06
@James K. Polk, Esq.: One of the comments from that page is really awesome. He’s responding to an RNC troll who said Obama has no experience and is a Marxist:
Demo Woman
@raff: It does fit into John’s category though. I still laugh when I think about the canadian radio hosts who called Sarah pretending to be the President of France.
joes527
So, yes. Republicans are cynical assholes. That should go without saying.
But how is going to work where the Democratic plan, the public option, is going to be funded with savings in medicare?
I ask this as an honest question, and as someone who supports the public option.
It sounds like all that “savings in medicare” can possible achieve is less red ink. How do you fund anything out of that?
GregB
I think the GOP should use the yeat 3009 to project the Medicare costs.
That way they can say 1 hundred kajillion, zillion, google dollars of unfunded laibilities.
That’s much scarier than a few trillion.
-G
Steeplejack
It’s cojones, not cajones, damn it. Been seeing that a lot here lately. [Copyeditor twitch] Okay, feel better now.
celticdragon
Off thread comment…
09.02.09 — 10:10AM //
Levi Unloads
It may not be a tell-all book. But it does look like a tell-all Vanity Fair article with estranged Palin would-be son-in-law Levi Johnston. Among young Levi’s claims — a secret plan to cover up Bristol pregnancy by having Palins adopt the son and Palin’s plan to resign after the 2008 election to “triple the money.” More details here.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
Sullivan’s “Trig Troofer” thing is starting to look a bit more justified. Loony Sarah really was planning to fake details of a pregnancy…but it was her daughters pregnancy.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@cleek:
The War with Iran, circa 2004-2008.
The War with Russia over Georgia, 2008.
Granted the Dems had some allies in places you wouldn’t expect to find DFH’s, like say the CIA and teh JCS, but still. It could be worse.
JenJen
Has everyone seen Allahpundit’s take on Steele’s ad? It’s a new low, even for Hot Air. I don’t want to link but I saw it first over at Sully’s place, and Patrick’s right to suggest we read the comments section.
A taste:
Sorry if this was already discussed earlier… I’m just hearing about it.
b-psycho
@gypsy howell:
Sure! Here it is!
mcc
Wow. It is almost as if this was all cynical partisan politics on the part of the GOP, and the libertarians and teabagging fools got totally played.
Did they? How many of the tea partiers are on medicare?
Trinity
@raff: Win!
http://www.businessinsider.com/sara-palin-just-another-clsa-practical-joke-2009-9
Kryptik
I really don’t think I can take much more of this debate.
I had someone tell me that saying “Health Care is a right” is equally mendacious and dangerous as saying “The Government wants to make Death Panels to kill your grandma”.
Putting aside belief whether Health Care is/should be a right or not…am I wrong in thinking that making an total equivalence there between those two sentiments makes you a horrible person?
raff
@Demo Woman: yeah, the Canadian dj prank was classic. That prank & the CLSA one are very similar in that they’re letting Sarah be Sarah & laughing at her ignorance & self-importance behind her back.
Ordinarily I don’t care for ‘prank humour’. I find it kind of cruel when someone is made a punchline to a joke they’re not in on.
If it was anyone but Palin, I’d feel sorry for them but in Palin’s case it’s important to constantly hammer into the collective public conciousness that Palin is a buffoon that should be kept far away from the levers of power. If publicly humiliating her gets that done, then so be it.
If the CLSA story gathers legs & Palin feels compelled to respond, I imagine it’ll be along the lines of “I was in on the joke from the start”. A sort of ‘Palin-doing-Tina-Fey-doing-Palin’ thing. Very meta.
joes527
@celticdragon: I have nothing nice to say about Sarah Palin, but saying Sully’s PDS was justified because Levi said so is a bit of a stretch.
Levi fits in perfectly with the rest of the Wasilla hillbillies. I wouldn’t consider anything that he says any more dependable than the stuff that falls out of the rest of their mouths.
arguingwithsignposts
@Crashman06:
In the words of the world’s most narcissistic economics blogger:
Selfish jackasses are usually unpopular, yes.
Brian J
Wow. It’s like we are all reading each others’ minds today.
I’ve felt the same way for a long time. Propose anything other than a tax cut (which is hardly anything but, most of the time) and you become a Stalinist. It’s impossible to have a conversation about the legitimate functions of government when you have people who refuse to even consider tax increases, for any reason, at any time. My guess is, there are enough people who have the expertise to debate these issues intelligently (conservative economists, among others) who recognize the world doesn’t fit Grover Norquist’s exact view, but that they are overwhelmed by the people who are zealots when it comes to taxes.
On a related note, I think the Democrats need to push hard for a securities transaction tax. From what I’ve read of it, it’s a great way to raise revenue because a very small rate (something like one half of one percent on stocks, for instance) can yield pretty big sums ($50 billion on the very low end to $150 billion on the higher end) without as many negative effects as other types of taxes. Plus, the money it would raise would probably be the same year after year. Whether this is used for something like health care or for something like deficit reduction, it looks a good way to slide a politically acceptable tax into the discussion. After all, if it’s pitched as a way of Wall Street paying us back after the public saving their asses, who besides those on Wall Street would say no?
cleek
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
i actually meant wars that had already gone hot, not ones that hadn’t started yet. maybe i should’ve used “ended” instead of “stopped”.
Crashman06
@arguingwithsignposts: I was thinking of that exact quote, but couldn’t remember where it came from. Thanks!
cleek
@Trinity:
OMG, the comments there are awesome.
she is too an expert in international trade, she did something with Canada!
she’s an energy expert, why wouldn’t they invite her to speak!
she’s a brilliant woman and you just hate her! PALIN DERANGEMENT SYNDROME!
Obama this! Obama that!
This site is all political now! Bwahh!
BFR
That prank & the CLSA one are very similar in that they’re letting Sarah be Sarah & laughing at her ignorance & self-importance behind her back.
Ahh, those crazy youth in asia!
Joey Maloney
@Crashman06:
Eh, libertarians don’t actually WANT to see their ideas put into practice. They just want to bitch, complain and claim they have some superior knowledge about the way the world works over the rest of us. The last thing they want to do is see their ideas fail miserably.
It’s worse than that. They REFUSE to see where their ideas have been put into practice – viz. Somalia, Iraq, any of the other failed states throughout the world where central authority has completely broken down. You need look no further to see libertarian ideals in action.
ChrisB
@raff:
No, don’t tell her!
(Or the pundits who have touted this as her coming out party on international and financial issues.)
@Demo Woman: Yes, perhaps for dinner they could sit her at a French table.
arguingwithsignposts
@Crashman06:
The quote was from her WaPo Chat the other day, also the source of her now-infamous “it was not a statistic, it was a hypothetical” comment, responding to Susan of Texas (as anonymous):
arguingwithsignposts
FYWP, also.
I would second the person who asked about progress on the site upgrade.
matoko_chan
JenJen, be of good cheer.
The “conservatives” are shooting themselves in the foot, per usual.
Think about Doltbarts crusade to “take back culture.”
Moronic.
The GOP’s cultural disenfranchisement isn’t the cause of their woes…it is the symptom. Hollywood is part of American youth worship. Branding yourself as the Party of Old People is toxic deathpoison for the youth demographic for the next half century.
lol, can you think of a better way to alienate the youth demographic than setting up an age-war with the Party of the Seniors?
ds
I’m guessing 95% of tea baggers don’t understand that Medicare is a government program.
When they hear Michael Steele talk about how we need completely unchecked Medicare spending, they almost certainly approve, because they think Medicare is just some rich dude who pays their doctor’s bills.
Then they think to themselves “See, the free market does work.”
matoko_chan
darn blockquote
this is Doltbart too……
catclub
I think the joke will still be on the CLSA if they end up paying her.
She is, after all, only going there for the money.
ironranger
@James K. Polk, Esq.:
Too funny.
Well, that fits my suspicion that we are actually living in a sitcom.
Victory
Stuck on suck.
celticdragon
Yeah, he does fit in with the other yokels. He is also a person who was on the inside…not to mention the father of the child concerned here…who is saying that Palin really did consider something very, very similar to what she was accused of. He does provide corroboration, whether you like him as a person or not. A lot of his other stuff in the article is pretty damning, and it tends to confirm what we already knew or suspected. Sarah is lazy, a bully, self pitying, narcissistic and utterly under-educated.
That her daughter’s former beau is calling her on it is just icing on the cake.
Xenos
@catclub: All the more fun when you bounce the check on her, and let her try to collect in Hong Kong court system. Then you conterclaim that the speech was incomprehensible, and may even have been in a language other than English, for all you can tell.
This is not legal advice, of course…
Crashman06
@arguingwithsignposts: Sigh. This healthcare debate is just so depressing. Can someone wake me up in a couple months when this is all over, one way or another?
Rommie
The whole “we’re never wrong” outlook just keeps spreading to any topic “they” decide “they” are never wrong on. There are non-political forums that are getting harder for me to stomach nowadays, because either the admins or the core of the people interested in the forum subject also lean conservative.
I’m talking about sports, or hobbies, or other subjects nowhere near political, and you can’t get past the “we are RIGHT, you are WRONG!” mental block on these people. It’s becoming the forum equivalent of the Teabaggers shouting and screaming at town hall debates, and it’s having the same results: shutting down any opinions but their own.
The entrenching of the WE ARE RIGHT, DAMMIT! is just getting ridiculous – I mean, not sending your kids to school because the President is giving a speech to schoolkids that day? I didn’t know Mr. Obama was going to channel Sam Kinison for all the young’uns.
joes527
@celticdragon:
Yeah well, so was Sarah. She heard EVERYTHING that she said in the privacy of her home. Does that mean we should trust her account?
Levi is pimping himself in order to get his full 15 minutes, and probably some $$ in the deal. Considering Levi saying: “you know that thing with the switched babies that everyone was talking about? That TOTALLY happened to me.” as corroboration is, as I said, a stretch.
I’m not saying it didn’t happen, just that taking what he has to say at face value is a bad idea.
ChrisB
One of the commenters at TPM on the Levi Johnston Vanity Fair article wondered whether, if Sarah Palin ever gives another interview, she will be asked if she offered to adopt her grandson.
I think we all know the answer: it would be irresponsible not to ask.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/levi-johnston-palin-offered-to-adopt-baby-talked-about-resigning-after-2008-election-to-triple-the-m.php#comment-3582583
kay
@joes527:
I like Levi. He’s the honest Palin. He just…is. That’s why they don’t know what to do with him.
I’m pulling for him. Maybe they’ll think twice before they drag a human prop into one of those hate-fests they hold.
sparky
the problem with all of this is that people outside the orbit of the “base” think this is a rational issue. tisn’t. this is people just feeling, in an inchoate fashion. all of this talk about arguments and pointing out how crazy it is doesn’t matter, because it’s not about thinking, it’s about feeling frustrated and well, dammit, just feelings!
the real problem is convincing the 40% of the middle to not let the 25% continue to steer the bus. difficult because the middle doesn’t want to bother with this crap. and who would? miz palin is like chalk on a blackboard to me.
celticdragon
Joe
That’s the point, and it kinda flew by you. We (me included) were all saying how crazy the Trig Troofer stuff was…and now I’m kinda scratching my head and wondering wtf?!
Sarah is being accused by her grandchild’s father of really being that secretive and conspiratorial.
You are left with “It sounds really crazy and Levi is not a reliable person, but I can’t say for sure if it happened or not”..which is basically what you just confirmed.
Kirk Spencer
@Brian J:
I’m mixed about this.
On the one hand it’s terribly tempting to offer to end that evil double-taxing of income and just treat the sales the same way we treat sales of any other goods – taxable.
On the other hand I’ve come to be suspicious of any easy but drastic “fix”. They inevitably bite people at whom they were not aimed. Some obvious questions become:
– Do you really want to crack the door on a national sales tax?
– Will bonds also be included? If so, what about government bonds?
– Are certain dealers, retirement fund managers for example, going to be tax exempt the way charities are exempt from income taxes?
In some ways I get a lot of gleeful giggling over the thought of some of these places that do millions and billions of dollars of trade each day suddenly having to pay. Yet I’m not sure I want the pain.
noncarborundum
@Morbo:
If by “no shortage” you mean “the majority”.
noncarborundum
@Steeplejack:
re: cojones. My mnemonic for this is the episode in the Lawrence Block novel Eight Million Ways to Die where a cheeky murderer signs himself into a hotel as “Charles Owen Jones” (aka C. O. Jones).
Works like a charm.
joes527
@celticdragon:
So then it would be irresponsible not to speculate?
Unless there is clear, reliable, evidence to back it up, all this talk about the Palins home life is nothing more than a smear. There is PLENTY of stuff in the public record about the Quitter-in-chief. Why waste time on smears? Rolling in the mud just leaves everyone dirty.
Also, this trust of Levi feels too much like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” I’m more of a “the enemy of my enemy is probably out to get me too” kind of a guy. Also.
Brian J
Okay, I’m not an expert on this, but I have read some pieces about this, and from what I understand, most types of securities, including bonds, would be included. I’m not sure about government bonds, however. As far as who would be exempt and who would be included, I don’t remember any particular distinctions being discussed.
I also don’t see how this is going to open the door to a national sales tax. A lot of people are involved in the stock market, but in a relatively limited scale. Thus, one of the benefits of this type of tax is that, even though it would hit a lot of people and not merely those at the top, it would hit those at the top most of all, since a lot of their money is concentrated in securities. If you’re not really involved in the market, how is it going to hit you that hard?
Sloth
How about we just levy the tax on all trades where the hold is less than 24 or 48 hours.
And then maybe make the penalty for front-running the market your entire corporate revenue for the previous calendar year.
Chris- The Fold
Heck yeah! Now go make them own it!
Aaron
And this from the 2008 GOP platform:
“Medicare
We support the provision of quality and accessible health care options for our nation’s seniors and disabled individuals and recognize that in order to meet this goal we must confront the special challenges posed by the growth of Medicare costs. Its projected growth is out of control and threatens to squeeze out other programs, while funding constraints lead to restricted access to treatment for many seniors. There are solutions. Medicare can be a leader for the rest of our health care system by encouraging treatment of the whole patient. Specifically, we should compensate doctors who coordinate care, especially for those with multiple chronic conditions, and eliminate waste and inefficiency. Medicare patients must have more control of their care and choice regarding their doctors, and the benefits of competition must be delivered to the patients themselves if Medicare is to provide quality health care. And Medicare patients must be free to add their own funds, if they choose, to any government benefits, to be assured of unrationed care.
Finally, because it is isolated from the free market forces that encourage innovation, competition, affordability, and expansion of options, Medicare is especially susceptible to fraud and abuse. The program loses tens of billions of dollars annually in erroneous and fraudulent payments. We are determined to root out the fraud and eliminate this assault on the taxpayer.”
Sure sounds a lot like the sort of cuts that would be realized in the reform package.
slippy
@Rommie: What’s depressing is the people who adopt this attitude are without exception, dead ass wrong upon every subject to which they choose to fart an opinion.
Anne Laurie
@gypsy howell:
“Because, LIEbral, if we tell ya which corporations are siphoning off billions of tax dollars for our PATRIOTIC DEFENCE, then the Axis of Evil will know exactly how to
flush their own assets down the draintreacherously infiltrate and steal all our precious bodily fluids, I mean, secrets. Which is why the Russian Bear still holds half the globe in thrall. Sure, you DFHs try to convince me that Russia isn’t hardly even commanist any more, much less an empire, but that’s not what it says in the Holy Scriptures of St. Ronnie, so fool me once, shame on — you can’t get fooled again. Also.” (/fReichtard)D-Chance.
Add Vanity Fair and Politico to the “don’t bother” list… I mean, another Levi/Sarah/Bristol/baby article and discussion?
Really? Is this necessary?
Anything to set Sully off on another 6 day, 38 post blogging frenzy, I guess…
ricky
As I approach a certain age, morbid thoughts creep in.
I do not wish to be called a Senior citizen. It is degrading.
Call me and my fellow boomers what we really are:
Unfunded Liability. And damn proud of it. Give me death panels or nickel and dime me till the tubes fall out.
Martian Buddy
@matoko_chan: Amazing; it’s like the entire “Christian entertainment” industry — books, radio shows, TV, movies, music, video games, etc. — doesn’t exist in their world. Or perhaps Breitbart et al. would tell us that Hollyweird’s mind control powers are just too strong for it to overcome. That did give me an idea for a movie script, though: “John Galt’s Day Off.”
CTCB05
Revolution is Coming to America!!
I will be one of those marching in D.C. on 9/12 because our congress no longer represent us……they only represent government. There is no more local government….it’s all federal government
We are the same type of Americans that fought the tyranny of King George III. There is a new, underground book out all about how the 2nd American Revolution will start. Read it….because it’s about a small town in America that fights government tyranny….. (http://www.booksbyoliver.com)
freelancer
@raff:
This is so full of win that I’m speechless.
She’s double-fucked now. If she keeps the date, she proves she’s a grifter, even going to the length of court jester to get paid. If she cancels, it’s just another in a long line of fundraisers and speaking engagements that she’s reneged on.
blahblahblah
It’s looking to me like it’s we Democrats who really got played. I voted for the man and now that they’ve thrown us all under the bus on the Public Option, I’m ready to emigrate. They’re going to force junk-insurance down our throats like what happened in Massachusetts. Since I’m a Massachusetts resident I know what it’s like first hand. It’s just like if the state forced you to buy auto insurance that never paid out on claims. Gotta love that.
Our government is trapped and bought by corporate interests that have no willingness to compromise for the benefit of citizens. It will likely take a civil war to undo the damage of the last thirty years. I want the fuck out of here before the shooting starts.
slag
We’re all Soci alists now.
Ailuridae
The second link about Medicare and Social Security’s near future if from the hacktacular National Center for Policy Analysis. If anyone wants to read more on the health of both programs I would strongly suggest Bruce Webb/Angry Bear. In short – Social Security is really fine with the most minor tweaks. Medicare has some really problematic obligations that can be readily addressed.
arguingwithsignposts
@CTCB05:
FAIL. Let me know next time you live without indoor plumbing, air conditioning, modern vaccines (well, some of you), and plow your fields with a fucking ox. Until then, STFU.
Sloth
Might be also useful to recognize taxation without representation when it’s, actually, you know, happening to you?
Unless you somehow believe that our elected officials work for anyone other than their corporate masters.
matoko_chan
Martian….that isn’t real culchah…hollywood is real culture.
That is culture substitute for angry old white people.
Christian “culture” is exactly like christian “rock.”
Something n/e one with a choice avoids like the plague.
matoko_chan
And just when you think Allahpundit couldn’t possibly get any uglier or more whorishly partisan…..this.
It reminds me of the little jehovah witness kids that had to leave the classroom when there were birthday parties in grade school.
I liked AllahP a whole lot better before Malkin had him pithed and neutered.
Not that the youth-challenged would actually get this….but nothing is more sure to endear Obama to the next generation than for the Teabagger demographic to forbid their kids to see him.
;)
CLSA could totally be on the level, but if there is enough online speculation that it is really a pig party, she will withdraw.
She is trying to get foreign affairs credibility so she selected this offer….she has had like a thousand.
Simply full of win.
;)