The Quipper

Poor O'Reilly

2005-05-10T14:47:00.000-05:00

Poor Bill. One sexual harrassment picadillo and his ratings fall through the floor.

An american icon shouldn't have to suffer so. Maybe he'll feel better if you send him a falafel

MoveOn vs. DLC

2005-04-14T12:26:00.000-05:00

Dear DLC:

Want to know why so many people hate you? Because you spend your time branding other democrats as stupid, gullible, wrong, dangerous or unpatriotic. Don't tell me I should excise Michael Moore from my party. Debate your positions with Michael Moore and try to bring him around to your point of view.

Stop making it a personal battle wherein people must choose sides. And especially, stop attacking these democrats. Debate them. We're on the same side here. Instead, you end up churning out fodder for the opposition.

Lieberman Wins One for the Dems

2005-03-16T12:00:00.000-06:00

A lot of people have been quibbling over whether Joe Lieberman is a quisling or a victim of left-wing loons. I tend to agree with atrios of Eschaton, that he spends too much time saying things critical of the party as a whole with media hostile to the democratic party for him to be good for us.

However, credit where credit is due. Lieberman has apparently turned Lindsay Graham against SS privitization. A few weeks ago everybody was in a tizzy that Joe was the one wavering. Well, say it ain't so, 'cause it ain't so.

Closer, closer....

2005-02-22T17:05:00.000-06:00

Garance Franke-Ruta of The American Prospect (of which I am now a subscriber) blog TAPPED says:

...Democrats have been following ... an utterly inexplicable course of action... Democrats outsourced a good chunk of their ground game to the 527s in 2004. This could have some serious dowsides for the party over the long term... The Republican National Committee ran its 2004 ground operations through its coordinated campaign with Bush-Cheney '04... Democrats, on the other hand, outsourced a great deal of their ground operation to 527s, such as America Coming Together, while the DNC spent millions upon millions on television ads... Thanks to this arrangement -- almost the inverse of the strategic allocation of resources on the Republican side -- the DNC won't be able to use a substantial chunk of the voter contact information gleaned in the '04 race to get ready for '06 or '08... [A] couple of Democratic field organizers... said it's definitely something that puts Democrats at a disadvantage. But... little that could be done about it in the past election cycle because no one could have known in advance that John Kerry and the DNC would have such substantial resources at their disposal, and without the 527s, they still would have had almost no ground game in some states until just the summer before the election.

The reason for this is that democrats rely on paid activists to run the ground game, and republicans primarily on volunteers. They use soft slush money to fund their base other ways, i.e. through groups like GOPUSA, "PR" spending with government funds, Scaife-funded think-tanks, etc.

Hopefully part of Dean's changes at the DNC will be use less hard money during campaigns to keep people eating, and get the outsiders to fund these people between elections so they can take a "leave of absence" to go volunteer for the campaign...

Washington Post sucks

2005-02-10T13:24:00.000-06:00

Social Security Problems Not a Crisis, Most Say

"I'm expecting to live on my own savings. I'm going to prepare for the worst so I don't get in trouble," said Sarah Kirby, 19, a political science and history major at Marquette University who said she believes Social Security is "outdated" because it did not anticipate the longevity of today's seniors.

Let me say first of all that I hate these kinds of articles, because they're stupid. "I found two retards on the street, one thinks Miller Lite Tastes Great, and the other thinks it's Less Filling!"

But I also hate when articles like this fail to mention that Sarah Kirby is a member of the Marquette College Republicans.

Sarah and Governor Pataki!

Doesn't Sarah look like a very sad lost little girl?*

Anyway, Sarah, for your edification: FDR's actuaries actually predicted the growth in longevity in 1935 and took it into account when designing the program. But thanks for playing Retarded Republican Bingo!

* Actual caption! What assmunch wrote that caption? Maybe she needs patting on the head.

Right Wing Blogger Idiocy o... WAIT!

2005-02-09T10:52:00.000-06:00

John Derbyshire has a great post at The Corner. I honestly never thought I'd say that, but he does a nice job of lining up all the creationist and meta-creationist ("ID") arguments against evolution and knocking them down.

(via archpundit)

No On Gonzales

2005-01-25T18:44:00.000-06:00

Hey guys.

Just vote no.

He's had two jobs for Bush, one in Texas, one in DC. He's done a bad job on both of them. His status as a Bush family loyalist can get him plenty of jobs, but that doesn't make him qualified for Attorney General which, perhaps more than any other cabinet level post, requires independance from the President.

Just say no.

Signed,

dbt@tQ, sean@tQ. [Steve could not be reached at press time.]

Harry Reid continues to kick ass and take names

2005-01-24T15:20:00.000-06:00

Steve Soto has the details. Good stuff.

One more thing I'd like to see, though I don't know if Senate legislation is the right place to put this.

We need to start talking about the link between the Republican economic agenda, the drop in per-person earnings, the need for two incomes, and the resulting family problems that occur.

This is not a "get your bitch ass back in the kitchen" thing, this is simply about the fact that it's very very difficult for one parent or the other to stay home and take care of the kids.

That's a family value.

Update: a commenter named RT over at MaxSpeak has another good family values + economics pitch: Cube dwellers - who are largely 'professionals', but are really the line workers of the information economy - need overtime too. Cast it as a 'family values' issue - if employers are going to take their workers away from their kids on evenings and weekends, they should at least have to pay for the privilege. Because those kids need parents.

Right Wing Bloggers are Stupid

2005-01-21T13:15:00.000-06:00

Today's "I'm stupid" moment of the day:

Overlawyered.com cites a case about a 17 year old kid suing his school district because he was given homework over summer vacation, which made him cry like a little girl. Now, this kid should suck it up, doubly so because he was given the extra work because he was in an Honors class -- dude, if you can't hack it, just shut it down.

But the irony? The boy and his father are representing themselves, probably because they couldn't get find an attorney who would take such an idiotic case. Overlawyered? I guess not...

Objectively Pro-Abortion

2004-12-31T11:05:00.000-06:00

I can't think of a better phrase to describe this bit of idiocy from the Bush Justice department. I mean, one of the commenters says that even Catholic hospitals hand out the morning after pill to rape victims. But the Justice Dep't says no....

Now HERE's something the DNC needs to think about

2004-12-17T16:21:00.000-06:00

I'm tired of all the hand-wringing and name-calling, so I've basically been ignoring it. But here's something perceptive that Paul Waldman pulled out of the archives recently.

When looking for a politician who's going to win, look at a politician who seems to genuinely ENJOY politics -- and not the backroom policy discussions, but the retail end of it.

Let the Eagle Sooooooooar!

2004-11-09T18:13:00.000-06:00

John Ashcroft Resigns

worth another watch:
http://www.cnn.com/video/us/2002/02/25/ashcroft.sings.wbtv.med.html

Don't let the proverbial screen door hit you in the ass, Jerk!

Onward:
Any bets on who is replacing him? Pat Robertson? William Bennett? Let's see, what are the qualifications for being appointed to AG in a Bush administration?

Has lost a congressional race to a dead guy
Psychotic pentecostal christian
Believes that a track record of 0 convictions (for 5,000 illegally detained persons) equals 'mission accomplished'

Now accepting nominees...

Fuck The South

2004-11-08T17:33:00.000-06:00

In addition to everything else they do wrong, they also kill more cops.:

Twenty-eight of the 52 intentional killings and 37 of the 80 accidental deaths took place in the South, by far the deadliest region.

ASS-GATE ENTERS DAY 3, STILL NO COMMENT

2004-11-08T16:20:00.000-06:00

Andrew, you rubbed your ass on TV (I know, it's not TV, it's HBO) on Friday. Still no explanation, and it's now Monday.

The Internet deserves nothing less than a full and honest explanation of the truth behind ASS-GATE. Andrew, you OWE it to your readers to explain.

Update: was CBS news behind a forgery of the video footage?

Second update: it's been 10 minutes and still no response from Andrew. I say, GUILTY!

Tax Golems

2004-11-08T15:37:00.000-06:00

Today's New York Times has an article Big Tax Plans, Big Tax Risks by Richard W. Stevenson which discusses Bush's desire to reform the national tax code. As usual, the article is structured as a he-said, she-said argument with no real independent analysis.

According to the article, Bush has stated that he wants to the tax code reform to be revenue neutral. Given this goal, the most important question that needs to be asked is how the tax burden will be restructured -- who will end up paying more in taxes and who will pay less? Considering the current Administration has favored tax cuts on wealth over work, shifted the tax burden to the middle class, repeatedly cut taxes for corporations, eliminated the estate tax (which only hits the wealthiest families), and its obsession with the "flat tax" (which typically is a red herring for tax simplification through the elimination of deductions, many of which favor the poor), the Administration doesn't seem to have the working class's interests truly at heart.

I predict that, once again, the poor and middle class are going to have their pockets picked by the rich. Consider this quote from the article: "Advocates of both options say [that some tax reform proposals] would give the economy a substantial boost by effectively eliminating taxes on savings and investment". Eliminating taxes on saving and investment is another way of saying "tax work, not wealth".

Amazingly, the national sales tax is an even worse idea. Why does it not surprise me that Cheney appears to be a fan?

However, my biggest pet peeve with articles on tax policy is they never seem to consider total federal tax burden, let alone total federal, state, and local tax burden. My personal payroll tax burden (both employee and employer share) is larger than my 2003 federal income tax burden, and I'm probably in the second quintile of federal income!

"You broke it, you bought it."

2004-11-05T13:27:00.000-06:00

Slate's Dan Gross writes little preview of the mess that Dems would have had to clean up, and why the potential silver lining will be watching the market pass judgement on the faith-based economics of the Bush team:

In decades past, increasing Republican dominance of the House and Senate would have meant more fiscal discipline. But Republicans increasingly dominate the states that are net drains on Federal taxes—the Southern and Great Plains states—while fading in the coastal states that produce a disproportionate share of federal revenue. (It's Republicans, not Democrats, who are sucking on the federal teat.) What Amity Shlaes quaintly identified in today's Financial Times as the "southern culture of tax cutting" has been married to the southern culture of failing to generate wealth and the southern culture of depending on federal largesse. The offspring is an unsightly deficit monster.
Establishmentarians have long wondered when the grown-ups will asserts themselves in the Republican party. The stark truth today is that there are no grown-ups.

Kevin Drum over at Washington Monthly refers to Brad Delong's analysis of the long-run effects of this faith-based economics insanity. Time to read up on the Argentinian economy?

So, will we get unsustainable spending increases coupled with irresponsible tax reductions?
Probably.

Will we be neck-deep in an expensive occupation of a hostile foreign land with no planned exit?
Already there.

Should we start hedging with investments in the Euro?
Maybe.

Long live supply-side jaysus!

Now What?

2004-11-03T11:34:00.000-06:00

Simply put, Democrats, STOP BEING PUSSIES.

Every one of you.

Don't mince words, call the president a liar.

Don't mince words, call the anti-gay movement bigoted.

And understand that you're a minority party in the house and senate. Don't just be "obstructionist", FIGHT THE MOTHERFUCKERS.

They won't put you on conference committees? Filibuster every motherfuckin' bill. Find every damn mistake they make and hold it up to the light. When they support things like "extraordinary rendition", call it ANTI-AMERICAN. Because IT IS.

And grassroots folks -- time to get working. Time to talk to your neighbors about what's wrong with today's republican party, because it's got real problems and it's causing real problems for America.

No Retreat, No Surrender

2004-11-03T01:53:00.000-06:00

Excellent choice of campaign theme songs, Senator Kerry. Tonight, we're all going up river.

"We made a promise, one we'd always remember..."

MARS, BITCHES

2004-11-02T13:50:00.000-06:00

CRIMINEY! [Jonah Goldberg]

I went out for a brief lunch with missus and I come back to discover things are going south? What the...? From what I'm hearing, Florida's an uphill climb right now and New Hampshire's a lost cause. Trying to nail things down.

The Mandate Of A Kerry Landslide

2004-11-02T09:52:00.000-06:00

Don't forget -- even though a Kerry presidency is only possible through an Electoral College victory, his mandate will be largely determined by the national popular vote. This means that even if you aren't in a swing state, a vote for Kerry is still important -- it sends the clear message that the nation as a whole rejects Bush's performance in office, and that we will stand behind our new Commander in Chief.

Get out and vote!

Andrew Sullivan calls Kaus out

2004-11-01T19:59:00.000-06:00

AS FOR MICKEY:
"It's always pleasant to be dismissed as "excitable". I do react to events instantly and with my emotions as well as my brain. And I reserve the right in blog-time to change my mind. But I have never been so excitable as to have argued last December that Kerry's campaign was so execrably bad that he should withdraw from the race before the Iowa caucuses. Let's roll the tape, shall we?"

Cue Nelson-laugh.

Despair not, part II

2004-11-01T19:29:00.000-06:00

Read.

Despair not

2004-11-01T18:40:00.000-06:00

Check out what republican poll watchers were saying the day before election day in 2000:

The real debate is not who is going to win the election, but whether Bush will win 308 electoral votes or 474 electoral votes... The worst case scenario for a Bush victory will be a 2-3 point win in the popular vote and 10-20% more than the necessary 270 EC votes... George W. Bush has a better chance of carrying New Jersey and Vermont than Al Gore does of becoming the next President of the United States.... On Tuesday night the talking heads will all be abuzz with ... the surprising strength of Ralph Nader... We continue to see a landslide of over 400 electoral votes and a Bush win by 7-10 points."

For the record, Al Gore carried New Jersey and Vermont, and should have been the next President of the United States. Ah well.

John Kerry, Contras, and Cocaine

2004-11-01T13:14:00.000-06:00

Salon ran a story a few days ago by Robert Parry entitled How John Kerry Exposed The Contra-Cocaine Scandal. Here's a passage from the article:

Behind it all was Kerry, who combined a prosecutor's sense for sniffing out criminality and a politician's instinct for pushing the limits. The Kerry whom I met during this period was a complex man who balanced a rebellious idealism with a determination not to burn his bridges to the political establishment.

The Reagan administration did everything it could to thwart Kerry's investigation, including attempting to discredit witnesses, stonewalling the Senate when it requested evidence and assigning the CIA to monitor Kerry's probe. But it couldn't stop Kerry and his investigators from discovering the explosive truth: that the Contra war was permeated with drug traffickers who gave the Contras money, weapons and equipment in exchange for help in smuggling cocaine into the United States. Even more damningly, Kerry found that U.S. government agencies knew about the Contra-drug connection, but turned a blind eye to the evidence in order to avoid undermining a top Reagan-Bush foreign policy initiative.

This and the BCCI investigation are two crystal-clear positive reasons to vote for Kerry, independent of any anti-Bush sentiments.

Joe Trippi

2004-11-01T10:02:00.000-06:00

I really don't intend to turn this into an all "powerline is stupid", all the time blog, but they really crack me up: "Joe Trippi (Is he a blogger? Not that I know of)..."

Well, dumbasses, he does have a blog on JoeTrippi.com and he posts on MSNBC's HardBlogger (probably the bit that got him on the NBC news broadcast), but he became nationally famous pimping Howard Dean's BlogForAmerica.com (now part of Dean's DemocracyForAmerica.com) during the primaries. Perhaps if you didn't have your heads up Glenn Reynold's ass you might have heard of that one.