Reload turned 4 this weekend.
Can’t Bring Yourself to Type the Word “Ass”?
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!
Congrats Lee… it actually makes you one of the old men of blogging. (Though not nearly as old as Neil.)
Al Gore Was Right
Wingnuts mocked Al Gore for proposing a 50-cent federal tax hike on gasoline back when gas was cheap. He was right, they were wrong.
It was an unpopular proposal that never had a chance, of course. But let’s consider what would have happened if Congress had passed it.
It wouldn’t have increased supply because the money would have gone to government, not oil producers. But it would have dampened demand, postponing or preventing the current supply constraint.
People would have demanded more fuel-thrifty vehicles instead of flocking to gas guzzlers. This would have accelerated R & D work on the hybrid and electric vehicles now taking shape, and earlier development of those cars would have keep more auto jobs in America. Not to mention keeping gas prices significantly lower by permanently reduce consumption.
Our infrastructure would be in better shape and we’d have more mass transit because the money would have been available for those investments. More mass transit would have meant less driving and even further reductions in gasoline demand and consumption.
In all likelihood, gas would still be well under $3, and possibly under $2, if these measures had been taken. Instead, our transportation infrastructure is crumbling and those who opposed Gore’s gas tax are paying about $4.40 a gallon for gas locally, and probably will be paying $5 sometime this year.
These idiots wouldn’t even pay an extra 9 1/2 cents to the state for long-deferred maintenance and needed upgrades. Instead, they get to pay an extra $3 to terrorist-coddling Arab sheikhs and rapacious oil companies.
Wallow in it, wingnuts! I have no sympathy for you. You brought this on yourselves.
Go Obama!
Oops posted it twice.
The Tacoma Paper is talking about McCain’s Astroturf effort.
http://tinyurl.com/4djew2
“Clearly, Republicans are feeling the need to connect with younger voters.”
That’s like asking slaves to work overtime.
Why won’t FlipFlop McCain’s wife RELEASE her tax records. Letting a few reporters into a room with documents that have been redacted; refusing to allow reporters to bring pens, paper, computers, cameras, audio recorders into the room and doing so with no way for the reporters to know if the documents are real is not the same as RELEASING the records. What is she trying to hide? President Obama’s family has fully released their records!
Happy anniversary Lee. Your blogging on the idiocy and waste of drug prohibition is excellent.
Keep up the great work!
#3 Hear hear. That strategy worked so well in Europe. These repubs are always in the way when it comes to taxing ourselves to prosperity.
@9
Obviously you’re not smart enough to follow the link and read it.
Btw, Europe is doing just fine these days.
Happy anniversary Lee. Your blogging on the idiocy and waste of drug prohibition is excellent.
Yes, very important work. You are one of the real ones, a universe in and of yourself.
Thanks for the kind words everyone. I appreciate it.
11 – Is it the HNMT showing his face after the brutal thrashing he got from me?
LMAO!!
@ 7: Well, it’s been Republican strategy over the past eight years, at least. After raking Clinton over the coals (it’s not about the sex, it’s about LYING UNDER OATH, a felony!!!), they have been determined not to be put into a position of ever being put under oath. With good reason, given what happened to Libby. So they allowed oil executives to “testify” in Congress without being put under oath (“…we don’t want to insult them…”), they offer to make Rove & others available for Congressional investigations only if they are not under oath, the proceedings are held in private, no record is kept, etc.
So whatever comments the selected journalists can make regarding Cindy McCain’s tax returns, McCain’s campaign is free to argue that it isn’t true, that they are mistaken or worse, and nobody is in a position to argue differently.
bybygoober@7: She paid federal income taxes of about $2 million jackASS. That’s all I need to know.
She paid federal income taxes of about $2 million
Classic Stupes: money talks, right wing bullshit walks.
15: How would you know? Prove it! Oh, that’s right, you can’t, because no copies have been release. You have to take McCain’s word for it.
Interesting commentary by Paul Krugman in today’s P.I., equating the Bush Tax Cuts with a corporate “poison pill”, which makes any management changes extraordinarily difficult. Given the fiscal crisis created by the tax cuts, combined with the war and other fiscal mis-management, he posits that all Obama can do is tinker with the distribution and try to solve some of the Bush Deficit, but he can’t raise money to deal with new initiatives such as universal health care.
Even Obama has taken fiscal poison pill
Now notice an unrelated story about how health care costs to employers are expected to rise by 10% this year, and another 10% next year.
Health care costs: 10 percent jump?
Fixing all the damage done over the past eight years is going to be depressingly difficult.