South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint, the darling of the Tea Party wing nuts of the GOP, is urging Republican candidates to listen to Ron Paul. “One of the things that’s hurt the so-called conservative alternative is saying negative things about Ron Paul,” DeMint told conservative radio…
91 Here’s a really nice article about the Vermont success story. It turns out that high taxes and strong business regulations are a recipe for success. I doubt you heard that at the Republican caucuses this week. Act 250 regulations were a huge part of preserving the state’s quality of life. They discouraged the profiteers who would have monetized Vermont’s natural beauty while simultaneously destroying it.
“Vermont has made real investments in its quality of life. Now the relative strength and resiliency of our economy suggest that those investments are paying handsome dividends.
Maybe the old-fashioned value that most effectively nourishes the Vermont economy is the realization that there’s more to life than money.”
There’s a lot here, but one thing that he describes is the downward spiral of public institutions as the wealthy cut support of them. My experience is that as this man-made, institutional decline starts (be it schools, roads, Social Security and Medicare finances ..), these same wealthy people condemn the institution as misguided and unsound, *because* of the declines that they intentionally created! Case in point: I have a wealthy reactionary friend who, after voting time and time again for tax-cutting Republicans, delights in harangues about how Social Security and Medicare are “unsustainable”. He’s implying that they are both foolish, deeply-flawed ideas because they’re consuming a larger share of tax dollars every year. But unstated, and, he would hope, un-realized, is the fact that Republicans, his allies in DC, are shrinking the tax pie and therefore these earned benefits programs necessarily claim a greater percentage of tax revenue.
The same people who invented this gambit also invented the Myth of the Job Creator.
I guess if i had a kid I could refuse to get him to school half the time because I was too greedy to pay for any gas that I was not going to personally benefit from. Then as he failed course after course I could tell everyone how dim-witted and ignorant he was. On the other hand, I don’t think I’d want to be around that kid after he grows up. Ignorance and anger are a very volatile mix.
Meryl Streep’s eery reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” brings to mind Thatcher’s most famous quip, “there is no such thing as ‘society.’” None of the dwindling herd of Republican candidates has quoted her yet but they might as well considering their unremitting bashing of…
239 My political prediction for 2012 (based on absolutely no inside information): Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden swap places. Biden becomes Secretary of State — a position he’s apparently coveted for years. And Hillary Clinton, Vice President.
So the Democratic ticket for 2012 is Obama-Clinton.
Why…
281 The defining political issue of 2012 won’t be the government’s size. It will be who government is for.
Americans have never much liked government. After all, the nation was conceived in a revolution against government.
But the surge of cynicism now engulfing America isn’t about government’s…
145 RIP Mr. Hitchens
It’s hard to imagine a world without his voice in it.
Mr. President, we heard what you said last week in Kansas – about the dangers to our economy and democracy of the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top.
We agree. And many of us are prepared to work our hearts out to get you reelected – as long as you commit to doing what…
139 This lie is particularly galling to me because 1) I hear it all the time, 2) it’s an unpardonable lie, but mostly 3) it’s deliberately crafted to deceive people who know they’re hurting (no job) but don’t know how business or economies work. In other words, it’s designed to take advantage of the most vulnerable in order to benefit the least vulnerable.
The four Nuclear Regulatory Commission members who are apparently owned by the nuclear industry, want the pro-regulation chairman gone. And they’re trying underhanded approaches to make that happen. In their view it seems that we can’t have an NRC that promotes safety if doing so will hurt the nuclear industry’s profits. Profits, after all, are what matter, and I’m sure that’s appreciated in Japan right now.
The referenced MoJo article quotes Newt as writing the following.
“In order to make coverage more accessible, Congress must do more, including passing legislation to: establish a national health insurance marketplace by giving individuals the freedom to shop for insurance plans across state lines; provide low-income families with $1,000 in direct contributions to a health savings account, along with a $2,000 advanced tax credit to purchase an HSA-eligible high-deductible health plan; make premiums for these plans tax deductible; provide tax rebates to small businesses that contribute to their employees’ HSAs; extend and expand grant funding to high-risk pools across the country; and require anyone who earns more than $50,000 a year to purchase health insurance or post a bond.”
An “individual mandate” … oh my. Could Newt be a Socialist?
