Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Republicans don’t trust women.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Come on, man.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Usually wrong but never in doubt

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

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The Long Con

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The financial collapse of 2008 was caused by reckless economic elites who were well-connected enough to take risks and not suffer consequences for them.  This led directly to a $900 billion dollar decrease in the value of public pension funds (not to mention the depletion of privately held 401k’s and other middle-class sources of retirement savings). Now well-connected economic elites are blaming public workers for the sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in and want to cripple public labor unions and further deplete these ‘unsustainable’ public pensions in order to restore fiscal sanity, all while extending their own Bush-era tax cuts indefinitely. Money flows up, after all.

The middle class is being pit against itself. Somehow, thousands of laid off workers and the loss of retirement income for countless others is an economic boon, whereas taxing the wealthy is a sure recipe for fiscal insolvency. Wisconsin is just one example of this elaborate con. And it is a con. Robert Reich explains:

The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class — pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.

By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans hope to deflect attention from the big story. That’s the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.

Republicans would rather no one notice their campaign to generate further tax cuts for the rich — making the Bush tax cuts permanent, further reducing the estate tax, and allowing the wealthy to shift ever more of their income into capital gains taxed at 15 percent.

And the whole enterprise is, of course, extremely well-funded.

[PS – shameless self-promotion: I am on Twitter here.]

Reader Interactions

181Comments

  1. 1.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Somehow, thousands of laid off workers and the loss of retirement income for countless others is an economic boon, whereas taxing the wealthy is a sure recipe for fiscal insolvency.

    Funny thing, I saw on…um, some TV show about how Jim Doyle raised taxes on various goods (cigarettes and alcohol and some others) in 2007 and raised taxes 1% on people making over $300,000 (AAAHH! ANYTHING BUT THAT!) in 2009. And the unemployment rate fell, after both of them. Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is only (“only”) 7-7.5% right now. How’s all the free market loving fellows in Alabama and Mississippi and South Carolina doing?

  4. 4.

    Nicole

    Americans live their lives in the future and in their neighbors’ homes. Few of us are rich, but most of us think we will be rich at some unspecified time in the future. Our own lives may be a mess, but as long as we can convince ourselves our neighbors are worse off, we don’t have to think about our own mess.

    In some ways, Americans could stand to spend a bit more time thinking about themselves, and less thinking about other people. As in, what’s going to benefit me RIGHT NOW and not what’s going to benefit me if I ever win the lottery?

    I tell people supporting unemployment insurance and food stamps are two of the most selfish things I can do, and I’m not using either one. But I benefit from money being spent in my community and in the additional personal safety when people around me aren’t, oh, you know, starving.

  7. 7.

    General Stuck

    Yes it is a long con, and every republican administration, first thing, begins transferring wealth from the poor and middle class to the already wealthy. It is what they do, and part and parcel to an oligarch mindset. BUT, previous wingers in power have had the good sense to do it surreptitiously and in a measured way, and all you have to do is look at the increased gap between rich and poor when they are done.

    George Bush was much less crafty about it than say the Reaganites, that dressed the heist in all sorts of wingnut doublespeak labeled as good murrican conservative philosophy. The goopers now have thrown all caution to the wind and have created a public hit list of targets for fleecing the middle class flock for their oligarch puppetmasters. And doing it with little concern for stealth, as though a mid term election made them ten foot tall and ballotproof. A style made for maximum blowback from the general public. You can fool Ma and Pa Kettle with exploiting their human weaknesses on social issues to distract them from having their pockets picked, but holding them up in broad daylight will get their attention, usually, hopefully.

  8. 8.

    M-Pop

    I tell people supporting unemployment insurance and food stamps are two of the most selfish things I can do, and I’m not using either one.

    Yep, I say the same thing about healthcare, that I would gladly pay higher taxes so that everyone could have reasonable medical care in this country.

    Thanks for this piece.

  11. 11.

    Liberty60

    A-fucking-men.

    My story is along the same lines as John Cole and ED, and I think, about a million others.

    We believe in a civil decent society, where hard work and self-sufficiency were not opposed to the common good of taking care of the poor and sick and old- Hell, we work hard and avoid being a burden on society precisely BECAUSE we want to contribute to the moral duty of caring for the ones who can’t care for themselves.

    How is it that one of the central tenets of what we used to call conservatism- a well-ordered society that celebrated the greater good and self-sacrifice- is now considered dangerous radicalism?

    Paraphrasing a previous poster on another thread, how is that I, a middle aged middle class gainfully employed professional, who supports four other people with my income, a guy who pays his taxes, pays my credit cards off each month, loves his family, recycles, obeys traffic laws, even changes his oil every 3000 miles and is careful to pick up my trash when I leave the park, is now considered a far leftist, on the extreme radical edge of American politics?

    Whatever one thinks of what conservatism used to be, whatever ones argument with previous Presidents or parties, this thing that calls itself now the “conservative” movement is something sick and diseased, something terribly radical and ugly, that attacks the basic moral structure of society itself by celebrating raw greed and hatefulness.

  12. 12.

    freelancer

    @E.D. Kain:

    Though I followed your twitter link to LoOG, and the second post, one by Jason Kuznicki, follows the line of libertarians/conservatives governing sloppily from academic principles first, dealing with the practical implications later. Ostensibly, the entire post is a debate he’s having in his head about a supposed conflict of his top tiered “Fundamental Rights”. His assumptions flow from there, and it ain’t pretty.

    At the very least, claims made by public-sector unions have to be defended on a very different theory of fairness than those made by private-sector unions. That theory can’t be “stand up for the little guy,” because the little guy in this case would be the individual taxpayer who doesn’t already have a relatively cushy public-sector job. And the maxim “side with narrower interests against the general good” just defeats itself right out of the box. If you can come up with a better principle, I’d be happy to hear from you. Really, I would.
    __
    When corporations organize to squeeze extra cash from the state, the left screams bloody murder, and it’s a good thing they do. Yet when public sector employees commit the very same foul, the left rallies in support. It suggests that what the left really hates about corporate rent-seeking isn’t rent-seeking, but corporations. Rent-seeking is just fine when our team does it.

    This is a false dichotomy, if you can’t already see it as corporations and Wall Street OBLITERATE State Pension funds and rob workers of their “cushy” benefits. And the argument makes me question Jason’s First Principles. Instead of bemoaning a “cushy” public sector job that provides Health Care, collective bargaining rights to make sure individuals aren’t unfairly squished by those signing the checks, and a pension so that they might see retirement someday, instead of poo-pooing these ideas as if you were full of envy, as a private sector employee, why aren’t you demanding those same guarantees and benefits from those who provide private sector jobs?! FSM knows they have the profits. Nevermind all this Aristotelian/Platonic political wanking about Natural Law, the Fundamental Rights of Man, there’s really some shit hitting the fan.

    By dealing with facts as they arise first, and wanting policy to arise naturally out of pragmatic concern for all, are they going to disown you?

  13. 13.

    Violet

    E.D. Kain, well done. Nice piece.

    Want to add that the pitting of people who should be allies against each other has been going on for a long time. Poor whites against African Americans in the south, for instance.

  14. 14.

    Mary G

    I knew there was a reason I liked you. I even signed up to follow you on Twitter, you are only the fifth person I have ever added. We have Roger Ebert and JC in common.

    Of course, I almost never remember to look at the Twitter, but a number’s a number.

  15. 15.

    BonnyAnne

    ED, I never posted back in the day to tell you I was hoping you’d stick around and keep posing here, despite your conservative leanings. (I love a broad spectrum of smart people talking things over.) I really did mean to toss a little support your way, but I’m in nursing school and it’s frankly a lot like having a newborn in the house. (The diapers are still everywhere, and they’re bigger.)

    So glad you decided to stay. So glad this nonsense in Wisconsin has pissed you off as much as it should. Am sending a mental tumbler of Quarter Cask Laphroaig your way.

    BonnyAnne +2

  16. 16.

    patrick II

    The long con has many facets — one of which is libertarianism. Libertarianism asserts individual freedom as the answer to the power of government to control our lives. Like all good lies, this one begins with a grain of truth. However, each of us acting as an individual is exactly where the large corporations want us. The average individual cannot stand up to giant corporations, big money, and laws written in their favor. Big money is organized. We need to be to. We need the power of group action and organization, and labor unions have in the past been the single most important organization, aside from the heyday of FDR, acting in the interest of the common man. That is why it is the goal is to destroy them. And one of the most effective means to harm them is cast, naturally, as an individual right with the “right to work” laws.
    Anytime you hear the very rich or their shills talk about individual rights, put your hand on your wallet.

  17. 17.

    TenguPhule

    The thing that gets me is just how easy it would be to just turn our elites into bits of meat.

    of course nobody has yet done it yet because somehow the common thread of society doesn’t shatter like it does everywhere else in the world with history.

    And yet….And yet….there but for a faltering moral qualm go thee….

  18. 18.

    jcricket

    I can’t decide what’s worse – watching the non-unionized regular joes rail against the unionized regular joes; watching Republicans laugh all the way to the bank; or watching the “serious” centrists talk about the need for austerity now (austerity tomorrow, austerity forever)

    All while us measly band of liberals try to point out that Hooverism will destroy the economy; that while unions have their share of problems shrinking them will not fix the deficit nor bring up non-union wages/benefits; and that taxation is at an all-time low for the wealthy and corporations.

    I don’t think I know it all, but I think there are enough examples around the world to show that simply raising taxes a reasonable amount and implementing a real national healthcare system would get us about 50% of the way to a path where the middle class and poor aren’t headed to even greater depths of destitution.

    But no – can’t raise taxes ever. Can only cut. And when that doesn’t work, cut some more. And when that doesn’t work, look around for some poor people to blame.

  19. 19.

    E.D. Kain

    @Violet: That’s a very good point. And the Tea Parties are certainly an extension of that. They’d never have existed with a white man in the White House, after all, and certainly not a Republican.

  20. 20.

    E.D. Kain

    @Mary G: Thanks! Twitter grew on me. I was signed up forever without doing anything with it. But it can be a great way to follow events like Bahrain.

  22. 22.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @patrick II:

    I wonder if it’s time to get rid of the concept of the chartered corporation. If Libertarians actually believed in the free market shit they’re constantly spewing from every orifice then they’d be advocating that corporations, which are artificial constructs granted life by the state, have no place in a truly free market. If you want to band together with a group of people to engage in an activity, profit seeking or not, that’ s great, but why should the state grant you any special privileges for doing so?

  27. 27.

    Nicole

    Well, since we’re piling on the ED compliments- it’s been fun watching your evolution (and frankly, your good humor putting up with the B-J abuse). What I liked about your posts from the start (and about John’s writing even in his pre-Schiavo days) is the obvious intellectual curiosity. The willingness to engage and debate, not from a need to be right, but from a desire to find answers is not a common trait in a lot of conservatives, many of whom I think are conservative because uncertainty is scary to them and much of the movement (as I see it, anyway) seems to be rooted in, “This is the way it is; new information be damned.” (aka, conservatism can not fail; it can only be failed)

    Thanks for taking your lumps and continuing to argue and debate and to be willing to be persuaded. It reminds me that there’s no shame in being wrong about something; there’s only shame in refusing to accept when one is. I’m wrong nearly every day of my life (see Wisconsin’s alleged budget surplus for my wrong of today).

    And good post. Deserves a Hedwig and the Angry Inch song.
    They Might Be Giants- The Long Grift

  28. 28.

    Suzan

    May “this whole Wisconsin thing” be for you what torture was for Sullivan and Graham Frost was for John.

    Reagan turned my father into a Democrat. Dad, who worked on nuclear subs for the navy, thought Reagan’s talk of “limited nuclear war” was stupid and reckless. That might be why I’m curious about what makes people change parties.

    Ask John how long a wait it is for your check from Soros.

  31. 31.

    The Raven

    My impression is it’s not actually “The Republicans” any more. It seems to be a small group of very rich people–the Koch Brothers and perhaps a few other people, who seem to who have bought the Republican party, lock, stock, and teabaggers.

    Here we have Matt Taibbi, “Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?” on why it is that none of the banksters have been prosecuted. I think it’s good coverage of the current issue, but I’d like to see some coverage of the history, and coverage of the capture of the National Labor Relations Board as well. That has probably been a major factor in the expansion of the gap between rich and poor in the USA.

  32. 32.

    Nicole

    @E.D. Kain: Your wife has excellent taste. My husband took me to the Off-Broadway production on our third date- that’s when I started thinking he might be a keeper.

    Check out the link- TMBG’s cover is really good. It’s from an album of covers from the show: “Wig in a Box”- sales benefit the Harvey Milk School. And the video is all puppets!

  33. 33.

    Benz

    If the Koch brothers weren’t going after Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, I doubt Andrew Sullivan would even care about the Kochs.

    Sullivan has no care for the fact that this Wisconsin battle is decisive for the very survival of the Democratic Party. He and many others don’t see it as an existential threat.

  34. 34.

    sukabi

    So E.D. not to be snotty, really… but I’m curious what was the tipping point for you? This hasn’t been a slow transformation, it’s almost like someone did a brain transplant…. your writing style has also undergone a significant change. So what was your “Oh shit” moment?

  35. 35.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @goblue72:

    I’m looking forward to the tinder match being struck. Guillotine is too good for them.

    I don’t want to use the guillotine either. Here’s why.

    1) It’s all French and everything. I might feel differently about it though if we renamed it and called it the “freedom” blade instead of the guillotine.

    2) I just hate the way guillotine manufacturers make their money. Sure, the guillotine’s frame and the first blade is cheap, but then they gouge you on the refills. I’m also tired of all of the bullshit around marketing guillotine blades. First one manufacturer comes out with a guillotine with two blades, and then another increases the blade count to three, claiming that it gives you a closer decapitation. Then the first manufacturer increases their blade count to three and puts an aloe strip on the blade and claims that it gives you a smoother decapitation. Then they put four blades on and soon they’re up to five blades and an aloe strip and every time they do this they come up with a name like “Mach 3” or “Fusion” or “Turgid Fuckmuscle” and announce it with hugely expensive commercials that have the same SFX budget as a summer blockbuster that make it seem as if they had invented a machine that cured cancer and made you young, good-looking, sexy and tanned and capable of comprehending the BCS when in reality it’s just the same old guillotine, only with another blade or a strip of aloe. Plus you end up with a bunch of old guillotine frames cluttering up the place. Unless you throw them away, which can’t be good for the environment.

  36. 36.

    Glix

    The radical right has corrupted the following words:

    conservative and conservatism
    Christian
    We the People
    patriotism
    freedom

    I can’t stand to hear them use those words to describe their crazy, racist, hateful, violent, warmongering philosophy.

  37. 37.

    Nicole

    What an excellent Friday night. Time to go lull myself to sleep with Nixonland. Thanks for a good evening, y’all!

  38. 38.

    Martin

    Yeah. The economy is built on cheeseburgers and having your nails done. Rich people don’t do that any more than the middle class, but poor people do it a whole lot less.

  39. 39.

    goblue72

    @Wile E. Quixote: I prefer old school style guillotine. Lather up the necks of the plutocrats with some guillotine soap and a badger-hair whisker brush followed by a single straight blade.

  40. 40.

    E.D. Kain

    @sukabi: Actually it was a long time coming. Recently I simply began asking questions about the middle class, organized labor – what happened to it, where will we be when it’s finally extinguished. I started thinking about a world where everything was privatized, where profit was the driving force not just of commerce but also education, etc. etc. etc. In essence, I just decided that I was much too conservative to be a conservative or a libertarian. I like the America we’ve been crafting over the years much better than the one I see once all these reactionaries have had their way with it.

  42. 42.

    patrick II

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    We need organizational structure for group effort, and that includes economic effort. Whether we call these economic entities corporations or not, something that organizes economic effort needs to exist.
    That said, I have four basic problems with corporations as they exist now.
    First. The used to mostly exist within a nation, so when the did well it was consistent with the nation doing well. It used to be said that “as GM goes, so goes the U.S.”. That is no longer true. Corporations span nations, and as a consequence their interests no longer coincide with the nation that nominally is there home.
    Second, they are essentially sociopathic. Concerned with profit and nothing else. Treating people as commodities is the way best way to short term profitability — but not necessarily for the well being of people who interact with them.
    Third, they have become too powerful politically, and as Wisconsin now is a clear example of, they buy politicians to write and enforce laws that harm everyone but them. Powerful sociopaths are not a good thing.
    And fourth. We need to find a way to kill them without too much harm when they stop serving our needs. Money that now goes to oil companies should start going to other entities that provide new sources of power. However, because of their political power and propaganda (supporting global climate change deniers)we are putting in to much capital to an industry we should be trying to move away from. Add to that that people are invested in these things — one of the reasons BP gets off lightly is because thousands of retired British widows depend on the income from BP. Health insurance has the vested interest not just of their stock owners, but of many thousands of employees that depend on jobs that are essentially make-work that hurt the country. Downsizing or even eliminating those corporations would cause harm to many. The strength of capitalism is, theoretically, its ability to change, but our system now encourages inertia nearly as much as the old soviet system did.
    And finally, for many reasons, corporations aren’t people, and don’t deserve the rights of people and pretending otherwise gives even more power to already powerful, sociopathic change killing, secretive entities that might eventually kill us all.
    Screed over.

  43. 43.

    Mark S.

    By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans hope to deflect attention from the big story. That’s the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.

    This is the key for me. The rich are determined to fuck over the rest of us for some reason. As Warren Buffet said, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

    I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all the major sports leagues are headed towards lockouts.

  45. 45.

    aliasofwestgate

    @E.D. Kain:

    If we didn’t have them? We’d have the Company Store once again. The worst thing to return to the US ever, if they win. Turning all the middle class and the poor into serfs again.

  46. 46.

    roshan

    Looks like ED has had his “come to Jesus” moment after all. You can hate gov’t as much as you like but in the end it can all be changed by your vote and civic activism. The same thing doesn’t go for a Corporation. They don’t give shit about anyone.

  47. 47.

    matoko_chan

    @E.D. Kain: why? you have spent the ENTIRE time i have known you enabling the tyranny of the Stupid, by pretending shit like fetus=slave and im-not-sure-about-AGW is a “reasonable” difference of opinion.
    you helped bake this cake.
    now its fucking obvious its a shitcake, and you still wont own what you did.
    Conservatism is anti-empirical–it DOESNT FUCKING WORK.
    AGW is real. IDT is crapology. The GOP is a religious party.
    you and the rest of your “gentlemen” can just fuck off and DIAF.
    you haven’t changed.
    get back to me when you’re ready to own up to your real responsibilty, you consummate ass.

    no matter how far a jackass may travel, it will never come back a horse.

  51. 51.

    sukabi

    @E.D. Kain: or horrors, maybe you’re a bit more liberal / progressive than you think… You can live a “conservative* life” and have liberal / progressive values.

    *conservative as defined here particularly 2,3,6,8…. not “conservative” as defined by the batshit insane, sociopaths that have hijacked the word.

  52. 52.

    DonkeyKong

    “Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, for the LORD will take up their case and will plunder those who plunder them.”

    -Proverbs 22:22-23

    ED, commit Proverbs to memory so you can recite it in your best Samuel Jackson impression when necessary.

  53. 53.

    Martin

    @E.D. Kain: I think this is something that is really lost in today’s political discussion. I consider myself to be relatively conservative – I have the low paying, but safe job with benefits. Savings. I see single-payer health care as a conservative policy. Yes, it’s a change, but it would eliminate huge inefficiencies in the economy that would result in significant improvements to output, as well as eliminating inequities.

    Pimping the free market at every turn isn’t conservative. Putting power in the hands of corporations takes it out of the hands of citizens, and I can’t see how that is uniformly conservative. Sure, there are plenty of areas where that doesn’t matter TVs and mustard and such – but there are some where it does – electricity, food supply, education, defense. I don’t see why turning these critical functions over to shareholders is more conservative than turning them over to voters, who they ultimately serve.

    And because government is key to a successful economy (notice none of those CEOs turned down Obama’s invitation) it’s reasonable to ask those that benefit most from government to pay most for government. Every successful manager understands the multiplicative effects of those you manage on the overall organization. Every CEO earns what they do not because they personally are that productive, but because they bring out that productivity from all of the people that work for them. So they keep some of the reward of that productivity, but they should also pay proportionately for it as well, because even though they may have drawn out that added output, the state provided all of that education for all of those workers, all of the infrastructure, and so on, and an added tax on the multiplicative output is totally appropriate. The problem as I see it is that conservatives don’t recognize the work of others, only their own. They don’t want to pay those added taxes because they don’t acknowledge anyone’s output but their own.

  54. 54.

    matoko_chan

    @Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I WANT A FUCKING APOLOGY AND FOR HIM TO SAY HE WAS WRONG TO DO THAT.
    he banned me for telling the truth.
    and he still wont acknowledge that conservatism IS A FAILED PARADIGM.
    i want him to take responsibility.
    and he will never do that….he’ll slide out from under with a wink and grin like the oligarchs he still serves in his heart.

  55. 55.

    matoko_chan

    @Mark S.: the oligarchs are like a Jurassic super-predator extincting their prey base.
    that is the core of conservatism.
    “it will last our time”.
    the oligarchs are extinct already…its just the tiny little second brains in their hips havent gotten the message yet.

  56. 56.

    Yutsano

    @Martin:

    I see single-payer health care as a conservative policy.

    Single payer health care was first implemented by an archconservative in fact: Otto von Bismarck. He originally devised a health insurance scheme for all German citizens as a way of defusing the Marxist timebomb that was brewing in 19th Century Germany. What he failed to realize was just how economically beneficial that system became. Even Hitler dared not discontinue it, although he did exclude certain groups from full participation.

  57. 57.

    matoko_chan

    Kain and Sully say the same thing……this isnt “real” conservatism.
    well it is fucking real to those poor proles on the picket lines.
    this is REAL conservatism. it is EMPIRICALLY REAL.
    Kain has helped prop up the tyranny of the stupid as long as ive known him.
    he banned me for calling him on it.

  59. 59.

    matoko_chan

    @Martin: and you are no better.
    there is no “real” conservatism.
    what you see is what you get.
    preservation of the status quo, empowerment of the oligarchy, destruction of the middle class, the tyranny of the stupid as long as it allows the oligarch to soulessly rapaciously farm the base for cash.
    that is “conservative.”

  60. 60.

    Martin

    @matoko_chan: If he banned you it’s because you’re an annoying idiot. If I had mod rights, I would have banned you over all of your IQ racist bullshit you constantly used to spout.

  62. 62.

    matoko_chan

    Conservatism itself is the long con. and that is what is causing Sully to have a breakdown.
    he is finally getting the signal.
    does EDK get it yet?

    unknown.

  63. 63.

    morzer

    Well, ED Kain, I defended you when the more sanctimonious idiots on here issued a ritual denouncement of your every post and attributed the worst motives to you. I clearly knew my front-page talent. Equally, the mohawk is obviously having a good effect on you. Still think it would be better in scarlet though. Anyway, Erik the Red wan sui!

    PS Somewhat worried by rumors that Matt Taibbi has decided to crush his newest rival and that a crack Ninja Liberal Squad are en route even as we speak.

  65. 65.

    matoko_chan

    @Martin: im not a racist. i dont give a shit about skin color.
    im an IQist.
    that is why you hate me–because you are apparently stupid enough to fall for the long con that is conservatism.

  67. 67.

    matoko_chan

    @Martin: no that is conservative, retard.
    conservatism is the philosophy that we have to keep repeating failed policies because they worked once in the past and they SHOULD work based on”first principles”.
    Conservatism is non-empirical.

  68. 68.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @matoko_chan:

    Kain has helped prop up the tyranny of the stupid as long as ive known him.
    he banned me for calling him on it.

    Really, are you sure he didn’t ban you because you’re a stupid, annoying twat who seems to be suffering either from tertiary syphilis or rabies, or perhaps both? Oh, and as far as stupidity goes give it a rest, just because you can blather about “cognitive stratification” and G doesn’t mean that you understand them. As Jamie Lee Curtis pointed out in A Fish Called Wanda it’s not that apes don’t read philosophy, they do, it’s just that they don’t understand it.

  70. 70.

    morzer

    @Martin:

    I think you probably need to explain IQ to Tokie. It may require several years, so it’s probably better just to leave her in a redacted state by applying Cleek’s pie filter for Chrome or whatever browser you drive.

  72. 72.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @matoko_chan:

    im not a racist. i dont give a shit about skin color.
    im an IQist.
    that is why you hate me—because you are apparently stupid enough to fall for the long con that is conservatism.

    Yet despite that you have no grasp of English grammar or sentence structure. I’d be a lot more impressed with your IQ if you’d learn to spell ya fucktarded cudlip.

    Oh, and I don’t hate you because I’m a conservative or anything. I hate you because you’re crazy and full of shit like the fucks over on RedState.

  73. 73.

    morzer

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    That seems a bit harsh on Otto. Sure, the guy was a boorish, pretentious, crass contract killer without a moral code and had chronic delusions of intellectual grandeur – but he wasn’t half as bad as Matoko_Clown.

  75. 75.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @matoko_chan:

    @Martin: im not a racist. i dont give a shit about skin color.
    im an IQist.

    Ah, an “IQist”. Yes, that makes sense. And of course the white southerners who used to administer literacy tests to prospective voters weren’t racists either, they were IQists too, the fact that every white person who took the test passed while every black person who took it failed had nothing to do with race, it was because of the G factor. Race was purely coincidental.

  76. 76.

    matoko_chan

    @Wile E. Quixote: but i do.
    like i pointed out on DougJ’s epic trolling of the League’s science threads, that conservatives discussing science is like apes discussing philosophy.
    Cognitive stratification comes right from Grand New Party.
    it is EMPIRICALLY why academe is painted blue, why 94% of scientists are not republican, and why elite students are fleeing the GOP like scalded cats.
    ON OBSERVATION.
    but no conservative spinner is going to talk about it, because the base would eat them alive.

  77. 77.

    matoko_chan

    @Wile E. Quixote: strawman. you can do better cant you?
    that is the bioluddite argument i have come to expect here.
    she is talking about IQ therefore she must be racist.

    all men are created equal….all genes and memes are not.

  81. 81.

    morzer

    I am almost tempted to unredact Secret Agent Matoko Loko aged 3 1/2 just to hear the screeching. On the other hand, there’s a perfectly good wall with some paint drying on it nearby, and I suspect that’s going to be more exciting than Matoko’s eternal wrestling match with English syntax and basic logic. Less predictable, at any rate.

  83. 83.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @matoko_chan:

    I WANT A FUCKING APOLOGY AND FOR HIM TO SAY HE WAS WRONG TO DO THAT.

    And I want a magical pink pony that shits smokable THC filled rainbows and that has three dicks, one pissing chilled Coke Zero, one pissing chilled Sheaf Stout (one of Australia’s finer exports) and the third pissing an Irish lager. I’d also like this pony to do laundry, clean toilets and kill on command.

  87. 87.

    morzer

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    If you would add a function enabling it to shit Cuban cigars as well, I’d seriously consider offering up a prayer to the gods (in whom I don’t believe) to bring this marvellous critter into existence.

  89. 89.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @matoko_chan:

    @Wile E. Quixote: strawman. you can do better cant you?
    that is the bioluddite argument i have come to expect here.
    she is talking about IQ therefore she must be racist.
    __
    all men are created equal….all genes and memes are not.

    “Wenn ich ‘Bioluddite’ höre … entsichere ich meinen Browning!”

    Actually it’s a Ruger KP94DC, which is DAO with a decocker, but you get the point.

  91. 91.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @morzer:

    If you would add a function enabling it to shit Cuban cigars as well, I’d seriously consider offering up a prayer to the gods (in whom I don’t believe) to bring this marvellous critter into existence.

    Ooooh, good idea. I’ll add that to the spec. I’m going to leave out flying though because a flying horse, I mean come on, that would be ridiculous.

  94. 94.

    morzer

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    Well, I think we can agree to compromise on its flying capabilities. Cuban cigars are non-negotiable though. If I am going to give up my cherished non-belief, I need a certain minimum bribe level to maintain my self-respect.

    I am a bit worried by your use of words like “decocker” though. You’ll get Tokie all hot and bothered, and that’s really something none of us should have to live through. It would be like being molested by calamari in heat – a lustful, squid-like, disconnected groping that you blame yourself for afterwards as you try and clean the slime away.

  95. 95.

    FLRealist

    Alas, my vice of choice is menthol clove cigarettes, which are, I believe, actually marketed as cigars.

  100. 100.

    Martin

    @matoko_chan: So what makes you think that IQ is in any way representative of either intelligence or even aptitude? There’s plenty of evidence that people can quite deliberately increase aptitude scores on such tests in short periods of time. What is it then a measure of?

  101. 101.

    FLRealist

    I’ve said for several years that the corporate owned Republicans won’t be happy until we’re all living company towns, paid in script, shopping in company stores and living in company shanties.

    Now add to this the renewed interest in the GOP to undo child labor laws and we’re all living in a Dicken’s novel.

  102. 102.

    matoko_chan

    blah blah blah, adhom adhom adhom.
    you dont refute on substance because you cant.
    EDK has been a loyal soljah in the conservative war on empiricism since ive know him.
    sry to piss on you retards taking props for his Glorious Conversion, but that is a bigger fantasy than your unicorn.
    he helped cause this cf and ima grind his nose in it until it bleeds.
    heres the real soundtrack.

  103. 103.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @morzer:

    Well, I think we can agree to compromise on its flying capabilities. Cuban cigars are non-negotiable though. If I am going to give up my cherished non-belief, I need a certain minimum bribe level to maintain my self-respect.

    And I admire you and, please, for the record state that I think that you are a fine, upstanding and principled human being for feeling that way.

    I am a bit worried by your use of words like “decocker” though. You’ll get Tokie all hot and bothered, and that’s really something none of us should have to live through. It would be like being molested by calamari in heat.

    Isn’t that what hentai is all about? I bought a hentai video once. Me and a friend got our smoke and drink on and watched the whole thing and at the end of it we were like “Dude, what the fuck?” and really hungry, but not for calamari.

  105. 105.

    Yutsano

    @Martin: Your fight against certitude is admirable. I’m afraid this one is just too thick in its own perceived awesomeness to engage in any sort of rational discourse with. Have fun though, when she breaks out the ad hominem charge you know she’s about out of gas.

  109. 109.

    morzer

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    Well, there’s hentai and hentai, and who are we to judge. I mean, Matoko can’t help being a poor, puzzled, obsessive, ignorant, fucked-up, bigoted, self-aggrandizing cudlip. Can she?

  110. 110.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Martin: Why are you even attempting to engage this person? Let it go. Scroll past. We don’t have to have every thread be dominated by someone’s natural-language-processing experiment in mashing-up _The Bell Curve_ and _Snowcrash_.

  116. 116.

    morzer

    Out of curiosity and laziness, is it worth my while to deredact Tokie? Or is her latest intellectual defecation just not worth the bother, as per norm? Does she even manage a new insult?

  129. 129.

    Martin

    @matoko_chan: What does that even mean? I’m hardly a bioluddite. And I don’t reject IQ as a measurement of intelligence or aptitude, I reject it as a complete measurement – even an adequate one in many cases. Savantism alone should make that clear enough.

  130. 130.

    asiangrrlMN

    @morzer: Yeah, well, I’m still mad at Yutsy for making me un-pie her in the earlier thread. Not doing it again. Unfortunately, my browser is hung up, so I can see bioluddite which immediately causes me to reach for my rusty pitchfork.

    @sukabi: Yeah. I know she’s got the mad hots for him, but we’re not in fifth grade. She doesn’t have to tell him he has cooties all the damn fucking time.

    @Yutsano: MikeJ is to thank for my pie. I definitely need a little shoofly in it.

  131. 131.

    matoko_chan

    and Asiangrrlman is going to go post with the LoOGies.
    that will be awesome.
    will DougJ troll her too?
    i cant wait.

  133. 133.

    Shadow's Mom

    You have hit the point precisely. If the right-wingers manage to pull off shutting down collective bargaining, we are in deep breitbart. I caught Tweety today asking some rep form Wisconsin “So everyone who works for the state has to be in the union?” The response was that they all pay dues. Well, yeah, they all pay dues and they’ve all shared in the benefits of the collective bargaining process.

    I am enraged not just at the Goopers and the teabaggers, but at the Dems who chose not to vote last November,and the independents who bought into the rightwing propaganda and voted against their own best interest. I had an exchange on Twitter today with a journalist from the MidEast, who wrote that US journalists were ignoring women at protests who were NOT in hijab. I expressed my regret at this behavior and she responded specifically naming @foxnews as the source of much misinformation.

    Beyond contributing money, expressing support,and getting involved at the local level, what do we do? How do we take our collective common sense and make it work for us? Can the protests in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Tennessee a harbinger of good for us?

  135. 135.

    morzer

    @sukabi:

    That would be a classic courtship gesture by a teenage emo girl with no social skills.. lots of pouting and clinging and screams of “I hate you, I hate you, notice me, I hate you!” She’s probably wearing black and listening to huge amounts of girlie pop as she broods on the heartless nature and mysterious allure of the vulpine ED Kain.

  136. 136.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Martin: It means that you are not WAI and that u r teh suxxor ‘coz u dont noe how BRILLIANT m_c iz. All yur brain cellz r belongz 2 her. Cudlip.

    @Shadow’s Mom: Yes. There is a teeny tiny optimist in me who says this may be the beginning of the end because of overreach by the Republicans. I’m just hoping they don’t decimate the country before everyone finally wakes up.

  138. 138.

    morzer

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Jesus H Fucking Tebow On the Cross in the Endzone. I was eating a sandwich when I saw that abomination you cobbled together. Can’t you put up some sort of government health warning before exposing the public to full-frontal Matoko-babble?

  140. 140.

    morzer

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Well, I was enjoying a divine toast, olive oil and marmite combination with OJ. Also too, celebrating a couple of pounds of weight loss so far this week. I shall be the raunchy, lean panther and sex-god of my fiery youth in a few months time. Long walks, trips to the gym and a program of virtuous denial are paying off.

    Not that this excuses what your Matoko-impression did to my digestive tract.

  142. 142.

    matoko_chan

    @Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):

    the way one of the other of the handful of billions on the planet might react.

    and one of them is DougJ, the Master Troll himself.

    matoko_chan – February 10, 2011 | 6:29 pm · Link
    __
    DougJ
    youz trollin’ right?
    the whole thing was a setup.

    DougJ® – February 10, 2011 | 6:31 pm · Link
    __
    @matoko_chan:
    ABT
    __
    Always Be Trolling.
    __
    Coffee’s for trolls only. Get them to type in the box that is sort of dotted.

  143. 143.

    asiangrrlMN

    @morzer: Rrrrrowr! Niceeeeeeeee. I done told you–it’s Yutsy’s fault. All will be forgiven when he buys me my ring.

    ETA: Wait a damn minute. I was so dazzled by your panther-like prowess that I totally missed the marmite bit on the first read. Ew.

    @Yutsano: ::mumbling darkly under my breath and glaring at you::

    Hopefully that won’t mess up FYWP.

    I haz no chocolate in the house. No wonder I’m so pissy.

  144. 144.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: If it wasn’t for the fact that I know you’ll get over it, I might actually have cause for concern. But hopefully the browser situation resolves itself quickly enough. Pie should never wait.

  146. 146.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @matoko_chan:

    Jack Kirby would have totally kicked Hokusai’s Japanese ass just like he kicked the shit out of the Germans after landing at Normandy in 1944. Fucking Hokusai. What a punk. “Oooohhh, look, it’s Hokusai. He drew a picture of some Japanese broad getting it on with a cephalopod. Ooohhh look, he drew a picture of a giant wave.” Shit, Jack Kirby was cranking out 90 pages a month at his prime at Marvel! 90 fucking pages a month of artwork that jumped off the page, wrestled you to the ground, had it’s mighty Marvel way with you and left you lying there all sticky and confused with a big old grin on your face and goofing on Kirby dots! That jumped up little bitch Hokusai wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the mighty Marvel bullpen. Not five minutes before Stan Lee came in and said “What, another fucking picture of a wave? The name of this comic isn’t ‘Wave-man’ or ‘Blinky: The Magical Rug-Munching Cephalopod’. It’s Spider-Man for Christ’s sake and if Ditko hadn’t become an objectivist douchebag he’d still be drawing it, and not you, and if you don’t get your mind right and stop drawing waves I’m going to bring him back, regardless of how annoying everyone finds his objectivist horseshit.”

  147. 147.

    Batocchio

    It wasn’t long ago Kain was pretending that conservative think tanks and the much fewer and poorly funded liberal and moderate ones were equivalent in their honesty and power. It wasn’t long ago he was pretending that objections to the Koch octopus weren’t based in substance.

    I’m glad things can change. Good post. Keep ’em coming.

    Hell, eventually, maybe conservatives who actually believe in the social contract and responsible governance can multiply and take over the Republican Party. In all honesty, America needs that, badly.

  148. 148.

    matoko_chan

    bears repeating.
    and Asiangrrlman is going to go post with the LoOGies.
    that will be awesome.
    will DougJ troll her too?
    killah suspense……oh plzplzplz make it so.
    link

  151. 151.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @matoko_chan:

    Well, yeah, duh. That’s not the point.

    EDK is hella pissed i bet.

    Why? EDK doesn’t know that Master Troll trolls? Do you think he’s casting the lure back? Do you think he’s incapable of learning from his past mistakes, incapable of any sort of intellectual evolution? If so, why would you think that? Have you some personal insights into the psyche of one E.D. Kain?

  152. 152.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @matoko_chan:

    Jack Kirby would have totally kicked Hokusai’s Japanese ass just like he kicked the shit out of the Germans after landing at Normandy in 1944. Fucking Hokusai. What a punk. “Oooohhh, look, it’s Hokusai. He drew a picture of some Japanese broad getting it on with a cephalopod. Ooohhh look, he drew a picture of a giant wave.” Shit, Jack Kirby was cranking out 90 pages a month at his prime at Marvel! 90 fucking pages a month of artwork that jumped off the page, wrestled you to the ground, had it’s mighty Marvel way with you and left you lying there all sticky and confused with a big old grin on your face and goofing on Kirby dots and thinking that you had just won the ultimate No-Prize! That jumped up little bitch Hokusai wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the mighty Marvel bullpen. Not five minutes before Stan Lee came in and said “What, another fucking picture of a wave? The name of this comic isn’t ‘The Mighty Wave-man’ or ‘Blinky: The Magical Rug-Munching Cephalopod’. It’s Spider-Man for Christ’s sake and if Ditko hadn’t become an objectivist douchebag he’d still be drawing it, and not you, and if you don’t get your mind right and stop drawing stupid shit like waves and rug-munching cephalopods I’m going to put a boot in your ass and bring him back, regardless of how annoying everyone finds his objectivist horseshit.”

  154. 154.

    Calouste

    I don’t get why people still refer to the GOP as conservatives. I know it’s the convention, but they really are reactionairies. They’re not just opposed to (too much od to quick) change, they’re actively working to turn back the clock.

    And the whole thing about attacks on pensions/social security, raising the pension age and attacks on medicare comes from the point that the poor don’t deserve to have a nice oldage. From the Koch standpoint, the poor should just work their whole life and then die. Back to the good old days when Bismarck picked 65 as the pensionable age for German soldiers because most of them never made it that far.

  155. 155.

    matoko_chan

    @Wile E. Quixote: /shrug
    like i said, some people can never develop an appreciation for shunga.
    cha·cun à son goût.
    consider the difference in our respective anime avatars.
    you are a low information coyote that often gets crushed by falling safes, and im a cyborg that merged with the net long ago.

  156. 156.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @morzer:

    Primitive fantasies as filtered through the brain of a very young woman creepy looking dude in his 50s of no experience, and with marked sociopathic tendencies and a creepy anime fetish pretending to be a young Asian girl. You know, like Steven Den Beste.

    Fix’t.

  158. 158.

    morzer

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    I understand your righteous and well-informed wish to smack down the eternal act of petty flatulence that is Matoko_chan, but Hokusai is actually pretty good. Unleash not your wrath upon the innocent, Lord Quixote.

  159. 159.

    morzer

    @Calouste:

    Well, the Villagers have to call them something as they exchange bon mots around the Applebee’s salad-bar, and naming them the “Horse’s Ass Party” might disturb the delicate harmonies of the spinach and persimmon roulade….

  160. 160.

    morzer

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    Sounds more like Bill Kristol to me, but I admit that we cannot be absolutely sure of the precise identity of the demonic entity that currently calls itself Matoko_chan.

  161. 161.

    matoko_chan

    of course, a low information coyote that tilts at windmills.

    Lin: We got loyalty even in my line.
    Batou: There’s loyalty that protects secrets and loyalty that protects the truth. You cannot serve both masters, so which loyalty is yours?

  162. 162.

    THE

    @matoko_chan:

    and im a cyborg that merged with the net long ago.

    I’ve got a feeling maybe she “merged” with Batou after the the end of Solid State Society.
    The closing scene, he has his arm around her, and she’s not complaining.
    As the image zooms out, she says:

    “Batou, the Net truly is vast and infinite.
    Who knows? Maybe a new society we’ve never even dreamed of is already being born.”

    I’m allowed to hope?

  166. 166.

    E.D. Kain

    @Martin: I think that makes a lot of sense. This is why I think Roger Ebert is one of the most “conservative” writers online. Wanting to conserve the institutions and ideas that make America what it is, make it great, whatever, this is fine and good. I just don’t think actual conservatives want to do this. They want to tear most of those institutions down. Revanchists all.

  167. 167.

    E.D. Kain

    @Batocchio: Yeah, but there was something nagging me at the back of my mind about all that, and upon further inspection and introspection, I realized I’d been wrong. Nothing left to do at that point but change.

  168. 168.

    matoko_chan

    @E.D. Kain: you havent changed assclown. not until you admit that AGW denialism, fetus=slave, creationsim, and DOMA are not “reasonable” positions.
    you havent changed until you admit that conservatism is a dead paradigm and the GOP is now wholly the judeochristian/evangelical protestant party, a religious party.
    then we can say you have changed.
    until that happens you are just pandering……to both sides.

  169. 169.

    PurpleGirl

    There are times I wish this blog was moderated the way Making Light is; then the moderator could disemvowel a certain poster. Not delete the posts or ban the poster but delete all the vowels. Those who wanted to could still read the posts and those of us who don’t would have an easier time scrolling past. (Of course, said poster’s grammar, syntax and writing style is so bad, I’m not sure how easy it would be to put the vowels back in as one tried to read the posts.)

  170. 170.

    matoko_chan

    @Calouste: conservatism is reactionary.
    on first principles.
    they are true conservatives.
    its just that conservatism is a dead paradigm.
    IT DOESNT WORK.

  171. 171.

    matoko_chan

    @PurpleGirl: like i suggested to cleek once, he should make a 4D pie filter, to preserve the bj information cocoon from inconvenient empirical data.
    he could suppress all facts, even those in the past.
    EDK hasnt changed since culture 11.
    at culture 11 Conor and EDK were “reasonable” conservativelibertarians (same thing in America a cuz of the three legged stool).
    Conor bashed Palin, EDK bemoaned the lack of civil liberties.
    that was their schtick.
    both of them were too fucking cowardly to ever actually confront their base on issues.
    EDK has been a servant of lies eversince i met him.
    he hasnt changed.
    hes just scamming Cole and the juicers like the grifter he remains to the core.

  174. 174.

    Democrat for Breaking Unions

    It is time that the work rules that apply in nonunionized private industry also apply in unionized private industry and government. We need to find a way to have competent government workers, a way to fire those who are not competent, and for government employees to pay the same share of their benefits as do private nonunionized workers. How many times have you dealt with the DMV or other public departments with surly workers, many of whom simply don’t care and show it. Read about what it takes to fire a nonperforming government worker. In many ways, unions have outlived their usefulness. Check out our big city governments – they are simply jokes and everyone knows it. If 2/3 of the government workers were fired and half as many new competent people willing to work hard were hired to replace them and paid half as much more, we’d have a real chance for functioning government.

  176. 176.

    Hunter Gathers

    @Democrat for Breaking Unions:

    How many times have you dealt with the DMV or other public departments with surly workers, many of whom simply don’t care and show it

    I know, let’s just replace those uppity niggers and their bad attitudes with nice Christian white people who know their place and will keep their mouths shut. I’m sure that the DMV would be a much more pleasant experience for you if it weren’t filled with so many darkies.

  177. 177.

    El Cid

    Did anyone on here mention how state & local governments were sold on the idea that investing in all these cool new types of products would be super-profitable, more so than all their old, stodgy investments.

    I remember when Mr. Tough Talking Free Market Guy John Silber was running Boston University.

    He too got tired of all these old fogey public and dependable investments.

    He’d show these damn lazy cynics and their “stability” how to really grow their endowment: Invest 1/5th to 1/3rd — depending on the time period discussed — of the BU endowment into a pharma company with a really promising new drug.

    …The Texas-born Mr. Silber, a former professor of philosophy, has been called brilliant, arrogant, charming and elitist. Friends and critics agree he is direct…
    __
    …John Silber likes to say that he has always been a risk taker. In 1971, he took a risk on Boston University, a school that he considered nearly bankrupt, academically and financially, and transformed it into a bastion of excellence. He hired what he termed a “murderer’s row” of top scholars, bolstered the university’s finances and gained notoriety as one of the nation’s highest-paid college presidents, with compensation of more than $500,000 a year. In 1996, he was named chancellor…
    __
    …Out of money and delisted from the Nasdaq stock market, Seragen was acquired in August by Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc., a San Diego company whose shares promptly tumbled when the deal was announced. Ligand paid $30 million for Seragen, now a wholly owned subsidiary, and will pay an additional $37 million if Ontak gets a final Government O.K.
    __
    To the university, that represented a loss of 90 percent on its investment during a time when so many others were soaring. For just the $50 million that the school had put into Seragen as of 1989, it could have $175 million today had it instead put the money into a mutual fund that tracked the Standard & Poor’s 500.
    __
    The cry among critics all along was that Mr. Silber just could not let go. They said the university refused to give up its majority stake in Seragen, making financing difficult.
    __
    Mr. Silber says that if the state had not restricted the university from investing more heavily, Seragen would have flourished. “Seragen has not fallen and Seragen has not failed,” Mr. Silber said. ”You want to talk about the rise and fall of Seragen’s stock? Fine.” Regulators say they saved the univeristy from losing millions more…

    Hey, he did great stuff for you before. Surely he’s right when what he’s pushing you to do for a company whose success would enrich him but whose failure would devastate you is for your own institutional good…

    The company produced nothing and was wiped out in the ’87 crash, so, fuck you BU.

    So goes the FREEMAHKIT, and good thing you listened to tough guy no nonsense Silber.

  178. 178.

    Bill Arnold

    Re trolling, did anyone else notice that Krugman trolled his own blog today, or at least suggested jokingly that he had? (In a posting about how sometimes, centralized command and control works better for large corporations than (simplifying and paraphrasing inaccurately) a huge graph of supply chains composed of self-interested actors.)

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  1. […] Contrary to what some bloggers are saying, this is not about mean Republicans going after innocent unions- or at least it isn’t totally about that.  Conservatives are partially correct that this is about budget issues, but they have made public sector unions the scapegoat, when they are but a symptom of a much larger problem. […]