Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

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

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

Republicans do not trust women.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

The lights are all blinking red.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / The Salt Lake City Tribune is Shrill

The Salt Lake City Tribune is Shrill

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I wonder if our net nanny will give them a Moore award for this:

The so-called federal deficit reduction plan announced recently by the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee is represented as a blueprint that makes the hard choices necessary to steer the United States away from fiscal disaster. But learned analysis exposes Rep. Paul Ryan’s prescription as a plan that differs little from President Obama’s vision in terms of total deficits, but apportions the pain in very different ways.

Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” runs through various fantasy lands, envisioning that large tax cuts, mostly for the rich, and huge spending cuts, mostly in programs that benefit the poor and middle class, will lead to unprecedented booms in hiring, homebuilding and other economic activities.

Ryan’s plan is mostly a means to shelter those who have already benefited from a half-century of fiscal irrationality and dump the burden on those who are to come later. Under Ryan’s plan, traditional Medicare will only be available to people who are already on it or less than 10 years away. Ensuing generations would instead be given government vouchers and tossed out into the very health insurance market that has gobbled huge portions of the private economy and given us the worst health-care outcomes in the developed world.

Ryan daren’t touch the benefits of people already, or soon to be, on Medicare, partly because it’s too late for them to arrange an alternative, but mostly because those are the age cohorts with the highest percentage of active voters.

Ryan’s plan is anchored in an open contempt for anyone who isn’t wealthy enough to completely take care of themselves in their old age. He describes Medicare as some kind of cushy “hammock” that people laze about in, when in fact it has been the difference between moderate comfort and grinding poverty for generations of retired Americans.

The editorial is titled “Attack on the Old.” What about the new tone? Moore Award! The math demands that we do this!

Reader Interactions

152Comments

  3. 3.

    Baud

    But where is the Salt Lake City Tribune’s plan? Isn’t that the real question we should be asking?

  5. 5.

    Frank

    A Moore Award from the likes of Sullivan should only be considered a compliment. Just keep in mind that a man who obsessively writes about Sarah Palins “faked” pregnancy doesn’t know the meaning of the word “unhinged”.

  6. 6.

    JCT

    Yup, help keep Ryan’s hands firmly wrapped around that 3rd rail. And the rest of the Republican party with him…

  7. 7.

    Bruce S

    What do you expect from the coastal elites ?

    Kidding aside, it’s interesting that their comments all appear to agree that the plan sucks…I guess I would have expected more push-back from some true believers.

  8. 8.

    Judas Escargot

    “War on the Old.”

    “They’re going to steal your retirement and give it to the banksters.”

    “The GOP is hurting you.”

    It’s really, really easy to phrase this stuff in simple, repeatable little sentences– especially when you don’t have to lie to back it up.

    Wish I saw more of this.

  9. 9.

    Yutsano

    @JCT: So are other members of the Republican Party going to throw Ryan under the bus? Or are they gonna double down on this plan and fully endorse it? I haven’t seen indications either way yet.

  10. 10.

    MikeJ

    @Judas Escargot:

    “They’re going to steal your retirement and give it to the banksters.”

    Anyone who uses the word “banksters” should be ignored on general principles.

    You can make a short, pithy, statement without sounding like a retarded five year old.

  11. 11.

    Dumbfuck Redneck

    I am convinced that we, as a country, are the stupidest species on the planet. Last year, there was a person that wanted us to have a real adult conversation about the problems we are facing with our health care, and all that came out of it was “Death Panels”.

    Now, the a proposed solution is that we don’t pay for it, which is no solution. Now, we Americans, are having the conversation down at a level that we can handle.

    American 1: “This shit is expensive”
    American 2: “Fuck yeah, it’s really expensive”
    American 1: “What can we do”
    American 2: “Fuck payin’ for this shit, I want a 120″ big fucking TV and I am going to get my ride pimp’ed out with some new fucking rims. Fuck spending money on medical bills and shit.”
    American 2: “Fuck yeah, I can just go to Florida and get a bunch of pain meds. ”

    We are beyond hope. The big flood needs to hit so that humanity can have a do over.

  13. 13.

    grandpajohn

    “War on the Old.”

    The battle cry for 2012. the perfect campaign slogan, if only the Dems have the guts to use it.

  14. 14.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    While the Salt Lake Tribune is by no means a liberal paper, it is the liberal paper in Salt Lake City. The Mormon mouthpiece is the Deseret News, and I’m not anxious to find out what they have to say about Ryan’s plan.

  15. 15.

    cermet

    Don’t you get it? This reporter isn’t brave like ryan the bed wetter! See, ryan bravely steals from the helpless, old, infirmed and children – the people with no voice because they have no money – anyone with half a brain would agree with ryan’s moral indifference – like 90% of the fundementalist so-called christians, even that ass-licking sullivan! Sullivan should stick with bathhouses and give up on treatment since socli$ed medicine provided his treatment.

  18. 18.

    Judas Escargot

    @MikeJ:

    You can make a short, pithy, statement without sounding like a retarded five year old.

    And you can add constructive criticism without feeding the archetypal image of the smug know-it-all liberal “Look at me, I’m so above the fray” PC twat, too.

    Not the choice you made, apparently.

  20. 20.

    Butler

    Ryan was on MTP this morning, and I was stupid/curious enough to actually watch. Made this wonderful argument about the “need” to reform Medicare according to his plan (paraphrasing):

    “The problem with Medicare is that when it was enacted people were living to be 60 and 70. Nowadays people live to be 80 and 90.”

    He all but admitted that letting people die is his plan to save money on medicare. On national fucking television.

  26. 26.

    Davis X. Machina

    Damn. I checked three times, to see if it wasn’t an op-ed by some token.

    Reddest state in the Union, too.

    Albeit the Tribune has always struck a self-consciously moderate, a-pox-on-all-Houses, high-Broderist pose. They endorsed Granato, a Democrat, for US Senate because Lee — the guy who beat Bennett in the primary — was too whack even for them.

    Still, it’s surprising.

  27. 27.

    Mary Jane

    Judging from this, the SLC Tribune is more readable than the L.A. Times which captioned a front page picture of Obama with “… but the Republicans’ win was bigger”.

    Took awhile, but I’m finally convinced The Times has given up on the under 65 demo in Los Angeles.

  29. 29.

    eemom

    @Dumbfuck Redneck:

    I am convinced that we, as a country, are the stupidest species on the planet.

    We are beyond hope. The big flood needs to hit so that humanity can have a do over.

    heartily seconded.

  30. 30.

    owlbear1

    …the difference between moderate comfort and grinding poverty for generations of retired Americans.

    Yes but that is money that could have been used by John Galt to help him invent ANOTHER machine he always dreamed of building!

  31. 31.

    cermet

    This should be the bases of the battle cry for all freedom loving intelligent amerikans (ok, I don’t meet the intelligent part) and hung around the necks of these f’ing thugs like a decaying albatross – as grandpajohn said – the thugs are waging a war on the old.

  32. 32.

    SFAW

    There is a cartoon on the subject.

    Channeling Beck/Limbaugh/etc., kinda sorta.

    Except no mention of Soros.

    I blame Clinton.

  33. 33.

    Maude

    The Big Lie is that the US is close to fiscal disaster.
    The main problem is revenues are down.
    Higher employment and (sigh) ending the Bush Tax cuts would help.
    Right now, the US government can help stave off suffering of it’s citizens, but that’s not the Republican Way.

  35. 35.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Now, now, Bertie may have been…..challenged, but he was a sound anti-Fascist. He certainly stuck his umbrella into the spokes of the wheels of Spode’s right-wing juggernaut.

    I want to go up to Grover Norquist and whisper ‘Eulalie Soeurs’ just on spec.

  38. 38.

    Mary Jane

    @MikeJ: You obviously don’t understand the type that needs simple sound bites to form a political stance. Those with the mentality of a retarded five-year old, duh.

  39. 39.

    thebewilderness

    It is a truly excellent plan.
    Get rid of health care for the lesser people.
    Get rid of the minimum wage.
    Get rid of birth control.
    Get rid of worker safety regulations.
    Get rid of child labor laws.

    We will have full employment as a result of the high turnover in human resources while balancing the budget by continuing to collect SS payment that very few will survive long enough to collect.
    Brilliant!
    An echo of history to warm a banksters heart.

  40. 40.

    samsa

    And even someone who might be considered to be on the side of rational- Ezra Klein- seems to want to abolish these programs for the poor and the middle class.

    Why would he say the asinine things like ‘our federal government has become a huge insurance company with an Army’? what would he like it to be?

  41. 41.

    Mr Furious

    Good stuff. Chances are that editorial was penned by writer(s) making considerably less money than the David Brooks of the Center.

    Rejection by papers and editorial boards like this might be the only brake that can be applied to this runaway bullshit train.

  42. 42.

    owlbear1

    “White collar Criminal” is six ways from Sunday a racist label.

    Organized Gangs of thieves have been with us forever.

    “Banksters” is a good compromise.

  43. 43.

    Mr Furious

    As if regular insurance companies dont also have armies–of lawyers and lobbyists–that are arguably just as deadly.

  47. 47.

    gex

    @owlbear1: White collar as opposed to blue collar. I don’t see how it is racist.

    ETA: You realize that white is describing the collar, not the person wearing it, right?

  48. 48.

    Elizabelle

    Here’s front page story on budget — AP regurgitation — from a Southern California paper, dead tree version. Here’s what’s in large print over about 4 columns of text.

    Headline: GOP wins first round of U.S. budget debate

    Analysis: Higher taxes aren’t considered a tool for resolving the nation’s deficit.

    presstelegram.com/breakingnews/ci_17810300

    Actual story is more nuanced, but that’s what a low information voter scanning the front page before turning to Sports and TV listings saw.

    Telling some people what they want to hear, but

  49. 49.

    owlbear1

    Gex, why is there a ‘colored collar’ difference?

    Theft and Fraud are crimes regardless of the collar color of perpetrator.

  51. 51.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    @owlbear1: Gex, why is there a ‘colored collar’ difference?

    White collar = executive dress shirt
    Blue collar = denim work shirt

    The distinction is between office-type crimes like embezzlement/fraud and laborer-type crimes like petty theft.

  52. 52.

    bemused

    Conservative or not so liberal Salt Lake Tribune is one paper with an editorial against Ryan’s plan. The WSJ straight out said it would essentially end Medicare. I’m in need of some ammo, more examples of conservative media trashing the plan, when I am talking with some wingnuts that think it’s the Dems that want to kill Medicare and Medicaid.

    I like what Chris Hayes said on MSNBC friday,
    Starve the beast,
    Feed the plutocrats.

  53. 53.

    Elizabelle

    Time magazine cover this week: photo of Abraham Lincoln with photoshopped tear streaming from his right eye

    Why We’re Still Fighting the Civil War

    The endless battle over the war’s true cause would make Lincoln weep

    Story by David Von Drehle on how slavery was the CW’s true cause, but that revisionist historians and Southerners gave us the “states’ rights” fig leaf.

    time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2063679,00.html

    If you print the lie — as people did for years with the Civil War — you never get to address the actual problem or resolve it. We are still fighting that war, on too many fronts.

    The lie that we can restore prosperity through budget cutting only — that a major infusion of revenues is not necessary to maintain a complicated society like our own: a lie that will destroy contemporary lives and prospects if not challenged.

  54. 54.

    scav

    @owlbear1: In re: White and Blue collar crime being the same: Well, ideally. You’ll find small practical differences in sentencing and accommodation once convicted. Edited for clarity.

  55. 55.

    mclaren

    In the words of General Crackpot Fake Name, the Salt Lake City Tribune has “butt rabies.”

  56. 56.

    Sad Iron

    Can I propose that Balloon Juice immediately put a “Sullivan Award” into effect? Here is the draft of a description: “The Sullivan Award goes to anyone who points out that many people in government are truly malicious, and that policy decisions can actually have serious consequences for people, including death. Merely pointing out this reality, however, makes them a prime candidate for ‘A Sully,’ where they will receive one of Andrew Sullivan’s snarky Von Bullshit awards, relegating them to the land of the unserious.”

  57. 57.

    owlbear1

    So in every case it is the ‘way’ the stealing took place.

    That seems pretty arbitrary.

    I mean I don’t see how it is all that different whether you steal money with your own fingers, writing a bad check, or electronic transfer.

    But there is legally.

  58. 58.

    Joel

    one small bone to pick.

    the ryan plan is war on everyone. doesn’t matter if you’re old or not.

  59. 59.

    Lurked

    @owlbear1:
    “White collar crime” traditionally referred to financial crimes e.g. embezzlement. The kind of crimes carried out by white-collar, i.e. managerial and professional, workers due to their access to money and accounting logs at a business.

  60. 60.

    Yutsano

    @Joel:

    the ryan plan is war on everyone except the top richest 1%

    Adjusted for accuracy. Ryan knows who his masters are.

  61. 61.

    scav

    I once attended a conference session where the researcher mapped white collar crime hotspots the way they map violent crime. Some of the maps were of the home locations which really would have put the cat among the pigeons. And let’s not even get into the whole topic of white and blue (or other colored) collar drugs.

  62. 62.

    SFAW

    The kind of crimes carried out by white-collar, i.e. managerial and professional, workers due to their access to money and accounting logs at a business.

    So it’s not only racist, but sexist, since there were so few wimmins in upper-echelon management positions. And probably homophobic, since everyone knows there are no atheists gays in foxholes corner orifices offices.

    And probably anti-Semitic, too, since everyone knows that the Jews run everything.

    And probably anti-moron, too, because non-morons know what “white-color crime” has traditionally meant.

  64. 64.

    MikeBoyScout

    Just curious John, why does Andrew warrant so GD much attention? He is one of many silly villagers. It is not like his current lazy Villager analysis is anything new to him or the Village.

    Rest In Hell, David Broder.

  67. 67.

    SFAW

    Rest In Hell, David Broder.

    Actually, I doubt Broder’s in Hell, since that would imply partisanship. No, I think he’s in Purgatory.

  68. 68.

    Phil

    the ryan plan is war on everyone. doesn’t matter if you’re old or not.

    Close. It is part of the class war.

  69. 69.

    SFAW

    Yep SFAW, I guess it just comes down to ‘how it’s used’.

    As with all things.

    However, willful ignorance is rarely a winning strategy. Nor a winning tactic, for that matter. But it can lead to some interesting flaming.

  71. 71.

    SFAW

    Don’t forget species bias- when was the last time you saw a trained monkey or a gang of dobermans in collars?

    Animist. (Or should it be “anti-animist”?)

    And since when do Dobermans or flying monkeys that were white? (So that they have white collars, and … uh, never mind.)

  73. 73.

    bemused

    Ha, ha. Steve Benen writes about Fox’s Doocy sneering at Obama saying Planned Parenthood is this great provider where women can get blood pressure readings, pap smears and breast exams.

    Kilmeade: Which they can get at Walgreens.

    Doocy: Exactly right.

    Love the comment: ladies, get to Walgreens, ask for pap smears & breast exams and tell them Fox sent you.

  76. 76.

    Comrade Mary

    @bemused: Well, here in soshulist Canada, our Shoppers Drug Mart stores offer all of those. Except for the pap smears. Oh, and except for the breast exams. But everything else, for sure.

  77. 77.

    sukabi

    @owlbear1: golden rule in action… he who has all the gold makes the rules…

    in white vs blue … the white collar criminal will get a greatly reduced sentence, and confinement at club FED.. IF he’s even charged with a crime (embezzlement on a grand scale, fraud on a massive scale)

    blue collar criminal will get much stiffer sentence and confinement at state prison… (taking tools from your workplace, ect.)

  78. 78.

    gex

    @owlbear1: You said it was racist. I don’t know where you are getting that. So yeah, I understand the fucking class war, and it can be discussed without making up some bullshit that using white collar and blue collar is racist.

  79. 79.

    Little Boots

    I hate the sunday morning talk shows. I know, welcome to reality, idiot! but sometimes I just really, really hate them more. the panel on This Week, just sad and stupid. and I can’t bring myself to watch the penetrating interview with Paul Ryan, Courage Czar.

  81. 81.

    Bob Loblaw

    @Punchy:

    I was actually wondering if this site was going to pick up on that.

    I don’t know what the hell Gates is doing there. Using his last trip overseas to push that message? I mean, I know why the US would be desperate to keep troops in Kirkuk, but the Sadrists will never go for it. I saw Gareth Porter report that the Obama higher-ups are terrified of “losing Iraq” to the Saudi-Iran not-so-cold-anymore war.

  82. 82.

    El Cid

    @bemused: I think the same machine you sit in at Walgreens which inflates the cuff around your arm to measure your blood pressure also administers the pap smears and breast exams. If that last part’s broken down, one of the store’s employees can assist in between restocking the aisles.

  83. 83.

    El Cid

    @Punchy: You are an extremist. We will leave as soon as local conditions on the ground exist to allow us to leave. If Iraq can soon become something like a Switzerland, we can leave.

  84. 84.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @MikeJ:

    Sorry, MikeJ, but “banksters” describes these criminal shitstins perfectly.

    Most should be in prison. Forever.

  85. 85.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    OT: It looks like Obama is set to make a speech on Wednesday about the deficit.

    Steve lays out my concerns pretty well. It’s a good chance to co-opt the debate and get it off the rails the GOP has set it on, but the very fact that the speech has been announced to pinpoint on the deficit and debt kind of betrays that we’ve already fallen into every single GOP frame they’ve set on the economy. No talk of jobs, no talk of helping the unemployed or the struggling. Nope, sounds like more slash, slash, slash, Oh, you can’t afford your weekly grocerys? FUCK YOU, WE NEED TAX CUTS.

    I honestly hope the speech turns us off the track, but again, the announcement itself seems to betray the frames already set.

  86. 86.

    flounder

    1. Moore Award T-shirts, with Moore award finalist quote on back.
    2. The internets should have a “Moore bomb” day where all the liberal internets and any sort of liberal pols that would play agree to say something true but uncouth so that Sullivan gets overloaded like all machines do and blows up.
    I’m in Mendoza and now I’m out to go blow myself up on Malbec and carne. You pinche characters have fun.

  87. 87.

    Kmeyer the lurker

    Can’t you just move Sullivan’s link to ‘Blogs We Monitor & Mock as Needed’ & be done with it?

  88. 88.

    Jay C

    @SFAW:

    Rest In Hell, David Broder.
    __
    Actually, I doubt Broder’s in Hell, since that would imply partisanship. No, I think he’s in Purgatory.

    Better yet: Limbo

  89. 89.

    bemused

    @Comrade Mary:

    I think most Walgreens’ customers and employees would be mighty surprised to hear the chain offered pap smears & breast exams although there would probably be a few employees that would be happy to oblige.

    Now I’m wondering how many Fox viewers heard Doocy and Kilmeade and believed it.

  90. 90.

    PIGL

    @SFAW: Broder is spending eternity trying to convince himself and an audience of hysterically laughing that he is in Purgatory.

    According to Dante, the fiendishly appropriate punishments in Hell are fiendishly appropriate.

  92. 92.

    El Cid

    I made the mistake of watching some of Bill Maher, and Andrew Sullivan was on there.

    As usual, he tried to talk pretty much the whole time, did it in the most excited tones, and talked over anyone’s discussions.

    He was dumb as a box of rocks, screaming about how the deficit would kill us all.

    And Elliot Spitzer noted that when Sullivan was singing about the Ryan plan being a worthy and brave step forward and how it would increase revenues by ‘cutting loop-holes’, that no one, no Republicans, nor Sullivan, suggested in the slightest which loop-holes would be closed.

    Jesus fucking christ, he’s such a damned annoying prick. Then again, that’s true of nearly all the right wingers appearing on that show.

  95. 95.

    patrick II

    @Butler:
    Another way to say this is that Medicare is largely responsible for adding 20 years to the lifespan of our seniors. Ryan is treating those added years of life as a bug not a feature.

  96. 96.

    SFAW

    Re: Broder and Limbo

    Of course, channeling my inner-sci-fi-nerd, we could say he’s in that portal between matter and anti-matter universes, wrestling with Bob Novak (or perhaps an anti-Broder that looks just like the Dean?) for all Eternity.

    “How would it be?”

  97. 97.

    PIGL

    @SFAW: @SFAW: Broder is spending eternity trying to convince himself and his large and very intent audience that he is in Purgatory.

    His audience is composed of demons who subtly manipulate his mind so as to provide exactly the minumum of supporting evidence necessary to sustain the delusion. Luckily, they are supernatural beings, able to work with infinitesimals. They allow him, for instance, to raise his head above the boiling pitch once every so often. At least, so they’ve promised him.

    According to Dante, the fiendishly appropriate punishments in Hell are fiendishly appropriate.

    (sorry for the duplicate….I got busy in the edit window and overworked myself into a timeout.)

  99. 99.

    SFAW

    Temp Max –

    Yeah, I know. But I was too lazy to type the extra letters. And I figured some pedant would (eventually) correct me.

  104. 104.

    El Cid

    @Little Boots: I perhaps use terms like “dumb” and “stupid” a bit more loosely. Sullivan knows a lot of things, and can make coherent arguments. Can. But for things he’s all het up about, he doesn’t give a shit about doing so, and can’t even seem to imagine his excited declarations could possibly be anything other than correct. Ryan’s (i.e., the GOP approach, that’s what it is) ‘budget’ is good because it feels to him like it’s good, I guess, or it sounds somewhat like he always wanted to hear. Whatever. I’m just glad I usually encounter him only here when one of these FP’ers make a discussion of something he wrote.

  110. 110.

    JCT

    @Yutsano: They still have all their fingers and toes in the wind trying to figure out what is the safest approach. I wonder how they can walk….

    Seriously, I think they are going to use their usual song and dance and non-answers (assuming someone actually ASKS them their opinion).

    It does seem that they have walked him out on the plank.

  112. 112.

    scav

    I’m guessing the resident trolls are about to get some serious competition. Batten down the hatches, put on your snazziest footed jammies: this could be fun.

  113. 113.

    hildebrand

    Why is it that every political cartoon of Ryan makes him look like some kind of underage anime/manga (hentai) sex object?

  116. 116.

    JGabriel

    @scav:

    I’m guessing the resident trolls are about to get some serious competition.

    Damn. Didn’t think about that. You’re probably right.

    (Pause.)

    I’m gonna go watch a movie.

    .

  119. 119.

    JGabriel

    @hildebrand:

    Why is it that every political cartoon of Ryan makes him look like some kind of underage anime/manga (hentai) sex object?

    Truth in depiction?

    .

  120. 120.

    Uloborus

    @Dave C:
    And in doing so laying out the extensive cost controls in the ACA, which I have been *assured* for the last year don’t exist.

    @The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
    …Obama talks about jobs all the time. He talked about jobs at the CoC. He talked about jobs in the SotU. The man talks about jobs, ranging from a mention to a rant, in every speech he gives. No, you don’t hear about it.

  122. 122.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    Practitioners of High Broderism should be in the 8th Circle of Hell for Fraud and Treachery. Not Limbo — Limbo is for the virtuous pagans. Now, the issue is, which part of the 8th Circle — Bridge 1, Panderers and Pimps, or Bridge 2, Flatterers? I’m very taken by #4 – Sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets here have their heads twisted around on their bodies backward, so that they “found it necessary to walk backward, / because they could not see ahead of them.” – the idea of so many pundits continually looking at their asses has a certain appeal. Then we have #6, hypocrites. Or Bridge 8 — fraudulent councillors. Finally there is also Bridge # 10 – the falsifiers, who are a disease upon society.

    I’m glad I’m not the one to have to make this choice. I hope all who fall under this category ask for grace. And it is a good thing I am not a deity, because I would have trouble granting it.

  125. 125.

    Yutsano

    @JCT: I think Rush is late with the marching orders, although I expect a full-throated embrace from the Larded One. After that it’s anyone’s guess. I know this much: Boehner is NOT controlling this group no matter how hard he whips.

    @Comrade Mary: Oh. My. Gravy. That was beyond hilarious. So did you call him? :)

  127. 127.

    Comrade Mary

    @Yutsano: Like the tagline says, they’re mine and I do it myself. But man, that dorky little Cam sure was cute. I’m probably not the only Canadian woman who briefly thought that outsourcing was a good idea.

  128. 128.

    HeavyJ

    Good to know that useful idiots Sully and Fareed Zakaria are on board with Ryan. All is right with the world again. If Tom Friedman signs on, we’ve go the trifecta.

    Now that my Federal tax dollars will no longer go toward anything but tax cuts for the Koch brothers and bailouts for Jamie Dimon and Jeff Immelt, there’s no reason whatever for me to pay them. Tea Party indeed.

  130. 130.

    SFAW

    Boehner is NOT controlling this group no matter how hard he whips.

    There’s either a Devo joke or a double entendre waiting to be made, somewhere in there.

  131. 131.

    Walker

    All this tax cut nonsense needs to go. I just got done filing my taxes for this year and I am amazed how little I paid. And I am a renter with no mortgage interest deduction.

  133. 133.

    Yutsano

    @SFAW: Sigh. No one ever sees what I done there. I think I’m going back to tax school.

    @Comrade Mary: I think the turn-off was supposed to be the callers. But Cam sure did have, um, enthusiasm for the job.

    @SFAW: Yep. And if they somehow lose an election they weren’t “pure” enough. We’ve all seen this rodeo before.

  134. 134.

    SFAW

    Sigh. No one ever sees what I done there.

    What, just because I didn’t comment about Rush’s throat getting filled? Or the combination of that and Boehner whipping it?

    Or is there something else I missed altogether? (That is, outside of the stuff I normally miss.)

  136. 136.

    scav

    @SFAW: I’m usually clueless too, but I picked up majority whip (do they call it that here or have I gone all parliamentary without knowing it) and then I wander over toward three-ring circuses. Hopeless for the cool stuff I am.

  137. 137.

    Yevgraf (fka Michael)

    This doesn’t end until the following events kick in:

    1. Fats Limbaugh drops a lit cigar from his blubbery mouth onto the shelf of his gut, thereby kicking off a monstrous grease fire that immolates him and the three surrounding city blocks;

    2. Cheney’s artificial heart stops due to a defective battery, the battery having been labeled as manufactured by a corporation which is just a shell (and a significant donor to Citizens United causes and candidacies), the manufacture of which was outsourced to poorly regulated and filthy businesses in India; and

    3. Two thirds of incoming teatards get discovered in their inevitable scandals involving payoffs, secret gay lifestyles, wetsuits and dildoes.

  138. 138.

    RossInDetroit

    So John got a shout out from Professor Doctor Shrill, Nobel Laureate. It’s up to us to make sure John doesn’t get all uppity. Keep him down to earth. I know we can do it.

  139. 139.

    Josie

    @JGabriel: This is great. It means that more people will read John’s most righteous rant ever and maybe a few will actually think about it.

  142. 142.

    Josie

    @Yutsano: Don’t worry. They won’t like it here. I’ve noticed that very few stick around for long. No one puts up with their shit, and people here are just too sharp and well informed. It’s why I keep coming back. You guys are awesome.

  144. 144.

    Yutsano

    @Josie: We do get a spike in drive-bys whenever JC gets a popular link. But none will ever beat the epic fail that was Michael Gass. The helicopters…are…not…laughing…

    @JCT: I’m sure there’s a few other good we should have in our troll shooing kit that we’re out of. I’ll have to inspect it later when I feel like developing the wherewithal.

  146. 146.

    4jkb4ia

    Additional meta babble:

    You might worry about whether this was a permanent rift between John and Sully who have supported each other for years. You might also notice that John is finding out how many friends he’s got. Sargent also linked to him on Thursday.

  147. 147.

    jawbone

    Re: Comment #10

    If “banksters” was good enough for FDR, it’s good enough for me.

    And it does help to discriminiate between the criminal banks (run by banksters) which are too big to fail and too big to prosecute and regular bankers who are trying to run businesses which have at least some good effect on the economy and peoples’ lives.

  149. 149.

    Sly

    Lost in all this is the underlying belief by Ryan and the GOP that public spending is currently “crowding out” private investment, and that only by curtailing public spending will businesses have an incentive to spend (i.e. hire). Further, they believe that cutting public sector employment will reduce the price of skilled labor (due to thousands of Federal and state employees added to the roster of the unemployed) and that, instead of simply shifting public debt to private debt (the latter of which is far more problematic to fix), this will, through the magical power of bullshit, create jobs.

    These “solutions” are so outrageously absurd and monstrously stupid that it defies reason to even consider them as viable options, and anyone who suggests them should be immediately disqualified from opining further on anything remotely related to the budget. In macroeconomic terms its like suggesting, with a straight face, that the best treatment for acute abdominal pain to ingest a large dose of arsenic and then follow it an ammonia chaser.

  150. 150.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Keep hammering John. Take their evil ignorance, pound it flat on your anvil and forge a fine sword of their own bullshit to cut them down with.

  151. 151.

    Sko Hayes

    Thank you, John.
    I’ve seen comments from people on liberal blogs who act as if Ryan’s budget is some sort of legislation that the House will be voting on next week.
    This is a manifesto, similar to (IMO) Gingrich’s Contract on America (though his plan had specific legislation attached to each stated goal). Ryan talks about fixing the deficit problem in 30 pages. It’s nothing more than a blueprint, really. Once they get “More Serious” people to look at it, and realize the gaping holes and the idiotic assumptions (like being at 2.6% unemployment in ten years), it will go down the rabbit hole.
    One quibble with the editorial, though. This isn’t an attack on the old- this is an attack on the young and middle aged people who will be needing Medicare in 15 or 20 years (everyone over 55 is exempt). According to the CBO, people over 65 will be paying about 68% of their health care costs out of pocket in 2031.
    Think about that in the next election.

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