Reason Morning Links: Oakland Police Riot Through the Night, Herman Cain Surges in the Polls, Americans Distrust Government More Than Ever

Mike Riggs | 10.26.2011 9:06 AM

Members of the Oakland Police Department rioted last night, firing tear gas and chasing residents. (Bonus: Slate explains why tear gas isn't illegal.)
NPR: "Nearly 700 Native American children in South Dakota are being removed from their homes every year, sometimes in questionable circumstances."
NYT/CBS poll: "89 percent of Americans say they distrust government to do the right thing, 74 percent say the country is on the wrong track and 84 percent disapprove of Congress."
Herman Cain skyrockets to the top of the polls--in Ohio. Was it because of this ad?
Obama DOJ prepares new, horrible FOIA rules.
Drug cops toss a 7-pound dog out a three-story window.

New at Reason.tv: "MTV VJ and Radio Host Kennedy on Marijuana, The Politics of Alt Rock, and Becoming Libertarian"

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AlmightyJB 13 years ago

"89 percent of Americans say they distrust government to do the right thing, 74 percent say the country is on the wrong track and 84 percent disapprove of Congress."

But they want more government.
1. Restoras 13 years ago
  
  84% may disapprove of Congress, but the same 84% loves their own critter. It's the other critter that sucks.
  1. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
    
    My critter is a useless skinsack. Genuinely non-annoying with no real opinions or principles outside of the mainline Republican Party. He's a creature of the political party machine.
    1. Kristen 13 years ago
      
      My critter is James Pee Moron. I'd rather vote for rather.
      1. rather 13 years ago
        
        I accept your nimination on behalf of all who fart in jars.
  2. Warty 13 years ago
    
    My critter is Dennis Kucinich, I think. I AM THE 16%.
    1. Nephilium 13 years ago
      
      Mine is Kucinich, I get his idiotic little newsletters telling me how great he is in spending my money to keep worthless government buildings open.
      1. robc 13 years ago
        
        My critter is Yarmuth! (exclamation point mandatory). Worthless.
        
        I also have Rand Paul as a congressional critter, so, yeah, I do have positive feeling towards one of my 3.
        
        Hank 13 years ago
        
        Worthless?!? Yarmuth's first congressional act was to sponsor a declaration congratulating the University of Louisville on their bowl win!
        
        Who needs an I-64 bridge anyway?
    2. Apatheist 13 years ago
      
      Got you all beat I got Sheila Jackson Lee who dukes it out for the honor of being both the craziest mofo in congress and the biggest race baiter.
      1. Pip 13 years ago
        
        I'll see your Sheila Jackson Lee and raise you one Keith Ellison.
      2. Proprietist 13 years ago
        
        I have Eddie Bernice Johnson, notably corrupt race-baiter.
      3. rac3rx 13 years ago
        
        Queen Sheila for the win!
  3. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    Justin Amash - no major complaints from me.
    1. Night Elf Mohawk 13 years ago
      
      I'm nowhere near his state, let alone district, but I get his newsletter. He seems like someone I could actually deal with.
      1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        In some ways, Mr. Amash's voting record reflects his time as a Michigan state representative, when he was known as "Mr. No," for his proclivity for voting against the majority of legislation before him. In that case, however, Mr. Amash was largely against the policies underlying most of the bills, which reflected Democratic control.
        
        His contrarian ways sometimes made for odd alliances in Michigan, where he lined up against his Republican colleagues to oppose tax breaks for the film industry, and teamed up with a far-left-leaning lawmaker from the Detroit area to make sure legal defense budgets for indigent criminal defendants were more uniform.
        
        http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04.....shman.html
        
        CrackertyAssCracker 13 years ago
        
        good article. I like that guy, but haven't paid much attention to him since he got elected. So, he mostly still doesn't suck?
  4. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    Mine is reputed to be a hipster.
    Which is reason enough to disapprove of her, I guess.
  5. Brandon 13 years ago
    
    I grew up in Ron Paul's district, and managed to keep my Texas residency until this year. Now I'm in Colorado, and am represented by empty suit Mike Coffman. But at least I can vote for Paul or Johnson in the R primary, and try to get rid of the execrable Mark Udall and Michael "Keep sucking Obama's dick until he makes me secretary of something like Salazar did" Bennet.
    1. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
      
      depending on where in Coffman's disctrict you may soon be in Dainna Degette's...Ohh fucking JOY!
2. Federal Dog 13 years ago
  
  If you want to know about distrust of government, ask the dog the cops threw out the third story window.
  
  Assholes. The little dog was trying to protect the little kids crying at the end of the cops' guns.
  
  Those cops deserve to die horribly.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Here are 159 minor things D.C. officers can arrest you for
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....0&denied=1

The full list can be perused in a Metropolitan Police Department document issued in December 2005 outlining the proper procedure for issuing such a "violation citation," or Form 61D. (It's online as part of a trove of official department documents released to the nonprofit Partnership for Civil Justice in 2009.)

The list contains a number of other small-bore offenses that you might not realize can land you in jail ? stuff like operating a radar detector, storing building materials in an alley, climbing a street lamp, leaving your dog's excrement untended, or digging for fishing bait in Rock Creek Park.
1. POLIS (city-state) = POLICe 13 years ago
  
  Kelly Thomas died for your sins.
  
  The POLICe will always serve and protect the POLIS' capitalist property values from bums and drunks and hippies.
  
  For the love of money [property values] is the root of all evil [police brutality.]
  
  Complaining about the POLICe while embracing the POLIS (city-state) is just silly.
  
  Libertarian Statists hold two contradictory propositions simultaneously, as follows:
  
  ? The agricultural city-STATE (civilization) is BAD.?? The AGRICULTURAL CITY-state (CIVILIZATION) is GOOD.
  
  Their magic tool is the blank-out. ~Ayn Rand
  1. Supreme Generalissimo Fluffy 13 years ago
    
    Libertarian Statists hold two contradictory propositions simultaneously...
    
    The agricultural city-STATE (civilization) is BAD.
    
    We don't hold that proposition.
    1. Statist Scruffy like da State 13 years ago
      
      The State is aggression.
      
      Liberarians claim to be anti-aggression.
      
      Some even put it in their website banner. "Anti-State."
      
      Anti-statism is a term describing opposition to state intervention into personal, social, and economic affairs.
      
      Don't bullshit us, Fluffy.
      
      Of course, there are the idiots who want a "limited State."
      
      Limited government is like limited rape. How's that working out for you "minarchists?"
      1. wylie 13 years ago
        
        Limited government is like limited rape.
        
        You're gonna get raped.
        
        It's been a fact of life since the evolution of Homo Sapiens (or earlier. I'd like to say it started with Homo Erectus, for obvious reasons.)
        
        Point is, if there's an absolute 100% certainty that you're going to be raped, the most limited form of rape is preferable.
        
        Cause you gonna get raped.
        
        This concludes today's lesson on the value of limited government.
  2. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    don't shit on my link.
  3. Pip 13 years ago
    
    http://charminultrasoftregular.....5qcGc=.jpg
  4. Another Phil 13 years ago
    
    Please don't feed the troll.
2. Suki 13 years ago
  
  I got a ticket there for not having my wheels turned toward the curb.
3. Troy 13 years ago
  
  Land of the Free? BWAHHAHAHAHHAHA What the fuck ever.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Obama's Mythical Political Skills Won't Save Him
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/.....nnuru.html

Obama could still win re-election. Maybe the economy will strengthen in time to help him. Maybe the public will recoil from the thought of giving Republicans unified control of the government again. But Republicans don't need to worry that voters will be seduced by Obama's charisma.

Liberals have been slowly waking up to this fact. Increasingly they've been asking what's wrong with him. Is he too aloof? Too conciliatory? Some liberals would be dissatisfied with Obama even if he delivered single-payer health care. But part of their disappointment is that they expected Obama to usher in a new liberal era. Now they see that it's not to be. The problem isn't that Obama has lost his touch. He didn't have it in the first place.
1. Joe M 13 years ago
  
  Too conciliatory?
  
  WTF? Come back to planet Earth someday.
  1. R C Dean 13 years ago
    
    I think they are confusing "kleptocratic corporate tool marinated in Chicago-style corruption" with "conciliatory".
    1. Joe M 13 years ago
      
      Ah, yes. Those do have some of the same letters.
  2. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
    
    I think that in the minds of many liberals, the problem is that their politicians should be standing up every day and lecturing the American people about how mean and evil and stupid Republicans are. They seem to believe that if their politicians did this and showed "balls" the silent majority of Americans, who in this scenario are liberal, would rise up and give us government like they have in Europe.
  3. Tulpa 13 years ago
    
    I don't think Ponnuru is saying that's his opinion, but a common opinion of liberals.
2. John 13 years ago
  
  The problem is no one wanted a new liberal era and Obama got elected by convincing people that was not what he was going to do. But the ideology is never wrong.
  1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
    
    They wanted Not Bush.
    1. teh rael o2 13 years ago
      
      and not palin
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        Yeah because people vote on VP candidates and Joe Biden, perhaps the dumbest man ever to hold national office in this country, was such an upgrade from Palin.
        
        teh rael o2 13 years ago
        
        no because mccain was 100 yrs old so the VP was imp
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Or maybe it was like every other election and people voted for the President not VP.
        
        teh rael o2 13 years ago
        
        im saying i looked hard at mccain...until he selected palin. and several women i know said they also did NOT vote gop because of palin. sorry but its the truth
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        No you didn't. Stop re-writting history. Obama won the damned election. People wanted the Republicans out. And if you are so stupid that you voted for someone who was less qualified for the office than Palin because you were afraid of Palin being VP, you probably shouldn't have the right to vote.
        
        teh rael o2 13 years ago
        
        no i didnt vote for prez since i felt obama had too little experience & 100 yr old mccain selected a person also w too little experience.
        
        rac3rx 13 years ago
        
        ...and a lot of people only voted GOP in '08 BECAUSE of Palin...she actually did Crazy Grandpa more good than harm.
        
        Suki 13 years ago
        
        The newspapers told me Quale was the dumbest.
        
        Poet Luareate sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        Why? Couldn't he spell his last name?
        
        mad libertarian guy 13 years ago
        
        I know a guy whose excuse for voting for Obama was specifically so that Palin would never be a stroke/heart attack/whatthefuckever away from being president.
    2. Anonymous Coward 13 years ago
      
      They wanted Not Bush.
      
      Which is exactly who we didn't get.
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

"89 percent of Americans say they distrust government to do the right thing, 74 percent say the country is on the wrong track and 84 percent disapprove of Congress."

Yet 84% of them will vote to re-elect the same assholes.
1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  To be fair, only about 56% of them will actually vote.
  1. Joe M 13 years ago
    
    I wonder how much politics would change if 100% of eligible voters actually voted.
    1. Sparky 13 years ago
      
      I'd be interested to see what happens if 0% actually vote.
      1. squarooticus 13 years ago
        
        +1.
      2. Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        That's not a hypothetical; in most countries in the world, 0% of people vote.
        
        Sparky 13 years ago
        
        But they are also not democracies. I'm curious how our government would react if nobody voted. Would it be like a giant vote of no confidence in our current system?
    2. JD the elder 13 years ago
      
      Probably nothing very good, considering that (IIRC) voter turnout is already lowest among the poor and the uneducated. Although turnout is also higher among the elderly and lower in the young, so maybe we could finally do something about entitlement programs.
      1. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
        
        Europe has higher turnout than us, and look at the whacky socialist inspired bullshit that goes on over there.
  2. BakedPenguin 13 years ago
    
    Given the crap they usually have to vote for, that's no big surprise.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Sony Makes the Right Decision in Postponing Bin Laden Movie
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....24538.html

After months of controversy over Kathryn Bigelow's planned bin Laden movie, Variety has reported that Sony is postponing the release of the film until likely after the 2012 election. This is a wise decision on the part of the studio.

Sony's bin Laden movie had come under a firestorm of criticism earlier this summer when Maureen Dowd wrote in the New York Times that director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal had been given special access to information on the bin Laden raid by the Obama White House, and that the film's planned release in October 2012 was "perfectly timed" to help President Obama with the election...
1. Bee Tagger 13 years ago
  
  Variety has reported that Sony is postponing the release of the film until likely after the 2012 election.
  
  I need help blaming this on Citizens United. Anyone?
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    Clearly a failure of the free market.
2. Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
  
  We'll wait to see what's in the movie. It might not be as flattering to the White House as you might think.
  1. R C Dean 13 years ago
    
    My theory is that it will be flattering, and it was postponed because Sony didn't want to get caught releasing a 90 minute campaign ad right before the election.
    
    For the losing candidate.
3. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
  
  Interesting question- which black actor plays Obama? Don Cheadle could probably pull it off, but I'm open to ideas.
  1. Pip 13 years ago
    
    Chris Rock?
  2. Hank 13 years ago
    
    Fred Armisen.
  3. imperturbable juris imprudent 13 years ago
    
    Robert Downey Jr (with an Australian accent).
  4. bosty 13 years ago
    
    Yaphett Koto
  5. Thom 13 years ago
    
    President Palmer
  6. rac3rx 13 years ago
    
    Gumby.
Tim 13 years ago

Dog tossing?
1. Suki 13 years ago
  
  Cost saving measure in these troubled times when Obama can't get the congress to supply bullets to local cops.
2. Zombie Jimbo 13 years ago
  
  Small target. Would've taken a full clip to hit the dog. Would've been embarrassing.
3. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  Don't worry, Ritch Workman will issue a press release this afternoon defending it.
4. Sparky 13 years ago
  
  I'd hardly call pimp-slapping a dog across the room a toss.
  1. Tim 13 years ago
    
    In hockey it would be a slap shot.
5. R C Dean 13 years ago
  
  Obviously, the armed and armored cops were afraid for their lives.
  1. TrickyVic 13 years ago
    
    You know you're talking about the same force that has been planting drugs on people, making overtime while planting drugs on people, selling illegal guns, and selling at least one NYPD badge to a criminal for six grand.
    
    What's a little dog slapping?
    1. TrickyVic 13 years ago
      
      And all that has been reported in the last couple of weeks.
      
      No, no problems in the NYPD, which pays out 100 million a year in lawsuits.
      1. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
        
        At what point does an insurance company drop them as a client?
        
        Actually, couldn't the insurance company sue because it has had to pay out for shit that the NYPD was doing but kept practices secret from the insurance folks, thereby committing fraud?
        
        God, I am rooting for that case.
        
        Apatheist 13 years ago
        
        They are the perefect client, they have the taxpayers to cover the difference and pay for the increasing premiums.
6. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  Let he among you who has never wanted to punt a yappy mutt cast the first yorkie.
  1. T 13 years ago
    
    I've wanted to do lots of things, including aggravated assault and capital murder. But I have some certain amount of self-control, so I didn't. Plus, I don't have a badge, so I get to go to jail if I do it.
    1. Abdul 13 years ago
      
      dude, just once, kick one of those damn dogs. It's totally worth it.
      1. T 13 years ago
        
        I have 5 Westies. Yappy little Yorkies get a beatdown from my pack. I don't have to do shit.
Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago

Inside the Minds of Scary-Movie Fans

Don't worry, it's not about fans of the Scary Movie franchise! Though it's about time that science tried to explain them

Psychologists have long theorized about why some people revel in scary movies and have identified "thrill-seeking personalities" who are drawn to roller coasters, gambling and extreme sports. Many also gravitate toward adrenaline-charged jobs as day traders, test pilots, brain surgeons and bomb defusers, blog commenters some studies find.
1. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  It's all about the Anna Faris
2. Atanarjuat 13 years ago
  
  Hmm, my profession involves walking around on steel I-beams, which does involve the occasional adrenaline rush, and I don't care for scary movies.
  
  The less distressed the man was, the more attractive his date found him.
  
  Ok, maybe I should give them a shot.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Secret reports: With security spotty, many had access to anthrax
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/201.....s-and.html

The Army laboratory identified by prosecutors as the source of the anthrax that killed five people in the fall of 2001 was rife with such security gaps that the deadly spores could have easily been smuggled out of the facility, outside investigators found.

The existing security procedures _ described in two long-secret reports _ were so lax they would have allowed any researcher, aide or temporary worker to walk out of the Army bio-weapons lab at Fort Detrick, Md, with a few drops of anthrax _ starter germs that could grow the trillions of spores used to fill anthrax-laced letters sent to Congress and the media.
1. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  It was all part of the telecommuting initiative put in place at Fort Detrick from what I understand.
2. Mike M. 13 years ago
  
  This is part of the reason why it took them so damn long to solve this difficult case: there were a ton of people they had to investigate and clear.
  
  The conspiracy theorists should give it a rest already though. Ivins was guilty as sin.
teh rael o2 13 years ago

visited OWS this last weekend. interesting collection of political party registrations, activists, medical & charities, media, & citizens including ~20-25% homeless. per several volunteer organizers, the homeless are growing because OWS delivers services better than NYC shelters. >the po po were just telling folks to keep moving while on the sidewalks.
1. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  That's an example of private charity working better than government.
  1. teh rael o2 13 years ago
    
    wait, wut? derp
  2. teh rael o2 13 years ago
    
    one doesnt get restaurant-donated food at the shelter einstein
    1. RoboCain 13 years ago
      
      Holy shit, you're an idiot.
      1. shorter robo 13 years ago
        
        me luvs some bologna & orange drink
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Obama: If We Lose in 2012, Government Will Tell People 'You're on Your Own'
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/po.....-your-own/

At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.

"The one thing that we absolutely know for sure is that if we don't work even harder than we did in 2008, then we're going to have a government that tells the American people, 'you are on your own,'" Obama told a crowd of 200 donors over lunch at the W Hotel.

please!
1. Montani Semper Liberi 13 years ago
  
  LOL. The W hotel is swanky as fuck. I seriously doubt any of the people who could afford to be there are worried about having to make it on their own.
  1. TRTB 13 years ago
    
    Yes, but they find the prospect of other people having to make it on their own without your money horrifying.
2. JW 13 years ago
  
  'you are on your own,'
  
  Oh noes! We won't be able to repeat the last 11 years again?
  
  Well, we will, just a with a different 220 pound sack of shit in a suit.
3. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
  
  Now if he would operate on that platform, maybe he wouldn't be in the mess he's in now.
  
  What a doofus.
4. Mike M. 13 years ago
  
  Hey Obama, Greece is the word that you heard, mother****er.
  1. TRTB 13 years ago
    
    It's got groove, I'll grant you that. But does it have meaning?
    1. Trespassers W 13 years ago
      
      Greece is certainly the way we are feeling.
5. robc 13 years ago
  
  Obama expects Paul to win the GOP nomination.
6. Bre'er Voter 13 years ago
  
  Please Mr. Obama, don't throw me in the briar patch!
  1. Wesley 13 years ago
    
    Racist!
7. Enjoy Every Sandwich 13 years ago
  
  then we're going to have a government that tells the American people, 'you are on your own,'" Obama told a crowd of 200 donors over lunch at the W Hotel
  
  That's a neat sign of where our culture is at: telling people that they might have to take care of themselves is considered scary.
8. cynical 13 years ago
  
  Cool, does that mean you'll stop fucking us too?
9. Invisible Finger 13 years ago
  
  Remember what happened to the indigenous people who wanted to be self-reliant?
  
  Only in America would self-reliance be considered an act worthy of extermination.
10. Elspeth Flashman 13 years ago
  
  this is the "is that a threat or a promise?" department. Tell me it's a promise!
11. rac3rx 13 years ago
  
  What the hell? Donks are threatening people with self reliance now?
Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago

"Nearly 700 Native American children in South Dakota are being removed from their homes every year, sometimes in questionable circumstances."

Based on this sentence alone, I've concluded that the article must be a review of a Supernatural episode.
1. Bee Tagger 13 years ago
  
  And now I'm left wondering who in the world actually reads that article and why that paper is still in business.
2. DJF 13 years ago
  
  But if I went through NPR archives I would bet that I could find plenty of stories about how badly off Native American children are living with their families, (abuse, suicide, drug/alcohol, health problems etc) and this demands that the government DO SOMETHING.
  
  And then when the government DOES SOMETHING, they are surprised that government and laws are blunt instruments which are great at smashing things and shoving round pegs into square holes but not so great in the intricacies of family life.
3. John 13 years ago
  
  Little Indian kids are cute. There are nice white families that would love to have them.
  1. Neu Mejican 13 years ago
    
    Little Indian kids are cute. There are nice white families that would love to have them.
    
    You're welcome.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      That clearly went right over your head. State CPCs are notorious for being exceptionally harsh on Indian families and taking kids and adopting them out to White Families. It was such a scandal that Congress passed a law trying to put a stop to it.
      1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
        
        Neu Mejicans are so cute -- and just trying to build a little understanding, you know.
      2. Neu Mejican 13 years ago
        
        John missed the meta-linguistic aspects of my comment, clearly.
        
        The strike through being equivalent to the CIWA.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        OK.
      3. My Myself and I 13 years ago
        
        Would that make them White Indians?
  2. Suki 13 years ago
    
    Like the one on King of the Hill?
    1. Apatheist 13 years ago
      
      Not adopted, just a bastard.
4. stonewyrm 13 years ago
  
  I listened to this whole story on the ride home last night. It was very interesting, but they never went to the obvious points:
  
  "why do these unaccountable people have so much power? Why can they remove (kidnap!) children on suspicion of a crime? Where is the due process here?"
  
  "and this can happen to anyone, at any time. Today the Native Americans, tomorrow whoever has a lifestyle we don't like. Gays? Gunowners? Mormons?"
  
  It was almost a very good report.
  1. BigT 13 years ago
    
    There are other reasons to remove kids: bad names!
    
    http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com.....ation.html
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

A proposed rule to the Freedom of Information Act would allow federal agencies to tell people requesting certain law-enforcement or national security documents that records don't exist?even when they do.

Most transparent administration ever.
1. Bee Tagger 13 years ago
  
  It's easy to see that. What more could you ask?
2. DJF 13 years ago
  
  """Most transparent administration ever.""'
  
  The government authorizes you to know whatever the government authorizes you to know.
  1. Bee Tagger 13 years ago
    
    When I filed an FOIA request for information on the number of times that they lied in responding to FOIA requests they assured me that it's never happened.
    1. The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
      
      I'm sure Joseph Heller would approve of this post.
3. R C Dean 13 years ago
  
  Of course, that response cuts off any appeals or further pursuit of the documents.
  
  If they admit they have them, they have to give a reason for not releasing them. That reason can be contested.
  
  Its pretty much a defacto repeal of FOIA, as it means release of documents is purely at the discretion of the agency. Like it was before FOIA.
4. The President 13 years ago
  
  Let me be unclear!
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

"I Don't Think He Wants a Relationship Anymore"
http://dearwendy.com/columns/i.....p-anymore/

I have been with my husband for four years and we got married in August 2011. We have a 2-year-old together. Lately, I've been feeling like our relationship isn't what it used to be. I don't feel the love I used to feel from him. For example, he's a very flirtatious person and likes the attention from other women. I don't think he has cheated on me but I feel like he doesn't want this relationship anymore. He has told me that he still loves me and that if he wanted to leave he would have but his actions say something different.

On many occasions I have found evidence ? texts and emails ? of him flirting with other women but he denies everything when I confront him. When I do see these things it makes wonder if maybe one day he will cheat on me which really scares me. He says I'm too jealous but I don't think so. I only get jealous when I see things like this. He is also very secretive. He hides a lot of things that he thinks I don't know about. He constantly changes passwords and never leaves his phone, which he has locked with password, lying around.

Am I being too jealous or overreacting? Do I even have reasons to not trust him? I'm just so confused. ? Suspicious Mind
1. Tim 13 years ago
  
  Try throwing his dog out the window.
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    Or boiling the rabbit.
2. Montani Semper Liberi 13 years ago
  
  So when did this woman stop having regular sex with her husband?
  1. JW 13 years ago
    
    August 2011.
    1. TRTB 13 years ago
      
      Heh.
3. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  He has told me that he still loves me and that if he wanted to leave he would have but his actions say something different.
  
  So he did leave?
4. teh rael o2 13 years ago
  
  the inevitable result of new-aging dad into the delivery room. once the distended, torn-apart vag is viewed, the visusl is forever & the mystery is forever over.
  1. Kristen 13 years ago
    
    Oh fuck. I agree with double sphincter. Someone shoot me.*
    
    *unless it's a spoof...it's a spoof, right?
    1. teh rael o2 13 years ago
      
      consider urself shot then
    2. TRTB 13 years ago
      
      Nah, you can be in the delivery room without playing junior obgyn.
      1. teh rael o2 13 years ago
        
        its like a trian wreck, i triple-dogg care you NOT to look.
  2. Sparky 13 years ago
    
    Come on now. I got stuck holding my wife's leg while my son was being delivered. She still thinks I'm after her for sex too much.
5. Poet Luareate sloopyinca 13 years ago
  
  As a serial philanderer the last year and a half of my marriage, I can safely say this guy is screwing around.
  
  All the signs are there. The texts/emails. The hiding of electronic info. The passwords on the phone. The constant flirting. The need to immediately shower upon arriving home later than usual. The never-before freshly shaven balls. The scratches on the back.
  
  Oops. I got on a roll there.,
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    TMI
Bee Tagger 13 years ago

Obama DOJ prepares new, horrible FOIA rules.

At least they're transparent about hiding things, right?
1. gaijin97 13 years ago
  
  When citizens lie to government when asked about things, they are often tried and convicted...ref: Martha Stewart and Barry Bonds. Would be nice to think it worked the other way too.
  1. Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago
    
    In a recent case brought by the ACLU of Southern California, the FBI denied the existence of documents. But the court later discovered that the documents did exist. In an amended order, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney wrote that the "Government cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the Court."
    
    Apparently, in some judges' eyes, agents of the state couldn't lie to the courts. But circumstances have changed under Obama.
    1. imperturbable juris imprudent 13 years ago
      
      DoJ lawyer to court: We asked around and nobody could remember anything. Honest mistake your honor.
2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  I came here to say this.
3. Lost_in_translation 13 years ago
  
  Obamas cheating on us isn't he.
  1. R 13 years ago
    
    With who? Bolivia? That BITCH!
Suki 13 years ago

Obama: If We Lose in 2012, Government Will Tell People 'You're on Your Own'

At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.

"The one thing that we absolutely know for sure is that if we don't work even harder than we did in 2008, then we're going to have a government that tells the American people, 'you are on your own,'" Obama told a crowd of 200 donors over lunch at the W Hotel.
1. AlmightyJB 13 years ago
  
  Oh, if only that were true. They will never let us be "on our own". It's amazing how that's even a threat to half the country.
  1. Suki 13 years ago
    
    His lies are sneaky that way.
2. Barrack Obama 13 years ago
  
  Let em be clear:
  If reelected, I will never leave you alone.
  1. Sparky 13 years ago
    
    This is what happens when you steal the man's teleprompter.
  2. Joe Biden 13 years ago
    
    If we don't get reelected - it will be Rape-Rape-Rape all the time in America. [Because I'll have more free time.]
    http://memedepot.com/uploads/0.....ockta1.jpg
Ice Nine 13 years ago

Members of the Oakland Police Department rioted last night, firing tear gas and chasing residents.

Yeah but if the police really must riot it might as well be on OWS. Just sayin'.

(And did we really have to look at Kennedy's homely mug again today?)
1. Rich 13 years ago
  
  It's all good fun until someone gets killed.
Abdul 13 years ago

Turns out, Dungeons and Dragons is not an effective parenting method. Not even the 4th Edition.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories.....2803.shtml
1. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  If only I had a charm monster spell to use on my kids, life would be so much better.
  1. Abdul 13 years ago
    
    Daddy has a magic potion that makes little monsters more tolerable. He buys the potion in packs of six.
    1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
      
      Distilled potions would be more effective.
      1. Abdul 13 years ago
        
        Some evil wizard cast a spell on Mommy that makes her a shrieking harpy when Daddy has too many distilled potions.
        
        The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        What do you think? Aggravated LARPing?
        
        Abdul 13 years ago
        
        I think they buried the lede: "Renaissance enthusiast has wife, children" is far more shocking and newsworthy than "Adolescent provokes beating"
        
        Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        +1
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        Have another distilled potion. At some point, you won't care if Mommy's a shrieking harpy.
2. Sparky 13 years ago
  
  Forcing 4th edition on someone definitely goes beyond reasonable force.
  1. Joe M 13 years ago
    
    2e 4 life!
    1. Sparky 13 years ago
      
      Well we've moved on to Pathfinder but my father constantly laments the lost days of D&D 1e.
  2. Another Joe (ironically M) 13 years ago
    
    Its cruel and unusual punishment I say....
    Pathfinder is better.
    1. Joe M 13 years ago
      
      1) I'm sticking with 2e because I have a ton of books for it and don't feel like investing in a new system, even though I hear great things about Pathfinder/3.5
      2) I might need to change my name. 😉
3. PermaLurker 13 years ago
  
  That is an SCA sword. While there is some overlap between RPG'ers and SCAdians, the guy looks like a stick jock and stick jocks generally hold the RPG'ers in contempt. For the non SCAdians out there: stick jocks play the game to hit people with sticks not to recreate medieval society or concepts of chivalry and honor.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

GHEI: Put the spotlight on the Fed
http://www.washingtontimes.com.....n-the-fed/

This glimpse behind the curtains of the highly secretive organization came thanks to the efforts of Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont Independent, and Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Republican and one of the Fed's most outspoken critics. It shows the need to scale back the Fed's role to that of managing monetary policy - and nothing else. The larger the role of the Federal Reserve, the more power it has, and the greater the incentive there is to overlook the all-too-cozy relationships that have developed. This further politicizes the Fed and undermines its independence. It's time for the Federal Reserve to return to its core monetary policy mission, not manage bailouts.
John 13 years ago

http://campaign2012.washington.....tay-winter

After the committee announcements, the protesters brainstormed ideas for a prospective "de-escalation committee" -- whose purpose would be to maintain the movement's non-violence. Feel free to talk at this protest, but don't go off-topic. A woman announced at this moment that she was a new-comer, and began expressing her views on Occupy D.C. when another woman cut her off: "This is not time for comments! We are brainstorming de-escalation."

A wonderful training ground for budding young Robespierres and Murats.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Make that "Marats"
  1. JW 13 years ago
    
    I thought you meant meerkats.
    1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
      
      I thought he was talking about Mallrats.
    2. RoboCain 13 years ago
      
      I thought he meant mall rats.
    3. John 13 years ago
      
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Marat
      1. JW 13 years ago
        
        He looks nothing like a meerkat.
        
        Ice Nine 13 years ago
        
        It's the way he walks.
        
        Suki 13 years ago
        
        I thought they banned minarets in a few places?
        
        Poet Luareate sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        Marionettes, people. It says the protesters are marionettes for Team Blue.
        
        imperturbable juris imprudent 13 years ago
        
        Is this mic on?
      2. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        "FLY Fat Ass FLY!"
2. Bee Tagger 13 years ago
  
  I look forward to the day they ask the police for help in setting up free speech zones within the occupy campground.
3. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  "They requested that the committee be diverse and specifically discouraged too much participation by white heterosexual males."
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    They are like one giant Onion prank.
  2. Coeus 13 years ago
    
    There's an easy solution. Quit fucking the leaders of a political movement and the guys won't be so keen on taking over.
4. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  That's grade A hilarity right there. Reminds me of the bitch sessions we used to have at our fraternity over Robert's Rules of Order. It was a slow death by a thousand pinpricks of small tyrannical details. Too much of my college life wasted on that crap.
  1. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
    
    WOW! In my house we basicially had motions to do shit (usually throw parties but sometimes I would ask for, you know, TP, vaccuums, shit to keep the structure upright...i lost a lot of those votes to beer) and decorum calls. For a completely drunk house we did respect Chapter. When we elected EC we expected them to make sure we had parties and pay rent and that was about it.
    1. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
      
      As an aside Chapter lasted about 30 to 40 minutes once a week. The LP on the otehr hand lasts 2 hours and accomplishes less than a fraternity party.
John 13 years ago

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s.....5-16-50-37

Five NYC Cops arrested for gun smuggling. Don't these guys know the BATF has a monopoly on doing that?
1. TrickyVic 13 years ago
  
  They didn't. That's why they are in trouble.
2. Night Elf Mohawk 13 years ago
  
  Preemption, bitches.
3. CrackertyAssCracker 13 years ago
  
  Supremacy Clause.
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

Chuwie, a miniature Doberman-Pomeranian mix, miraculously survived, but his owner says the family pet hasn't been the same since.

Doberman! No wonder the cop felt threatened. And you can't spell Pomeranian without Iranian! (More or less.)
1. Frank Drebin, Police Squad! 13 years ago
  
  It adopted a threatening posture indicating imminent intent to place my men in jeopardy. Possibly even double Jeopardy.
  1. Tim 13 years ago
    
    Congress should pass legislation now, banning the possession of small,cheap and easily concealed dogs favored by drug dealers and minorities.
    1. hmm 13 years ago
      
      ...and apartment dwellers and billionaire heiresses.
2. DJF 13 years ago
  
  Another Iranian plot stopped. Good work, I feel much safer now.
3. hmm 13 years ago
  
  At least it wasn't a domestic terrierist pit bull.
4. JW 13 years ago
  
  Doberman-Pomeranian mix
  
  I hope they played a little Barry White, that night, for the Pomeranian.
  1. hmm 13 years ago
    
    It's a Miniature Pincher, people always think they are Miniature Dobermans and journalists are about as good at identifying dogs as they are at identifying guns.
rather 13 years ago

Why?

Because Cain's ads are smoking hot
http://rctlfy.wordpress.com/20.....oking-hot/
1. hmm 13 years ago
  
  I passed a couple of real whores out working a corner last night. Oddly I thought of you.
  1. JW 13 years ago
    
    That's no way to speak about whores.
    1. DJF 13 years ago
      
      Independent small business providing services that Americans want is what makes America great.
    2. Kristen 13 years ago
      
      Yeah, Maggie McNeill would be pissed
  2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    You should probably talk to a professional about that.
    1. hmm 13 years ago
      
      I would, but then I'd have to see another professional about the subsequent issues that could arise from seeing the first professional.
  3. rather 13 years ago
    
    hmm,
    How sweet. I had breakfast next to some whores this morning, and they spoke of a creepy guy who comes along every night. He keeps telling them his wife won't fuck him.
    Weird huh?
    1. T 13 years ago
      
      How sweet. I had breakfast next to some with the other whores this morning, and they we spoke of a creepy guy who comes along every night. He keeps telling them his wife won't fuck him.
      Weird huh?
      
      I can point you to a freelance copy editor who charges reasonable rates if you'd like.
      1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
        
        Aren't they all occupying Wall Street or Kalamazoo now?
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        I doubt any are still occupying Oakland.
      2. edited 13 years ago
        
        I had breakfast with hmm and T's mothers; they told me their cheap ass libertarian sons wanted a family discount.
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        My mom is usually still hammered at breakfast time, so I'm surprised you could understand the slurring.
Joe M 13 years ago

Herman Cain skyrockets to the top of the polls--in Ohio.

Notice that even though Perry is now polling at 4%, he's still getting more attention than Ron Paul, who is polling at twice his number. So it's not even that polling drives coverage. It's a pre-determined narrative that they will stick to no matter what.
1. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  And the only way Gary Johnson could get media attention is if he showed up at a debate naked and brandishing an assault rifle.
  1. Joe M 13 years ago
    
    Not even. The headline would read, "Romney, others threatened by crazed biker."
    1. rather 13 years ago
      
      I see more of a 'Libertarian with a small dick causes fits of laughter' headline
    2. Xenocles 13 years ago
      
      And if for some reason Romney wasn't there it would read "Romney dodges run-in with lunatc."
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

President Obama Holds Secret Meet-and-Greet With Hollywood Execs and Influencers
http://www.hollywoodreporter.c.....ing-253151

Before he left Los Angeles for San Francisco on Tuesday, President Barack Obama stopped for an undisclosed meeting with some of the entertainment industry's high-level executives, as well as talent representatives with access to the industry's top stars and musical acts, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

...snip...

An insider who attended the hour-long meeting with the Obama campaign staff tells THR that the vibe was casual. The president appeared for about 25 to 30 minutes, telling the group that his campaign would be tough and he needed their help to engage the Hollywood community in particular and the general public at large.
1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
  
  Because if it's one section of his supporters Obama should be concerned about losing, it's the SWPL Hollywood crowd.
2. Atanarjuat 13 years ago
  
  Well the celebrities can use their pulpit to attempt to influence their fans, but I don't think it will work very well. I saw a Wayans Bros. comedy act recently, and they were pretty funny, except for Marlon Wayans last 5-10 minutes onstage, which was an unfunny pro-Obama harangue.
hmm 13 years ago

That dog is a Miniature Pincher/Chihuahua mix. MinPin is a spitz breed and has absolutely no connection to the Doberman line. At least they didn't try to call it a pit bull.
1. hmm 13 years ago
  
  Oops, minpin/pom mix. Seen a lot of minpin chihuahua lately and it's stuck in my brain.
Ice Nine 13 years ago

Incidentally, does anyone know if it was Col. Odom who died, or was it that sergeant?
1. hmm 13 years ago
  
  I know Lt. Dan lost his legs.
2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  Neva 4get
3. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  Lamar Odom left the Lakers? You'd think that would be news.
4. Poet Luareate sloopyinca 13 years ago
  
  I do know it's a safe bet Greg Oden got injured again this week.
AlmightyJB 13 years ago

5 NYPD Officers Arrested In Gun-Smuggling Sting

http://www2.nbc4i.com/news/201.....ar-802280/
1. John 13 years ago
  
  -2 for being late and missing the obligatory BATF joke.
  1. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
    
    At least someone responded to his comment.
    ZING!
    1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
      
      PWNED!
tarran 13 years ago

From the implacable revenge department.

PARIS ? In the dark early hours of an October morning in 2009, acting on an anonymous tip, police officers in the French city of Mulhouse picked up an elderly German doctor who had been left ? bound, beaten and bleeding ? in a street near the municipal courthouse. The man, Dieter Krombach, had been kidnapped outside his home in Germany and secreted across the border into France, where there was a warrant for his arrest in connection with the death of a French girl nearly three decades ago.

Earlier that morning, near Toulouse, Andr? Bamberski lifted a ringing telephone. A voice informed him that the doctor was in Mulhouse. Mr. Bamberski gathered his things and left immediately. He took with him the 20,000 euros (then about $29,800) he had promised the abductors.

Mr. Bamberski, 74, will soon be tried for his involvement in the kidnapping. But the events of that morning were a victory for him, the culmination of nearly 30 years spent in obsessive pursuit of Dr. Krombach, the man who seduced and married his former wife, split his family and, Mr. Bamberski and the French authorities contend, raped and killed his 14-year-old daughter, Kalinka, in 1982.

The doctor was just found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The father's kidnapping trial is scheduled later this year.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  That is awesome. Too bad he didn't get away with it. And even still he won't do much jail time. Much more sophisticated than just shooting the bastard.
  1. tarran 13 years ago
    
    Let's be honest here. He had nooooooo chance of pulling off the kidnapping without being arrested...
    
    The investigation into who had a motive to dump the good doctor outside a French courthouse probably started with a list containing one name. 🙂
    
    And, if I were in his shoes, when they took my mugshot after arresting me, I would have one hell of a "you don't fuck with me" smirk on my face.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      He had a good chance of it since he had someone else do it. He just didn't cover his tracks well enough.
2. JW 13 years ago
  
  Dish. Served. Ice. Cold.
  
  Fuckin' A, Andr?. Fuckin' A. Hopefully, there is some sanity left in France and they'll acquit the father.
3. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  Starring Liam Neeson?
4. Ira Einhorn and Roman Polanski 13 years ago
  
  This story worries and concerns us. France should always be a place where rapists and murderers can enjoy a simple, uncomplicated life of beauty and poetry.
  1. Whoopi 13 years ago
    
    But was it rape rape?
  2. DSK 13 years ago
    
    What, you guys think you're better than me or something?
5. R C Dean 13 years ago
  
  Where he went wrong was the whole obsessive pursuit thing. He should have just dummied up, given the impression that it was all behind him.
  
  And then put a bullet in the fucker's head some dark and stormy night. As they say, "best served cold".
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    Then he goes down for murder. You have to have someone else do it so you can have an iron clad alibi.
    1. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
      
      Who's to say his name even comes up, if he kills the guy in Germany, makes it look like a mugging/burglary gone wrong, that sort of thing? And if the police think the motive was personal, it sounds like Mr. Bamberski had a lot of company in wanting this guy dead.
      
      You can't condone stuff like this, but you sure as hell can understand it. Too bad that the French don't seem to allow probation for manslaughter.
      1. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        Gah, I screwed that up. Not sure how I misread that the dad was tried for manslaughter of the drugging doctor rapist, instead of the rapist being convicted of manslaughter for the death of the dad's daughter. Should the French try the dad for kidnapping?
        
        Interesting case, from a jurisdictional angle and an international comity angle. Didn't the U.S. kidnap the doctor who kept Kiki Camarena alive as Mexican drug cartel guys were torturing him, eventually to his death? IIRC, that was ruled to be O.K. and I think the doctor is still rotting in a federal jail cell somewhere.
6. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  In the 1997 trial in Germany, Dr. Krombach pleaded guilty to charges that he drugged and raped a 16-year-old patient at his office. He received a two-year suspended sentence and was barred from practicing medicine for two years.
  
  ?_?
  1. Abdul 13 years ago
    
    So, do rapists who aren't also doctors just get the suspended sentence?
    1. tarran 13 years ago
      
      The guy apparently was in tight with the police - to the point where he participated in the autopsy of poor Kalinka Bamberski.
      
      That's right, the murderer participated in the autopsy, and surprise, surprise, when they exhumed her body, he genitalia and vagina turn up missing.
      1. Question 13 years ago
        
        In Germany doctors have a social status slightly higher than god.
        
        Lost_in_translation 13 years ago
        
        Just look at strangelove
        
        The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        Or Dr. Killinger.
    2. The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
      
      I know it was a plea deal, but man.
  2. Sparky 13 years ago
    
    Well it wasn't rape rape. I doubt the drugged 16-year-old told him NOT to rape her.
    1. teh rael o2 13 years ago
      
      16 is NOT the age of consent
      1. Poet Luareate sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        France, dude. I doubt "age of consent" even translates into their fucked up language.
        
        Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
        
        I don't know, Barry! What's French for deliciously depraved?!
      2. Sparky 13 years ago
        
        If you weren't so dumb that wouldn't have gone that far over your head.
        
        See, she was drugged right? She didn't say he couldn't have sex with her because she was drugged right? Do you get it yet?
        
        o3 13 years ago
        
        the drugs could be another criminal charge...in addition to statutory rape...because she was 16.
        
        Sparky 13 years ago
        
        You know what, just forget it.
        
        Kreel Sarloo 13 years ago
        
        The age of consent in France is 15.
        
        Not that that's relevant since the joke was about ther being drugged.
        
        Sheesh, Virginia Postrel never would have put up with morons like this. 🙂
7. Raston Bot 13 years ago
  
  the best part... the doctor was convinced he was going to get away with it.
8. cynical 13 years ago
  
  Wait, this is the country that thinks we're monstrous for wanting to extradite Polanski, right?
9. Matrix 13 years ago
  
  Batman did it!
Ken Shultz 13 years ago

In regards to the Oakland police riots, this love/hate relationship with the police has been an ongoing thing between the Oakland police and Quan...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J....._and_Kudos

If I'm not mistaken, Jean Quan is about as Progressive as they come.

Everyone take notice! The Progressives will not tolerate dissent from their opposition on the right--and they will not tolerate dissent from their supporters on the left either.

They are equal opportunity authoritarians.
1. Ken [fixed] 13 years ago
  
  Everyone take notice! The [Libertarians] will not tolerate dissent from their opposition on the right--and they will not tolerate dissent from their supporters on the left either.
  
  They are equal opportunity authoritarians.
  
  Or don't you want me banned anymore for speaking out for real freedom?
  
  Officer, am I free to gambol about plain and forest?
  1. White Idiot [fixed] 13 years ago
    
    Everyone take notice! I don't know shit, and my act wore thin long, long ago!
  2. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
    
    If the Unabomber can do it, why can't you?
$6M RoboTorso 13 years ago

And the below differs from Enron's "we control it but we don't technically own it so its debt isn't our debt" games, the ones proving how corrupt capitalism is, exactly how?

Guaranteed to Fail: Fannie, Freddie, and the Debacle of Mortgage Finance (long PDF)
...By far, the most important legislation affecting Fannie Mae was its conversion into a private company in 1968. It was primarily for accounting purposes. The Johnson administration wanted Fannie Mae privatized, so as to remove its debt from the federal government's books, thereby reducing the size of the national debt. In addition, a change in federal budgeting procedures at the time would have counted Fannie Mae's net purchases of mortgages as current government expenditures, which would have meant that those net purchases would have added to recorded federal budget deficits?something that any presidential administration would want to avoid doing during its own term.

The privatization meant that Fannie Mae was spun off to the private sector and became a publicly traded company, with its shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). However, Fannie Mae retained its federal charter and the special status and privileges that went with the charter. Fannie Mae also had its own special regulator: the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which had been created as a cabinet-level department in 1965 and retained some regulatory powers over Fannie Mae. Another prominent indicator of the specialness of Fannie Mae, despite its apparent structure as just another private (publicly traded) company, was the power of the President of the United States to appoint five board members to the Fannie Mae board of directors. No other company that was listed on the NYSE had presidential appointees on its board....

Godzilla Hedge Fund Fannie Mae Was 'Guaranteed to Fail': Books
For Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the figure to remember is 79.9 -- the percent ownership that the U.S. Treasury took in each when it seized control in 2008. If the stakes were 80 percent, the mortgage companies would land on the federal budget, as we're reminded in "Guaranteed to Fail," a valuable book on how two quasi-public companies became "the world's largest and most leveraged hedge funds."

Kiss all the political posturing about the U.S. public debt ceiling goodbye: With Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's debts tacked on, the total would lurch to $15.84 trillion, well over the current limit of $14.29 trillion, the authors say....
1. hmm 13 years ago
  
  Per FNM, accounting in general is an exercise in pencil fucking the numbers to please the government or if your the government to please your buddies and get reelected. It's the largest government created cottage industry.
  1. T 13 years ago
    
    Yet another reason to be a closely held corp instead of publicly traded. You can run the accounting to show what you actually need to know, not so you have the correct dog and pony show for the SEC.
2. teh rael o2 13 years ago
  
  oops - neither freddie nor fannie are loan originatorz AND the CUNA & AIG suits named BoA & JP Morgan NOT freddie nor fannie. >moar false RW memes designed to foam n fundraise the wingnutz
  1. teh rael o2 13 years ago
    
    my stupidity is just a meme to foam the wingnutz
    1. teh rael ronnie reagan 13 years ago
      
      "facts are stupid things"...except to CUNA & AIG
3. cynical 13 years ago
  
  If we had separation of commerce and state, then those sorts of shenanigans would be blatantly unconstitutional.
$6M RoboTorso 13 years ago

The Government is CONSTANTLY Pestering Google For Your Personal Information
...Google released its "transparency report" today and America ranks ahead of all other nations when it comes to asking the search giant for your personal info. In fact, U.S. officials ask for three and a half times more data than India the nation that ranks second in government requests for user data.

U.S. Government officials requested personal data 5,590 time for criminal investigations during the first half of 2011?an increase of 29 percent over the last six months of 2010. And Google reports that it complied in whole or in part with 93 percent of these requests....
hmm 13 years ago

# NYT/CBS poll: "89 percent of Americans say they distrust government to do the right thing, 74 percent say the country is on the wrong track and 84 percent disapprove of Congress."

"With nearly all Americans remaining fearful that the economy is stagnating or deteriorating further, two-thirds of the public said that wealth should be distributed more evenly in the country."

I hate government, they don't take enough from others and give it to me!!! God people are fuckin' stupid.
Lord Humungus 13 years ago

Most People Are In Favor Of Wild Geoengineering Projects
http://www.popsci.com/science/.....rvey-shows

A majority of people in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States support studying ways to reflect sunlight as a method to cool the planet, according to a new study. Researchers at Harvard and two Canadian universities say nearly three-quarters of survey respondents approved research into geoengineering.
1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
  
  studying ways to reflect sunlight as a method to cool the planet
  
  Great idea. What could go wrong?
2. Quetzalcoatl 13 years ago
  
  This article would be better if it were about terraforming the Moon.
  1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
    
    NUKE THE MOON!
Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago

Rethinking campus sexual harrasment policies.

Awesome quote:

Gallop's book, Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment, arose out of her own experience as a university professor charged with sexually harassing two female graduate students with whom she had developed close and difficult relationships. She describes in detail the history of her student-teacher sexual encounters, which involved her sleeping both with teachers as a student, and with students as a teacher. She reports these engagements as being generally positive and reasonably friendly, arising out of mutual desire for sex and intimacy rather than an abuse of power by the teacher. Although she had ceased sleeping with students at the time she was accused of sexual harassment, her teaching and learning relationships had been, and continued to be, amorous, personal and sexual. It seems, from Gallop's telling, that for her and her students, the close nature of these relationships was, initially, personally and academically productive. One student's academic work, for example, involved writing love letters to a fictional older woman teacher, certainly modeled at least in part after her relationship with Gallop.

This book does not present the two students who accused Gallop of harassing them as being upset because of the erotic relationship they shared with their teacher, but rather because they felt Gallop wasn't giving them the feedback they desired and felt they deserved. It was the withdrawal of her ability to please these students pedagogically, rather than the structure of a relationship with erotic pleasure in it, that troubled them. At least from Gallop's perspective, this is a story about jilted lovers who manipulated university-based sexual harassment policy to seek revenge for their dissatisfaction with an unruly relationship.

Gallop revels in the amorous relationships she shared with these two students: she describes a "spectacle" of a kiss she shared with one of them at a bar after a conference. Simultaneously, she assures us that she could not have sexually harassed these students, not because she never slept with them but because she didn't discriminate against them. She argues exactly the opposite, in fact, that as a teacher who is also a person, that far from sexually harassing these women, she engaged in deeply personal relationships with them both as students and as people. Each of the women (Gallop included) was flawed, lonely, desirous, egotistical, nervous, excited, and interested in working together academically. The decision to work in intimate ways reflected Gallop's commitment to feminist pedagogy and the possibilities raised by women's studies education, rather than a hope for teacher-student seduction.

Didn't those dumb bitches read the rules? A feminist women can
t sexually harass another woman. It just doesn't work that way.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  They are over 18. They had fun too. I am with the teacher.
  1. Abdul 13 years ago
    
    I was a teaching assistant once and had the opportunity to start something with one of several undergrads in one of the classes. I turned it down because it seemed like a conflict of interest, and the potential for DRAMA was too high.
    
    How anyone can't see the pitfalls and still wind up as a professor is beyond me.
  2. Coeus 13 years ago
    
    I am with the teacher.
    
    Fuck that hypocritical bitch. Just like that "LGBT equality" lawyer who suddenly ddidn't want gay marriage when she found out she would be treated like a man in family court.
    1. RoboCain 13 years ago
      
      Got a link to that?
      
      And it's definitely hypocrisy. If a man did the same thing she would call it rape.
      1. Coeus 13 years ago
        
        Can't find it. My google-fu has failed me. John is the one who found it originally.
  3. Supreme Generalissimo Fluffy 13 years ago
    
    Since I'm pretty sure this professor would have found similar relationships involving male teachers and female students unacceptable, I hope they fried her.
    
    If you deny the agency of others, you don't get to claim that the agency of your sex partners means your conduct was OK.
    1. Question 13 years ago
      
      Yum! Fried professor for breakfast...
      1. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
        
        Do we bread the professors before we fry them? Because we've been over this shit before.
  4. T 13 years ago
    
    I'm not. You don't fuck your students. Period. Don't like it? Quit, or hit on students that aren't in your department.
  5. SFC B 13 years ago
    
    I'm going to have to back the students. This isn't a question of sexual assault where age and consent come into play. Gallop was their teacher and in a position of significant authority over the students in her class. If she didn't want to risk being investigated by her employer for violating her employer's sexual harrassment rules she probably shouldn't have been fucking her students.
2. DJF 13 years ago
  
  I notice that they whole, "people in power are automatically harassing juniors when they have sexual relations with them", has gone out the window as soon as feminists have gained power.
  1. Coeus 13 years ago
    
    You didn't really think they were serious, did you?
3. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
  
  Each of the women (Gallop included) was flawed, lonely, desirous, egotistical, nervous, excited, and interested in working together academically.
  
  In other words, emotionally broken lunatics.
  1. T 13 years ago
    
    What part of 'feminist' went over your head?
    1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
      
      I didn't say they weren't the same thing.
  2. Elspeth Flashman 13 years ago
    
    +1.
Old Mexican 13 years ago

NPR: "Nearly 700 Native American children in South Dakota are being removed from their homes every year, sometimes in questionable circumstances."

The circumstances under which other children being forcefully removed from their non-Native American homes seem not to be as questionable by the non-questioning supine media, I gather....
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Sure they are. But they are more harsh to Indians.
2. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
  
  Dude, if you ever want to see what a life of total government dependency looks like, go to an Indian Reservation in New Mexico. It is goddamn ugly.
  1. Pip 13 years ago
    
    Gamboling offends you?
Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago

Soda gives teenagers... COLA MADNESS!

If the great monster Frankenstein came face to face with the monster Coca Cola, he would drop dead of fright!!!

Also, how long until a study linking soda to teenage violence gets Bloomberg to start carding for cola?
1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
  
  back in my 80s hacker days, I would glug down Mountain Dew all night. Other than a weird (the world is melting!) feeling I got by dawn, I somehow survived.
  1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
    
    Umm, did you ever use it to wash down little pieces of paper?
    1. Lord Humungus 13 years ago
      
      well... maybe.
      1. Coeus 13 years ago
        
        Ugh, strychine. Sweettarts for the win, gentlemen. No hangover with the liquid.
        
        RoboCain 13 years ago
        
        I'm pretty sure the strychnine thing is urban legend.
        
        Coeus 13 years ago
        
        Tell that to my dessicated body the morning after. There is something different in the formulation. If it's not that, it's something else.
Old Mexican 13 years ago

Drug cops toss a 7-pound dog out a three-story window.

And nothing else happened.
1. The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
  
  That sounds like just defenestration, not self-defense.
  1. Coeus 13 years ago
    
    +20 points for using defenstration in a sentence.
2. teh rael o2 13 years ago
  
  did it land on all 4 pawz ?
Mike M. 13 years ago

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the de facto president of Libya, says that Islamic shariah law will be the law of the land.

Good luck getting that whole democracy thingy to take hold there. We'll be looking back wistfully on the Ghadafi era in no time once our "allies" decide to thank us by stabbing us in the back, which probably won't be all that much longer.
1. teh rael o2 13 years ago
  
  at least you can "look back wistfully"...unlike qhadafi's victims.
POLIS (city-state) = POLICe 13 years ago

Kelly Thomas Died for Your Sins.

For the love of money and property values is the root of all evil and police brutality.

Bums, drugs, hippies, and other undesirables lower property values.

Privation Property requires aggression.

Cops must be unleashed, and allowed to administer instant punishment ... unleash the cops to clear the streets of bums and vagrants. Where will they go? Who cares?

~Murray Rothbard
Dean of the Austrian School of economics, founder of libertarianism.
1. KDN 13 years ago
  
  Gambolmen, start your moccasins!
  1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
    
    Nice.
2. Trespassers W 13 years ago
  
  Christ, you're tedious.
  
  From which I conclude that your real name is TED.
Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago

Google's Eric Schmidt wakes up and smells the coffee.

Speaking Truth to Power
1. Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
  
  "So we get hauled in front of the Congress for developing a product that's free, that serves a billion people. OK? I mean, I don't know how to say it any clearer," Mr. Schmidt told the Post. "It's not like we raised prices. We could lower prices from free to . . . lower than free? You see what I'm saying?"
  
  An absence of consumer harm didn't stop senators from offering some improbable recommendations. Among them: that Google replace its algorithm with a panel of experts to ensure "fair" search results. As Google tries to improve the relevancy of its search results for consumers, some sites inevitably come up higher and some lower in the results. The losers now lobby Washington.
  
  "Regulation prohibits real innovation, because the regulation essentially defines a path to follow," Mr. Schmidt said. This "by definition has a bias to the current outcome, because it's a path for the current outcome."
  1. KDN 13 years ago
    
    An absence of consumer harm didn't stop senators from offering some improbable recommendations. Among them: that Google replace its algorithm with a panel of experts to ensure "fair" search results.
    
    This is the reductio ad absurdum of those advocating for increased regulation of the private sector, and it has now actually been proposed. If I would have offhandedly said in an argument over the issue, "well the next thing you know, the Feds are going to tell Google to replace its search engine with a multicultural panel of experts to promote unbiased search results," I'd have been laughed out of the room. And now, that option is on the table for at least one of our distinguished gentlemen in Congress.
    1. teh rael o2 13 years ago
      
      so can KDN fully describe google's algorithm to demonstrate that it's unbiased?
      1. Sparky 13 years ago
        
        Can o2 describe why is has to be unbiased?
      2. KDN 13 years ago
        
        I never even implied that it was, nor that it should be; I dismissed the very idea of it as being laughable. Are you really as dumb as you come off around here?
        
        teh rael o2 13 years ago
        
        i dont agree that its laughable or dumb. its either unbiased or not. and google tweaks its algorithm so its obviously not perfect.
        
        KDN 13 years ago
        
        You know, you're right. Instead of optimizing its search engine to give me the most relevant results for my query, they should modify it to make sure women and minority-run pages are properly represented in the results according to various titles of the Civil Rights Act. How could I be so foolish? Sure, it'll take me a little longer to find out the information I was looking for, but that's a small price to pay for that highest virtue, diversity.
        
        teh rael o2 13 years ago
        
        "As Google tries to improve the relevancy of its search results for consumers"
        _
        that statement fm the article shows google itself is NOT fully satisified w the algorithm...or perhaps KDN believes santorium is a foamy residue of lube & fecal material.
        
        KDN 13 years ago
        
        That has nothing to do with bias.
        
        Seriously though, you're an idiot.
        
        o3 13 years ago
        
        how do you know what google's concerns are?
        
        CrackertyAssCracker 13 years ago
        
        you are a got dam idiot.
      3. Night Elf Mohawk 13 years ago
        
        Can you demonstrate that it needs to be? Don't like the results? Don't use it.
        
        The fucking Yellow Pages aren't unbiased. Should they scramble AAA Auto Repair with Mitch's Auto and Zed's Auto so Mitch doesn't feel bad?
        
        teh rael o2 13 years ago
        
        google tweaks it so obviously google itself recognises the need for improvement.
        
        Sparky 13 years ago
        
        I think it's safe to say that Google's tweaks don't include patches to make it less biased. You really are criminally stupid.
        
        teh rael o2 13 years ago
        
        and you cant know what u wrote is true or not.
  2. JD the elder 13 years ago
    
    senators...offering some improbable recommendations. Among them: that Google replace its algorithm with a panel of experts to ensure "fair" search results.
    
    Damn. That is some seriously Atlas Shrugged-type shit. You cannot write fiction anymore, because someone will come along and make it real.
    1. Rhywun 13 years ago
      
      "Thanks for submitting your search request to Google. Please mail us a SASE and a urine sample, and our experts will respond within 8 to 10 days."
MNG 13 years ago

Duncan Hunter Says: Beware Mexican Truckers!!!

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v.....bs-safety/
MNG 13 years ago

Re: our discussion yesterday about how and why unions come about, this story about a nascent proto-union for NCAA ball players

More than 300 major college football and men's basketball players are telling the NCAA and college presidents they want a cut of ever-increasing TV sports revenue to fatten scholarships and cover all the costs of getting a degree, with athletes picking up still more grant money when they graduate.

http://www.npr.org/templates/s.....=141668127
1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
  
  They may change their tune once they find out they'd have to share that money with the women's water polo team.
2. Pip 13 years ago
  
  You lost me at "yesterday", Adolph.
John 13 years ago

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/o.....fuZ58OImVO

I assume Frank Flemming, whoever he is, is a comedian and this is a joke. But since liberals are generally beyond satire these days, it is hard to tell.
1. Warty 13 years ago
  
  When one person takes the property of another, that's tyranny, but when lots of people get together and do it, that's democracy. So we should legislate that the 1 percent no longer get to keep that vast wealth and must instead distribute it among the rest of us. (I should get the largest portion because it was my idea.)
  
  Sounds serious to me.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    His book is called Obama: The Greatest President in the History of Everything,
    
    That makes me think the whole thing is a joke.
    1. MNG 13 years ago
      
      Wow, it took you that long to figure that out?
      
      You really need to watch more comedy dude. I could tell immediately due to the last line.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        No I just read too much liberal commentary. Tweak a couple of lines here or there and this could go straight on Salon or Huffpo and get about hundred thousand recommendations and retweets.
      2. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        Wow, it took you that long to figure that out?
        
        I could tell immediately due to the last line.
        
        Looks like it took him about as long as it took you.
  2. MNG 13 years ago
    
    I've always heard conservatives have no sense of irony, but you couldn't tell this guy was mocking the idea?
    
    Sheesh.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      I assumed it was. But the article pretty much reads like every Paul Krugman or Special Ed Shultz rant. It is really hard to tell these days what is satire and what is not.
      1. MNG 13 years ago
        
        Dude, the last line was a dead give away.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        I know. That is why I assumed it was. But I have no idea who Fleming is so I wasn't totally sure, just 99%
        
        Pip 13 years ago
        
        Here's a tissue; use it.
2. Ice Nine 13 years ago
  
  Frank would never joke around. He might try fucking up the moon with reflected sun rays, though.
  1. Ice Nine 13 years ago
    
    http://www.imao.us/
3. cynical 13 years ago
  
  The NY Post is well known as a hard-left venue.
Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago

Jezebel asks: What can happen when we us the word fat?

Apparently, disliking/not wanting to date overweight people is the exact same thing as racism.
1. Warty 13 years ago
  
  As I pointed out in my column last week, "Think Twice Before Praising Someone For Losing Weight,"
  
  Oh, for fuck's sake.
  1. MNG 13 years ago
    
    I'm glad White Indian's clutter has been cleared away to allow for this kind of insight. Please, more of "for fuck's sake!" Perhaps mix it up with "Boy, that is stupid" or "LOL"
    1. JW 13 years ago
      
      3 sentences. Unsubstantiative.
      1. MNG 13 years ago
        
        I'm not sure pointing out someone's lack of substance requires many sentences JW, but I realize you don't like me from whipping's past, so join in the fun.
        
        JW 13 years ago
        
        I think one could actually tolerate you for more than a few minutes, if not for that personality of yours that keeps scabbing over.
        
        The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        Heaven forbid somebody gets a laugh, MNG. Sheesh, it must hurt being so serious all the time.
        
        Supreme Generalissimo Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Isn't posting a quote from someone else and then the comment "Oh, for fuck's sake!" also an example of pointing out someone's lack of substance?
        
        And, that being the case, wouldn't it also not require many sentences?
        
        Night Elf Mohawk 13 years ago
        
        Which is what Warty was doing.
      2. Warty 13 years ago
        
        Stop it, JW. Some of us are trying to make serious points here in our serious discussion that we are having here, and you are ruining it by not making serious points here. I have a PhD in Seriousness, you know.
        
        Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
        
        OFFS!
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Warty
        
        I like how you mix up your "WTF" insights with being duped like @ 9:58. Adds to the substance.
        
        M i N G e 13 years ago
        
        THREE STOOGES!!!
        
        WTF 13 years ago
        
        Hey Warty I bet he makes more than you, so you must be PWN'D.
        
        Lord Humungus 13 years ago
        
        seriously?
        
        Warty 13 years ago
        
        There has been too much violence, too much pain. None here are without sin. But I have an honorable compromise: Just walk away. Give me the pump, the oil, the gasoline, and the whole compound, and I'll spare your lives.
        
        4 sentences. Unsubstantive.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Oh, for fuck's sake!
  2. JW 13 years ago
    
    "Oh Lylyth, did you gain 40 pounds? My sister, that's how you tell the patriarchy what to do with their heteronormative standards!"
    1. Kristen 13 years ago
      
      -5 for failure to include the phrase "Male Gaze"
      1. Devil's Advocate 13 years ago
        
        And another -5 for failure to invoke Social Justice.
      2. Moe19 13 years ago
        
        Male Glaze. heh.
2. Coeus 13 years ago
  
  I'm on the same site, but in Paris. The same city where a guy I was dating for a few weeks, who'd been soooo effusive about how awesome he thought I was, told me that he thought he should date someone thinner. And, courtesy of the naturally slim build of many of the French ladies, the "slightly overweight" dealbreaker answer is fairly common here too.
  
  Hehe. They're not slim because they diet and exercise. Most of them are just naturally slim. As if white people have completely different genes after being separated for all of 300 years.
  1. teh rael o2 13 years ago
    
    folks in big cities walk moar. even my daughter commented on the fewer fatties in NYC.
3. Troy 13 years ago
  
  So if fat going to be the new "F" word? Or are we going to call it the FA word?
  1. Rhywun 13 years ago
    
    That's "fag" and its variants. How about the "FAT" word?
Old Mexican 13 years ago

Novel Idea!! Let Employers Fire Unproductive Employees!! Who Woulda Thunk It???

Give firms freedom to sack unproductive workers, leaked Downing Street report advises

Companies should be given the right to dismiss unproductive workers without explanation, a leaked Downing Street report advises.

Wow! What a great idea! And to think, nobody had thought of it before!
MNG 13 years ago

You know, for someone accused of being a knee-jerk liberal I think I may have too quickly dismissed this liberal meme that much of our debt woes are tied to tax cuts for the wealthy. I did so based on two things that I hear a lot and readily accepted but which I think might be difficult to reconcile:

1. The wealthy pay the bulk of taxes

2. Tax cuts for the rich have played a insignificant role in our debt

If 1 is true it seems hard to reconcile with 2. If the rich pay most taxes, then a significant cut in their taxes is going to be a significant cut in revenue, right (apart from the supply side idea that tax cuts always result in greater overall income and therefore more overall tax revenue).

This would explain why our debt started ballooning not during high tax, high spending periods like the 1960's but in the tax cutting era of Reagan.
1. Joe M 13 years ago
  
  Or, our debt starting ballooning because the growth of government has far outpaced the population growth and the economy at large.
  1. MNG 13 years ago
    
    Of course there is a spending side of the ledger, there are two sides to a ledger. Even if revenues were cut from what they might have been if spending had been similarly cut then you get no debt. I get that.
    
    I'm just saying it is more than passing strange that the relatively high tax and spend 60's didn't generate the debts like the Reagan era did.
    1. Joe M 13 years ago
      
      See my reply below. The 1960s racked up a decent amount of debt. You've also got to consider that the 1960s were really just the initiation of the Great Society entitlement programs that are crushing us now.
      1. MNG 13 years ago
        
        "The 1960s racked up a decent amount of debt."
        
        Decent, but not as much as the eighties, right?
        
        "the 1960s were really just the initiation of the Great Society entitlement programs that are crushing us now."
        
        I dunno, it's hard to see the Great Society as a relatively small government era...
        
        Joe M 13 years ago
        
        It planted the seeds for our destruction, just like Obamacare is currently doing.
        
        Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        I dunno, it's hard to see the Great Society as a relatively small government era...
        
        Two of those programs, Medicare and Medicaid, now take up 20% of federal spending.
        
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.....tegory.jpg
        
        CrackertyAssCracker 13 years ago
        
        adjust for inflation. use price of gold as deflator. Then redo comparison.
    2. Isaac Bartram 13 years ago
      
      I'm just saying it is more than passing strange that the relatively high tax and spend 60's didn't generate the debts like the Reagan era did.
      
      Dude, you need to share the interdimensional travel device that got you from the universe where the Reagan era was not an era of high spending. High spending with record high levels of revenue collection as well.
      
      The big budget items of the sixties were the defense budget; the welfare programs might have been passed then but the spending didn't take off until the seventies. Not to mention that Nixon signed a whole lot of entitlements that were holdovers from the Johnson days.
      
      The big budget items in the eighties were entitlements plus record high interest on the national debt. Not only had the debt grown from about $400B in 1971 to about a trillion dollars in 1981 but interest rates made it so interest on that debt became a major budeget item.
      
      Uo know the only people who believe that Reagan cut spending on any programs are liberals because they want to show how evil Reagan was and conservatives because they want to show how great he was. 🙂
      1. Isaac Bartram 13 years ago
        
        Oh, and the the universe where the Reagan era was not an era of high spending is also the one where Nixon was a conservative.
2. John 13 years ago
  
  The problem with that theory is two fold. First, the top 1% has been paying a higher and higher share of total income taxes since 1980 from 20% in 1980 to nearly 30% in 2009.
  
  http://www.heritage.org/budget.....me-earners
  
  If it were about cutting taxes to the rich, their share should have gone down. Clearly other people got their taxes cut more.
  
  Second, revenue nearly doubled from 517 billion in 1980 to 991 billion in 1989. In fact, revenue went up every year under Reagan but one.
  
  http://www.taxpolicycenter.org.....?Docid=200
  
  If Reagan's cutting taxes on the wealthy is what caused the deficits to go up rather than spending, then revenue would have gone down or at least remained flat instead of nearly doubling.
  
  And Kennedy radically dropped the top tax rate. But revenue went up nearly a quarter from 1960 to 1964.
  
  There is no statistical basis to make your statement. It is just fantasy.
  1. MNG 13 years ago
    
    "If it were about cutting taxes to the rich, their share should have gone down."
    
    Not if their share of income generated had increased even more, right?
    
    "In fact, revenue went up every year under Reagan but one."
    
    Tax revenue in total went up, but as a % of GDP?
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      "Not if their share of income generated had increased even more, right?"
      
      Maybe, but that just shows that growing the economy is a good thing allowing you to get a whole lot of money from a few people.
      
      And who cares what the percentage of taxes as GNP are. The government's obligations don't go up as a percentage of GNP. That is one of the great advantages of a growing GNP, you can fund the government with a smaller and smaller share of it.
      
      When your income doubles in eight years, the problem is spending not revues.
      1. MNG 13 years ago
        
        "And who cares what the percentage of taxes as GNP are. "
        
        Well, when I've talked about total spending here in the past lots of people seem to care that we talk about spending as a % of GDP or its meaningless. Only fair to ask the same thing about tax revenue.
        
        Again, of course if you spend less than you take in, growing or not, you get no debt. That's something to keep in mind, I agree. What I am saying is "if we had the same rates with that economic growth how much money would that have kicked into revenue, and would it have covered most of the deficets?"
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        "if we had the same rates with that economic growth how much money would that have kicked into revenue, and would it have covered most of the deficets?"
        
        Not necessarily. First, it assumes that the taxes and the spending are always justified. No, they should have cut the spending and left the taxes where they were. Second, it assume that there is no positive correlation between tax rates and growth. And considering the growth rates in the low tax 80s versus the higher tax 70s and the growth that happened after the Kennedy tax cuts, that doesn't seem to be the case.
        
        And lastly, you assume the Congress wouldn't have just spent any additional money they took in. And that is exactly what they would have done. The deficits of the late 1980s put pressure on Congress to do something about the growth of spending and gave us the Bush I deficit reduction package and such. Even if the income had gone up, the deficits would have been what they were since Congress would have just spent more.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        "First, it assumes that the taxes and the spending are always justified."
        
        I think Tony addressed this with his last sentence at 10:24.
        
        "Second, it assume that there is no positive correlation between tax rates and growth."
        
        Sure, and I said that. But that strikes me as an open debate. I've seen growth following the BIGGEST TAX HIKE IN HISTORY (TM) (clinton) as well as bad times following "historic" tax cuts (Bush II).
        
        "the deficits would have been what they were since Congress would have just spent more"
        
        Maybe, it's certainly plausible.
        
        Tony 13 years ago
        
        I think even Congress would have had a hard time figuring out how to spend the amount of the Bush tax cuts on anything but tax cuts. That's a ridiculous excuse for never raising taxes, ever. It's just a question of who is in charge. Yeah, if Republicans are in charge I have no faith that they'd be fiscally responsible, since they haven't demonstrated that ability in a couple generations.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        "Yeah, if Republicans are in charge I have no faith that they'd be fiscally responsible"
        
        The GOPs fiscal irresponsibility has been demonstrated Tony, but it was often Dem Congresses letting many of those Reagan and Bush II tax cuts and deficets go forward.
        
        Tony 13 years ago
        
        Sure and it was a Democratic president and (lame duck) Congress that allowed the extension of the Bush tax cuts, albeit under duress. It was also a Democratic Congress that prodded Reagan to raise taxes on several occasions. And it's not as if Republicans are simply being inept at budgeting--they know what they're doing. Cut taxes (politically popular) and refuse to entertain ever raising taxes, thus forcing Democrats to take the heat for cutting popular spending programs, or as in the case of the supercomittee, make it an automatic thing. To me it's a problem of honesty and cowardice. Starving the beast instead of actually campaigning on cutting Medicare, because they know it's unpopular.
        
        Question 13 years ago
        
        I know I'm wasting my time but I'll give it a shot anyway; this will be my one act of kindness today. MNG, there are two aspects to the national debt - debt held by the public, and intergovernmental debt - IOUs from Treasury to other agencies, mostly SSA. Ironically, when the US economy is booming, and the Feds are collecting lots of SS and FICA taxes, the intergovernmental part of the public debt will be growing too. Understand?
        
        Proprietist 13 years ago
        
        MNG, I disagreed with Bush's tax cuts as well because I'm not a trickle-down advocate, but two facts:
        
        1.) The economy was damn good in the mid-2000s following the Bush tax cuts. So good everyone lost their heads and took the government's free hotel, buffets and game credits and blew their life savings at the corrupt government casino.
        
        2.) Government revenue increased with the Bush tax cuts, even though it didn't increase as much as it might have without the cuts (but we also might not have had the boom either). The fact that the debt increased is strictly a result of government spending and unsustainable entitlements. To blame tax cuts, you'd have to point to a decline in actual revenue, not a decline in estimated revenue growth.
  2. Tony 13 years ago
    
    Government revenues almost always go up from year to year because of economic and population growth. If it's not going up then we're in a serious downturn. The relevant question is what would government revenues have been without the tax cuts. Even right-wing economists don't claim that revenue would have been the same or lower without the tax cuts.
    1. MNG 13 years ago
      
      "The relevant question is what would government revenues have been without the tax cuts."
      
      Yes, this is kind of what I'm realizing.
      
      Revenues can go up for a lot of reasons, and they do so in tax hikes nad cuts (Clinton vs. Bush II for example). It seems the relevant question is "if economy boomed and taxes had remained at these pre-cut rates, how much money did we then not get that we would have?"
      
      Of course this puts aside the question about supply-side economics, a question which I don't pretend has been answered either way.
      1. Supreme Generalissimo Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        "if economy boomed and taxes had remained at these pre-cut rates, how much money did we then not get that we would have?"
        
        And
        
        Of course this puts aside the question about supply-side economics, a question which I don't pretend has been answered either way.
        
        Since the first question and the second question are the same question, you can't say that asking one of them puts the other one aside.
      2. Proprietist 13 years ago
        
        Income revenues went down, cap gains revenues went up. Surprise! The money the wealthy would have paid in taxes gets invested in stocks, which leads to a better economy.
        
        If we're stuck in the income tax system though, I'd rather cut bottom-up, because people with less money are more likely to immediately spend the money on goods, creating actual profits instead of just more cash flow.
    2. John 13 years ago
      
      Go back and look at the projections for future revenue under Carter, they were much lower than what actually happened.
      
      And even at best, all you are saying is "we could have grabbed more money if we would have wanted to". Well so what. You can always raise more money. But that doesn't mean that the problem isn't spending. The government doubled its revenue and still couldn't live within its means. By your perverse logic, the problem will always be taxes because we can always tax more. Essentially no amount of money will ever satiate yours and other liberals' desire for money. And that is why you can't be taken seriously on these topics anymore.
      1. MNG 13 years ago
        
        "You can always raise more money. But that doesn't mean that the problem isn't spending."
        
        Well, if you're worried about debt it sure might mean that. There's two sides to the ledger John. If you are coming up in debt you either took in too little or spent too much. It's totally valid to see the first as the problem.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        How can you say you took in too little when you doubled your take in 8 years? You only took in too little because spent so much. Is there ever a point in time where you will admit spending is the problem? I don't think so if you refuse to admit spending is the problem during a period in which revenues doubled but the deficit exploded.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        "How can you say you took in too little when you doubled your take in 8 years?"
        
        Because given the same growth and pre-cut rates it would have taken in a greater amount?
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        "Because given the same growth and pre-cut rates it would have taken in a greater amount?"
        
        So what? If you hadn't spent so much, you wouldn't have needed that amount. All you are saying "but we could have taxed more". Well no kidding. But you could have spent less too. You are just talking in circles. We are right back to the point I made, no amount of spending ever seems to be too much for you.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        No John. Before you get in a tizzy remember that what brought on this reflection was that I usually dismissed this narrative and said spending was the problem, so stop that "you will never think spending is the problem" stuff.
        
        What I am saying you actually seem to admit, that we had and have a choice: we could cut spending or we could have kept tax rates higher. Either could, other things being equal, have kept off debt.
        
        And this is the entire narrative of the Left: we can either raise the tax rates of millionaires or cut Medicare benefits for poor old ladies. You're actually admitting this is the choice we have when you say "All you are saying "but we could have taxed more". Well no kidding. But you could have spent less too."
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        And this is the entire narrative of the Left: we can either raise the tax rates of millionaires or cut Medicare benefits for poor old ladies.
        
        And of course that is complete horse shit and not where the money went in the 1980s or even now. We raised non-discretionary baseline spending by 50% in the first year of Obama. We are literally spending enough money to fight the entire Iraq war and have a hundred billion dollars left over in increased spending this year over 2008. We don't have to cut old ladies off of medicare, although Obamacare is certainly going to do its damnedest to do that.
        
        But yeah, if you want a giant government create a full on totalitarian state where ancien regime style the government inspects every house to make sure that even a stray chicken is not accounted for and you can fun this great government until everyone goes Gault and stops working and we turn into the Soviet Union.
        
        Yeah, we could have an even bigger government and an even bigger more inefficient social welfare state if we just had outrageous tax rates and draconian measures to collect said rates. If liberals want to make that their message, that we can tax you more to pay for our programs, good luck with that.
        
        And you also totally ignore the point that there is no guarantee that Congress wouldn't have just spent more if they had had more tax money. What makes you think they wouldn't have? They got away with the deficits as it was. Why not tax and borrow and spend that much more?
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        "a giant government create a full on totalitarian state"
        
        John, c'mon, lighten the hyperbole man. Most people are just talking about pre-Reagan and Bush II era tax rates, not Brave New World...
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        If you want to raise taxes you have to collect them. And you can't do that, not with really high tax rates anyway, without absolutely going after people.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        For the record I think the government could be doing a lot less than it is now. I'm more sympathetic to budget cutters than you may suspect, though I only sympathize with honest ones like Gary Johnson who mention cutting defense as much as Medicare, the Department of Commerce as much as Education, and government contractors as much as government employees.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        We should not cut a dime from medicare or social security or the aid to the poor until at least half of the cabinet departments have been eliminated and at least half of the civilian bureaucracy has been laid off. Sorry, but no one should be told their social security or medicare is being cut so that the Commerce Department can study bees or the Labor Department can have another GS 15 diversity consultant.
        
        Liberals should have to make a choice, their social welfare programs or their bureaucracy, you can't have both.
        
        Tony 13 years ago
        
        The "bureaucracy" you're referring to is a drop in the bucket compared to Medicare and defense. Republicans are the ones that need to make a choice: their tax cuts or Medicare. And they should have to explain to voters their choice rather than be cowards and pretend that we have no other choice.
        
        Proprietist 13 years ago
        
        I don't disagree with you, Tony. Same goes with the criticisms of "pork".
        
        But rational prioritization could say that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps should be one of the last things on the chopping block if they can't be fundamentally reformed towards fiscal solvency. Waste should be the first thing to be axed because people's lives aren't depending upon it - in fact, from a utilitarian perspective excessive bureaucracy make more peoples' lives worse.
        
        I'm a libertarian but I also realize that immediately defunding promises to people that have become dependent on government for survival instead of gradually weening them off of it is both impractical and heartless. Lack of incrementalism would also likely kill any political appeal for libertarianism for most people. Sufficient market alternatives and charities won't instantly appear out of nowhere to fill the need, so the change needs to be gradual and let people adapt to a system with more self-reliance.
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        Avoidance behavior. Everybody forgets how huge avoidance behavior was in the 70s. I don't think you can assume the same GDP growth with higher tax rates.
        
        Proprietist 13 years ago
        
        Your assumption is that the same economic growth would have occurred if the government had taken more money out of the private sector? The dot com bubble had crashed and 9-11 cast a pall over the economy. Tax cuts helped turn it around pretty fast.
        
        Of course, that doesn't excuse the fact that both parties refused to cut spending during the Bush years, and the idea that revenues from economic growth resulting from the tax cuts would offset the extreme annual increases in spending was equally crappy economic postulation.
      2. Tony 13 years ago
        
        Gov't revenue as a share of GDP is at the very low end of its average share. The main reasons for this are the economic downturn, war spending, and the Bush tax cuts.
        
        If those tax cuts are more important to you then Medicare, fine, just say so. Don't pretend we don't have a choice.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        But government obligations don't rise as a percentage of GNP you nitwit. That is the whole point. As your economy gets larger and larger government spending as a share of GNP should go down not up since you are richer and it takes less and less of your total income to keep the lights on.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        "As your economy gets larger and larger government spending as a share of GNP should go down not up since you are richer"
        
        Not if most or all of that growth is going to only certain segments of the population John, and that is the claim.
        
        I'm not saying I fully buy it, just saying it's got me thinking. It doesn't seem self-evidently wrong.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        "Not if most or all of that growth is going to only certain segments of the population John, and that is the claim."
        
        But that clearly is not what happened. The poverty rate went down in the 1980s and wages went up. At best you can point at is that rich got richer faster but so what? Everyone was better off than they were just some more than others.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        "The poverty rate went down in the 1980s"
        
        Is that true? I'm not being smart-ass here, I'd just like to see some verification of that. Same with the wages because I've always heard that when you do all that "adjusting" we've had "stagnant" wages for decades for most folks.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Yes it is true.
        
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.....meline.gif
        
        Not a huge drop but a drop. And hardly a rise. There is no reason why taking care of the poor should have cost a higher percentage of GNP in 1989 than it did in 1980.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Thanks, that's interesting and a valid point.
        
        KDN 13 years ago
        
        Gov't revenue as a share of GDP is at the very low end of its average share. The main reasons for this are the economic downturn, war spending, and the Bush tax cuts.
        
        Increasing defense spending decreases tax receipts? That's incredibly counterintuitive (and I say this as somebody that actually has an education based in Keynesian macro), please give some evidence.
        
        If it wasn't for our overly progressive taxation policy, the economic downturn wouldn't have as much of an effect on receipts as it did. With the way the Federal budget is set up and its tremendous bureaucratic inertia, having as volatile a system as a steeply progressive income tax be the main generator of revenues is simply foolish.
        
        Tony 13 years ago
        
        You're right, the downturn and tax cuts are the reason for the decrease in receipts. Forcing our "children and grandchildren" to pay for the war spending is just the immoral cherry on top.
        
        Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        It's the same as it was 50 years ago, when we had higher marginal tax rates. So clearly, the actual tax rate isn't the issue here.
    3. Supreme Generalissimo Fluffy 13 years ago
      
      Even right-wing economists don't claim that revenue would have been the same or lower without the tax cuts.
      
      Revenue would have been the same or lower without the Reagan tax cuts.
      
      The Bush tax cuts are a different matter.
      
      If you lower tax rates from the 70's to the 30's and collect more revenue, the Laffer Curve is thereby proved. There is no more data to collect.
      
      "But - but - economic and population growth! TEH VARIABLES! TEH VARIABLES!" is not a counterargument, precisely because the entire Laffer Curve argument consists of the statement, "Marginal tax rates change patterns of economic activity ("TEH VARiABLES") in a way that means that very high marginal rates produce less revenue than marginal rates in the middle of the curve."
    4. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
      
      The relevant question is what would government revenues have been without the tax cuts.
      
      Like predicting what the U3 would have been without the stimulus?
3. Tony 13 years ago
  
  Yep.
  
  To folks here the tax cuts don't count because tax cuts are always good no matter the context, and government is always too big, so deficits are always the result of too much spending.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    When you raise receipts from 517 billion to 991 billion in eight years, but still manage to balloon the deficit, the problem is spending Tony. I know maths are not something you are too good at, but the numbers don't lie.
    1. Tony 13 years ago
      
      The problem is spending. On wars and massive tax cuts.
      1. MNG 13 years ago
        
        I guess even I have trouble thinking of a tax cut as "spending" Tony, though I'll grant when you are worried about debt you have to consider lost revenue as significant. But I wouldn't call it "spending."
        
        Tony 13 years ago
        
        Whether the money gets dumped on Iraq or in the pockets of taxpayers, deficit is still the imbalance between revenues and outlays. The fixation on whether it's a spending or revenue issue is purely semantic. Of course it's a spending issue to people who think government does too much and was doing too much in the 90s. To people who like Medicare and believe wars should be paid for, it's a revenue issue.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Sure, I conceded as much when I said "though I'll grant when you are worried about debt you have to consider lost revenue as significant"
        
        Poet Luareate sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        Please stop referring to taxes as revenue. Nothing taken by threat of force should ever be considered revenue.
        
        TrickyVic 13 years ago
        
        IOW, people who like to spend always blame the lack of money for their problems, not their spending habits.
      2. The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        How is a tax cut 'spending'? I understand a tax cut has a similar effect, but it's not spending.
        
        The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        OK, I need to hit refresh.
      3. Restoras 13 years ago
        
        Tax cuts = spending in bizarro world, not in the real world.
      4. Troy 13 years ago
        
        The problem is spending. On wars and massive tax cuts.
        
        Spending = tax cuts. What the Fuck!!!
        
        For fuck's sake, we don't even speak the same language.
        
        Tony 13 years ago
        
        If you won't acknowledge the role of the tax cuts on deficits then you're not being honest. Whether spending or revenue is the 'problem' is a function of what you want government to do. We don't all agree on that.
        
        Proprietist 13 years ago
        
        Tony, our consistent argument is that tax cuts should be matched or exceeded by spending cuts. Republicans should have cut spending and excessive government, especially in the short-term economic boom created by their tax cuts. Personally, I'd prefer paying taxes for any spending today than pay taxes plus interest to China tomorrow.
        
        But who are you arguing against, libertarians or the Bush Administration/Republicans? Two extremely different things.
      5. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        The problem is spending. On wars and massive tax cuts.
        
        The wars and spending aren't costing $1 trillion a year in deficits, Tony.
        
        Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        That is, the wars and "massive" tax cuts--and LOL at your goonfiction that a percentage drop of 3-4% is "massive"
  2. John 13 years ago
    
    When you raise receipts from 517 billion to 991 billion in eight years, but still manage to balloon the deficit, the problem is spending Tony. I know maths are not something you are too good at, but the numbers don't lie.
    1. MNG 13 years ago
      
      "know maths are not something you are too good at"
      
      Joes Law. The dude is long gone, but his law liveth still.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        maths is a perfectly acceptable work you philistine.
        
        MNG 13 years ago
        
        Ok, +1, that's funny.
        
        We've all been bit by Joez Law.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        It is still acceptable and you are still a philistine for not understanding that.
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        It's acceptable in the remains of the crumbled empire, John, not here in America. What, are you some kind of tea-drinking crumpet-scarfing Anglophile?
        
        Troy 13 years ago
        
        Karma police, arrest this man
        He talks in maths
        He buzzes like a fridge
        He's like a detuned radio
        
        by Radiohead
        
        The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        Do the Canadians use "maths" or "math"?
        
        Pip 13 years ago
        
        meth.
        
        The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        Maple syrup and meth? Interesting.
4. Joe M 13 years ago
  
  Also, the deficits in the 1960s were plenty high, when accounting for inflation. The total debt in that decade was about $50 billion, which is almost half a trillion in today's dollars.
  1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
    
    It's actually about $383 billion, according to this:
    
    http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
    1. Joe M 13 years ago
      
      Yeah my calculations were very rough. However, your figure doesn't count each year's deficit in terms of the same year's dollars, so it's still not quite right. And the $50 billion part is also a rough calculation to begin with.
      1. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        Looking here, it appears that total debt during the 60s went up about $80-85 billion, so you actually undercounted what was spent.
        
        http://www.treasurydirect.gov/.....histo4.htm
        
        You're right that I didn't calculate inflation from each year in the decade, but I figured 1960 was a convenient baseline. If one uses the $85 billion figure and a 1970 baseline, total debt went up close to the half trillion figure you cited (a little over $493 billion).
        
        It's pretty sad that we'd love to get back to that $500 billion deficit figure today.
5. Mike M. 13 years ago
  
  For about the hundredth time, federal revenue has stayed remarkably stable regardless of what the various tax rates have been. I'm not going to post the chart again because I know you've seen it so many times already.
  
  This chart here tells you the whole story, as long as you know a little rudimentary history.
  
  As anyone can plainly see from looking at the chart, there are three periods in the last hundred years during which U.S. debt exploded in a short period of time. The first was World War I. The second was World War II. And the third is the last four year period, which has seen government spending and bailouts blow up through the stratosphere.
  
  It's the spending, stupid.
  1. MNG 13 years ago
    
    I thought the claim was that it never broke a certain ceiling? That's different than saying it was stable.
  2. Tony 13 years ago
    
    And for the hundredth time, this "remarkably stable" stuff is bullshit based on misleading graphs. Revenues as a percentage of GDP do fluctuate significantly, just not on such a large scale as tax rates (determined by congress as they are). If you put these on a graph together, it looks like revenues are stable by comparison. But they're actually quite affected by tax policy.
    
    If you'll refer to the article I linked, you'll see that government responses to the economic crisis are a minor part of current deficits compared to the wars and Bush tax cuts.
    1. Mike M. 13 years ago
      
      This is rich, coming from the king of the misleading graph.
      
      Ironically, your boy Obama has just once again proved that tax rates DON'T have that big an impact on revenue, as revenue is now on the rise once again in spite of the fact that he cut the payroll tax for all employees, not just "the rich". Economic output has a far bigger impact than the rates.
      1. Tony 13 years ago
        
        That's true, but clearly the Bush tax cuts didn't improve economic output as the supply-siders claimed they would. In fact there appears to be little or no correlation between tax rates and output (or employment) historically. Perhaps taxes should just be treated as what they are: the way to pay for the things we buy with our government.
        
        Mike M. 13 years ago
        
        Perhaps taxes should just be treated as what they are: the way to pay for the things we buy with our government.
        
        Tell that to your boy Obama. Not only does he want to extent the payroll tax cut, he is pushing to have the payroll tax lowered even further than it is now, on both employees and employers.
        
        Personally, I have no problem with it; I believe taxes should be as low as possible for everyone. But his actions prove that you guys are mostly full of shit and don't really believe your own rhetoric. You just want to foment your beloved class warfare because you think it helps you politically.
        
        Tony 13 years ago
        
        Actually the purpose behind Obama's tax cuts is Keynesian stimulus. Granted, they aren't as useful for this purpose as directed spending is, but they're more politically possible. The purpose of Bush's tax cuts was to pay back a government surplus. Then it was Keynesian stimulus when that ran out. Obama is the consistent one.
        
        Mike M. 13 years ago
        
        Oh for crying out loud, you just freaking contradicted yourself in about twenty minutes.
        
        You at 11:28: Perhaps taxes should just be treated as what they are: the way to pay for the things we buy with our government.
        
        You at 11:47: Actually the purpose behind Obama's tax cuts is Keynesian stimulus.
        
        I'm done for now. Try clearing out your head, getting your thoughts together, and making up your mind once and for all about what the purpose of tax policy is. Then get back to me after you've done that.
        
        Tony 13 years ago
        
        Did I say I agreed with Obama?
        
        Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
        
        You've been defending the stimulus on here for months, so yes, one would have to say that you agreed with him. The only way you differed was on the amount spent.
        
        Proprietist 13 years ago
        
        You justify his motivations yet assume that Bush's motivations weren't also Keynesian. We were in a recession in 2001-02 after all.
        
        Intentions matter more than anything, right Tony?
    2. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
      
      And for the hundredth time, this "remarkably stable" stuff is bullshit based on misleading graphs.
      
      And for the hundredth time, your bloo-bloo-blooing about "misleading graphs" is horseshit. The "revenue as a percentage of GDP" is exactly what the data says it is, no more and no less.
      
      You're just pissed because it doesn't fall in line with your idiot progressive narratives.
6. Supreme Generalissimo Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  This would explain why our debt started ballooning not during high tax, high spending periods like the 1960's but in the tax cutting era of Reagan.
  
  Receipts rose after the Reagan tax cuts.
  
  Reagan's deficits line up pretty neatly with his defense spending increases.
7. dave c 13 years ago
  
  Then look it up. How much did those tax cuts cost?
8. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
  
  This would explain why our debt started ballooning not during high tax, high spending periods like the 1960's but in the tax cutting era of Reagan.
  
  The 1960s weren't high spending--the feds spent less on both an aggregate and per capita basis than they do today, even in inflation adjusted terms.
  
  If you don't believe me, just go to this site and crunch the numbers:
  
  http://www.usgovernmentspendin.....rs?units=d
9. cynical 13 years ago
  
  "tax cuts for the wealthy"
  
  Nope, we don't tax wealth until someone dies.
Warty 13 years ago

Metal vs. zombies

Strippers In Williston, North Dakota Raking In $2,000 Per Night In Tips

I hope they have job openings up there for hairy dude strippers.
1. Sparky 13 years ago
  
  "Oh Bob, do we have any openings this man might fill?"
  1. Troy 13 years ago
    
    Warty is no mere man.
Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago

I am Amber Cole's father

Amber Cole, for those of you who don't remember, is the 14 year old who blew her boyfriend and went viral. Here's an excerpt from the great letter that merits reading:

I am Amber Cole's father and I have seen the video. You probably have too. I would like to ask her mother's boyfriend, Karrine Steffans or Kim Kardashian where my daughter learned that. How she became proficient at such a difficult act. I want to know who has been teaching my little girl how to act like a woman while I have been trying to teach her to be a young lady. Teens don't have the tools they need to express, explore and comprehend the consequences of careless intimacy. I want to know what kinds of people we are allowing to look after our children when we are not around. I want to know why my 14 year-old knows so much about oral sex.

I am Amber Cole's father, and I am not raising a slut. White feminists can teach their own little girls to find empowerment through their crotches ? my brown little girl cannot afford to be that carefree and cavalier with her life choices. Slutlife is the hard, lonely vocation of rich, educated, privileged white women who will fuck The World, contract social diseases and still, somehow find a husband. No black woman ever got far being a slut. I want to know what kind of women "slutwalk," while young impressionable girls of all kinds look on with wonder and admiration. I want to know why these same women run to protect Miley Cyrus but just shrugged, nonplussed for my little brown girl. I want to know what the fuck those dumb bunnies are thinking. Most of them do not have daughters. I want my daughter, the woman, to have healthy, vibrant sexuality. My little girl should have other priorities. I am her father. I will protect her and every woman in my life with my life.

Doesn't sound too crazy, right? Well, it has elicited a shit storm on Jezebel for daring to suggest things like "hey, maybe our media is a bit too sexualized" or "hey, being a slut isn't too empowering". Seriously, it has more comments than I have ever seen on Jez for a non Open Social thread.
1. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
  
  I like how they are calling him a pedophile because he dare to watch the video he is writing about.
2. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  "You probably have too."
  
  Sorry, I haven't. And if she was only fourteen, wouldn't that make it child porn?
3. Troy 13 years ago
  
  I am Amber Cole's father and I have seen the video. You probably have too.
  
  Ewwww. No, I haven't and I won't.
  
  I have a 17 year old daughter. It doesn't freak me out in the least that she has sex. I don't like it. I wish I could make her wear a burka until she is 32. And giving a blow job isn't exactly atomic engineering. Sheesh.
  1. Apatheist 13 years ago
    
    Yeah, its not like 14 year old girls giving bjs is a new thing. Hell, it wasn't long ago that people were marrying of their daughters at 14. I still think its a great letter though.
4. Pip 13 years ago
  
  "I am Amber Cole's father, and I am not raising a slut."
  
  Then why is she on the pole?
Old Mexican 13 years ago

Sorry, the page loads with errors, one of them being a bad "reply to this" link.

Re: MNG,

If 1 is true it seems hard to reconcile with 2. If the rich pay most taxes, then a significant cut in their taxes is going to be a significant cut in revenue, right (apart from the supply side idea that tax cuts always result in greater overall income and therefore more overall tax revenue).

The same way when a thief stops thieving, his revenue goes down. Same when a criminal enterprise stops collecting their protection money: their revenue slackens. So far so good.

This would explain why our debt started ballooning not during high tax, high spending periods like the 1960's but in the tax cutting era of Reagan.

Yes, spending being an unavoidable fact of nature, like asteroids hitting the Earth or something. Nothing under our puny-human control, no siree!
1. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
  
  There's also the small issue about more money being left in the private sector contributing to more GDP to steal from in the first place, but that's another matter.
rsi 13 years ago

Once they start paying the players it will be obvious the "college" teams are nothing more than second rate professional teams, farm teams.

The only justification I can see for college athletics is to get people to donate money to the schools.
P Brooks 13 years ago

Companies should be given the right to dismiss unproductive workers without explanation

THIS IS HOW YOU DESTROY THE MIDDLE CLASS!
Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago

Can the Youth Vote be bought for a trillion dollars?

In the realm of economic stimulus proposals, none is as audacious, as Machiavellian, and as transparently designed to buy the votes of a critical electoral demographic than the proposal to forgive all student loans. Even if it fails, as it likely will, the seamless coordination between members of Congress, leftist advocacy groups, and the media to try to sell this idea is a perfect example of how brilliantly certain factions play their hand in the high-stakes game of crafting the dominant political narrative.

Looking at Gawker and Jez, the answer is yes. Bonus points if we go to a European or Australian kind of system where the government pays for all schooling.
1. Haunted Taint 13 years ago
  
  The real question is why anyone would want to buy a Presidential election when they can get a far better bang for their buck by buying regulators and legislators.
2. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
  
  Of course, another bailout of any kind will likely alienate a big chunk of the population.
Andrew S. 13 years ago

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ne.....2003.story

I'll just copy and paste what these wonderful officers did:

Investigators from a police corruption task force now believe that Koepke and Dodge went after drug buyers and sellers, claimed they found cocaine on one person who had none, and stole several thousand dollars in cash that should have been placed in evidence, according to five sources.
Justify your property 13 years ago

Libertarians justify property by saying property is necessary to survive.

Yet... 1% own 40% of wealth (property) in the US. 10% own 85% of the wealth.

Justify needing 85% of the wealth for the richest 10% to "survive."

Rothbard: ...must use and transform material natural objects in order to survive...

Rand: In order to survive, man has to...

Need more examples?

There's a bait-and-switch going on.

1. We need stuff to survive. Please, we need it!
2. All your stuff are belong to 1%. GOTCHA!
1. KDN 13 years ago
  
  So, you're transitioning to Communism now? Nice work, I look forward to you copying and pasting vast swaths of the Manifesto in an attempt to make us all realize that only under a primitive collectivist system is the individual truly free.
  
  Gambolers of the world Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
2. Supreme Generalissimo Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  Well, you are truncating Rand.
  
  Rand says that in order to survive, man has to engage in productive work, directed by reason.
  
  Since she was a natural-law style moral theorist, she believed that this meant that any moral system for human beings had to acknowledge the centrality of reason and productive work to be valid.
  
  Property is thereby justified to Rand because it allows the person who engages in productive work to retain the fruits of that effort.
  
  It's all very straightforward. It's not actually need-based, in the sense of individual needs. The needs of the person who does not or cannot reason or engage in productive work meant (admittedly) nothing to Rand.
  1. T 13 years ago
    
    Yeah, that's one of the biggest failings with Rand for a lot of people. What do you do with those who either congenitally or through accident are simply not capable to care for themselves? Most people's moral intuition says they should be cared for by someone, but the true Randian approach is fuck 'em.
    1. Supreme Generalissimo Fluffy 13 years ago
      
      Yes, that's true.
      
      Because Rand would acknowledge your right to dispose of your property any way you choose (including gifts to charity) as a legal matter, but would damn you for it morally. In moral terms the entire character of Hank Rearden basically exists as her argument that engaging in charity is immoral.
      
      That was a surprise to me when I first realized it, but I understand the basis for her argument.
      1. T 13 years ago
        
        I understand her argument, but I reject it. What was I supposed to do when my dad got early onset Alzheimer's? Take him out back and shoot him because he's no longer capable of reason or productive work? Sorry, that doesn't work for me.
        
        teh rael o2 13 years ago
        
        but one area wherein randianism falls apart
Warty 13 years ago

Poland's last Battle of Britain pilot dies
1. Lucy Steigerwald 13 years ago
  
  A history nerd thank you for that link.
  1. Warty 13 years ago
    
    You deign to play with the groundlings, and now it turns out you're a history nerd, too. Best Reason hire in years. In your face, Riggs.
    1. Lucy Steigerwald 13 years ago
      
      Now, now.
      1. The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        You don't want to hurt Riggs' feelings. He's still reeling from Vietnam flashbacks and his wife leaving him.
        
        Coeus 13 years ago
        
        Seeing that cute little blonde chick with the puffy nipples he was banging die after getting shot up right in front of him didn't help much either.
        
        The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        That was the real shame.
  2. Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
    
    Lucy, I believe the time may be coming soon when you must kill Gilespie, take The Jacket as your own, and rule reason as Postrel once did!
    1. T 13 years ago
      
      One does not take the Jacket. The Jacket takes you.
      1. Coeus 13 years ago
        
        We already hashed that one out. The only remaining question is whether the Jacket came to earth in a meteorite, or was given to Nick to use when he fought in an intergalatic war.
    2. Lucy Steigerwald 13 years ago
      
      I don't know why you guys don't have a it was better under Lanny Friedlander meme.
      
      Your call, though.
      1. T 13 years ago
        
        I tried the Marty Zupan joke once with respect to the website.
      2. Pro Libertate 13 years ago
        
        It's a web thing.
      3. imperturbable juris imprudent 13 years ago
        
        Oh SNAP!
2. Ice Nine 13 years ago
  
  Somewhere, Jan Sobieski is smiling.
Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago

So, I think that Herman Cain is secretly a robot designed to make liberals heads explode. For example, Jezebel simply can not understand his rise in the article Herman Cain: Why?

Key quote:

Herman Cain, a pizza-making businessman who has never held any political office, is running for President. He peppers his speech with inscrutable metaphors and has terrible ideas, and yet, he's still among the GOP frontrunners. This guy can't be serious. Can he?

Also, if you want to see straight up, tractor pullz style elitism, look at featured comments.

Meanwhile, over at Gawker, they take time to inform us that Herman Cain is a stupid, stupid man.

Yes, the rocket scientist and former Fed Bank president is a moron, as opposed to just gaffe prone or weak on public policy.

Jesus, at this point I want a Cain v. Obama election just to see liberal heads explode Scanners style.
1. Warty 13 years ago
  
  "Vote Cain 2012: For the Lulz"
  1. T 13 years ago
    
    Well, my perferred lulzy Palin/Bachmann ticket is out, so I guess he'll do for lulz.
2. RoboCain 13 years ago
  
  Secretly?
  1. Elspeth Flashman 13 years ago
    
    +1. Seriously though, I love it that Cain makes the left's heads explode. I don't think he is long-run cadidate material though.
Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago

And in honor of yesterday being Game 6, 1986, here is the Mets comback, as by NES RBI Baseball and Vin Scully

This is mostly to remind people how much better Vin Scully is than goddamn Joe Buck and motherfucking Tim McCarver.
1. Ska 13 years ago
  
  I'll still beat you playing with the Cardinals by getting multiple in-the-park bunt home runs.
2. Red Rocks Rockin 13 years ago
  
  And to remind us how much better RBI Baseball is than MLB: The Show.
Warty 13 years ago

Coroner: Amy Winehouse died from too much alcohol

Pathologist Suhail Baithun told the inquest into the singer's death that Winehouse had consumed a "very large quantity of alcohol" ? the level in her blood put her more than five times over the legal drunk-driving limit.

What drunk-driving limit? Britain's? The US's? What's wrong with just giving the goddamned BAC level, anyway? Fucking journalists.
1. The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
  
  Since it's "more than" five times the legal limit, I suppose that doesn't rule out a BAC of 1.00.
2. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
  
  Oh, for fuck's sake!
  1. TrickyVic 13 years ago
    
    Put your faith in government, big brother is growing up.
    
    "New street lights that include "Homeland Security" applications including speaker systems, motion sensors and video surveillance are now being rolled out with the aid of government funding."
    
    http://www.infowars.com/new-st.....lications/
    1. TrickyVic 13 years ago
      
      Damn threaded comments.
      
      That wasn't intended to go under CN's comment.
      1. Warty 13 years ago
        
        It works. Roll with it.
        
        Also: unsubstantive.
        
        Elder Scrolls Enthusiast AuH20 13 years ago
        
        It is amazing how many gaffes MNG makes. Tractor pulls, substantive comments, etc.
        
        Warty 13 years ago
        
        He is an utter moron who is utterly convinced that he is brilliant. How'd you like to have him as a boss?
        
        The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
        
        MNG's a smart guy. He has that very human trait where he seems to lose his sense of humor when he gets offended, though.
        
        rac3rx 13 years ago
        
        I think I did...
    2. T 13 years ago
      
      Man, I am so getting that suppressor. Target practice is gonna get a whole lot more fun if they roll these out here.
      1. Warty 13 years ago
        
        I've thought about getting some suppressors when I have some money. How does the licensing work? Is the suppressor the Class 3 toy, or is the gun+suppressor the C3 toy?
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        The suppressor itself. You can get QD mounts for the AAC I posted to move the suppressor from gun to gun, which is my plan. Basically, you file your request for transfer with the ATF, wait 4-6 months for approval, take the approved form down to your local class 3 dealer, finish the transfer, pay the tax, go home. Put the original completed form 4 in a safe place and always carry a photocopy while you're out and about.
        
        Biggest issues is the CLEO signoff, I hear. Some jurisdictions won't sign them at all. If that's the case, you go corp. or trust.
        
        Coeus 13 years ago
        
        200 goddam dollars in tax for a 10 dollar attachment.
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        I can't help but think they'd be cheaper if they were more widely available. I mean, yeah, materials cost is a bitch when you're making titanium and nickel alloy tubes, but economies of scale still work.
3. SugarFree 13 years ago
  
  Wait, I thought her dad said she died of not drinking.
  
  "Is this the end of zombie Amy Winehouse?"
  1. Warty 13 years ago
    
    "Alcohol, you killed zombie Amy Winehouse!"
    
    "She was a zombie?"
    1. The Art-P.O.G. 13 years ago
      
      Yeah, if she would've kept drinking, her body wouldn't have realized how epic her BAC was. Unfortunately, when she stopped it all hit her at once.
P Brooks 13 years ago

at this point I want a Cain v. Obama election just to see liberal heads explode Scanners style.

I have been causing great consternation and dismay by saying this in public.

If we cannot have governance, let us have clowns!
1. John 13 years ago
  
  Since I think every politician and President is driven by events not will, I agree.
2. T 13 years ago
  
  If I can't have competent government, I want entertainment. I've been saying this for years.
P Brooks 13 years ago

How is a tax cut 'spending'?

In the same sense as me being pissed off because you just "stole" my cup of coffee by emptying your coffee pot.

In other words, it ain't.
wylie 13 years ago

Drug cops toss a 7-pound dog out a three-story window

It's cop math though, so the dog probably only weighed like 2-3grams.
1. wylie 13 years ago
  
  Or it was only the ground floor.
  
  Or the dog was only worth $15.
P Brooks 13 years ago

"Is this the end of zombie Amy Winehouse?"

Tune in next week!
Deadpan 13 years ago

This is wittiest chat room I've ever seen.
Haunted Taint 13 years ago

Bang-up job, Riggs. My nuts haven't hurt this bad since Balko was doing the morning links.
fghu 13 years ago

hello,welcome to http://www.luckygrip. com,i hope everyone will more like them because of there have more nice top goods and cheaper price in there,thanks
1. rather 13 years ago
  
  That's fghu. I've been looking for a lower cost supplier for the jars I use to fart in. Can your company provide them in bulk - maybe 3 gross at a time? I need a few dozen for the trip I'll be taking to Ausfahrt, Germany in the next week.

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