Category: Economy

Back To Brazil

 

If you look at the background to the left or the right of our front page, you may think you’re looking at a small part of the Carina Nebula.  Well.  That’s really cyberspace, and we’ve been out there soaring around for the past few weeks, perambulating the volatile gases, sorting out server issues, enjoying the fine cuisine of the local eating establishments, dancing the rumba, practicing good dental hygiene, and of course, barking at all the really fine moons out there.

But we’re back now.  And baby, it looks like the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Prepare for heavy rolls.

As the Paul Ryans, Ted Cruzes, and Donald Drumpfs of Repuglican World doubledown on crushing the last vestige of sanity out of our nation’s political dialogue, we’re ready to get back into the crazy;  right up to our carotid arteries.

Please join us.

World of Sequester WarCraft

Homebrew* Eric in his “Young Guns” dungeon, plays World of Sequester WarCraft©

NRA To The Rescue

A day after warning of food riots resulting from President Obama’s socialist attempts to destroy the economy and take everyone’s guns away, Whacko Wayne is organizing an emergency arms shipment to Triumph’s passenger and crew, to protect themselves from each other as tempers flair and supplies run low.

WHO’S FULLABLUSTER?

Mitch And HarryWho’s fulla bluster?
(Original image)


WASHINGTON D.C. — The reprehensibility bad U. S. Senatorial comedy team of Mitch and Harry reprised one of their most popular routines this week, “Who’s Fullabluster?”

The “gag me with a filibuster” routine goes something like this: Harry tells Mitch about a genuinely good bill he wants to pass, and Mitch replies, “Tell me about it again.”  Harry repeats the idea, but upon hearing it again, Mitch jumbles it into utter nonsense, and says there’s no way he’ll ever let it pass, and he’ll filibuster.

Harry says he’ll do it anyway, and announces to the public that he’ll even using the nuclear option if he has to.  But Mitch says Harry is being unreasonable, calls him a bunch of names, and threatens to hold his breath until he “turns blue” and passes out;  making Harry feel like a bully, irresponsible and embarrassed, and willing to compromise anyway Mitch wants him to, so poor Mitch won’t turn blue.

Like that’s ever going to happen.

 

 

It’s A Trap!

Bobo is the yapping dog that latches onto the bumper of what he only thinks is a moving car…the Wingnut House Caucus the symphorophiliacs found in J.G. Ballard’s novel Crash.

Glenn Beck’s Independence, USA!

Frank Zappa called it “Centerville,” Homer Simpson calls it Springfield, Glenn Beck calls it “Independence.”

Grover In Wonderland

Grover sized

WRT to the so-called fiscal cliff negotiations, President Obama, as expected, caved on his many promises to draw the line of tax increases at $200-250k, settling for $400-450k. This has the effect of reducing his initial position of raising $1.6 trillion in new revenues to a mere $620 billion. The difference will likely be made up in even further cuts to discretionary spending, including an already weakened social safety net, though Obama made some vague promises to offset some of the difference by closing some tax loophole and other exemptions.

While in the short run the Obama Administration won some significant concessions on issues like extended unemployment insurance, green energy tax credits (at the price of extending subsidies for the fossil fuel extraction industry), and patching the Alternative Minimum Tax loophole (that was starting to sweep more and more of the middle class into its grasp because it wasn’t originally indexed to inflation), he has substantially weakened his future negotiating position with the Rethugs by not insisting that the debt limit be extended permanently.

This latter development sets up a replay of hostage taking strategy that the Rethugs used so effectively in 2011. While Obama has stated in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t entertain negotiations on the issue, he hardly has the negotiating cred to convince anyone that he won’t fold on that issue as he has on so many others. (I heard today a spokesman for Patriotic Millionaires, who have lobbied for higher taxes on individuals in his income class, say that Obama was the worst presidential negotiator evah.)

That said, the bottom line on the income tax issue for Rethugs is that because they agreed to higher income taxes (if only on the top 0.016%), it represents a clear break with the vaunted Grover Norquist no tax increases ever pledge. Nonetheless, as a leader in the Grand Old Denial Party, Grover tried to spin the defeat, saying:

“The Bush tax cuts lapsed at midnight last night. Every R voting for Senate bill is cutting taxes and keeping his/her pledge.”

Interviewed on MSNBC by a dumbfounded Andrea Mitchell, she offered a more realistic assessment:

“Wait a second,” Mitchell interjected with a laugh. “We’re not living in the Alice in Wonderland world here. There is a tax increase for wealthy Americans. It’s literally a tax increase. Rates are up.”

Earlier, Grover had tweeted:

“We had an election Boehner was elected speaker. Now lame duck obama should get over it.”

Oh, Grover, you quack us up. The Rethugs regained control of the House despite receiving less votes than the totality of Democratic reps nationwide, thanks to the 2010 census and some heavily biased redistricting shenanigans.

That sound you’re hearing is the cement shoes hardening around your feet as history awaits your plunge into the primordial D.C. tidewaters. Future generations might find it necessary to re-drain the Washington swamp, at which time your rotted corpse will surface and serve as a time capsule embodying the worst of the Greed is Good ethos that has done so much to corrupt the US government.

Bon voyage, you selfish prick. And may the Ancients of Days judge you divinely.