October, 2008 archive
Bushonomics 0
Robert Reich:
The “living beyond our means” argument, with its thinly-veiled suggestion of moral turpitude, is technically correct. Over the last fifteen years, average household debt has soared to record levels, and the typical American family has taken on more of debt than it can safely manage. That became crystal clear when the housing bubble burst and home prices fell, eliminating easy home equity loans and refinancings.
But this story leaves out one very important fact. Since the year 2000, median family income has been dropping, adjusted for inflation. One of the main reasons the typical family has taken on more debt has been to maintain its living standards in the face of these declining real incomes.
It’s not been persons indulging extravagance. It’s been persons desperately treading water.
And sinking deeper with every successive year of Reago-Bushonomics.
First, the water lapped at their our chins, then our mouths, and now we tilt back our heads and strain to get our noses above water to take a breath between passing waves.
The Republican assault on the American middle class has, in fact, been an assault on the basis of the success of the American economy.
But in their greed, the Republican Party and its corporate masters saw and cared not for such things, all the while distracting the polity with their bleating about “family values” and “voodoo economics” and sending young persons to die in a war for a lie.
All along, the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer.
But, through the magic of Ameriquest, no one really noticed.
Until now.
Until now, when the rich awaken to realize that the impoverishment of the middle class threatens their private jets, their helicopters, their six, seven, eight houses, their private cell phone towers.
And come crying to the taxpayer, to you and me, to throw money at them.
It’s a Republican thing.
Pah!
Then, again, there is a bright side. Stupid stores are disappearing.
Them What Has, Gits 2
McHack, the common man:
By the time Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid was in full swing this summer, the ranch had wireless coverage from the two cellular companies most often used by campaign staff — Verizon Wireless and AT&T.
Verizon delivered a portable tower know as a “cell site on wheels” — free of charge — to Cindy McCain’s property in June in response to an online request from Cindy McCain’s staff early last year. Such devices are usually reserved for restoring service when cell coverage is knocked out during emergencies, such as hurricanes.
GRAPHIC: After a request from Cindy McCain, Verizon Wireless proposed installing a cell tower close to the couple’s home near Sedona, Ariz.
In July, AT&T followed suit, wheeling in a portable tower for free to match Verizon’s offer. “This is an unusual situation,” said AT&T spokeswoman Claudia B. Jones. “You can’t have a presidential nominee in an area where there is not cell coverage.”
H/T Karen for the link.
So, just what do you think would have happened when you called up Southwestern Bell Cingular AT&T or Verizon and said, “Look, I don’t get any cell phone coverage here at my place. Can I have my own cell tower?”
Think they would have said, “Sure! Here! It’s on the House Senate. Just tell us where you want it”?
If you do, wanna buy a bridge?
Divorce Court 1
Wonder where this guy will be sleeping tonight? (emphasis added)
Mark Ciptak of Elizabethton (Tenn.–ed.) put that name on the documents for the girl’s birth certificate, ignoring the name Ava Grace, which he and his wife had picked earlier.
Via Noz.
Parental Warning 0
Bennet Cerf once told the story of the radio station that wanted to do a story about wild youth, so one Friday night they set about calling households to ask the parents whether they knew where their teenagers were.
Twenty-five per cent of the calls were answered by teenagers who didn’t know where their parents were.
Via Mithras.
I Have Often Wondered This Myself . . . 1
. . . but I have stayed away from it because, well, as my mother used to say, just because.
Yet the Booman phrased it so well:
Oh, yeah, and don’t forget to check out the list.
Family values my anatomy.
It is all sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, created solely to distract voters from the truth of Republicanism and to attract votes from the unwitting.
“Republican Family Values” is marketing, with no more sincerity or conviction than a commercial designed to get you to buy Cover Girl rather than Max Factor (which, incidently, are both made by the same manufacturer).
To quote that prescient philosopher, Mr. T, “Pity the fool” who bought their line of snake oil.
Stray Thought 1
There is a sad, delicious irony in watching Republican economic theory and practices push the nation towards state ownership of the means of production.
Bushonomics 0
$700,000,000,000 bailout divided by 9,387.61 increase in the DJI yesterday = $74,566,369.93 per point.
Don’t worry. Be happy.
The McCain Smear Machine Marches on. 1
From Fact Check dot org. Follow the link for the full analysis (emphasis added):
The ad also misquotes Obama. It says he defended himself against the “most liberal” rating by saying “they’re not telling the truth” and “folks are lying.” Actually, Obama said McCain and Palin weren’t truthful about the “Bridge to Nowhere,” and he was correct. And his “folks are lying” remark referred to anti-abortion groups that accuse him of favoring “infanticide” because of votes he cast in the Illinois state Senate.
After twisting Obama’s words, the ad accuses him of being “not presidential.”
And McHack is?
Well, maybe. Given the record of the Current Federal Administrator, I guess lying is the presidential thing to do.
Stray Thought 1
If I hear one more commentary containing the words, “The market hates uncertainty,” I shall scream.
The McCain Campaing Buckleyed Where It Should Have Swashed 0
With apologies to Samuel Goldwyn.
I was always a fan of William F. Buckley, Jr. Even when I reached 10th grade and realized that his politics were, basically, a crock, I admired his striving for intellectual rigor (he never found it, because, sadly, it is incompatible with Republican conservatism), his drive to find some kind of justification for conservatism (he never really succeeded, but he made a valiant effort), and his love and enjoyment of the English language used well. Somewhere I still have a copy of God and Man at Yale.
Christopher Buckley, his son, endorses Senator Obama:
(snip)
Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.” Well, the dear man did his best.
(snip)
A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?
I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.
By the way, follow this link and you will see another example of what I described here: A “conservative” who, faced with the failure of conservativism, tries to claim that the author of the failed polices is “not a true conservative.”
And the sad thing is, they will never wake up and smell the coffee.
Via Balloon Juice.
Liberally Events 0
Drinking Liberally, Tuesday, Tangier, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphis, Pa., 6 p. m.
Praying Liberally Wilmington, Thursday, Bellefonte Cafe, 804 Brandywing Blvd., Bellefonte, Del., 7 p.
Sysadmin Note 2
I’m going to turn on my spellchecking plug in. Please use the email link at the top of the page to notify me of any bloggy wierdness weirdness.
McCain Spins like a Washing Machine 3
In the third major segment of This American Life this week, Alex Blumberg deconstructs the Republican lie that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac caused the collapse of the mortgage market, and therefore the collapse of the housing market, and therefore of the collapse of the whole wide world.
Of course, believing that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, rather than criminally negligent and even some fraudulent practices by banks and mortgage companies, mortgage brokers and real estate salespersons, is convenient for Republicans, because it absolves their failed stewardship of governance from responsibility for what happened.
And, as I have demonstated, conservatives never take responsibity for their failed policies.
Remember who was in charge from 2001-2007 and who blocked anything from happening in Congress in 2007-2008.
From the website (emphasis added):
Praying Liberally Wilmington Updated 0
Praying Liberally blog updated.
Conservative Values 0
Over at the Booman’s place.
The “Voter Fraud” Fraud (Updated) 1
Terry Gross investigated the “voter fraud” fraud in three segments on Wednesday’s show.
Check it out here.
Addendum, 10/13/08:
Josh Marshall sums it up: