Michelle Obama ate a hamburger so therefore she is full of shit in regards to her anti-obesity campaign.
Also note, as TNC does, that this is a “Politics and Policy” piece. My personal favorite part is the update stating they were initially wrong about the calorie count. Because a good press gets the details right! Assholes.
dmsilev
How long until some House GOPper opens up an investigation of this Huge Scandal? I’ll take “Darrell Issa by the end of next week” in the pool.
JPL
GMA covered this scandal this morning and mentioned that she always said she ate hamburgers and french fries, just in moderation. Then they taste tested the hamburger and french fries and decided it was good. They mocked those who wanted this to be a scandal.
BTW..how many glasses of wine did Ryan have? Should we expect him to attend AA meetings soon.
Zifnab
I am shocked, SHOCKED! to hear that wingnut anti-health crusaders are flinging poop at the First Lady for basically no reason.
Now that the WaPo has nailed Mrs. Obama for eating a burger, I guess we can all sleep well at night knowing that the so-called “Obesity Epidemic” is just another liberal hoax plot to make you shop at Whole Foods more.
Dave
The “best” part is we get to hear Fat-Ass Limbaugh and Fox News bloviate on this non-story for the next three months.
Han's Solo
But did she EAT THE FUCKING FREEDOM FRIES!!!
I get so fucking tired of the consistent stupidity of wingnuts. The surprising thing is that they made it long enough to be elected to Congress. I would have guessed they were prime potential Darwin Award winners.
freelancer
Fred Hiatt’s biased hack idiot writers at WaPo wrote something biased, totally hack, and completely idiotic. This is news? Do your BP a favor John, and go pet Lily and make some more noodles.
cleek
it’s every bit as important as Ryan’s wine. and proves exactly as much.
Zifnab
That’s where abstinence education kicks in. Sure, they’re lethally dumb, but they’re admirable breeders.
blackfrancis
I really like Marcotte’s take on this
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/the_all_or_nothing_mentality1
steviez314
If it was a cheeseburger, she’d be History’s Greatest Muenster.
BO_Bill
Imagine what this woman plows away when people aren’t looking. The objective observer will note that Michelle has grown fatter than Al Gore. It would be irresponsible not to speculate that she has a dedicated tater-tot freezer.
Dave
@ 10 – steviez314
You Gouda be kidding me…
Han's Solo
@Zifnab: Why do I think wingnut utopia would look a lot like “Idiocracy?”
Any day I expect the Republicans to institute a program that funds irrigating farms with “Brawno”. You know, because plants love electrolytes.
JGabriel
@JPL:
Did GMA ever cover the Paul Ryan $350 wine scandal? Just curious.
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JPL
Every six or seven months, I crave a burger. Guess what yesterday I stopped by five guys and ordered a single patty and half order of fries. YUM. You actually have to pay for a full order of fries but I chose that anyway because tossing food is not something I enjoy.
JPL
JGabriel, I don’t know. I was just pleased that they mocked those who suggested this was a scandal.
I have a news question, do you happen to know if Fox viewers are informed about the real Murdoch scandal?
Lolis
@JPL:
Good to know that the morning shows mocked this.
ABL
best graphic EVER.
Violet
Limbaugh has been calling her fat for ages. I guess this time the comments finally got some traction. What a bunch of nothing.
JGabriel
@cleek:
Really? Did Michelle’s burger cost $350? Was it in any way symbolic of the priorities of people who claim we can’t cut taxes for the rich while demanding we cut services and support for our neediest in the middle of the worst economy since the Great Depression?
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parenthetical
See if you can spot the Freudian slip in the Washington Post article:
Ok, I made it kinda easy. Hacktacular job journalists!
Ben Cisco
@Dave: I missed the bit at first and thought you made a Tybo.
Dexter
Obama: No Social Security Guarantee In August If GOP Doesn’t Back Down
cleek
@JGabriel:
really? we’ve reached the point where politician’s lives have to be lived so that every moment is sufficiently symbolic of the era?
no. that’s some bullshit.
so Ryan drinks expensive wine. big fucking deal, his Congressional salary is at least $170K, he can afford to drink whatever the fuck he wants.
Han's Solo
@Dexter: What do you want to bet that the same FDL types that insist Obama start threatening the GOP now come here and tell us how Obama’s threats to the GOP are the end of society?
Mike Goetz
The most important document to read today is Mitch McConnell’s Senate floor speech. It is a very noisy, table-pounding capitulation.
The debt limit will be raised cleanly.
john b
i thought there some lobbyist connection to the ryan bottle of wine?
JGabriel
@JPL:
From what I’ve read, no. But I don’t know for sure, since I don’t have TV or cable. I get all my news and most of my home entertainment from the net — since about early ’93.
.
cleek
@john b:
if there is, then that’s a different (and potentially interesting!) issue.
Violet
Caught a few minutes of Limbaugh’s show while in the car. He was talking about what McConnell said, which apparently was something like, “We can never come to a serious solution to the debt crisis while Obama is in office.” And Limbaugh said over and over, “He said it on the Senate floor! How can he walk that back? He can’t!” Etc.
Limbaugh was kind of daring him to walk it back. Interesting to see how it plays out with the teabagger Limbaugh crowd.
Dexter
@Han’s Solo #25:
My guess is that the meme will be that it is all talk and Obama is going to cave anyway.
Han's Solo
@JGabriel: Don’t you miss “Media Whores Online”? It was the site that set out to bring the media to its knees, only to find it was already there.
Ash Can
This is what “We Got Nothin'” looks like. See also BO Bill @ #11.
john b
@cleek:
it was apparently suggested at first, but appears to not be the case
Dave
@ john b:
One was a hedge fund owner (he runs AQR Capital), the other a professor of economics at UChicago who has a chair funded by AQR.
Chyron HR
Well, yeah, but they’re still tasty.
hamletta
@johnb: Yes, and that’s far more scandalous than the cost of the wine itself.
4tehlulz
@Han’s Solo: I miss MWO.
cleek
yes, that’s how digestion works.
JGabriel
cleek:
No, but it tends to be newsworthy when a politician advocating cuts to services for the needy and the middle class goes around acting like the 1930’s cliche of a corrupt capitalist banker raping the poor.
Or it used to be. I guess it’s so commonplace now that we need to respect their privacy even when they dine decadently in public. “Stop pressing your face to the restaurant windows, li’l street urchins! We have to respect the privacy of rich sadists when they drink $350 wines in public restaurants while you go hungry!”
Give me a fucking break. It’s not like we broke into his fucking home wine cellar. This is public behavior that’s being criticized.
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The Dangerman
Between now and August 2nd (and, by extension, between now and 11/12), there is just going to be a staggering amount of shit being tossed around. I think I’m going to go get a good book and stop reading/listening to everything; it’s all just crap…
…and I think it’s going to get worse when Palin jumps into the race finally. No fucking way is she doing the bus trip, promoting the movie, and starring in Newsweek to sit on the sidelines for much longer. Palin vs. Bachmann should force us to dip into the SPR (the Strategic Popcorn Reserve) and possibly exhaust it. Oh, the humanity.
Xenos
@BO_Bill: You know what will make me happy? If the debt limit does not get raised, and the social security checks don’t get mailed, but state-managed welfare checks DO get sent out, you smug white supremacist assholes are going to have a massive stroke. It will be fun to watch.
chopper
@12 – Dave:
it’s nacho place to judge.
Mike Goetz
McConnell:
“Where do we go from here?
“Well, I was one of those who had long hoped we could do something big for the country. But in my view the President has presented us with three choices: smoke and mirrors, tax hikes, or default. Republicans choose none of the above. I hoped to do good; but I refuse to do harm.
“So Republicans will choose a path that actually reflects the will of the people — which is to do the responsible thing and ensure the government doesn’t default on its obligations.
“And to continue to press the administration to rein in Washington.”
They’re going to raise the debt ceiling clean and spend the next year and a half trying to beat up Obama on the deficit. They’ve lost.
Linda Featheringill
I think we should gather up every critic that is freaking out about this and compare bodies, critic:Michelle.
The fact is, the woman looks good. And is sexier than probably 99 44/100% of her critics.
Period.
Suffern ACE
Well at least she didn’t fall for the trap of ordering the Shake Shack’s Vegetarian burger alternative as a calorie shaving measure. How you can fit that many calories into a mushroom is a miracle of food science.
Han's Solo
@4tehlulz: In the Pre-Dubya days MWO really was an oasis of sanity in a desert of inane horse poo.
Did we ever find out who was behind it? It sure seems like if they would have stayed blogging they could have thrived.
Thoughtcrime
Just part of the White House’s stimulus plan in what is becoming our fastest growing job sector:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/06/how-much-was-mcdonalds-responsible-last-months-job-growth/38489/
numbskull
One of Ryan’s drinking pals is a hedge fund manager. As for delving into private lives, from the report it sounds like said manager was loudly proclaiming that Obama was to blame for all the ills of the universe, that the poor should ESAD, etc. You know, stuff that will get the attention of fellow diners. I suggest if Ryan wants to eat with privacy and peace, he not break bread with loudmouthed assholes. Tends to attract attention.
Joe Bauers
Has Rush Limpdick figured out yet how to work in a reference to fried chicken with regard to the first lady’s burger? He’s got to have at least four staffers working on that dogwhistle at this very moment.
BO_Bill
There are national security aspects to Michelle’s weight Ash Can, and as concerned Citizens, this issue needs to be addressed. Consider the fact that Michelle’s body mass bottomed out the Presidential limo while POTUS was travelling on foreign soil. I mean, she got this thing plain stuck. She exited the vehicle and federal forces were then able to move it, but, come on.
I call for one of her 26 servants to put her on a treadmill three times a week.
Suffern ACE
I wish someone would follow up with McConnell and ask him how he and the republicans would plan to solve the “debt crisis” if Obama wasn’t in office.
rikyrah
being a FLOTUS admirer (ok, I’m a hair short of being a FANatic), I already knew that the FLOTUS admits to cheeseburgers and french fries being a guilty pleasure that she has every once in awhile.
yeah, I’m sorta ashamed that I know this, but I don’t care…
I love our FLOTUS.
BlizzardOfOz
Hey, isn’t BJ due for another Bachmann post? It’s been, what, 35 seconds already since the last one?
Joe Bauers
Either the President just won a game of 11-dimensional chess, or he tried to give away the store and the Republicans were just too fucking stupid to take it. Pretty amazing either way.
rikyrah
if you go to a place called the SHAKE SHACK, thinking you’ll fight ‘light fare’ on the menu is reaching
Ash Can
@BO_Bill: [email protected]!
JonF
We’re all Ed Begley Jr now.
jl
@26: I thought the same thing when I heard the clip while driving to work. Now Boehner is washing his hands, apparently, saying that it is the President’s job to LEAD FOR JUST ONCE come up with a plan, not his.
So, sounds like an exit strategy.
Obama may have called their bluff more than we suspected. Read in TPM that most of the focus on the debt negotiations was on total cuts, not what the the specific cuts would be. Apparently, the GOP was not able to come up with a list of $2T in specific cuts.
OK, hard to believe, but that is front page TPM.
I will repeat some of it with emphasis added:
… MOST OF THE FOCUS on the debt negotiations was on TOTAL CUTS, not what the the specific cuts would be. Apparently, the GOP was NOT ABLE TO COME UP WITH A LIST OF $2T IN SPECIFIC CUTS.
I guess the GOP expects OBAMA TO LEAD FOR JUST ONCE, by coming up with his own cuts for the GOP.
The GOP is a total joke.
A writer to TPM suggests that the GOP wants to raise interest rates to make New Deal programs unaffordable. However, I think it is clear that the banks and financial sector need low and falling interest rates in order to keep the artificially puffed up value of their bad, but officially still on the books because of federal favors, interest bearing assets high.
So, that story does not quite fit the reality I perceive.
We will see what happens. Obama starting to announce people who may not get checks in August.
It is possible that the whole thing was a stupid GOP dog an pony show to rile up their insane and ignorant base. Let;s hope so.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/07/is_that_all_you_got.php?ref=fpblg
catclub
Mike Goetz @ 44
Yep. a loud capitulation. WOW.
“So Republicans will choose a path that actually reflects the will of the people — which is to do the responsible thing and ensure the government doesn’t default on its obligations.”
now we wait for the other shoe to drop.
wrb
Probably was one of those foreign elitist kobe burgers with foreign mustard and vegitables on it. Doubt it had American Cheese Product on it either.
Did she have pommes frites?
Violet
How is this debt ceiling stuff playing/going to play in the MSM? Will the average person know that the Republicans want to help their rich buddies and are willing to deny Social Security checks to do it? Or will they just know that Obama was President when the Social Security checks quit coming, and blame the Democrats?
Stefan
so Ryan drinks expensive wine. big fucking deal, his Congressional salary is at least $170K, he can afford to drink whatever the fuck he wants.
Um, no, he can’t. Let’s assume he goes out to dinner once a week and blows $350 on a bottle of wine — that’s $18,200 a year. If he makes $170K, his after-tax income is only about $100,000, on which he has to support a wife and three small children, as well as maintaining residences in both Wisconsin and DC. Can he really afford to blow 18% of his actual income on expensive booze?
But, of course, the point isn’t that he paid for it himself. The point is that, until those meddling kids interfered, his buddies were probably going to foot the $700 wine bill themselves. Let’s assume Ryan goes out to a meal with, um, let’s call them “interestd parties” at least twice a week, and let’s assume they buy expensive wine every time. $1400 in wine times 52 weeks is $72,800 of free alcohol he’s being given under the table every year, and that’s not even counting the value of the free food, parties, etc. he’s getting. It’s basically bribery.
Triassic Sands
Letter to Editor — Washington Post
To the Editor:
One has only to look closely at Michelle Obama to realize that through creative wardrobe choices she cleverly hides the fact that she weighs 322 pounds (summer weight; in winter she always packs on a few extra kilos to protect herself from the cold). Through careful choice of colors, fabrics, and styles, Mrs. Obama makes it appear that she is a slender, fit woman in excellent health, who could, if she chose to, occasionally eat a typical, unhealthy American meal of burger, shake, and fries without doing significant damage to her health. However, the fact that Mrs. Obama chose — even once — to eat such a meal (and we suspect this has happened before and will happen again) is tantamount to ordering America’s children to eat pizza five times a day.
Preaching about childhood obesity when you weigh 322 pounds is the height of hypocrisy, especially since Al Gore is fat. Worse still, Obama is able to hide her obesity because she is wealthy and can afford to hire people to design and make clothing for her that magically alters her appearance, a luxury unavailable to most Americans who have seen their own incomes stagnate and even fall in recent decades. Perhaps the Post could look into the possible (likely?) connection between Mrs. Obama’s eating habits and wardrobe and the sad fate of America’s working families. A causal relationship is not hard to imagine.
The American people should be outraged by the inherent dishonesty in Mrs. Obama’s duplicity, something we suspect would probably never have happened with a white First Lady, since being white automatically makes one look heavier than one actually is and being dark-skinned likewise automatically makes a person look svelte.
Next year, Americans will have a choice. They can re-elect a socialist to a second disastrous term in the White House or they can return integrity to the Oval Office by electing this country’s first female president, Michele Bachmann, who doesn’t need wardrobe sorcery to make her look good.
Finally, thank Jeebus the Washington Post, in the proud tradition of Woodstein and Bernward, has dedicated its precious resources to uncovering what must be the most important story of 2011. Mrs. Graham is standing tall in her grave today!!!
lamh34
Obama: No Social Security Guarantee In August If GOP Doesn’t Back Down (VIDEO)
JGabriel
@BO_Bill:
Michelle Obama is in fine physical shape. My guess would be that she already hits the treadmill 3 times a week, and probably add some light weight reps and crunches to the routine.
I don’t even find Michelle to be a head turner, as many of the commenters here do, although I do like her — but the fact that she’s physically fit is obvious to the meanest eye.
.
Lojasmo
I am amazed that so few people take BO-bill’s bait. Perhaps he ass-pounds himself so vigorously, he disappears to some people?
Also, he is a racist prick, too, I suppose.
Stefan
But it turned out that the two men with whom Ryan was dining were, as he said, economists and not lobbyists.
One of the two men, Cliff Asness, is a multi-millionaire hedge fund manager. Sure, he has a graduate degree in economics, but he does not work as one — he works as a professional money manager, and he has an immediate financial interest in influencing the legislation that Ryan shapes, which makes him much more like a lobbyist (in that he’s lobbying for his own financial benefit). Calling him “an economist” rather than a lobbyist, while trivially true, is intentionally misleading.
Suffern ACE
Jebus. They are a disaster.
Dave
64 – JGabriel: You’re forgetting that BO_Bill couldn’t find his ass with two hands and a map. So expecting objective reasoning from him is a waste of time.
Martin
In-N-Out hamburger is 390 calories. Cheeseburger is 480. I can go there for dinner and easily finish the day out shy of 1250 total calories, let alone the 2000 the FDA uses for their daily intake. Gotta avoid the shake, though – 690 calories.
I may know too much useless stuff off the top of my head.
different church-lady
@ Cleek (39:
Well, not exactly… there’s this intermediate state where it’s not a hamburger, but it’s also not yet excrement — well look, it’s hard to explain, just google “Schrödinger’s Bathroom” for a better explaination…
Lol
TPM indicates McConnell grabbed all the parachutes and jumped leaving Boehner to go down with the ship.
Steeplejack
@cleek:
The lobbyist, or proto-lobbyist, angle was the main thrust of the original piece (at TPM, I think). Ryan was dining with two persons unknown, who appeared to be picking up the tab. Details are murky, but it appears that Ryan paid for his dinner and one bottle of wine only after being accosted by the TPM source.
The other two diners turned out to be a hedge fund manager named Asness [sic] and a professor of economics who holds an Asness-endowed chair somewhere.
I don’t care what kind of expensive wine Ryan drinks. But if it is being paid for by other people, that raises at least the appearance of impropriety, and it may in fact contravene House rules. (Not that it will be investigated.)
Ash Can
@Lojasmo: BO Bill is something of a pet troll around here. Once in a while he says something that’s seriously revolting, but most of the time he’s just the grubby, ragged guy sitting on the park bench muttering stuff that, I guess, the aliens are broadcasting into his head.
different church-lady
What I don’t understand is why they even put calories in food in the first place. Don’t they know that calories can kill people?
BO_Bill
Your math sucks Stefan. That would be $72,800/yr divided by three persons, or a little under $25k/year for Congressman Ryan. Which is a lot, I agree.
But let us compare this $25k/yr figure with the national resources the United States of America dedicates to feeding Michelle. We supply her with 26 servants to collect and prepare food, at a cost of $1.6 million a year. The personnel cost to feed Michelle is thus 46 (forty-six) times the cost to get Congressman Ryan a little tipsy on very pricey wine.
This does not include the non-personnel expenses such as property taxes, utilities, replacing knawed silverware, and the bill for going to the Shake Shack for 1600 calorie lunches. The only good news is that the raw food costs are reasonable due to Michelle’s favorite foods. Michelle teaches us:
“No, if I picked one favorite, favorite food, it’s French fries.” The audience began to laugh. “Okay? It’s French fries,” Obama continued. “I can’t stop eating them.”
[Emphasis added]
So I was wrong about the tater tots.
Martin
The theory of hamburger/shit duality finally made it to this blog. Anyone who’s had a top-notch burger and then goes to, say Burger King, knows that there’s no contradiction that you can measure a hamburger in one way and see a burger, and simultaneously measure it in a different way and see shit.
cleek
@Stefan:
that seems like kind of an unreasonable assumption. and we should keep in mind that these kinds of meals are probably tax deductible.
Martin
Can we at least continue to assume that Ryan blows wine bottles on a weekly basis?
different church-lady
That woman could crush McConnell’s skull with her left hand without dropping the hamburger in her right. Sadly, she’s chosen to use her powers for good instead of evil. (Leaves obvious setup for some kind of good-evil joke…)
Culture of Truth
What’s the sound of one party caving?
4tehlulz
So does the GOP caucus have to wait until a new Congress until tossing Boehner on his ass, or can they do it now?
Cuz he just made Newt and Denny Hastert look like geniuses.
cleek
@Steeplejack:
right. as i said above, if there are lobbying issues here, that’s interesting. (hope there are!)
but if it’s just resentment over the fact that Ryan drinks expensive wine? meh.
JGabriel
@different church-lady:
Hah! Brilliant.
.
cleek
@Martin:
for practice, yes!
Ash Can
@Culture of Truth:
“Lloyd Blankfein on line one for you, Congressman.”
Tony J
You know, since I enjoy food, and have a vegetarian girlfriend who doesn’t mind cooking meat for me, what I do is eat really healthy, home-made food for most of the week, then treat myself to Thursday Night Burgers (Aberdeen Angus mince, slow fried onions, wholemeal buns and just-made tomato relish) and Friday is Pizza and a Movie Night.
I’m fat (well, the belly is too big) because I drink too much, not because I eat the occasional burger. And unlike Michelle Obama, I don’t work out.
Trying to spin a story that Michelle is a hypocrite because she laid lips to the accursed bread and meat is just.. not even desperate, it’s ‘For God’s sake do you have anything I can use to smear the bitch? That’s it? Are you an idiot? Come back, it’ll have to do, but you are – not – getting a good monthly review you dipshit’ desperate
And yes, this was because you can’t have a Republican looking like a hypocrite without a balancing Democrat example to show that Both Sides Do It, But Worse.
JGabriel
@Steeplejack:
John Cochrane, U. of Chicago.
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Han's Solo
@Culture of Truth: Exactly.
So how long until our firebagger trolls insist Obama just got lucky, that there is no way Obama is smart enough to “Play 11 dimension chess?”
We’ve seen this play out so many times. Obama’s critics really should realize that Obama is smarter than they are, not that that is saying too much.
Kathleen
@ Han’s Solo – I miss MWO also. Great, great site.
Culture of Truth
This will allow Republicans to vote against the debt ceiling while bumping up against the 2/3 limit.
Do they think the tea parties are stupid enough to fall for that trick?
.
.
.
.
Are they?
alwhite
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/07/12/also-al-gore-flies-in-planes/#comment-2667406
A guy by the name of Terry Coppage was one of the drivers behind MWO – I have been reading his blog (which in the bad old ’90s was “Rush Limbaugh, lying nazi whore”, Bartcop is not one for subtlety) Those two site allowed me to believe there were still sane people in this country who were willing to fight for the left.
I still read Bartcop.com and I think he is part of the crew at buzzflash, which is a decent news aggregate.
Bender
Noticeable absent: A drunk, crazy rightie barging up to Obama’s table to loudly berate her for her choices. Because that would be classless…
JGabriel
@Han’s Solo:
Yes, so sad. Don’t we all?
.
cleek
@Bender:
but do have an asshole wingnut who called Obama a ‘dick’ on network TV. so, yay.
Martin
Having eaten at a restaurant before while someone with a Secret Service detail was present (GHWB, while President), no ‘drunk, crazy’ people get within 100 yards or eyeshot of the table.
Take away the detail, and there’d definitely be drunk, crazy righties there – just as there were all through the campaign.
JGabriel
@Bender:
Yeah, because tea party rallies are so classy…
Somehow, I’m thinking personal confrontation probably requires a little more courage than gathering together with a few thousand like-minded tea partiers to parade on tax-payer funded parkland with signs bearing racist insults and comparing the president to Hitler.
Edited To Add: And as Martin helpfully notes, the lack of drunk crazy righties barging up to Obama’s table probably has more to do with security than lack of desire.
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Mnemosyne
I can’t wait for the usual suspects to show up so they can weep and wail about how a clean bill would have been a good thing when Obama first said he wanted one a few months ago, but now getting a clean bill will be yet another sign that Obama folded, let the Republicans walk all over him, and SOLD US OUT!1
Also, it’s no wonder such a huge portion of our country is overweight when apparently there is no middle ground permitted between living on sprouts and brown rice and eating cheeseburgers for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Moderation? Wuzzat?
Joe Bauers
Apparently McConnell the Prissy Turtle thinks that talking about the debt nonstop until the election, after he and his party have just been proven to be completely insincere about debt reduction, is a winner for them.
Unfortunately, in the battle for low-information voters, he may be right.
chopper
only thanks to the secret service.
Stefan
@cleek: that seems like kind of an unreasonable assumption.
No, it’s not an unreasonable assumption, because you’d said “he can afford to drink whatever the fuck he wants”. The assumption was yours in claiming that his salary was so high that his wine budget was virtually unlimited. I’m demonstrating that on his salary he cannot, in fact, afford to drink whatever the fuck he wants without taking a significant bite out of his family’s budget — unless, that is, billionaire hedge fund managers are picking up his tab.
and we should keep in mind that these kinds of meals are probably tax deductible.
They are not deductible for Congressmen. And if Asness attempts to deduct it as a business expense, that indicates that business was being done, which puts it in the lobbying/bribery category.
artem1s
@Dave:
nah, Limbaugh is busy bloviating about florescent light bulbs.
cleek
@Stefan:
um, no. that doesn’t mean i think he’s drinking one of them every week. it means he can have one when he wants. i have no reason to think he wants one a week.
do you have a link for this?
they are deductible for state pols, in some states. i couldn’t find anything for US Reps or Senators.
Stefan
Generally, you can deduct a meal as a business expense only if it meets the “directly related” test (or, in limited casess, the “associated test”), which means that (i) the main purpose of the meal was the active conduct of business, (ii) you engaged in business with the person during the meal, AND (iii) you had more than a general expectation of getting income or some other specific business benefit at some future point.
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p463/ch02.html
Of course, Congressmen cannot claim (iii) because as public servants they should not expect to receive “income or some other specific business benefit”.
In addition, Ryan claimed that it was not a business meeting but a general purpose dinner with acquaintances. If he’s just having dinner with friends, he can’t deduct it, since you certainly can’t deduct your ordinary expenses. Congressional ethics rules also forbid Congressmen from accepting any gift, including a meal, valued at more than $100 in a year, even from friends, per the House Ethics Manual, pp. 34-38.
If he’s not having dinner with friends, but is in fact having dinner with a hedge fund manager with a direct financial interest in legislation that Ryan will bring, then it indicates he’s being lobbied, and he certainly can’t deduct the cost of being taken out to a meal by a lobbyist. In fact, with a few exceptions (the “toothpick rule”) Congressmen are barred from accepting any gifts (including meals) from lobbyists.
ellie
@Mnemosyne: Agreed! Moderation! That’s for wussies! If someone makes healthy choices 90% of the time, then 10% of the time they can have a treat and their weight and health won’t be affected. But it is either all or nothing with the repukes. Idiots.
Stefan
it means he can have one when he wants. i have no reason to think he wants one a week.
So he can have one when he wants, but he can’t have it at the rate of even one bottle of wine a week. That doesn’t indicate “he can afford to drink whatever the fuck he wants” to me, but whatever.
PIGL
@Linda Featherbrains-45
Because that’s certainly my top priority for a Head of State and Chief Executive: excellent fapping potential.
El Cid
One amazing thing about how eating relates to weight is that even if you keep eating Good Patriot Conservative Anti-Elitist food like fried everything, you can still lose weight if you eat less.
I know, I know — it’s some sort of librul Islamosexual trick to make you think your caloric intake is related to your weight.
But if you eat, say, 1 hamburger, instead of 1 1/2, or a single hamburger which weighs as much as a small hamburger versus the same type of hamburger which weighs a lot more, and you do everything else like this, you’ll lose weight.
Now, the Starbucks sneering anti-Robert E. Lee racists might then point out that this is only part, and won’t address thing like nutrition or heart-related health, but still, you can still eat like a Patriot but be more younger Elvis than late-term Elvis.
Stefan
You know, the important thing to remember here is that, while it’s true that Paul Ryan was bribed with expensive bottles of fine wine by a hedge fund billionaire, it’s also true that Michelle Obama ate a cheeseburger. So both sides are equally guilty, both sides do it.
Stefan
they are deductible for state pols, in some states. i couldn’t find anything for US Reps or Senators.
You’re probably thinking of meals taken while traveling on business, which are in some cases deductible. This does not apply to a Congressman having dinner at a fancy restaurant in D.C.
Brainz
Michelle O should explain that it’s actually a special zero-calorie burger. That would require an objective reporter to present what she said and then conclude that it must be a 750-calorie meal. (Until a Republican spokesman claims that it was actually a 15-trillion calorie burger, and that her lunch was by itself responsible for America’s rise in obesity.)
Steeplejack
@PIGL:
She was talking about Michelle Obama, you nitwit.
Massive quote fail on your part.