According to the Seattle Times editorial board, Democrats are bad people:
THE priority of the majority Democrats in Olympia has not been economic recovery. If it were, the Legislature would not be leaning on the taxpayer for nine-tenths of a billion dollars.
Damn… they finally caught on. Yes the priority of us Dems, as always, has been the destruction of the economic and social fabric of these United States. “Heil Osama bin Stalin!”… or something like that.
Or perhaps, it’s possible, there might be a legitimate debate to be had over economic policy, with the majority of Dems genuinely believing that the anti-stimulative effects of further state government cuts would be greater than the anti-stimulative effects of minor tax increases? But, you know, it’s always easier just to question your opponents’ motives.
If the priority were economic recovery, Thursday’s page-one headline in The Seattle Times would not have been, “Despite cuts, state spending actually on track to go up.”
Oh God… if the Legislature’s spending, regulatory and revenue priorities were based solely on coaxing complimentary headlines out of the Seattle Times, Washington state would look like Somalia by now. I mean honestly, this is a paper that has steadfastly refused to cover the billions of dollars in spending cuts over the past two years, and the impact it has had on Washington families, yet we’re expected to accept their headlines as a generally accurate let alone evenhanded depiction of reality?
The priority of legislators has been protecting state employees. In the past two years, when private employment in Washington has plunged by 7.5 percent, the total of state workers outside of higher education has been shaved by 0.7 percent. The Legislature might have increased that rate in the coming year, but it didn’t.
A.) The past performance of the Times’ editorial board has given me absolutely no reason to accept that assertion as fact. B) Nice job cherry-picking data by excluding a big chunk of state general fund spending. I mean, it’s kinda like saying that “Nobody in Times management, outside of Frank Blethen, has ever shot a neighbor’s dog.”
Many voices, including this page, told legislators to declare a fiscal emergency and reopen state employee contracts. Raising the employee share of health-care premiums from 12 percent to 20 percent — a share that is still below the average in the private sector — would have saved about $50 million in this biennium. The Legislature didn’t do it.
Which is surprising, because if you’re gonna take fiscal advice from anybody, it’s a company that pissed away a half a billion dollars of equity over the past decade.
There is also the matter of step increases — an automatic pay increase for an employee not at the top of the salary schedule. In the worst crisis in years, with taxes being slapped on all sorts of things and the unemployment rate close to 9 percent, the Legislature continued to fund step increases.
While what the Times really wanted the state to do was use this crisis as an excuse to break contracts and crush the public employee unions.
The state might simply stop doing some things. A bill was introduced to end the state’s retail monopoly of liquor. The Legislature didn’t pass it.
And regardless of whose numbers you believe, passing it would have done absolutely nothing to address our current budget crisis. But again, if we can exploit the Great Recession as an excuse for privatizing something for the sake of privatization, why not have at it?
A year ago, when the economic omens were worse, the Legislature made it through without big tax increases. Back then, Initiative 960 required a two-thirds vote, and they didn’t have that. This year, I-960 was amendable by a simple majority, and they quickly amended it. After that, the tax proposals scurried out like crabs from under a wet rock.
If all you knew about politics came from the Times’ headlines and editorials, you might think that you have to handcuff those tax-and-spend Democrats to the radiator to keep them from raising taxes every full moon, when in fact when it comes to major taxes, the opposite has been true over at least the past quarter century.
Despite the fact that the sale of goods has represented an ever shrinking portion of the state economy since the 1950’s, there hasn’t been a hike in the state portion of the sales tax rate since 1983… the longest such lag, by far, since the sales tax was implemented back in 1935. The B&O tax on manufacturing was cut in 1995 and again in 1997, and now it too stands at 1983 levels. And while the gas tax has been raised 14.5 cents since 2003, that jump followed a nearly unprecedented 12-year period of stagnation, with the current 37.5 cent a gallon tax still falling below the historical average as a percentage of the price at the pump. Only the tobacco tax has seen substantial increases, but primarily for public health reasons, and with bipartisan support.
Meanwhile, the Democratic controlled Legislature has spent much of the past decade passing billions of dollars worth of tax exemptions. And let’s not forget car tabs, which the Legislature eliminated in 1998 by feebly reenacting Tim Eyman’s unconstitutional I-965, essentially cutting a chunk of annual revenue equivalent to a one cent per dollar reduction in the state sales tax rate.
Indeed, even with the plethora of property and sales tax increases approved by local voters, total state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income fell from a high of 10.4% in 1994 to 8.9% in 2008, ranking us 35th nationwide according to the conservative Tax Foundation. So the very notion that it was I-960 that handcuffed Democrats, rather than their own well-documented reluctance to anger taxpayers, is complete and utter bullshit.
Raising taxes is never an easy thing for politicians to do, not even Democrats. Never. And to imply otherwise is nothing short of slander.
Senate Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, blamed her urban colleagues. “I think a majority of our caucus is from very safe districts.” she said. “As a result, they just feel like we don’t want to reform.”
Lynn Kessler is a Republican. There, I said it. At least on fiscal issues, the Democratic caucus is led, if not dominated, by politicians who would have been Republicans two decades ago. And yet even with the outsized influence that these economic DINOs have on the caucus’s agenda, Kessler has the nerve to publicly criticize her urban colleagues for occasionally voting the needs and interests of their constituents over that of the BIAW and Frank Blethen?
There’s a part of me that almost wishes the Democrats would lose a bunch of House seats come November, if only to foment a caucus revolt that might install some new and more effective leadership, that truly reflects the values of the Democratic Party.
Somebody, sometime, is going to make them reform state government. It will happen. But it didn’t happen this year.
Reform? What reform? The Times didn’t call for reform; they called for busting state employee unions and dropping temporary assistance to those unable to work due to physical or mental disability. Would that save money in the short term? Sure. Would it address the bureaucratic inefficiencies and misplaced priorities that surely exist? Nope. And it sure as hell wouldn’t do anything to address the long term structural revenue deficit that results from clinging to an early 20th century tax structure that simply doesn’t fit the reality of our post-industrial, 21st century economy.
But again, you know, if there’s an opportunity to impugn the character and motives of the majority Democrats, why not take it?
Just when you think the Seattle Times editorial board couldn’t possibly be more stupid they go and get stupider.
But I think most people read the editorial pages for amusement, and realize it’s an extension of the comics pages.
I dunno, I seriously think it’s time for the Dems to look at the Republican model of economics and do for Washington state what they did for the federal government — cut taxes, overspend by $11 Trillion dollars, borrow the money from China and then blame the Republicans for our failed ideas.
The Times editorialists apparently don’t realize every cent of those taxes will be spent, nearly all of it locally, and economically speaking it makes no difference whether consumers put it in circulation or the state does. In fact, it’s more likely to have a greater stimulative effect if the state does, because consumers are more apt to hoard the money or spend it on goods purchased through the internet from out-of-state companies. The argument that taxation somehow withdraws money from circulation and thereby shrinks the economy is bogus.
Speaking of Thursday’s (misleading) headline, their own story said the Democratic budgets* would raise overall spending in the next biennium from $0 to $200 million. If the latter is enacted, which must be what the headline refers to, spending would “go up” by only six tenths of one percent. Whoop-de-doo!
The state’s population is growing, which means more kids attending school, etc., so on a per capita basis a level budget actually CUTS spending-per-citizen. That’s difficult for politicians to do even in hard times, so why isn’t the Times giving the Democratic governor and legislators credit for doing it? Because the people who dictate** Times editorial policy are Republican pricks, that’s why.
* There are at least three: The Senate budget, the House budget, and the governor’s budget.
** The Times is, of course, a dictatorship. Its editorial board wasn’t elected, and readers have no say in editorial policies.
“But again, you know, if there’s an opportunity to impugn the character and motives of the majority Democrats, why not take it?”
Frank Blethen is a bitter old man.
It occurs to me that spending $150 million on a printing plant in Bothell to disseminate the rantings of a bitter old man probably wasn’t a real good investment from a strictly economic point of view.
The state does need to reconsider how it collects revenue to provide the services that the citizens in the state expect. It needs to change in ways though that the editorial wouldn’t like.
Their method of cobbling together a series of things to do the job part way isn’t the answer either. The state dems have pissed off not only the rabid anti-tax crowd but also some of its traditional base as well who feel that more stable funding would allow people do their jobs without biennial and now annual fear of losing 100% of their funding.
The Washington State Democratic party is a closed society that will never let people in who see the broader picture and have the balls and the charisma to make real change. It’s the same old junior league mentality that many democratic leaning progressives would be shocked and disappointed to learn was the truth.
And everyone likes their own representatives, so where it counts, no one is motivated to change. Repub wouldn’t be better at all, so there you have it. It all stays the same.
@8 Washington state’s Democrats actually are the New Republican Party. At least we do have some enlightened Republicans in our state, that’s the good part. The bad part is they control the Democratic Party here.
“But, you know, it’s always easier just to question your opponents’ motives.”
Is this irony Goldy? I mean this has been the drumbeat of Democrats about Republicans for a year now. No possibility that since not one Republican supports the destruction of American health care they might do so on principled grounds, for instance. No possiblitly that since no Republicans support the Chavez look alike who is your president they might do so because they love the real county. You know, the country outside LA, Seattle and New York City. The country where real Americans live who actually like and are proud of their country. That country.
I’d be fine with a flat tax on all Washington State residents above poverty line, for instance, with the elimination of the sales tax. But this isn’t what people like you want. What you want is for 20% of the population to pay the freight for everyone else. Likely this is adolescent envy, or toddlerlike temper tantrums about how much worse you are doing than them. Whatever the source if anyone is guilty of questioning motives without any interest in a substantive debate it is the far left. You, in fact, Goldy.
Re 3
I’ll be generous and allow your socialist president to share the credit for most of that 11 trillion. After all it was his idea.
RE 4
Oh yeah. I mean why let those unenlighted workers spend the money they earned on stuff they actually want? That would be positively democratic for Gods’ sake! We need more light rail no one rides. We need more money spent on City Halls nicer than the offices of most of the businesses that pay the cost of building them!
@10 “since no Republicans support the Chavez look alike who is your president …”
Can anyone be sillier than you? Are you trying to compete with Klown and putz for the Golden Goat Award?
And speaking of questioning opponents’ motives …
@11 You post crapola like this and expect anyone to take you seriously? Really, now …
Goldy,
I’m curious about why you hate the Times so much. I mean, you could just ignore it, if it’s as laughable as you constantly charge. You could just think that blogs are replacing reputable journalism as the means by which Americans get their misinformation.
But no, you have to constantly trash them. Sour grapes? Did the big bad Times tell you they weren’t interested in your insane rantings at some point?
@12 Most of the state offices I worked in over the years were crumbling shitholes. One was so bad the meeting room had no heat, a hole in the roof, and rainwater collected in the middle of the conference table. But trying to explain reality to an ideologue like you is wasted effort because you tune out what you don’t want to hear.
Rabbit,
Until he began to run for national office Obama was very open in his disdain for the Constitution as outdated and incapable of working in modern times. Look it up.
Until he began to run for national office he was very open about associating almost soley with the far and radical left, even including terrorists like Ayres in his list of buddies.
So yes, this is a substantive dislike of a US president who doesn’t much care for his country. Oddly that offends me. Sorry.
Reid’s Wife, Daughter Hurt In Accident
Sen. Harry Reid’s wife was seriously injured in a car accident yesterday. His daughter suffered less serious injuries. They were in a car that was stopped in stop-and-go traffic when they were rear-ended by a tractor-trailer rig. Mrs. Reid suffered a broken neck and broken back, and underwent surgery this morning. His daughter was released from the hospital last night.
@17 Are you a birther, too?
Point of information:
Kessler has always been a Democrat. So has The Other Timmah! (Sheldon) and Hargrove. In their time, at various times (80s and 90s), they were arguably way more conservative than most of the Rs.
Also note: when the Rs last controlled the Senate, The Other Timmah! was Natural Resources Chair — as a D.
And those of us who’ve been around awhile remember Dixie Lee Ray (and cringe).
Having a “big tent” is both a blessing and a curse.
Re 14
I haven’t expected a liberal to engage in civilized discourse about politics for at least a decade now. Maybe it’s because a lot of them use it in lieu of a religion, with all the fanatical fervor that denotes. I don’t know, but I don’t expect reasoned discourse from the left.
Re 16
Credit where credit is due. The government offices I’ve done business with, I never saw much more than the public spaces. For all I know the back premises are Stalin architecture look alikes.
I do know that I used to bid public works. Most of the time conditions (prevailing wage, limited access, unusual working hours) made these bids a factor of 25% to 50% more costly than private sector bids would tolerate, but that’s a different segment of public finance than you likely dealt with, so it’s unfair to put this to you.
Re 19
Nope. Nor have I ever been to a Tea Party. I just have this weird prejudice where I want an American president to love his country.
AOL News reports,
“A group of Republican senators is questioning high salaries and expensive travel bills for executives at the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, raising issues that could jeopardize millions in federal funding for the national charity.
“The … senators said they were concerned that the chief executive of a charity that has been closing local clubs for lack of funding was compensated nearly $1 million in 2008.
“They also questioned why in the same year officials spent $4.3 million on travel, $1.6 million on conferences, conventions and meetings, and $544,000 in lobbying fees.”
http://www.dailyfinance.com/ar.....26/?cid=10
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This story should grab your attention whenever anti-government factions try peddling private charities as the solution to our social needs.
The fact is, the charity industry is a business, and many charities take advantage of their volunteers and donors while enriching their executives.
Here locally, the CEO of the St. Vincent de Paul charity makes a six-figure salary. Elizabeth Dole was criticized for drawing a six-figure salary while serving as president of the American Red Cross. This is a common pattern throughout the country.
There are a few exceptions. For example, the Salvation Army’s paid staff only get subsistence stipends. As of 2003, their top executive made $13,000 a year.
Why should charity work be lucrative? Many charities depend on unpaid volunteers or pay their workers minimum wage. Why should charity leaders make big money? Isn’t it generally understood that the time you devote to charity work is donated?
For most people, it is. But for the executives running America’s charities, it’s just another business, done for pay and perks.
Remember that the next time a wingnut tries to tell you charity is a better way of addressing our societal problems than government.
@21 You make me laugh. You know, Lost, you can’t expect to post intellectually-bereft garbage like that and then demand “civilized discourse” in return. Really, you can’t. Fuck you, asshole.
@Holy Shit!:
Kuwaitis predict Peak Oil in 2014. Here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35.....nd_energy/
Zotz comment: I’m personally convinced we reached peak oil and gas liquids production in 2006 and have been on a plateau since. That the Kuwaitis have gone public with this is HUGE. Think the economy is bad now? We haven’t seen anything yet!
@23: I shop at Goodwill. We have a couple great stores here in West Sound. And they’re doing good things for people down on their luck without any religious bullshit or discrimination.
Re 24
One of the responses was a statement of fact (my experience of government offices and bids.) The other was a subjective statement of personal recollection. You don’t respond to the one with facts, the other isn’t a fact based or testable statement.
Well, I’ve got work to do, so have a nice day.
@24: Thanks for that. My sentiments exactly.
@Goldy: Spirited discourse is good. But total fucking liars should be banned. At least give us an ignore button so the rest of us don’t end up with shit stink on us.
@21 “For all I know the back premises are Stalin architecture look alikes.”
That’s not accurate. The ones I worked in were a mix of state-owned and commercial properties rented from private landlords. Apart from the condition of the buildings, it was not uncommon for agency staffs to be spread out in numerous locations because the agency’s office space consisted of a patchwork of rentals that was thrown together by state leasing agents who were looking for the cheapest rents.
The state-owned buildings tended to be new (but cheap) construction with open interior layouts designed to accomodate cubicle warrens. Rented properties typically were old buildings in disrepair. They once housed businesses, but had become obsolete for that purpose and their owners couldn’t attract private tenants anymore, and the state rented them precisely because they were the cheapest footage available. They tended to have chopped-up interiors, inefficient heating systems and little or no insulation, stuffy ventilation and windows that wouldn’t open, and some were “sick buildings.” When the state no longer wanted them, they became candidates for the wrecking ball.
Toward the end of my career, the state began investing more in office space. Particularly in Olympia, where state office space tends to be owned rather than rented, consolidating agency staffs under one roof became a high priority for obvious efficiency reasons. Some of my former Seattle colleagues still working for the state have moved into Class A office space. Of the worst buildings I worked in, virtually all are either out of service or have been refurbished. So the situation is better now, because of state investments in workspaces over the last 20 years. I suspect these investments were driven in no small part by the need for space that was suitable for temperature and humidity sensitive computer systems.
Bitch about state spending all you want. I don’t see why public servants have to work in hellholes to satisfy cheapskates like you. As far as I’m concerned, state workers deserve workspaces that are as comfortable and healthy as people in the private sector get.
@22 What you posted @17 is no less full of shit.
@25 What’s amazing is that any oil producer would admit it.
Zotz,
Just to make it worth answering any of your posts in future-
Calling someone a liar doesn’t make them one, absent proof. For instance your president said he would never sign a health care bill with an insurance mandate. This was a lie. See how that works?
See, spirited debate means you come to grips with the matter of the opponents argument. Simple ad hominem argument just makes you look foolish.
I disagree with most of the little substantive matter you post, when one subtracts the anti religious ranting. The difference between an average conservative and an average liberal is that I respect your right to believe what you see fit to.
Now, I really do have to get down to my overpriced City Hall to pick up a building permit. So I wish you a pleasant afternoon.
@27 You posted nonsensical partisan garbage @17, and you’ve posted a lot of other screeching partisan bullshit on this blog. In fact, you make a regular habit of it.
@28 “But total fucking liars should be banned.”
I disagree. I think they should be allowed, nay, encouraged to hang their bullshit in the breeze — so everyone can see what they’re really made of.
@32 “The difference between an average conservative and an average liberal is that I respect your right to believe what you see fit to.”
You do? I haven’t seen one shred of evidence that you have any respect for either those you disagree with or the government you routinely trash and we regularly defend. See, e.g., your very next sentence in your post @32.
What you posted @23 is no less full of shit.
“You know, the country outside LA, Seattle and New York City. The country where real Americans live…”
You write stuff like this? I’m with rabbit. That is contemptible.
Zotz said…
Okay, that’s nice… The Puddy Family gives our still useful clothes and old furniture to the NW Center and Goodwill in Mukilteo and Everett. It’s a great tax write-off. We don’t give underwear to them.
Lost,
Arguing with progressives is like talking to a brick wall. THE DUMB BUNNY can’t fathom truths unless it’s fabricated from progressive DUMMOCRAPTS.
Their great House leader recently told us this “truth”: “We have to pass the health care bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
THE DUMB BUNNY…
There it’s fixed.
@22 “I want an American president to love his country.”
I love our country as much as you do.
President Obama loves our country as much as you do.
All of us posting here love our country as much as you do.
@32 “For instance your president said he would never sign a health care bill with an insurance mandate. This was a lie. See how that works?”
No, it wasn’t a lie. You don’t know how politics works. There’s often a difference between what a candidate tells his supporters he wants, and what he’s able to get when he’s in office. See how that works?
Funniest THE DUMB BUNNY comment of the day…
Really THE DUMB BUNNY? The European Apology Tour? The Arab Apology Tour? The Europeans dislike us more now than when GWBush was president. Your good Al Qaeda friends (they wanted Kerry for president in 2004 and Pelosi as house speaker in 2006) are attacking us with more ferocity now!
@31: Roger that! (Pun intended)
@41 By the way, I think a colorable argument can be made that Bill Ayers loves America as much as you do. Although you and I may disagree with the methods he chose to oppose the policies of our government, those policies were bad for our country (and the world). Ayers committed crimes and escaped prison only due to prosecutorial misconduct, but since then, he has devoted his life to improving education in this country. Yes, he has an imperfect past, but despite your efforts to caricature him as a “terrorist,” since that time he has been both a law-abiding citizen and a contributor to our collective well-being. The efforts of rightwingers like you to slime Obama by associating him with Ayers’ youthful lawbreaking is demagoguery of the sleaziest kind. All of Obama’s contacts with Ayers were in connection with the constructive work Ayers did as an education reformer. Furthermore, Obama publicly repudiated Ayer’s violent past. You complain in this thread about “lying,” then you turn right around and engage in sleazy, lowdown, partisan demagoguery and lying. Fuck you, asshole, I have no respect for you because you deserve none.
@43 Trying to be even stupider than Lost is precisely what I expect from you. Goooo for it, puttnutz! Don’t let Lost snatch the Golden Goat away from you!
Hey THE DUMB BUNNY,
Puddy rejects the “award” named after Proud Goatist. Only a lawyer moron names an “award” after himself, shaped in his own image! Empty and ugly!
Hey THE DUMB BUNNY… Your buddy Michael Newdow lost in the 9th Circus nonetheless…
SWEEEEEET!
Re 41
I’ll take your word for how you feel about the US. I have no reason to doubt it whether I disagree with your worldview or not. Same goes for most of those posting here, and even Goldy.
I can’t agree with your assessment of Obama. You can dislike the fact that he explicitly called the Constitution “fundamentally flawed,”, that the associations he has chosen (as opposed to using for political advantage) are nearly uniform in their public disdain for his country, and so on. You can regret it, but calling it a lie can be disproven by a 12 second google search.
You can say that he didn’t lie about the insurance mandate, closing Guantanamo, being out of Iraq in 9 months and so on. I’m unclear on the ethical difference between promising what you aren’t sure you can deliver and lying, but you’re the attorney. Yes, most politicians do this, but saying all car salesmen lie to you doesn’t make it any more pleasant. Same with politics.
Puddy already mentioned Obama touring the world telling other nations all the things we did wrong. I toured the Piazza di Miracoli in Pisa once. Several signs detailed damage done by, as the sign said, “American agression.” I told the tour guide all America needed for liberating Europe from Fascism and the Nazis was a thank you and a check for our costs, and he could keep his damned snark. That tour guide was a spiritual cousin of our illustrious president.
So yes, I’ll vigorously if politely disagree with much of what you believe. But I won’t and don’t doubt your patriotism.
Lehman Execs Face Criminal Charges
“The comprehensive report of Lehman Brothers Holdings’ path to bankruptcy that bankruptcy examiner Anton Valukas released yesterday is stunning in its depth and breadth. It details so many repeated, deliberate material misstatements the firm made in securities filings and public statements about its financial condition that former Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld and former Chief Financial Officer Erin Callan will almost certainly face criminal charges, and former CFOs Chris O’Meara and Ian Lowett quite possibly could as well. Indeed, if the information in the report is true — and Valukas reviewed millions of documents, conducted over 100 interviews and thoroughly footnotes his report — it’s hard to see how they can escape conviction.”
http://www.dailyfinance.com/st...../19396531/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Another market failure! If you don’t have traffic laws and traffic cops, people will drive recklessly and cause accidents. That’s just human nature. The same applies to the markets. The economy needs rules and cops, just as the highways do, otherwise it breaks down and can’t function. Because the human nature behind economic behavior isn’t any different than the human nature behind driving behavior. Why do conservatives have such a hard time understanding that?
RE 44
Imagine that. A nation dependent almost completely on oil releases a report that likely will incease the price of oil. Who would have thunk it?
Hey THE DUMB BUNNY…
Look at who Lehman Brothers likes. Look at the head of Lehman Brothers Richard Fuld. Mostly DUMMOCRAPTS… Puddy wonders why? Cuz they grease Wall Street THE DUMB BUNNY!
And you wonder why your shit is shit?
@51 Reports don’t increase the price of oil. Supply and demand (possibly subject to market manipulation) increases the price of oil.
Peak oil is relevant to long-range energy strategy but meaningless to short-term pricing. Even if production peaks soon, or has peaked, oil will continue flowing out of the ground for decades to come; and oil will be a major factor in the world economy for the rest of our lives. Simple logic argues that as economic activity picks up in the months ahead, so will oil demand, pushing up prices. This correlation is imperfect and could be upset by a number of factors affecting crude supplies ranging from warfare in Nigeria to cheating within OPEC. But I’ve been expecting higher crude prices for some time, and that’s why I’ve been buying the stocks of major oil companies this winter. Most of them are already up several dollars from their lows, but it’s not too late to buy ConocoPhillipps, which is lagging the others because it’s more dependent on profits from refining and the refining sector is still hurting. COP and Valero might, or might not, be screaming buys depending on whether refiners ever make any money. But as far as crude prices go, I don’t think the $80 price level will hold, I think we’ll see $100+ this summer.
I’m glad this rundown of the story is here, cuz our puppies pissed all over page 1 of the ST on the floor.
(the cute puppies the bad Democrats are forcing us to kill)
@52 Yeah, all the Wall Street money went to Obama in 2008 … some of Bush’s biggest fundraisers backed Obama … do you need to wonder why?
Loving our country because it’s “Ameri-ca” is natinalistic in the same way Nazi’s loved German.
Loving our country because you know, understand and respect America’s Creed is American.
The difference is usually lost on most conservatives. They reprsent the former.
@54 Pudge is such a blockhead. It’s like his skull is so thick he only has room for a walnut-sized brain in there.
“They could include everything the Republicans want, but if it also includes things Republicans cannot support, then Republicans will oppose it.”
All or nothing, when they’re not even deserving of scraps from the table. I have no idea why President Obama thought he could work with such people. He should have told these wingnuts to go fuck themselves long ago.
Really????
WOW! How generous of you to spread the blame seeing how Bush and the Reagan Republicans in congress inherited:
1) the largest federal surplus in American history
2) a federal budget that for 3 years stopped borrowing money
3) a federal budget that was paying down our $4 trillion dollar debt at the rate of half a trillion dollars per year that put us on track to be a debt-free nation by 2008.
It was self-identified, Reagan Republicans who used reconciliation to pass the Bush Tax Cuts n the spring of 2001, squandered the $500 billion a year used by Clinton to pay off our national debt, AND, and, added $7 trillion dollars to the national debt.
Then, because of the Reagan Republican policies ran the economy started going down hill in Dec of 2007.
After nearly a year of doing NOTHING to fix the economy and lying to the American public that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong” we nearly plunged into Republican caused Great Depression II.
Yeah, it’s allllllllll Obama’s fault.
You know, Lost, it’s one thing to not have a firm grasp on American history. I get it, you have to read a lot to learn it.
But to get contemporary history that you lived through so incredibly wrong . . . that takes either sheer and utter ignorance or contempt for the truth.
Which is it — you’re stupid, a liar, or a stupid liar?
@51
What are you one of those wingnuts who believes that oil will never run out because baby Jesus would never do that to us?
Am I the only one who absolutely hates being referred to as a “taxpayer”? It’s one of the most wretched products of Reagan/Hayek Revolution Newspeak.
10 lost
People who oppose a policy change on principled grounds don’t argue falsely that it will kill Grandma, argue falsely that it will increase the deifict, argue falsely that it will be a “government takeover,” instead of discussing the policy. So no, no possibility.
Oh, you mean the country where almost nobody lives, instead of the places where almost everybody lives. The country who made up the only 46% of voters who voted for the losing candidate for the presidency, intead of the 57% who voted for the winning candidate.
I am also assuming, and perhaps you could set me straight here, that you mean the country that is made up almost entirely of the same old angry, overwhelmingly white, heavily Southern, mostly well-to-do men who have been the biggest whiners in this “country” for the last couple of decades. The ones who love their country enough to torture its citizens as long as they’re not white Southern well-to-do men. The ones who would gladly oblige Michelle Malkin and put Muslims into concentration camps but whine endlessly if someone takes down a Christmas tree or a Conferderate flag.
Ah, real Americans! A breath of stale, same-old air.
So let’s talk about taxes.
Here are the nationwide unemployment figures broken out roughly by educational attainment.
Feb. 2010
Less than a high school diploma
15.6%
High school graduates, no college
10.5%
Some college or associate degree
8.0%
Bachelor’s degree and higher(2)
5.0%
Look at this. Face it, “economic recovery” is not about cutting government jobs, which just gives us more unemployed people and a drop in aggregate demand. What is stimulative is spending. When consumers have money to spend, and they are not losing their jobs and their houses, additional government spending is just inflationary. But when they don’t, as when one has an 80-year-record recession, then governmental spending is essential (because Keynes is right).
So it makes perfect sense to look at the BLS table I indicated, realize that people who are making over $400K are not hurting at all but that everyone else is in pretty rough shape, and tax the former to spend to benefit the latter.
QE fucking D
58 GBS
Yep. Reagan tripled the national debt. Bush II doubled it. These people are full of shit.
I see Eyman’s sugar daddy Dunmire paid off another one of his “home loans”.
Just tax initiative donations at 150% and Washington won’t have to raise taxes.
PJ O’Rourke used to be funny when he was a young man who sounded like a bitter old right wing crank.
Now that he’s older, he’s just another bitter old right wing crank — but the humor is gone.
Everyone loves or at least tolerates an angry young man, but nobody likes an angry old man —
49 Lost
I’ll just pick one. You claim that Obama lied about “being out of Iraq in 9 months.”
You shoudl try your own “12-second Google search.” If you could read well enough to do it, and could understand sufficienly to select a relevant returned result, you would read that during his campaign he ran on a platform of wnding our combat engagement in Iraq via troop withdrawal over 16 months. Then, after he was sworn in as president on Janury 20, 2009, he met with the Joint Chiefs and the Iraqi theater commanders and revised that plan to take place over 18 months. They announced the change of plans on February 27, 2009 that by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end and Iraqi Security Forces will have full responsibility for major combat missions, and that the President intends to keep our commitment under the Status of Forces Agreement to remove all of our troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.
Last week, General Odierno reported:
So I no longer believe in the stupid/liar question. The only liar here is you. Well, not the only one.
Once again THE DUMB BUNNY misses the point…
Top 25…
5/5
7/10
12/15
16/20
20/25 were DUMMOCRAPTS since 1990.
The link showed this THE DUMB BUNNY… Too bad your partisan blindness missed the facts AGAIN!
“The following members of the 110th Congress have received contributions from the employees and PAC of Lehman Brothers since the 1990 election cycle.”
Since Odumba arrived in 2004 he gots much eh THE DUMB BUNNY?
The DUMB BUNNY, naturally stupid and more so since joining the retired peeps.
It’s why the Seattle Times is losing money and soon there will be nothing for the Blethen kids to inherit. It is the most irresponsible bird cage liner around.
22 lost
Fuck you.
18 RR
The same thing happened to me in 2003. It is serious as a crutch. My heart goes out to them.
16 RR
Oh, come on, Roger! Don’t you know that state workers toil in golden palaces with 16-year-old boys and girls to wipe their asses?
52 Pud
I was hoping against hope, but no, you came through as a total wank.
I gotta say, I am not sure what you’re trying to imply here. You’re certainly not try to prove anything other than that a bunch of people who work for a company give money to candidates. Hey, Lehman Brothers employees give to Democrats. But whatever could this mean? Maybne it means that Republicans are not the wise and determined captains of industry that they like to portray themselves as, and are instead a bunch of losers who run business into the ground and need wingnut welfare to stay in business (see Bush, George W.). Surely not, though!
Maybe it just means that a bunch of people in the financial business like Democrats. But that wouldn’t be a seriously important conspiracy, so it can’t be true.
No, What I am thinking is that to prove the nefariousness that I think you are implying, you need evidence of a quid pro quo , or perhaps widespread systematic payments for which there seem to be systematic widespread legislation (think Republicans and the 2004 Medicare Part D act), or, I don’t know, somthing that indicates something more substantive than “nudge, nudge, wink, wink, lots of money changing hands there, eh?” But apparently you’ve got nothing.
How about it?
Sssszzzzll!
Really fine reparte, Daddy Love…
73 Z
Smokin’!
Lost sez: “I do know that I used to bid public works.”
Really? Did you ever actually get the award? Name one project you actually bid, were awarded, managed, and completed.
“Most of the time conditions (prevailing wage, limited access, unusual working hours) made these bids a factor of 25% to 50% more costly than private sector bids would tolerate….”
Well that depends on the project, it’s location, it’s use, etc. As for “private sector” that depends, too, on project complexity and size. I take it you didn’t do much ground up high rise construction in downtown Seattle.
I am beginning to understand why you are reduced to trying to flip houses in a declining real estate market.
75
House flippers are just sad, these days…
@36 I’m a propagandist. Eat me.
@38 “It’s a great tax write-off.”
Yeah, I know how that works. Some people give ’em old clothing they paid $50 for and call it $150 on their Schedule B.
@39 “Arguing with progressives is like talking to a brick wall.”
And you two are paragons of enlightment … ?
[rowdy rabbit laughter in background)
@47 Sorry, puttbutt, but when the Golden Goat is awarded to you the dishonor is yours whether you want it or not.
@49 The Constitution was fundamentally flawed. It allowed white people to own black people. Do you really think a black law professor wouldn’t consider that a “fundamental flaw”? If the Constitution was goddamned perfect why has it been amended 27 times? If you can’t come up with a better argument than this, you’re a fucking idiot.
Hey! Lost! THE CONSTITUTION WAS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED. It allowed white people to own black people. THE CONSTITUTION WAS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED. It contained the seeds of the Civil War. THE CONSTITUTION WAS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED. It didn’t allow women to vote. THE CONSTITUTION WAS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED. It didn’t require the states to respect the Bill of Rights. THE CONSTITUTION WAS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED. It allowed the rise of economic monopolies. THE CONSTITUTION WAS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED. It gives less populous states disproportionate representation in the Senate. THE CONSTITUTION WAS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED. Its checks and balances were incomplete, so Chief Justice Marshall had to invent one. Do you get my drift?
Who are you, you ignorant fuck, to equate a constitutional legal scholar’s opinions on the Constitution with a lack of patriotism? What the hell qualifies you to post such a remark? Stick to your saws and hammers, and leave the Constitution to people who know what they’re talking about, jackass.
Cheap labor conservatives still carry a grudge over the abolition of slavery.
@57 This bill has something like 150 Republican amendments in it, and they’re still pissing on it. I say, just pass the damn thing, the people will be grateful. And then let’s spend the next 100 years reminding voters that not one single Republican voted for it.
@58 He’s not stupid, so I’d vote for “culpable liar.”
@21: “I haven’t expected a liberal to engage in civilized discourse about politics for at least a decade now. Maybe it’s because a lot of them use it in lieu of a religion…”
What? We liberals use civilized discourse in lieu of a religion? how low and dirty can you get? However, since you appear to have thrown down the gantlet, by all means let us have a ‘civilized discourse’. You may even pick the topic. Let’s see who goes off the rails into “uncivilized discourse” first.
Re 87
You are one of a few people actually capable of a discussion, so I want to correct a misapprension.
The language could have been clearer. I meant that a certain stripe of liberal uses politics in lieu of religion with all the attendant fervor and fanaticism.
I didn’t mean all, or that all liberals are anti religious.
And I did mean “I haven’t expected.” It doesn’t mean that on the occasion when a liberal wishes to engage in real conversation I don’t find it a pleasant surprise.
Rabbit
The problems you mention only prove the truly remarkable soundness of the Constitution. Terrible flaws and injustices were corrected without war (with one searingly tragic exception.) The inclusion of a means to peacefully address changing needs and more enlightened cultural views is, in my view, what makes the thing still valid as a means to govern the greatest country on the planet even today.
Re Obama, the mendacious socialist,
So, how exactly did Obama not lie when promising health reform with no insurance mandate and coverage for everyone? At best he promised something on which he couldn’t deliver, to me indistinguishable from a lie.
Obama did write, and speak, his belief that not only was the Constitution flawed, but that it is today. So much for his oath to uphold that document.
I really am sorry that you folks voted for that car salesman in a pricey suit and regret it now. I guess you’ll know better another time.
Re House Flipping and other irrelevancies-
A year ago now I was laid off, and the nature of my job didn’t allow for unemployment. I used hard earned savings and my reputation with good people to start my own business. And, DL and Milo, I’m doing very well. Though I appreciate your concern for my well being. Most of the realtors I know, the folks with money to invest and the like are investing in real estate right now. The prices are good, the rates good and the market will come back despite Obama, Reid and Pelosi. NOT because of them. I can’t speak for anyone else, but personally am considerably better off than when I was employed by someone else. In fact, being laid off was among the best
RE 61
I actually do owe 2 mea culpas.
First, you’re right on the Iraq timeline campaign promise. We’ll see about the reality, but those bases look pretty permanent.
Second, I used inadvertently provocative language in saying ‘real America.’
I was trying poorly to say something I noticed while travelling. The folks in large cities seem more identified as urbanites than Italians, or Germans or Americans. The folks in smaller villages gave a real feel for being somewhere different. I travel once a year for a month, and lived in Italy and Germany for several months each.
Yes, people in Seattle are as American as in Moscow Idaho. But it seems that what I recognize as American values proliferate more in suburban and rural locations.
I just logged on and I don’t have the patience to go through all the posts, especially when I got to lost @ 10 who posted this:
“You know, the country outside LA, Seattle and New York City. The country where real Americans live who actually like and are proud of their country. That country.”
lost, every once in awhile I have thought you had potential. Posts like this, however, reveal what an asshole you are. You do not get to adjudicate who is a “real American.” People who live in cities are there because they can’t make a living in your “real America.” You are as idiotic as Puddy and Cynical, lost. Quit trying to pretend otherwise.
Tax wealth not work.
Tax assets, not wages.
Problem solved.
Man, that was easy…..
They should rename their paper. The Right Wing Seattle Times.
Anyone that thinks Republicons should be running the show, you know, the birther, creationist wet brains, well, belongs in a straight jacket.
And #10, lost. In my “Real America”, we prosecute those that torture, not coddle them. Sorry….
#89 “American Values”? Really lost? Because I think presidents shouldn’t lie about threats to our nation in order to start a war in Iraq, I don’t have as good of “American Values” as a farmer? Because I believe in the constitution? The parts other than the 2nd amendment?
I will tell you about “American Values” lost. In Texas they are striking Thomas Jefferson from the history text books because he coined the term “separation of church and state”. How’s them values….
Republicon hypocrite liars make me want to hurl. And they think they are morally superior while they are all cheatin’ on their wives, and covering for their friends at the Jesus House on C-Street.
I tell you what lost. Move to Somalia. A Libertarian paradise. Smaller government, and everyone carries guns!!! No universal socialist health care either!!!
90 lost
Perhaps that points to a flaw in what you “recognize as American values.”
89 lost
Yes, of course, and the fact that every presidential candidate since Washington, including Saint Ronnie and the Boy Blunder, has said “When I am president, I’ll…” has no bearing at all. You see adults realize that while candidates have aspirations and goals, that our government requires the people’s repersentatives across this great nation (yes, we love our fucking country too) to deliberate, negotiate, and legislate before any president’s goals can come into being. And this may change the nuts and bots of that vision. But guess what? Nearly-universal health care is a week or few short weeks away, and it will cover 31 million more people while leaving only an estimated 18.5 million without coevrage, and transforming the nature of coverage for everyone, and only incidently blowing up a few million Republican brains and making next fall’s electio a LOT different than any of you thought it would be.
Even if Obama didn’t achieve this, that would not make it a lie. And the fact that he can listen to arguments and change his mind based on their merits makes him far suporior to the stubbornly stupid Idiot Boy we were stuck with for eight years.
You seem to be confusing one thing with another. The Constitution continues to have a few fundamental flaws, which neither obscures its greatness not makes it impossible to uphold it. The president swore to uphold teh Constitution, flawed or not, and he is doing so.
Your concern is touchingly false. We’ll re-elect him in 2012, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but to stick it to Mitt Romney and to all of y’all.
Re 95
I was trying to be tactful, but to put it more directly-
Your president is a lying sack of ____. I wouldn’t trust him farthur than I could throw him.
So “every president since Washington” is a liar? That simply isn’t true.
Second, because every politician lies doesn’t make it right.
DL, you’re a blindly partisan fool who can’t see past your own foolishness in voting for that socialist lying conman. I’m sorry you are this way, but it’s hardly my problem.
Yes, you will re-elect the worst and least American president outside of FDR. Yes the voters will foolishly assume that the inevitable recovery in the economy is somehow Obamas’ Godlike presence. Perhaps he walked accross the Atlantic to broker a deal with the Chinese banks he sold us to. Possibly he fed the 300,000,000 with just a few loaves and fishes. Anyway, Americans give credit to the president, or blame for economics without ever asking themselves what actually the person did.
I do respect your right to believe what you wish. I just can’t undertand why a seemingly intelligent person could believe that way.
re 96: Socialism for the rich and welfare for corporations is the norm in the U.S.