September 28, 2012
The moderate center, last 30 years, illustrated.
[ source : addictinginfo.org ]
politics
September 26, 2012
“Conservatives believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more, but the poor…”
I’ve tried to make this point SO MANY TIMES with people but I’ve never been able to articulate it quite so simply and succinctly.
September 24, 2012
Enjoy your pie, @MittRomney
September 15, 2012
“Are You Better Off? Well Are Ya, Punk?”
http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/09/are-you-better-off-well-are-ya-punk.html?m=1
<blockquote>
“
I think the question says more about the questioner than the answer does about Obama.
Are you better off?
To which you’re supposed to ask yourself reflectively, “Well? Am I better off? Am I?”
Not, are we better off?
Not, is the country better off?
Not, is the world better off?
Not even, is business better off? Or Is the economy better off? Both of which would be more useful questions in an election year.
No the question is, are you better off? Am I better off?
Am I better off?
What better question than “Am I better off?” to summarize an intellectual and morally bankrupt worldview?
It amuses me that people who claim to embrace a religion of selflessness, who loudly and persistently claim that the United States itself is a county based on that same religion of supposed love and shared sacrifice, who profess to follow in the footsteps of a prophet who supposedly preached selflessness above all else, would use “Am I better off” as their political compass.
“Am I better off?” so perfectly describes the self-centered, win at all costs and damn the consequences tactics of political parties and their PACS and their legions of bitterly blind followers.
…..
“
</blockquote>
[ thanks to Kate Ducey Hanson for the link ]September 14, 2012
Michelle Obama: “When you’ve walked through the door of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you…”
Finally getting around to watching the DNC speeches. Michelle Obama is spectacular. Just like with Barack, it’s so hard for me to understand how anyone can dislike her — yet there are people who passionately HATE her. It’s crazy.
September 12, 2012
Best thing I’ve read in a while: “Why I left the GOP”
http://www.salon.com/2012/09/10/why_i_left_the_gop/
“…This is the story of how in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and later in Iraq, I discovered that what I believed to be the full spectrum of reality was just a small slice of it and how that discovery knocked down my Republican worldview.
I always imagined that I was full of heart, but it turned out that I was oblivious. Like so many Republicans, I had assumed that society’s “losers” had somehow earned their deserts. As I came to recognize that poverty is not earned or chosen or deserved, and that our use of force is far less precise than I had believed, I realized with a shock that I had effectively viewed whole swaths of the country and the world as second-class people.
No longer oblivious, I couldn’t remain in today’s Republican Party, not unless I embraced an individualism that was even more heartless than the one I had previously accepted. The more I learned about reality, the more I started to care about people as people, and my values shifted. Had I always known what I know today, it would have been clear that there hasn’t been a place for me in the Republican Party since the Free Soil days of Abe Lincoln.
…
I dove into the research literature to try to figure out what was going on. It turned out that everything I was “discovering” had been hiding in plain sight and had been named: aversive racism, institutional racism, disparate impact and disparate treatment, structural poverty, neighborhood redlining, the “trial tax,” the “poverty tax,” and on and on. Having grown up obsessed with race (welfare and affirmative action were our bêtes noirs), I wondered why I had never heard of any of these concepts.
Was it to protect our Republican version of “individual responsibility”? That notion is fundamental to the liberal Republican worldview. “Bootstrapping” and “equality of opportunity, not outcomes” make perfect sense if you assume, as I did, that people who hadn’t risen into my world simply hadn’t worked hard enough, or wanted it badly enough, or had simply failed. But I had assumed that bootstrapping required about as much as it took to get yourself promoted from junior varsity to varsity. It turns out that it’s more like pulling yourself up from tee-ball to the World Series. Sure, some people do it, but they’re the exceptions, the outliers, the Olympians.
The enormity of the advantages I had always enjoyed started to truly sink in. Everyone begins life thinking that his or her normal is the normal. For the first time, I found myself paying attention to broken eggs rather than making omelets. Up until then, I hadn’t really seen most Americans as living, breathing, thinking, feeling, hoping, loving, dreaming, hurting people. My values shifted — from an individualistic celebration of success (that involved dividing the world into the morally deserving and the undeserving) to an interest in people as people.
…
“
September 12, 2012
The Problem With Conservatism, In One Graphic
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/09/10/the-problem-with-conservatism-in-one-graphic-image/
A recent study determined that conservatives are more likely to make up facts to justify their beliefs, and this image is proof positive of that.
…..
The underlying issue here is that conservatives have such an aversion to the facts that they’re completely willing to overlook them in an attempt to make a salient point. It doesn’t matter if their claims are baseless, as long as they get the chance to throw out the word “socialism” to scare people.
…..
September 10, 2012
“The Ryan budget is a budget in the way that my doodle on a cocktail napkin is a blueprint for NASA.” — Bill Maher
Romney, Ryan Refuse To Identify Tax Loopholes They’d Close
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/romney-ryan-tax-loopholes.php?m=1
“
The Romney-Ryan plan would cut taxes beneath existing Bush-era levels, with benefits disproportionately for high earners, at a cost of roughly $5 trillion. They have vowed that the breaks would be revenue-neutral by way of closing tax credits and deductions but have persisted in their refusal to specify which ones, other than promising that the changes wouldn’t target middle class Americans.
Pressed for one specific example, Romney replied, “Well, the specifics are these which is those principles I described are the heart of my policy.”
“
Wow. Sounds like he’s channelling Sarah Palin…
“
A large chunk of the over $1 trillion in annual federal tax credits and deductions — including for home mortgage interest and employer-based health care — benefit middle class Americans. Other perks, like preferential tax treatment of capital gains and dividends, are strongly supported by Republicans, including Romney.
“Mitt Romney and I, based on our experience, think the best way to do this is to show the framework, show the outlines of these plans, and then to work with Congress to do this. That’s how you get things done,” he said.
Pressed repeatedly on “Meet The Press” how he would make the numbers add up, Romney didn’t take the bait, instead saying voters should trust him.
“I’ve had the experience of being a governor,” he said. “I’ve demonstrated that I have the capacity to balance budgets.”
“
Impressive.
As Bill Maher said (of Ryan) :
“He’s not an intellectual. They said the same thing about Newt Gingrich. Somehow Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan — these giant intellectuals — somehow they had the same great idea: Give more money to the rich people. What’s his big idea? Rich people should stop paying taxes and poor people should start looking for food in the woods. Can you name one area where he and Sarah Palin disagree on anything? So how come he’s this giant intellectual? The Ryan budget is a budget in the way that my doodle on a cocktail napkin is a blueprint for NASA.”