Samkitten gets it done:
And here I thought I was just a sucker for dogs in a bucket.
by John Cole| 26 Comments
This post is in: Going Galt
Samkitten gets it done:
And here I thought I was just a sucker for dogs in a bucket.
by DougJ| 112 Comments
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Going Galt, We Are All Mayans Now
Steve Benen finds Roger Simon whining about Democrats’ engaged in “class warfare”:
The rich are different from you and me. They are swine.
Here’s the thing….I suspect that Simon himself is rich. Most name pundits are.
I have an idea: from now on, whenever a pundit bitches about “class warfare”, he should give an estimate of his own income and assets. That law professor from U of Chicago who said he’d go Galt if his marginal rates when up 2% is an asshole and probably a sociopath, but at least he gave enough information that one could estimate his income.
Simon should do the same if he’s going to carry on like that.
by DougJ| 178 Comments
This post is in: Going Galt, We Are All Mayans Now
Brendan Skwire reports on a ridiculous exchange he had with Bob Casey’s office. Read the whole thing, here’s a sample:
I was taken aback by the statement (that the wealthy create jobs, so they deserve a tax cut) given to me by a young woman named Maddy, who had no response when I asked her “why does Pennsylvania have 10% unemployment if tax cuts for the rich work so well? Why are we in an economic crisis that’s been described as the worst since the Great Depression? Bush’s job creation record, which was predicated on tax cuts stimulating the economy was the worst since the 1940s.”
Maddy told me that she didn’t want to argue about it. “You don’t want to argue?” I asked. “Then why do you work in politics?”
I hate to pick on some hapless Senate staffer, but this is typical to me of today’s political climate: shut up and accept whatever policies our Galtian overlords convinced David Gergen to support.
The wealthy create jobs, so they deserve a tax cutPost + Comments (178)
by DougJ| 63 Comments
This post is in: Assholes, Going Galt
I know all his baby mama drama can’t be cheap, but still, as many others have remarked, this just plain sucks:
[T]he decision of Peter Orszag, until recently the director of the Office of Management and Budget under Barack Obama, to join Citibank in a senior position. Exactly how much it will pay is not clear, but informed guesses are several million dollars per year. Citibank, of course, was one of the institutions most notably dependent on federal help to survive in these past two years.
I also wonder what planet James Fallows is living on when he says this “shocking”. This is par for the course.
by DougJ| 46 Comments
This post is in: Free Markets Solve Everything, Going Galt
When it comes to things like airport security and border crossings, I have a pretty extreme libertarian attitude in some sense: I tend to think most of it is theater, that a competent, sufficiently determined terrorist could get around whatever we put in place, and that the only reason we aren’t constantly attacked by competent, sufficiently determined terrorists is that terrorism is for losers. It doesn’t pay well, many of the most important missions are suicide missions, and the motivation for all of it is pie-in-the sky stuff that mostly appeals to idiots. I could be wrong but all of this, but I would need to be convinced.
That said, I recognize that there is probably some need for a TSA-type organization, and I would rather it be run by the government. I’d like to ask the libertarians: what, if any, evidence do they have for the idea that private companies would be held accountable more than the government is when it comes to airport security? When I say evidence, I don’t mean “beginning from Hayek’s principles….” or “the private security force on Galt’s Gulch worked great”, I mean something that happened and was documented here, on planet earth, with actual human beings (I’m not trying to be a wise ass here, just trying to be clear about the ground rules).
The best analogies for a privatized TSA I can think of would be Blackwater (I don’t claim this is a perfect analogy). Would a libertarian argue that Blackwater was held more accountable than regular soldiers in Iraq? if you can think of a better analogy, great, I’d like to hear it.
Also too: should police forces be privatized? Would that make them more accountable?
I’m failing to see the mechanism by which a private security company would be held accountable and I can think of no examples (again, I mean here on planet earth, among actual human beings) that would be make think it would be held more accountable than a government-run TSA.
by DougJ| 257 Comments
This post is in: Going Galt
The Reasonoids have a smart, well-documented take on media reaction to the TSA pat downs. My favorite: the LA Times editorial titled “Shut up and be scanned”.
by DougJ| 40 Comments
This post is in: Going Galt, Good News For Conservatives
L’affaire Abramoff convictee Bob Ney is out of the pokie:
Ney is spending his days in Dharamsala, trying to master the Tibetan language and eagerly awaiting the return of the Dalai Lama and the chance to hear more of the exiled religious leader’s teachings.
I like stories about people doing interesting things when they get out of jail.