Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

And so it is for the politically and morally bankrupt Kevin McCarthy.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

The willow is too close to the house.

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

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

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

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You talking to me?

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I wonder who Paul Krugman is making fun of here (via):

I’m in Iceland for this IMF-sponsored conference; they say it will be webcast live, but no link yet — probably it will be on the conference page, as linked above.

What I’ve learned so far: daybreak is really late here this time of year! But the sun is finally out, so soon I’ll get out and about, and find a wise taxi driver to explain everything walk around and probably learn nothing, since I’m mainly a numbers guy.

Update. In Soviet Iceland, wise taxi driver find you.

Reader Interactions

49Comments

  3. 3.

    BGinCHI

    Understanding, thy name is Mustache.

    I hear you can also find a pot of Friedman at the end of every rainbow.

  6. 6.

    JGabriel

    @nitpicker:

    In Iceland, it’s the fishermen that are full of wisdom.

    Can they afford vodka? I thought Iceland had really high alcohol taxes to combat alcoholism.

    (DougJ, thanks for the via.)

    .

  8. 8.

    Warren Terra

    @GregB:

    Leave Tom Scion In Law of Real Estate Moguls Friedman alone!

    fixt.

    (And: did their real estate empire survive the real-estate bubble? I thought they were leveraged and exposed, and at least initially looked to be down 95%, albeit from a billion or more).

  9. 9.

    Librarian

    The thing is, Friedman is so fucking clueless that if he read that, he’d probably wouldn’t get the reference.

  11. 11.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Man, Krugman’s a badass. Who else out there calls their coworkers morons in print basically every single day and doesn’t get fired for it? Not that the coworkers don’t deserve it. Maybe he just has some very compromising photos of Pinch Sulzburger and Bill Keller.

  12. 12.

    Suffern ACE

    @JGabriel: I believe they are full of brennivin. Avoid those taxes by making your own. Puts hair on your chest, or removes it, depending on the situation.

  13. 13.

    JWL

    Krugman’s dig reminds me of one of the final Budweiser commercials featuring the late, great Louie the Frog.

    The advertising company, having undoubtedly gotten word their ad campaign would not be renewed, had Louie poke good natured fun at Bud’s founder.

    At which point Louie’s sidekick said, “Ah, Louie, you’re bucking for a pink slip”.

  14. 14.

    fasteddie9318

    @BGinCHI:

    I hear you can also find a pot of Friedman at the end of every rainbow.

    I’m pretty sure that proverb goes “You can find a pot of Friedman at the bottom of every septic tank.”

  17. 17.

    burnspbesq

    I love our House of Representatives.

    They just passed a hot little number called H.R. 2594, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act of 2011. This legislation, if it clears the Senate and is signed by the Mooslim Atheist Usurper, will prohibit U.S. airlines from purchasing carbon emissions permits under the EU emissions trading scheme, which covers airlines effective 1/1/12.

    Without permits, airlines will have to curtail their carbon emissions by at least 15 percent. Which would logically seem to mean that would have to cut back their operations by 15 percent (or pay huge amounts of money to their competitors to jump to the head of the line for delivery of new, fuel-efficient aircraft).

    What was that about job-killing regulations?

  18. 18.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Librarian:

    Without a doubt. Unless there’s some hack (in the slang for taxi driver, not shitty pundit, sense of the word, preferably with a heavy Mumbai accent) around to explain the joke to him.

    What a fucking doofus he is. The Village: where merit means your daddy was the Dark Lord’s principle fluffer.

  20. 20.

    Calouste

    @burnspbesq:

    prohibit U.S. airlines from purchasing

    Free market and small government at work there I see.

    ETA: I wouldn’t be surprised if in the same bill there is a rider that abolishes the law under which American companies can be prosecuted for paying bribes in foreign countries.

  22. 22.

    slag

    Speaking of wankers who don’t incorporate real data into their thought processes…the guys from Planet Money. In spite of my typical anti-NPR jihad, I downloaded a couple of their podcasts pursuant to some recommendations here. Bad idea. I might as well pick up a Tom Friedman audiobook while I’m at it.

  24. 24.

    Jenny

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    Maybe he just has some very compromising photos of Pinch Sulzburger and Bill Keller.

    Maybe it’s because of his support for NAFTA, PNTR, repealing Glass-Steagall, bailing out Wall Street, and his opposition to breaking up banks-too-big-too-fail.

    Yes, he’s a Keynesian, yes his mouths populist incantations, but on issue after issue, he sides with the Times’ advertisers.

  26. 26.

    Jenny

    @Warren Terra: I can’t think of any economic policy difference btwn Friedman and Krugman, can you? Yet in terms of economic policy, people perceive them to be in different camps — they’re not.

  27. 27.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Jenny:

    Oh my God, two influential editorial writers at the same media event! The fix is in!

    I don’t know what Friedman’s economic positions are because he doesn’t write about economics, he writes about platitudes. I like Krugman. I think he’s a smart guy. No, I don’t agree with him on everything. The fact that he used to be more of a centrist is common knowledge, but times have changed.

  28. 28.

    AA+ Bonds

    I’m so happy when he does this, and also when he flirts with the MMTists, that’s the best

  30. 30.

    AA+ Bonds

    KRUGFACT #12: Paul is on THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL PAGE, but ACTUALLY WRITES A COLUMN instead of JUST MAKING SHIT UP THAT NEVER HAPPENED. Scientists have deemed this “unnecessary.”

  31. 31.

    Cliff in NH

    and find a wise taxi driver to explain everything

    is likely is a response to This:
    http://www.vox.crooksandliars.com/john-amato/new-york-cabbie-supports-ows

    “My name is Mustafa, I’m Egyptian and I support the people of Zucotti Park one hundred percent. I understand what they are saying and actually I like what they are doing. Go for it guys!”
    __
    I will get this out of the way first: Mustafa is not the best cab driver. First, he got lost trying to find Zucotti Park home of Occupy Wall Street. And second, this video was filmed while he’s stopped at a green light.
    __
    However, when he picked me up from the East Village and I told him where I wanted to be taken – he was excited to get to see it. Mustafa was in Alexandria during the revolution in Egypt. He feels connected to the movement at the very tip of Manhattan. He loves America – but not the banks.

  32. 32.

    burnspbesq

    @Jenny:

    “I can’t think of any economic policy difference btwn Friedman and Krugman”

    That has to be snark, because no actual thinking person could believe that.

  36. 36.

    Samara Morgan

    /yawn
    how ’bout chu get back to us when K-thug realizes its just the invisible hand of the “freed” market that has been fisting us all these years?

  37. 37.

    Samara Morgan

    @Jenny: agreed.
    they both “freed” market fans, and advocates of Dead White Male Phailosophy.
    the only difference is which DWM they cite at the time.
    in case you havent got the message yet, lotsa BJers are “freed” market fans too, and often spout DWM quotes.
    :)

  38. 38.

    JGabriel

    @Jenny:

    Maybe it’s because of his support for NAFTA, PNTR, repealing Glass-Steagall, bailing out Wall Street, and his opposition to breaking up banks-too-big-too-fail.

    Jenny, I’ve been reading Krugman’s columns since he started writing for the Times in the late 90’s, and I remember that, in the aftermath of the 2008 crash, Krugman specifically called for nationalization of the worst bank offenders, and re-privatizing them after the shareholders were cleaned out and the books were cleaned up, including breaking up those banks if that was best.

    So I think you’re wrong on that. I seem to remember he was also against repealing Glass-Steagall at the time, but I’d have to research that to be sure. Nationalizing the banks is a more recent position, so I remember that pretty clearly.

    .

  39. 39.

    EconWatcher

    Friedman must work somewhere near my office in DC, because I see him on the street all the time. I’ve often thought of saying something to him, but never thought of the right thing to say. I’m open to suggestions. But keep it clean!

  42. 42.

    El Cid

    Anyone else see Rachel Maddow calling Tom Friedman a lying propagandist to his face on Bill Maher’s show? It was pretty interesting, for those who noted it, in her discussion of how given the different media environment there couldn’t be the same fraud persuading us to go to war as in Iraq — ‘you couldn’t persuade us any more,’ she said to the Mustache of Understanding seated directly to her right.

    He said nothing and just quietly nodded and stared forward.

    Perhaps there is the tinge of guilt, or just a subject he’d rather not get into, or he never imagined being called a lying hack propagandist (in so many words) to his face instead of recognized as the lordly sage so many treat him as.

  43. 43.

    handsmile

    @EconWatcher: (#39)

    This may not meet your reasonable standard of clean, but….You could hand him a “We Are the 99%” button (which have begun to appear on the streets of NYC at least) and say “Suck on this!”

    El Cid (#42): Thanks for the tip! I’ll hunt for it through the intertubes.

  47. 47.

    Paul in KY

    @EconWatcher: How about: “Why don’t you stop carrying water for your wife’s class & actually write a column that might apply to the 99%, shitwipe”. (actually, you can leave off the ‘shitwipe’)

  48. 48.

    Paul in KY

    @daveNYC: That would be good. Wait until he signs it, say ‘Gee, thanks, Mr. Krugman’ & look at signature. When he IDs as Friedman, make a face like you just stepped in shit, crumple up the paper & chuck it at him.

    God, that would be fun!

  49. 49.

    Djur

    Krugman is much less neoliberal than he was in the ’90s and early ’00s. This is something he has discussed openly in the past. And yes, he was more or less the only mainstream-visible advocate of nationalizing the banks during the financial crisis. I’m sure he believes the bailout as administered was better than doing nothing at all, because he’s not a wild-eyed nutjob.

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