Politics

With the Finance Reform bill on a smooth track (well-supported by Republicans who know a popular measure when they see one), word began to spread today that the next item on the agenda will be the budget. With that word came a reminder of something that the Obama administration campaigned on -- a desire to preserve the middle-class portion of the Bush tax cuts. The reasons aren't hard to find. From 2001 to 2007, the most recent economic boom period, 2/3rds of the increase in revenue went to the top 1% of earners. During the same period middle-of-the-road income was completely flat. (source) Those of us in the moderate middle dislike even a hint of income redistri…

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0420/Supreme-Court-rejects-animal-cruelty-law-upholds-free-speech The Supreme Court overturned a lower-court ruling by an 8-1 vote, so videos of animal cruelty are now legal. The one dissent came not from one of the liberal justices but from one of the Bush conservatives -- Alito -- who said he felt it should have instead been referred back to a lower court. I agree with this ruling in terms of consistency with free speech and the constitution. Perhaps there's some other way we can stop this sort of thing, but I think we have bigger fish to fry. (sorry, couldn't resist)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/business/18view.html?ref=business A very well reasoned argument from my favorite economist. Tyler Cowen is libertarianish but sometimes argues for paternalism and never for dogmatism. Operating, on the assumption that we'll need to cut gov't spending soon, it turns out "socialist" nations of Sweden, Finland, Canada and Ireland are much better at it than we are. Are Americans too cynical of our government's ability to get the job done? If we trusted politicians a bit more, would that empower them to make positive bargains when it's time to tighten the belt? I see potential for the argument, and use the tea party as a…

I came across this essay from 2006 at the Cato Institute. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6800 It suggests that the conservative-libertarian fusion of the past is largely exhausted, and that an alliance of liberals and libertarians is actually more natural, if only each could get around their respective kneejerk hangups. The argument is that libertarian means naturally support progressive ends and vice versa, and offers numerous examples of shared ends and suggestions for reasonable compromise regarding seemingly insurmountable differences (like the entitlement system). I thought I'd share it because I like its optimism, and because I think there ar…

I'm something of a fairweather friend of the Democrats, and while I'm sure many of you know I practically hate the Republicans, the Democrats have their fair share of foibles which makes me mad at them. Well, this week, I've been pleasantly surprised... SEC charges Goldman Sachs with fraud Congress pursues a ban on large financial institutions trading in CDOs Hospitals that want federal money must allow visits to same-sex partners Former Blackwater president indicted on illegal arms sales That seems like some progress to me Unfortunately, the Tea Party has done a great job of drumming up bad press. Completely unfounded, ignorant bad press. B…

Caught a few minutes of Rush at lunch time today, as open line Friday's are always kind of interesting and he is doing his annual Leukemia and Lymphoma Society money drive, kicking it off with a $400,000 donation. And apparently donations are surprisingly high this year, as well as last - at least according to the show. So it dawned on me, that this serves a better example of a point I've tried to make over the years. (I always used starving chinese kids as an example.)That when we set up programs to help folks and fund them with taxes, that we are essentially forcing everyone to redirect their capital to causes that we find important. We've decided that your cau…

We have all heard about Crashtheteaparty.org by now. The most famous of these supposed racist outbursts happened at the steps of the Capitol where Tea Party activists supposedly shouted racial and sexual slurs at Congressman as they went to sign the health care bill. These accusations quickly vanished into the ether after CNN reviewed all the tape they had and found no such slurs hurled, and the spitting to be accidental. Given that this group exists, and claims to have operatives at all events, and major accusations have been found to be baseless, how reliable do you consider the evidence to be out there of racist signs and shouts at the Tea Party rallies?

I'm sure everyone's probably heard of this or has seen this clip. This accidental slip of the truth helps to validate suspicions many of us Constitutional types have long suspected out of the democratic party. (And to be fair, it's not that republicans are off the hook, it's that republicans do what they do and actually believe the constitution supports them. So, they manage to escape blatant dismissal of our founding document.) So, Phil Hare doesn't care what the constitution says. Yet, he took an oath to uphold it. Shouldn't he be impeached? And removed from office, never allowed to return? Isn't this open and shut? Granted, he'll likely los…

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/04/16/2010-04-16_obama_assassination_plot_paul_schlesselman_sentenced_to_10_years_for_plotting_mu.html I say they should've thrown this guy in with the Gitmo inmates... what's the difference really?

I caught a partial segment of CNN today and Sarah Palin was speaking at a TEA Party rally. She said "We'll keep our religion and our guns-you keep the change." Who is trying to take away religion and guns?

Recently the subject has been coming up here about Republicans riling up the masses and inflaming the tea party movement. This often seems to be presented as a new thing, and something Democrats would never do, or that Republicans should logically be perceived as worse than Democrats, as if that actually makes sense. I think this is a great example of selective memory based on ideological preference. I offer this video as evidence that not only have Democrats done this themselves, but they know full well that their supporters won't hold them accountable for it. dg29GWk2nMc

I figured I would pass this on for all to read as I think it does a very good job of stating the conservative ideology without cluttering it too heavily with whatever planks happen to be on the plate for a given generation. http://www.conservativeforum.org/EssaysForm.asp?ID=6046

Confederate History Exchange I think the link provides an interesting point of discussion in regards to cultural heritage. I find myself agreeing with both the reader and editor, except the part regarding Nazi Germany. I actually think the comparison of German soldiers to Confederate soldiers is valid, different times and different goals, but they both fought on losing sides both morally and in history. My question is more general than the civil war, since most cultures can find instances where they fought on the wrong side. Can we celebrate our ancestors without celebrating the cause that they fought for? Should we?

The Supreme Court has recently been making the news, or rather that one of the judges is retiring and Obama gets to pick a replacement. Regardless of who he chooses, the judges are mostly Catholic and Jewish. In fact, the Catholics hold a majority. Am I the only one who feels uncomfortable that over half of our Supreme Court subscribes to a religion which states that their leader (a foreigner) is infallible?

That is the front page headline of this article that can be found here, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/05/obama-limit-potential-uses-nuclear-weapons/ "Administration says it will pledge, with exception, not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries — no matter what they use against us" "You decide: Is Obama Limiting Nukes too much?" I don't even know where to start. How can Fox turn such a good thing, nuclear nonproliferation, into an attack on Obama? Well I guess it is Fox. The ignorance of the You decide question is what really gets me though, it is like asking, "Is Obama limiting mustard gas too much?" I also love the feature…

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/04/10/2264694.aspx http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/04/10/romney-wins-srlc-straw-poll/?test=latestnews http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002208-503544.html http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/10/republican.conference/index.html?iref=allsearch Hmm. this is a comparison of this news headline from several different sources, it seems much of the media is minimalizing Ron Paul.

I was barreling down the interstate, the only car on the road late that night. Suddenly my car brightens up everywhere, with colored lights dancing and flickering about it. A vehicle drops from above to nearly the same level as my door's rearview mirror right outside. "Pull over." Wtf? When did they get hover cars? (Just a note: this would be unnerving even in a future where it's thoroughly established. Your own car roof blocks the view of what's happening above, for one thing. Even with a sunroof, the dazzling lights would just mess up your view) Oh boy, I pulled to the side. No ticket, but got a friendly warning on a slip of paper. I drove off again, half…

This was heralded quite a bit recently, but Justice Stevens made it official today, announcing that he will retire at the end of the current term. USA Today has some speculation about his successor here. Some of the picks are interesting, but it's basically the same list we saw with the Sotomayor pick. The political gaming on this will revolve around the fact that, as with Sotomayor, Obama is replacing a liberal justice with another liberal justice. From that perspective, simply "holding the line", rather than "changing the balance." But of course many conservatives won't see it that way, and one can obviously expect Republicans to be vehement in opposition to …

check out here http://www.gop.com/firepelosi/ "On behalf of the entire RNC staff we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your generous donations to help us regain Congress in 2010 and fire Nancy Pelosi from the office of the Speaker of the House. This is the first step in restoring accountability to our nation's Capitol, please stay tuned for more information on what's next in the campaign to fire Pelosi" -Michael Steele I love the burning flame backdrop behind Nancy Pelosi. Anyway, it seems they want to return accountability to our nation's capitol? Hopefully they don't mean the return of the following as "accountability". "On January 21, 1997, t…

I thought it time to create a thread specifically for this conversation. It keeps hijacking nearly every thread which even vaguely references economics, so I'm hoping this thread will create a good way to keep our other discussions focused. So, let's talk about it. The Austrian School of Economics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School ...is a school of economic thought that emphasizes the spontaneous organizing power of the price mechanism or price system. Austrians hold that the complexity of human behavior makes mathematical modeling of the evolving market extremely difficult (or undecidable) and advocate a laissez faire approach to the economy.…

Fascinating analysis of liberal versus conservative tendencies of their userbase by the creators of the OkCupid dating site: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2010/03/30/the-democrats-are-doomed-or-how-a-big-tent-can-be-too-big/ OkCupid, if you're unfamiliar, matches users based on a large and open ended set of survey questions, trying to determine similarity between users and whether they'd be compatible. Their conclusions about political similarity, culled through anonymous statistical analysis of their userbase, is that liberals are a far more diverse group than conservatives, who are largely a monoculture: As you can see, conservatives of both strip…

South Dakota has passed a resolution which effectively calls for a "teach the controversy" approach to climate change: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/02/21/you-cant-resolve-away-climate-change/ It's full of gems like... WHEREAS, the earth has been cooling for the last eight years despite small increases in anthropogenic carbon dioxide; Yes, they're completely right, the earth has been cooling during the warmest decade on record... for EIGHT YEARS! </sarcasm> Never mind 2005 was the warmest year on record and it's only been 5 years since then. More debunking of these silly, unscientific claims can be found in the Bad Astrono…

04NXAFktROo He wants to legalize pot. What do you think?

In very general terms, the free market motivation is based on making money. While government motivation is based on making power. Free market money can then be used to buy power, such as with lobbying and targeted campaign contributions. While power can be used to make money, such as with taxation and regulations. The free market is good at making money. Profit is maximized when the resources are used as efficiently as possible. One needs to cheap down as far as possible and still be able to sell. In government, one is not allowed to use their position to make personal money. At least not in the open. What is allowed is to use one's position to create more power. Th…

BarackObama.com has launched a new t-shirt on April Fools Day: View the shirt here (it's huge) If you aren't aware of what BFD is, it's a reference to a speaking gaffe made by Joe Biden, when he accidentally said that "this is a big f*cking deal" on national television to president Obama when a mic could pick up what he was saying: 3TOcZRK6-ZU Rather than trying to gloss over the f-bomb, apparently BarackObama.com has embraced it, and is now selling t-shirts that let you express your belief that healthcare is a BFD. At least, they seem to be real...