Sarah Palin and Alaska’s GOP chair are calling for Sen. Mark Begich to resign, so Ted Stevens can run again for reelection, “without the improper influence of the corrupt Department of Justice.” It’s really a breathtaking display of hubris, deceit, naked partisanship, and stupid. Also, wasn’t Palin’s big selling point in the campaign that she was willing to take on the corrupt elements of her own state party?
Will Wilkinson smokes pot, and he likes it.
Anyone else craving a burger? Hope this one gets all the usual suspects in a tizzy.
The federal government’s financial rescue plan now stands at about 90 percent of GDP. Yeah. This will end well.
Senate bill would federalize cyber security, even for private firms. Because everyone knows that when it comes to protecting electronic information, nobody’s better than the federal government.
Obama: “Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.” Unless, that is, you make personal choices of which he doesn’t approve.
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on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 7:18 am by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
I hate broccoli. I can’t stand the taste, smell, or texture of it…
If Padma Lakshmi was sitting in front of me eating broccoli like she did that hamburger, I’d eat broccoli.
I wonder how much research Ben Shapiro did for his book. I’m guessing a lot.
P.S.: Spurlock’s invoking the Bible to condemn fatties is hysterical. Adam and Steve didn’t eat Angry Whoppers.
Since that swell guy Cheney is unlikely to ever be convicted of anything, does that mean Palin will step aside and urge him to run for president in 2012 as well?
At least someone in the national GOP finally admitted it. Bush’s DOJ was corrupt.
Hey Will,
Me too!! My wife says it makes me stupid. I think I need a new wife.;-)
Hmm, so when the Federal Reserve prints a whole bunch of money to finance this extra spending, and my paycheck becomes insufficient to buy more than two tomatoes at the grocery store, I’m sure I’ll be relieved that I’m not paying more in taxes.
Quoting from the rescue plan article: “The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S….”
Think how much the bill comes to for those who actually pay most of the taxes taxes.
The chick in the burger ad is super hot. But for some reason I don’t find the whole eating a giant burger with catsup and mustard to be all that sexy.
Now put that same chick in an ad selling a banana split… and I may just have to excuse myself.
That said, I was craving a burger after watching that. And now I’m also craving a banana split.
Am I gay now? Weird.
Cheers.
Regarding the last item, smokers are fair game for persecution, just like prostitutes, pornographers, gamblers, drug users, and people who have the fuckin’ nerve to carry “large” sums of money when they travel.
Obama can increase taxes on smokers because they don’t matter. No one likes them anyway. He could walk up to one on the street and smack the shit out of him with a baseball bat and people would cheer. Smokers are the new “less than animals”.
Regarding the $12.8 trillion in bailout commitments, this quote (and similar fawning statements from other people whose industry is swimming in bailout money) infuriates me:
Okay, you know what? Fuck you, you goddamned whore. You already got the money – you are covered in it like some sort of financial bukkake queen – so, you can stop sucking now.
And, I am sick of the implication that these wise and benevolent gurus have “saved” us when there is so little reason to believe that. And, even to those who amazingly think they did the right thing, there was still no bravery or creativity in doing what the government always, they spent more and they regulated more.
[snark]
Yes, that approach is very creative, almost Promethean. How did you ever come up with such an innovative approach? And – wow! – you convinced congress to go along with a plan to spend massive amounts of other people’s money, which they have always been so reluctant to do. You guys are the Salvador Dalís of government.
Thank you all for taking a terrible financial problem of bursting market bubbles, largely caused by the same sort of the thinking embodied by government-knows-best clowns like yourselves, and making sure the problem drags out forever as the government pumps money into any industry that looks like it actually might find a natural bottom. It is so much better to pull a rotten tooth slowly, toying with it and pretending it will can still stay, than to pull it out all at once.
[/snark]
Oh, and out of curiosity, WHERE IS ALL THIS MONEY GOING TO COME FROM? $42,000 per person, huh? I will surely be a lot more productive knowing that an increasing share of my earnings will fund this debacle. I guess I can see why Obama is so agreeable in the European effort to crack down on “tax havens”.
Commenter at Protein Power (apologies for lack of direct link):
“In the past twenty or so years, the consumption of carbohydrates has risen to new levels and as it has, the diseases of civilization have escalated in lock step. We should all be alarmed that an influential ‘green camp’ is forming whose objective is to limit the consumption of protein and increase the consumption of carbohydrate in our diet to the point where the amount of protein would be rationed by law. While such a move holds great promise for big pharma, it has very serious implications for those of us who are trying to preserve their health.”
“The federal government’s financial rescue plan now stands at about 90 percent of GDP. Yeah. This will end well. ”
Radley, If I put that in my little Gmail message do I need to credit you? :)
Fuck broccoli–if Padma Lakshmi were sitting right in front of me, I’d be eating her.
New innuendo for today:
“Lickin’ the Thickburger”
I’d have to agree with the comment above. I find nothing sexy about a chick stuffing her face with a grade-D grease sandwich. And frankly, i find Hardee’s marketing to be rather pathetic in general. 6-dollar-burger? who is that supposed to impress? talk about an overvalued, toxic asset.
Ok here we go. I smoke pot too, and I love it!!
speaking of sexy commercials. There was this commercial for some sort of microwavable dessert bowls a few months back with women lickinng their fingers and spoons and such. THAT was hot. Especially on weeeeeeeDD
However, I will say that I’m thankful that Hardee’s omitted their usual disgusting sound effects from this ad. That would have put the ick factor right over the top.
“Lickin’ the Thickburger”
Mike that made me laugh!
‘…you are covered in it like some sort of financial bukkake queen…’
Freedomfan gets my nod for best quote of the day!
Great article by Will Wilkinson.
the tragedy of the cigarette tax (to me) is that taxes are so compartmentalized- user fees, fees, permit fees, administration fees, sin taxes, income taxes- that people don’t seem to realize EVERYTHING the govt collects is a tax and involves coercion. I’m glad he stuck to showing the conflict between the cig tax and ‘I will not raise your taxes’, but I wish he would’ve hit dmv fees, gas taxes, EVERYTHING. I relicensed my truck the other day… the girl asks if I want a one or two year tag… ‘what’s the price difference?’ one year is $8.75, two year is $17.50… ‘I’ll take the two year.’ she says, ‘That’ll be $25.62.’ ‘You just said $17.50!’ ‘It is $17.50, but we have to add the fees.’ ‘So, there are fees on top of the fees?’ blank stare at me.
Am I completely deranged if I want to lay blame at the citizens of the USA for the deficit and the drug war? They are the ones that keep voting down legalization and voting for expansion of government. I’m just saying…Stevens will be ELECTED again to the Senate, not appointed.
Burger: It is a fact that you should never listen to anything a 21-year old virgin (Shapiro) has to say. Ever. EVER!
“You already got the money – you are covered in it like some sort of financial bukkake queen – so, you can stop sucking now.”
–freedom fan
FF, I might be alone, but I love this statement! Nicely done.
And Freedomfan, there isn’t a single Austrian fan that believes (or fell for) any of this crap. There are also a whole lot more Austrian fans than ever before.
We’re still going to take a sploosh into the shit hole and be fed more socialism turd sandwiches, but that’s just the nature of the madness.
Goddamn. I don’t know what I want more: that burger or Padma Lakshmi.
Eh, who am I kidding. I’m with #14 thomasblair.
Dear gods that woman is hot.
And now I am even more convinced that the prosecutorial “misconduct” in the Stevens case was deliberate.
“Am I completely deranged if I want to lay blame at the citizens of the USA for the deficit and the drug war?”
Deranged? No. Mistaken? Yes. There’s about 220 million adults in the US (as of 2003), and 537 elected members between congress and the presidency. The illusion is that from those 220 million adults, we elect those 537 people who collectively have near absolute power over our life & death.
But that is not so. The ruling class disqualifies approximately 219,998,926 people from the original 220,000,000, leaving about 1074 left for those 537 spots.
Put another way, our leaders get picked thus. We start with 410,000 people who need to be ruled. The ruling class picks 2 from those 410,000, then we pick one of those two.
So who wields the real decision-making power when it comes to picking leaders?
These bailouts are criminal as hell. Bitch and moan about the CEO’s and the big spending GOP, they deserve the disdain. But what Obama and company have done far outweighs the previous financial wrongdoings. These bailouts are almost as horrendous as the War in Iraq. The only thing that seperates the two scenarios is that Obama doesn’t have a massive body count under his belt.
Wait, there was a hamburger in that ad?
Also re: “Financial Rescue” does anyone also not see the clusterfuck that’s going to come when the baby boomers retire/die? Even if we just declare SS/Medicare defunct and do away with them all together, the baby boomer bubble is bound to hit federal tax revenues unless we get a shit ton of immigrants, or people get to baby making ASAP, which is at an all time low BTW.
I have no solid numbers but common sense says if the debt keeps piling up and revues take a hit, even servicing the debt will be in doubt in 25 years.
Maybe the MRC can invite Joe the Cable Guy on stage to tell people he’s horny again.
No taxes will be increased, NO of course not…
Sounds just like that creative “outside of budget/special appropriations” accounting.
Increase the taxes on power producers via cap and trade and watch them pass on the cost to the tune of a hundred $$ or so a month.
But we didn’t increase the taxes on anybody, oh no. The goddamn liars, all of them. It is infuriating.
Folks, join your local TEA PARTY on or around April 15! Make yourselves heard and feeled!
I was delayed getting back to my keyboard after watching the Padma ad. I felt a strong urge to go do something.
FF definitely gets my nod for quote of the day. Even more so after I looked up the word bukkake.
I suspect that cigarettes are only the first stop on the “Obama: personal choices that I dont like” tax train.
“Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase….”
Under his plan that number is bound to increase as the number of people making more than that is bound to decrease.
Boyd Durkin-”Am I completely deranged if I want to lay blame at the citizens of the USA for the deficit and the drug war? They are the ones that keep voting down legalization and voting for expansion of government. I’m just saying…Stevens will be ELECTED again to the Senate, not appointed.”
Agree but it’s like Ron Paul says, “Educate, educate, educate!” Most people simply haven’t thought about the horrible consequences of voting down legislation and for expansion of government. We have to get this message out there even more.
Couldn’t the GOP have asked Stevens to voluntarily step down in order for them to run a stronger, non-compromised candidate against Begich?
And if so, why did they continue to stick by their man?
Re: the new cigarette tax
On one side, the public health advocates say that raising the ‘sin’ tax on cigarettes will discourage people from continuing or beginning to smoke.
On the other side, we have socialist politicians saying that collecting money from those same taxes will “more than cover” brand new wonderful healthcare for all of us.
So two questions:
1) If raising the tax is going to eliminate all those smokers, how will we still collect enough money to pay for the healthcare?
2) Are we now supposed to vilify smokers for their habits, or laud them for their selfless contribution to our national health?
I’m so confused.
/snark
Zargon,
Even opinion polls point to an incredibly bizarre population that willingly votes for drug wars, invading Iraq, deficit spending, and trimming of just about every freedom you can think of.
Polls that have nothing to do with actually electing people. Just opinion polls…point to a population getting exactly what they deserve/ask for.
However; I understand your post all too well.
Chris,
A lot of smokers I know bring up that paradox. DON’T QUIT! You’ll ruin our tax base.
Remember when gubmint “went after” big tabacco (BT) and got the billion dollar settlement? There was a lot of talk from BT to just stare at each state governor and say “We will no longer sell our product in your state.” Every state would then face a budget shortage.
I agree wholeheartedly with the cigarette tax comments in this thread, so I won’t repeat them.
Regarding the doom of $42,000 in debt per person, the 90% of GDP stimulus, etc., I understand your viewpoint and am somewhat apprehensive myself.
What I can’t get my arms around is why treasury rates are at still so low. You would think that inflation from all this monetary and fiscal stimulus was a foregone conclusion, that 10-year t-notes would be yielding more than 3%. If the risk of inflation is so apparent, why is the free market be mispricing this risk so egregiously?
Me too! I am 64 and I smoke pot because I love the way it makes me feel, and the way it opens my eyes to the beauty in our world, the joy of music and other pleasures, and to see through the wool government tries to pull over everyone’s eyes.
I’ll second that, Windy.
Ever watch a piece of propaganda (source is not terribly important) when under the influence of ganja or psychedelic drugs? Ever notice how laughable the shit seems in that state of mind? Seems the benefits of such extend well beyond the buzz.
Re: $42,000 debt per individual, from Downsizer Dispatch:
“Somewhere in the blizzard of budget numbers and grand spending plans flooding out of Washington, we missed last spring’s report from the Social Security Trustees. Their latest estimate of the unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare is (hold onto your chair) . . .
“$101 trillion
“Add to that the $9.3 trillion in deficit spending over the next 10 years, as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office, plus the previous national debt of nearly $11 trillion.”
Hmm, 101+11+10=$122 trillion, $122,000,000,000,000/300,000,000 citizens=$406,666.66 per person that we currently owe on the national debt, this does not include state or local government debt. So each of us now owes over four hundred thousand dollars and when you add up the interest over the coming years our progeny will be born owing more than most of them will be able to earn in a lifetime.
In what twisted reality is that a good thing?
I’m not quite following your math, Zargon. Are you referring to the GOP and DNC caucuses?
#11 – freedomfan
You already got the money – you are covered in it like some sort of financial bukkake queen – so, you can stop sucking now.
I LOLed so hard and I may have pissed myself.
Poor people are triple screwed. Before April 1, they could buy really cheap tobacco in cans and roll 20 cigarettes for much less than the cost of a pre-rolled pack. The new tax is now 25 bucks per pound of loose tobacco, which I imagine must come pretty close to making “rolling your own” not worth the bother. (As I recall, a pound of cheap tobacco was in the neighborhood of 12 dollars, so the cost of a roll your own cigarette made with the least expensive tobacco will be about triple what it was before.)
I expect the poor people will start buying the least expensive pre-rolled cigarettes and they’ll be smoking less. The affluent may continue to roll their own. (There are some really tasty varieties of loose tobacco available.)
I don’t normally like Will Wilkinson but I liked the article, I agree with his conclusion, and I respect his public statement. I do not smoke pot but he may have convinced me it is the only thing for a freedom loving individual to do.
If anyone wanted proof that the Republican party is still the same old party they’ve been the last 10 years, the pining for the return of Ted Stevens should be all you need.
All the tea parties and other stuff about a new belief in limited government and principled leadership is just poltical theater.
agreed stormy dragon. Coupled with the real debt load–and no discipline in sight–and this party is over.
Gold, guns, and rice.
Wallster, seekingalpha.com has some great articles on bonds and treasuries.
The federal government’s financial rescue plan now stands at about 90 percent of GDP. Yeah. This will end well.
I have to say R. Balko you always struck me as an optimist.
On taxing the smokers; Hell, yes the government is going to tax smokers. Hell, in Ohio they raised the cigarette tax to build Jacob’s Field for the Cleveland Indigenous Peoples and made the stadium non-smoking. Not sure why any of you are surprised by any of this, not sure why this is some new hypocrisy to any of you. It has been going on for over twenty years.
Stormy Dragon | April 3rd, 2009 at 4:00 pm
…All the tea parties and other stuff about a new belief in limited government and principled leadership is just poltical theater.
Those tea parties are more than a joke, they were ginned up from the beginning, and brought forth full blossom. If anybody falls for any of that clap trap they are sap. If anybody is reading this far, do not fall for it. I have it on good authority the whole thing is a put up by the Liptons. Don’t take my word for it, though, investigate who’s who in the Lipton conglomerate for yourselves, and when you are done you will find, as I have, that is a put up job. If you find yourself liking a guy on the radio, or tv, or a politician because he has tapped into your populist anger, or populist hope, be assured my friend, you are had. Conning people isn’t so hard, if it were, we wouldn’t have so many con jobs. But hey, it’s a living, isn’t it? It pays for the Thai strippers, and it pays for the Cuban cigars, and it pays for all for me, and none for thee.
So, good night my friends, drink a whiskey on the rocks, and smoke a camel. I know I am.
You know, I like women plenty and all, but hell I just don’t find the whole greasy fast food + sex combo to be very sexy. Maybe it’s just as a woman-who-likes-women I just don’t want no big hunk-a meat with my…errr…um…well, uh, you know what I mean…
And for some reason these types of ads all just seem to remind me of that episode of Seinfeld where Costanza combined all the things he likes together, food, sex, TV…(not sexy AT ALL)
And Danno49- I totally had the same reaction…
#21 Marty… Where do you live? If I could register my truck for $25, I’d be kissing the DMV clerk. Even my piece of junk costs around $50… for one year.