Jeb Bush is meeting with the high priests of supply-side economics, Stephen Moore, Steve Forbes, and Larry Kudlow http://t.co/O6zmwHqQwi
— Matt O'Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) September 8, 2015
Hey look, Jeb Bush is getting terrible advice on tax policy. http://t.co/t1YXEElya2
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) September 8, 2015
Let's ignore Trump and focus on the mature, policy-oriented grown-ups who actually have power in the GOP. https://t.co/Rwjt8rSmWY
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) September 8, 2015
SURPRISE: Jeb's tax plan is a big tax cut for the rich. Taxpayers making over $10 million get a cut from 26% to 21%. http://t.co/jOEI69p3Lx
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) September 9, 2015
Per Jonathan Chait at NYMag:
… Bush’s plan, unveiled in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, would replicate his brother’s program in extremis. Like Dubya, Jeb would reduce income taxes at the bottom of the earning scale. Dubya reduced the estate tax; Jeb would eliminate it entirely. Dubya cut the top tax rate to 35 percent, while Jeb would lower it all the way to 28 percent. Unlike his brother, he would also slash corporate tax rates, from 28 percent to 20 percent…
Bush, unlike Romney, does not promise revenue neutrality. But he is offering essentially the same goodies to high-income taxpayers. So his huge tax cut for the rich would — as a necessary, arithmetic outcome — result in some combination of higher taxes for the non-rich and reduced revenue — ergo, higher debt. Bush has not explained what spending he would cut in order to offset the higher deficits his tax cuts would usher in. He has proposed to raise the Social Security retirement age, but the savings of these cuts would be minuscule in comparison with the revenue loss…
The Florida economy under Jeb Bush was the American economy under George W. Bush, but more so. His tax plan is the same thing…
Jeb! also wants to get rid of the inheritance tax, but doesn't say what he wants to do with the capital gains rate.
— Matt O'Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) September 9, 2015
Shorter Jeb: I will atone for tax sins of my father.
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) September 9, 2015
Jeb Bush: let's do a repatriation tax amnesty!
George W. Bush: what a mistake that amnesty was pic.twitter.com/gmMKb6NQum
— David Dayen (@ddayen) September 9, 2015
Pretty sure Jeb Bush was supposed to get elected, THEN reveal his tax plan that pays back those people that gave him a 100 million dollars.
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) September 9, 2015
Th’ fvck else could you possibly add?….
Baud
A good old fashioned stomp!
Patricia Kayden
No one is surprised that Jebbie is for the rich and only for the rich. Kind of surprised that he thinks this is a way to win an election though. At least the yokels wanted to get a beer with his brother. Jebbie is making no effort to attract regular folks.
some guy
Son of Voodoo, with a side of Pixie Dust.
Baud
But email servers!
Gimlet
But the Deficit – Debt?
A tax cut when we’re broke, no money for infrastructure and cutting the budget?
Another Holocene Human
It feels weird and wrong to predict the demise of a major campaign the fall prior to election season but I just feel like Jebbie’s is done.
Another Holocene Human
@Gimlet: It’s always the right time to cut taxes!
FlipYrWhig
@Gimlet: To Republicans “Deficit” means “money spent on ungrateful mooching coloreds.” That’s why tax cuts for wealthy people don’t increase “The Deficit.” Because that’s not how “The Deficit” is defined in the wingnut-to-English dictionary.
Gimlet
@Another Holocene Human:
Have we recovered from that big economic boost and tax revenue tidal wave when Dubya cut taxes?
Mandalay
It appears to be a bad day for wingnuts in the unfortunate headlines department.
Was that accidental or not?
Baud
Sad day
JPL
Since there are tax accountants among us, hopefully they will pipe in. My initial reading is that a young couple with earning over 100,000 to 300,000 are screwed.. They have no children but do have a mortgage and state taxes and property taxes. Even if they had four children in day care, they still would be screwed.
Mr Stagger Lee
Hell let’s just lower the tax rate for the $10 million and over crowd to 0%
and proclaim Jebbious Boobious Maximus Primus President for Life!
JPL
@Mr Stagger Lee: That’s what he is doing.
Peale
Well at least he isn’t promising to involve us in any expensive wars to help pay for these tax cuts.
Iowa Old Lady
I drives me crazy when they claim that the problem is that the tax code is too long and complicated. It probably is, but every one of those complications is there to benefit someone–sometimes a bunch of people, sometimes one person or company. And most people’s taxes aren’t complicated. They’re too poor for complications.
Baud
GOP proposing tax cuts for the rich is not news. What would be news is if people were outraged by it.
mai naem mobile
Why not just give the rich tax money instead of taxing them? Because you know they work so hard and use no public commons resources. They never use the courts to recover rents. They don’t use the FDA or airports or highways.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: lol
FlipYrWhig
@Iowa Old Lady: What proportion of tax return filers ever see a single part of “the tax code”? I’m guessing it’s close to zero. They mean “the instruction book is too long,” and that’s all overplayed too. Americans fear basic addition/subtraction math in general, and have been taught to fear an IRS that will pounce on them for small errors and jack up their lives forever. Which the IRS doesn’t do.
BTW, my least favorite kind of commercial while watching TV is the kind for services that help you get out of paying the back taxes you owe by reaching a settlement that doesn’t affect your comfortable lifestyle. Fuck you. If you owe thousands in taxes, it SHOULD affect your comfortable lifestyle.
Another Holocene Human
@Mr Stagger Lee: Like the French nobility just prior to the late unpleasantness.
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: The bush tax cuts add 15 million to those who don’t pay federal taxes. Of course they will make it up with sales tax or something.
I do hope the accountants pipe in because what I read seems like those making 75,000 and up get screwed. The amount you can deduct is 2 percent of aggregate gross. If you owe 4000 in state taxes and 4000 in property taxes even without the mortgage deduction you are screwed.
The tax code will be simpler because you can’t deduct anything.
mdblanche
I don’t think running as the second coming of his brother would be a very effective general election strategy for Jeb. It doesn’t seem to be a very effective primary election strategy either.
Another Holocene Human
@FlipYrWhig: They’re also a lie, generally if you get right on failure to file and filing errors, even though the penalty is ginormous, the IRS will usually refund the penalty if you do what they want and write a nice letter. (Just call them and ask.) You don’t need Ronnie Deutsch or whoever to do that for you. Actual unpaid taxes, they will put you on a payment plan. Your best bet is to get a loan from your credit union because the IRS isn’t forgiving of late payments and the such the way your credit union will be. And you still don’t need a shouty late night TV attorney to do this.
JPL
The Jeb deal is that state and local taxes are no longer deductible. You can still deduct mortgage interest and other deductions up to two percent of aggregate gross.
Non profits aren’t touched so you can still give to pacs who hide under the koch banner. That’s deductible.
Gimlet
I’m concerned Jeb that if we eliminate estate taxes, somebody won’t have enough “skin in the game”.
I’m sure I heard that in the past from Republicans whom I’m sure would be offended if we did that.
Another Holocene Human
@JPL: Wait, are you saying his dumb plan actually burdens upper middle class households more?
Oh. He is not good at this.
Another Holocene Human
@JPL:
Ah, you can still pull a Bill Well and give to the schools you think your precious darlings ought to be going to.
JPL
@Another Holocene Human: Not at all. Two college educated people can easily make 150,000… You might be right but they should not be penalized because he wants to give millionaires and billionaires a tax break.
RepubAnon
Perhaps tax cuts and deregulation are also the solution to the threat from ISIS… after all, they solve all the other world’s problems.
Baud
@RepubAnon:
Cured my ED.
Mike in NC
Things JEB! is in favor of so far:
– Raising the retirement age
– Making people work longer hours per week
– Phasing out Medicare
– Massive tax cuts for the 1%
Can’t wait for his next genius pronouncement. Trump must be beside himself running against such a wimp.
Morzer
@Baud:
JEB! is a he-male server.
Helen
@JPL:
That’s gonna screw people who live in places like NYC.
Only 31% of people in NYC own their homes.
Methinks Jeb already knows he’s not gonna win in NY.
Patricia Kayden
@Mandalay: Hilarious but oh so true.
JPL
@Helen: He limits deductions to two percent so the mortgage deduction is gone. His appeal will be in red states that don’t have income tax. Gosh.. my property tax on my house is in the thousands. That would be gone.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
Krugman made exactly this point on his blog. Is Jeb trying to shore up public support? This won’t help with that – most of the base doesn’t even know who these economic advisers are. Is he trying to shore up elite support? That’s not what he needs help with – they’re mostly on his side anyway.
And another thing. Trump has been the most flexible candidate in the field by far when it comes to economics – something the “socialism but only for white people” crowd responds to pretty well. If Jeb – or the rest of the establishment types – want to win back Trump voters, parading around with the support of the orthodox old guard isn’t going to do that. You can already see how little the right wing base cares for their advice.
Gimlet
I’ll bet Jeb can get bipartisan support for this in both the House and Senate. Any takers?
Chris
@RepubAnon:
Ironically, I believe the CPA turning Iraq into a Fair Tax playground was one of the many things that helped gut the already severely weakened Iraqi state… thus setting up the rise of groups like ISIS.
Gimlet
Funny RtR should miss a thread on Jeb.
beltane
@JPL: Property taxes in the Northeast are very, very high. Bush’s plan would take money out of the pocket’s of the middle class and cause a real estate crash.
Baud
@Gimlet:
There would be at least one Democrat who would join in.
@efgoldman:
Not stomp. Romp. A romp in every blog. The Ashley Madison demo is YOOGE.
JPL
@Gimlet: Nope.. He might get Joe from WV but not anyone else.
To take away state and local taxes won’t go over big. Some folks move into areas with high property taxes because of schools.
dmsilev
So, where is Right to Rise telling us that this is a sign of Jeb?’s inevitable rise to the top? Has he not clocked in for today’s shift yet?
Morzer
@efgoldman:
These Bauds are made for stompin’/And that’s just what they’ll do…
beltane
@Chris: Iraq is what a libertarian paradise looks like in the real world.
JPL
@beltane: Housing prices are lower in GA but my property taxes are higher per 100,000 than a friend’s outside of Boston.
JPL
@JPL: If he were to win, with a republican congress, they would lower the rates but nothing else. The deficit would expand and a dem would win, next time and be blamed for the deficit.
Morzer
@beltane:
I’ve got Somalia on the line asking “beltane, don’t oo wuv me no more?”
Mike in NC
@Gimlet: JEB!’s dad had an all-purpose plan for any problem: eliminating taxes on capital gains. He was like a broken record on that. Wonder why?
Gimlet
@JPL: Which way would Claire McCaskill vote?
And speaking of Dinos
Landrieu said she also will contribute some leftover campaign money to Republicans.
“I’m not opposed to helping one or two of my Republican friends that have helped Louisiana — if they ask,’’ Landrieu said. “They haven’t asked yet.’’
She specifically named Rob Portman of Ohio, who is up for re-election next year, and Susan Collins of Maine, who is up in 2020.
Other recipients may include lawmakers who have pushed issues Landrieu has championed
beltane
@Morzer: The neoconservatives didn’t create Somalia in their image. The territory that once was the nation of Iraq is the crowning achievement of the Republican party. They built it, and what they built is hell on earth.
danielx
Whatever comes out of such a meeting of supply side minds cannot be good. Hell, why not invite Arthur Laffer too? After all, his prescription has worked so well in Kansas.
This is theology, not economic policy.
Gimlet
@beltane:
I heard everything was going well over there until they turned it over to Obama.
Morzer
@beltane:
But beltane, we all know that libertarians are not neoconservatives. They stand with manly independence against the false gods of the Republican party, fearless, square of jaw and clenched of buttock.
trollhattan
On rewatching Colbert’s JEB? interview have decided he’s swatting him around like a cat with a cicada. Only JEB?, he don’t know.
“I would not have spent as much as my brother.” Uhhhh….
JPL
Let’s be honest, limiting deductions to two percent excluding koch nonprofits to two percents hurt those at the lower spectrum. Sure he would increase those not paying taxes but for how long? Rush and others will soon talk about those who don’t pay their fair share.
Oh and doesn’t Jeb want to do away with unearned income because we know those who live on stock increases are the ones that really work hard.
Chris
@beltane:
Yeah, and I continue to think this point isn’t made often enough. There’s talk about the Bush administration’s incompetence, or indifference, or corruption in relation to the Iraq War – what doesn’t get enough attention is that Iraq was handled in exactly the way that a sincere and well meaning conservative would handle nation-building in the best way he knew how based on his worldview. The government was drowned in the bathtub, just like Grover Norquist said it should be, and the current mess was the result, just unlike the modern utopia Grover Norquist promised would happen.
Doug R
@Baud: It brought us the new Cosmos funded by Seth McFarlane
beltane
@Morzer: Ah, yes, the rugged libertarians, the unweaned, tender-fleshed products of upper middle-class suburban childhoods, raised on a steady diet of helicopter parenting and Hollywood action films. Remove them from their womb of privilege and they melt into a greasy mess, like butter sculptures left out in the sun.
Morzer
@trollhattan:
I suspect that what you are seeing is Jeb!’s incredible capacity for self-swatting while blissfully unaware of what he is doing.
Baud
@Doug R:
We’ll see.
beltane
@Chris: Conservatism is like the miasma theory of disease. No matter how much it is finessed and how stringently it is applied, it is wrong in the fundamentals and will always produce negative outcomes. There is no way to do “wrong” well.
Baud
@beltane: @beltane:
Well, you’ve certainly won the BJ Literary awards with these wonderfully descriptive comments.
Time Travelin'
Quit it, Jeb(!)
trollhattan
O/T Score this Big Oil: 1 Jerry Brown and the planet: 0.
In a major setback for Gov. Jerry Brown’s climate agenda, the governor and legislative leaders on Wednesday abandoned an effort to require a 50 percent reduction in petroleum use in motor vehicles by 2030.
The announcement followed weeks of lobbying by oil companies and resistance not only from Republicans, but moderate Democrats in the Assembly. For Brown, the failure represented a rare legislative defeat, and on Wednesday there were two: In addition to dropping the petroleum reduction mandate from Senate Bill 350, Brown’s proposal to raise billions of dollars for road repairs appeared to stall.
The oil industry has been buying metric buttloads of media for weeks. Guess what, it works.
jl
How did the hedge fund managers come out in Jeb?’s plan? Trump is watching.
jl
@trollhattan: thanks, that is bad news.
Keith P.
Every time I see Forbes’ name, this voice in my head always – ALWAYS – says “Teve Torbes”.
Redshift
@jl: Apparently Jeb is willing to go after the carried-interest loophole. Consequently, as Steve Benen reports, Politico’s headline for their article about his tax plan is “Jeb Bush tax plan hits Wall Street.”
Those guys at Politico, always looking out for the little guy!
Bokonon
Jeb! must be pretty desperate for donations, to go out hanging on streetcorners and showing leg and looking for billionaire donors like this … right now, at this point in the campaign.
schrodinger's cat
@Redshift: They are looking out for the investors who make Politico possible.
Mandalay
Trump subtly courts the male sexist pig vote:
Let’s see if any of his male rivals have the huevos to call him on this.
PaulW
Here’s the thing: even if you take the Laffer Curve at face value, that you accept the basic premise that there is a bell curve of sorts where maximum tax revenues are generated at a certain rate before losing revenue to higher tax or losing revenue to lower tax, how the hell can any sane person view 28 percent tax rate for the highest income earners as the best possible rate?
Granted, the Laffer Curve itself has a major flaw – if you ever look at it, you’ll notice THERE ARE NO CONFIRMED NUMBERS TO IT TO TELL US WHAT THE MAXIMUM RATE SHOULD BE (that’s because the rate is fluid and ever-changing to the norms of current economic conditions) – but it’s something these supply-side tax-cut obsessed yaboos cling to as their totem.
Other economists – people who actually study these things – tend to calculate the best possible tax rate on upper incomes should be around the 58 percent range. If true, Jeb! focusing on a 28 percent rate is CLEARLY putting his tax model on the far left side of that Laffer Curve… WHERE THE LACK OF REVENUE WILL CREATE MASSIVE DEFICITS.
Which is EXACTLY what happened the LAST TWO TIMES – 1981 and 2001-03 – we had massive tax cut programs enacted.
beltane
@Mandalay: Carly Fiorina is quite a bit easier on the eyes than Donald Trump. Most people are.
SFAW
@Morzer:
Which is what was tried on Baud’s ED, before Jeb! proposed his tax cuts.
Wait … not self-swatting, it was self- …. something … what was that word?
dmsilev
@PaulW: The lack of numbers in the Laffer curve is a feature, not a bug, for conservatives. It allows them to always claim that tax cuts are good.
SFAW
@beltane:
She was before her facelift (or whatever she had done. I don’t think it was from cancer treatment ) Now, she just looks ghoulish.
Trump is nothing much to look at, but at least he doesn’t look like a wax figure.
SFAW
@beltane:
Be a lot faster if one applied a flamethrower to them.
jl
@Redshift: Ha! Trump will claim credit and brag about what he made Jeb? do. Jeb? will flub response.
JPL
@SFAW: Really? I have never voted on appearances. I wouldn’t vote for Carly because she has failed in her business leadership.
Mandalay
@dmsilev:
It may lack numbers, but it doesn’t lack curves.
That graph tells you all you really need to know about the value of the Laffer curve.
PurpleGirl
Going to bed now. It’s too depressing read the blog and the kitten cam sites don’t want to load properly for me tonight. See you all tomorrow.
rikyrah
@some guy:
LOL
Gonna have to steal that.
beltane
@SFAW: I’d still prefer a wax figure to something that looks like a pork shoulder with eye slits and a fungal overgrowth on top. As he ages, Donald Trump becomes acutely unpleasant to look at. Ted Cruz also shares this quality but for different reasons; he would be good starring in a horror film.
rikyrah
@Gimlet:
Don’t you remember….Dick Cheney already told you:
Deficits don’t matter.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Very very sad day.
jl
@PaulW: There are semi confirmed numbers for a properly estimated ‘Laffer curve’, which is more complicated than the cocktail napkin version since revenues depend on more than the tax rates (amazing! but true!).
The problem with the numbers is that the curve bends down towards lower revenue with higher average and marginal tax rates at much higher income tax than the US has had in over 50 years. And far far higher rates than we have now.
You can see a stylized Laffer Curve with numbers at the Wikipedia article.
Laffer curve
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
beltane
@JPL: She is also a wingnut which is always a deal killer for me.
JPL
@beltane: Ted just like Hillary wears pants, so you have to consider that.
SFAW
@JPL:
I wasn’t commenting on her electability (nor whether I’d vote for her) being a function of her “looks,” I was responding to a comment re: she’s better-looking than The Donald.
I would never vote for her, because of what she did to HP. Part of that is because I was, for a number of years, a DECcie, and a number of my former co-workers suffered from her management “skill.” I put her in the same class as Al Dunlap and George W. Bush (the corporate version, not the presidential version) – although their cases are slightly different than hers – and a few others.
Amir Khalid
@Mandalay:
It wouldn’t matter if they had. The Donald is beyond shamng.
redshirt
redshirt’s tax plan: Estate tax:85%
Top income tax rate: 70%
Taxes on those making less than 40K: Zero.
But what do I know about funding the Republic and reducing the deficit. Only Republicans can figure that out – it’s right there in the name.
Seriously, more pure Orwell shit. The debt goes up when Republicans are in power, and down when Democrats are, but I bet you 70% of Americans think it’s the opposite.
JPL
@redshirt: The public would know that the debt goes up under Repubs if Hillary had written an email about it. Nah.. The only thing that would happen is the repubs wouldn’t investigate the emails. They would investigate something, but not that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Chris Hayes, unable to find a dining room table available for his show tonight, is instead using his time to argue Iran policy with Jim Gilmore, and man with less chance of becoming President than Jindal, Graham or the Duck Dynasty guy.
redshirt
@Doug R:
I’ve long wondered what the back office politics of FoxCorp or NewsMedia or whatever Orwellian name represents the umbrella group of Murdoch’s empire.
Fox TV often airs programs that Fox News viewers would find offensive and blasphemous, and yet there never seems to be a problem. I know of no 21st Century Fox bias towards producing wingnut movies (is there?).
So maybe Fox essentially buying National Geographic will be harmless, or unnoticeable. But I find it hard to believe.
SFAW
@beltane:
To each his/her own. Everybody has their preferences, etc. For example, my wife seems to like my looks, which is strange, because she is otherwise pretty intelligent, highly accomplished, and so forth.
Aah, who am I kidding? She tolerates my looks, sorta. Although she seems to be wearing extremely dark shades – welder’s-goggles level of opacity – when she’s been around me lately. Hmmm, I wonder if that means something …
Anyway: I don’t think Trump is good-looking by any stretch, but the ghoulish look Fiorina has adopted kinda unnerves me.
ETA: To be clear: That’s assuming it was a choice, as opposed to a by-product of her cancer treatment. If the latter, then I withdraw my comments, because it’s not as if she would have had a choice. If it were a volitional thing – that’s what would unnerve me.
benw
@JPL:
I wouldn’t because all of her “policy positions”, such as they are, would be terrible for the US and the world.
@beltane:
And people complain that we never criticize male candidates for their looks! But seriously, Cruz looks super smooth, like a mask. And his eyes are so dead and lifeless. Speaking of horror films, he looks surprisingly like he’s wearing the Michael Myers mask from Halloween.
beltane
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jindal and Graham also have less of a chance of being elected than the Duck Dynasty guy.
redshirt
I would never vote for a Republican of any gender, age, or sex appeal these days.
And I voted for HW and a gaggle of Maine Republicans back in the day.
Goblue72
Can we just kill the rich and get this shit over with? I’m tired of waiting for the revolution. Burn it all to the ground and start over.
Because I’m done running in place while those fat pigs get fatter. DONE.
They have no fear of the working classes. They need to re-learn that fear.
sm*t cl*de
@danielx:
You jest, but the full piece of opinionation from Chait tells us that
Unfortunately Chait has difficulties with the meanings of words.
FlyingToaster
I just made the mistake of turning on the 11 o’clock news and there in a “no deal with Iran” ad was the Outlaw Jersey Whale. (Boston, therefore NH market)
Time to stop watching TV News at night. I just hope they refrain from putting ads on NECN in the morning, so I can catch the weather-n-traffic before rousing WarriorGirl.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goblue72: Go ahead and get it started. Why are you waiting for someone else to do it for you?
beltane
@benw: Yes, that’s what it is! It’s what makes Cruz so unsettling to look at.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Speaking of Florina, I assume she would be toxic on a national ticket because there are roughly twenty thousand ex-HP employees ready to audition for ads. Did that happen in CA when she ran for Senate? The only ad I remember is, of course, Demon Sheep.
beltane
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Fiorina brings absolutely nothing to the ticket. All the Republicans running have left a lot of failure in their wakes, but Fiorina does not have a natural constituency or anything else that would make her an asset to a campaign.
redshirt
@Goblue72:
They’ve succeeded in their divide and conquer tactics, for now. Maybe forever.
Read today planet Earth has lost approximately 5 trillion tons of ice since 2002. And its not stopping or probably even slowing down, no matter what we do now.
We’re entering a global death spiral, and the fat cats light their cigars with Benjamins and laugh.
redshirt
@beltane:
Ah, she is a woman, right? Check! 25 million chick voters lining up to vote (R)!
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: Except for one question, I felt like that interview was a free ride for Jeb!.
I was pretty disappointed in the whole show. I felt like it was all one big signal – the band, the politician, Clooney – that the show isn’t going to be edgy at all; this will be traditional Letterman and Leno. “There is a non-zero chance that I will vote for Jeb!, says Colbert. Ugh. Ick. Ack.
I will give it 2 weeks, but if that’s what Colbert’s new show is like, I won’t be watching.
Edit: Oh, and Colbert said Jeb! was the frontrunner except for Trump. In what world?
beltane
@WaterGirl: In R2R’s world. In the real world, he’s in the back seat of the clown car, polling well behind some of the other clowns.
Chris
@Baud:
His mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
divF
@Chris:
Hedley, is that you ?
(I’d transcribe Taggart’s reaction, but it is in questionable taste.)
benw
@WaterGirl:
Well, the Tonight Show is supposed to be pretty tame. I’d give Colbert a chance to find his voice before we write him off entirely: one data point is a small sample. Also, Leno was always bland tapioca, but Letterman was always a sarcastic, subversive host and show. Seeing them lumped together as the bland old tradition is strange. Is that how people see Letterman now?
WaterGirl
@beltane: UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH!!!
redshirt
@benw:
Yeah no kidding. Letterman played a role in the 2008 election, and it wasn’t pro-Republican by any stretch.
divF
@WaterGirl:
I don’t know, that sounds like Colbert deftly slipping Jeb! the shiv.
RaflW
I think Jeb. should double-down and name Brownback as his Veep pick. Because Kansas has done fantastically under trickle-up tax cuts.
Goblue72
@redshirt: And yet amazingly, when anyone brings up the topic of armed resistance to the elite, it’s treated like someone is suggesting we kill puppies.
The French got a Republic out of it. May have given it back to the Ancien Regime, but not for very long.
benw
@beltane: I’m surprised that it’s even a minor revelation. In every pic I’ve seen of him, even the supposedly flattering ones, he looks really weird and lifeless. Can a presidential candidate be anti-photogenic?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
interesting article on Sheldon Adelson at NY Mag, among other nuggets, Jeb? had to mend fences with Adelson over the presence of James Baker (according to MoDo, and Bushology is the one issue I trust her on, Baker is one of the very few people Barbara considers a peer, rather than “the help”)
I wonder if Scowcroft, Lugar and Powell feel slighted
WaterGirl
@benw: I did say I would give him 2 weeks. :-)
After the Colbert Report, I have no interest in watching Colbert in any kind of tame “I don’t want to piss off either party because I want them all as guests on my show” kind of show. But then I rarely watched Letterman or Leno. Boring. It would seem like a sad waste of talent, to me.
Though I did enjoy Letterman’s skewering of McCain when he couldn’t be on Letterman because of some bullshit reason and then Letterman caught him in a lie. I think that had an impact on the election.
Peale
@PaulW: yes. But eventually those loss revenues can be made up by taking money out of the pockets of employed teachers and road builders. It’s a win win.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goblue72: Again, if you want a revolution, start one. Don’t just bitch on a blog.
divF
@benw:
Cruz is in the Uncanny Valley.
beltane
@benw: Richard Nixon was un-photogenic, but also compelling to watch because his facial expressions revealed his character. Cruz is just weird.
Goblue72
@Omnes Omnibus: GFY.
redshirt
@Goblue72:
I think there’s good reasons for it. First, things aren’t that bad, relatively. Second, Democrats don’t generally own guns, and 3. Democrats or Liberals generally believe killing people is bad, so, don’t kill people.
It certainly is a dilemma. I’d like to see the Anarchists step back up.
Goblue72
@Peale: Thats not a bug, it’s a feature.
Chris
@divF:
Yes, indeed, and thank you for not saying “Hedy!”
@Goblue72:
To be specific, monarchy to republic, republic to empire, empire to monarchy, monarchy to republic, republic to empire, empire to republic, republic to fascism, fascism to republic, republic to republic by way of military coup (which had a happy ending because De Gaulle decided he wanted to be the French General Washington instead of the French General Franco).
So if we start at once and follow that model, the dust should’ve settled in a century and a half.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goblue72: Why? You talk a good game, but I am guessing you are an upper middle class armchair revolutionary. Am I wrong?
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t know, I think venting on BJ is quite cathartic!
RaflW
@Helen: The thing with the prop tax elimination is, folks in TX pay way more property tax than, say, Minnesotans do. I was surprised in low tax nirvana to see my dad’s prop tax bill a few years ago, his house and mine sold for nearly the same prices that year, but his tax bill was at almost double mine.
If you don’t have an income tax like MN does, even a low-service state still has to get some money. Property tax is a big part of that in TX.
Goblue72
@redshirt: Things are pretty bad for anyone on the bottom half. Quite tough for bottom quarter.
That and the standard shouldn’t be whether the 99% are reduced to indigence, no?
Agree that the anarchists are needed. And the communists.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: You don’t feel like the entire system has been so corrupted as to be almost beyond redemption?
Will it take an Air Force coup d’etat to convince you?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
more on Adelson and the GOP:
Pathetic little courtiers
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Venting is one thing. Asking others to shoot cops or start killing the rich is another. I get the impression that VDE is perfectly willing to tend his tumbrels personally. This guy strikes me as an asshole bullshit artist. YMMV.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Magic 8-Ball says: “very doubtful.”
redshirt
@Goblue72:
No doubt things are hard for the majority of American poor. But they’re not dying in the streets of starvation by the hundreds every week. They’re not getting machined gunned down in the hundreds in their own neighborhoods. It can get much, much, much worse than we have it now. Maybe the French commoners of the 1780’s felt this despair far more and in far greater numbers than most or maybe even anyone can know in America of 2015?
Plus the cops have a metric shit ton of guns and cameras everywhere. Strategically alone, that shit is far more difficult in this Year of our Lord.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: I think revolutions end ugly. And I think that people who suggest that the US is a totalitarian nightmare, have little knowledge of real totalitarian nightmares.
Goblue72
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t know u, and u don’t know me. But you sure do like judging, as laughable as you are.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I confess to not having read the comments carefully, but I just looked back at #102, and I thought that was venting. Who knows?
I am off to give Colbert a second try.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: people who suggest that the US is a totalitarian nightmare, have little knowledge of real totalitarian nightmares.
Word.
Goblue72
@redshirt: whether one is living in a totalitarian police state with death squads is not a relevant metric.
benw
@WaterGirl:
Very well, release her from the tree of pain!
@beltane:
That’s my take, too. In all the Cruz pics where he’s feeling something, he looks really weird. And his unfiltered opinions are really odd.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl: Letterman also gave quite a bit of airtime to climate scientists and anti-hunger activists.
It almost made up for what sometimes seemed like monthly appearances by Paris Hilton and Trump– and he called Trump out on the racism of the whole birther thing, which I don’t recall anyone in the CBS News division doing (but then, I gave up on 60 Minutes when the old bulls left, and the evening news even before they shitcanned Rather).
RaflW
@JPL: I wouldn’t vote for Carly because Demon Sheep was quite possibly the stupidest political ad of the entire election cycle (and there were stupid ads out there).
Oh, and she’s a hack Republican. There is that.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: From a guy who has previously suggested that people should kill some cops at random? I call armchair revolutionary.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed entirely. But I can feel it out there, ready to burst forth. A fortuitous calamitous series of events, or maybe just the election of The Donald.
All the pieces are in place and I find that rather terrifying, also while accepting that the effects of Global Warming will only intensify. Not a good combination. Water wars will kill us.
WaterGirl
@benw: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Letterman was definitely more my style than Leno, but still, I hate to see Colbert being bland right out of the gate.
Off to give Colbert another try.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl: I loved Letterman, and was surprised at how… low energy?… Colbert’s first show was, but I have confidence he’ll find his voice. It took him a while to get the Repor(t) going, and the man’s talent and intelligence are, IMnotHO, indisputable.
Goblue72
@Omnes Omnibus: the butthurt is strong with you , eh?
Omnes Omnibus
@Goblue72: No butthurt. I just think you are a poseur. Put up or shut up.
redshirt
Allies fighting is why there will be no revolution, especially the revolution we deserve – which is a peaceful, Democratic one.
One we are achieving right now despite the Republicans, and yet, it can be taken away quickly.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: I don’t want a revolution. I want reform.
Mike in NC
@RaflW: States that don’t have an income tax just figure out other ways to pick your pocket. My parents learned that when they moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, which has insanely high property taxes.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: Civil War was a Revolution. Was the Reformation?
redshirt
@Mike in NC:
Maine’s great low tax Governor Paul LePage raised the tax on food and beverages, so every trip to the Scumby’s costs a bit more. But there’s also a lot of new lottery tickets for sale and announced in advertisements.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: Arguably both were. So what?
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: One had guns, one didn’t.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@redshirt: also, you know Davis X Machina’s law of American politics?
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: My question is why do either of those historical references enter into this evening’s discussion?
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m arguing we are somehow now re-living the Civil War, as the constituents of that Revolution were not sufficiently eliminated via the “reforms” of The Reformation (Civil War version, not Protestant), and yet we all deny this fact in genteel society.
BJ is one venue to vent such crazy notions. “Armchair Bloggers”.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: It may be the lateness of the evening, but that made no historical sense to me.
redshirt
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I did. I’m a fan of Davis X.
Mike in NC
@redshirt: Several states — NC and SC for example — depend on selling lottery tickets to fund their damn public school systems, which would otherwise shrivel up and die due to lack of interest by the legislatures. What a country!
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: We are currently experiencing a Re-Revolution – if such a thing were possible! – of the Civil War, with the Confederacy of 1860 now played by the Republican Party.
The Reconstruction – sorry, not Reformation. It was a joke I was trying to get you to understand and laugh at, but again, I fail with the jokes. A play on your preference for “reform” over revolution.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m not proud of it, but this made me chuckle and I hope it’s true
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: Dude, stepping back from your fanciful examples, I still think that revolution is dangerous. Reform is what most of us want.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: Who’s “us”? Liberals? Democrats? Americans? People?
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: Yes to all four.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: Of course I agree to that as well. It’s obvious.
What I’m saying is there are times when this peaceful consensus cannot be achieved. I bet these times are 98% of the time caused by resource scarcity. And I challenge you to consider a bigger resource scarcity freakout than lack of potable water. It’s every life to the last if it comes down to that and it’s going to come down to that. Are you ready? For a merging of Republican insanity and resource scarcity?
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: I am not going to go there. This discussion came up as a result of a particular person’s call for revolution and violence.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus:
And I responded precisely because I feel we are on the precipice of such times, due to resource scarcity/global warming/insane ideologues.
That the Republican Party RIGHT NOW can wallow in anti-science and seemingly not suffer for it whatsoever just blows my mind. They DENY EVOLUTION AS A POLITICAL PARTY!
That’s dangerous.
redshirt
@efgoldman: OO is an actual Judge?
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: No shit. But are you going to go shoot a plutocrat today? I doubt it. So, let’s work on what we can.
redshirt
And to be clear, if we had sane and reasonable leaders, both domestically and internationally, we could solve all the global climate problems that threaten to literally kill billions of us.
It won’t effect America and Canada as much as the rest of the world, ironically.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: I own zero guns and am a super hippy.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: Then think a bit before backing things that @Goblue72: says. Dude’s a poseur asshole.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus:
Maybe, but I respect the sentiment, and think it’s a growing social phenomena, for both “good” and “bad” – like you say: Revolt is destructive.
redshirt
@efgoldman:
I never heard it but I’ve got the barest level understanding of BJ so I can dig how I’d have missed it.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Show #2 was better than last night’s show. Colbert still fawns over his guests too much on this show, and it’s still way too traditional for me, but it was definitely better.
But he talked up Jeb! again tonight and said again that he might vote for him. Ick. Either he is not what he seemed on the Colbert Report (doubtful) or he’s willing to be neutral on his political beliefs for this show, which would be a huge disappointment.
WaterGirl
@redshirt: yeppers.
redshirt
Well then obviously we’ve got a rebel judge.
And by rebel judge I mean authorizing the law and respecting precedent.
Another Holocene Human
@JPL: I think you misunderstood, but to digress, two college plus educated people could also be bringing in $30K/yr. Just sayin’.
Another Holocene Human
@SFAW: I disagree, even with the plastic surgery (her face is so diffs I didn’t recognize her), if we were picking preznints by looks, this confirmed womano-sexual would be looking at iCarly. Which means, fuck you, Trump!, I just said something positive about Carly Fiorina.
No, seriously, not “fuck you!” defiant, “fuck you!” there’s goo on my shoes now. And you don’t eat pizza with a fork!!!
Another Holocene Human
@JPL:
Mitt Romney wearing Dolores Umbridge’s suit.
Another Holocene Human
@SFAW: botox and collagen are totally elective
I watched the kiddie debate
the fact that her face looks different, who knows, maybe it was because of cancer and she got a really good plastic surgeon because her new face, while quite different, looks pretty good.
Trump resembles a Vogon from the Hitchhiker movie, but without the shovel-bashed nose.
Doug R
@Goblue72:You just get different thugs.
Jack Hughes
Of course, the explosion in the deficit caused by JEB!s tax cuts would be blamed on “excessive spending” which would, unfortunately, require draconian cuts to Social Security and Medicare.