Month: November 2010
Millionaires Against Extending Their Tax Cuts
It’s not just those lazy poor people on welfare and former ACORN workers calling for an end to the Bush tax cuts for millionaires. A group of millionaires is actually petitioning Congress to raise their taxes.
Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength are asking that the line be drawn at the $1,000,000 mark, which is probably where it should have been put all along. It’s much easier politically for Democrats to defend restoring taxes for the 375,000 true millionaires than for the “wealthiest Americans.” Just ask these folks.
We have done very well over the last several years…We don’t need more tax cuts, and we understand that cutting our taxes will increase the deficit and the debt burden carried by other taxpayers.
Even more interesting is this recap of the tax rate for millionaires. You won’t hear these numbers quoted in Republican arguments for keeping the Bush tax cuts.
During the Great Depression, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 68%
In 1963, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 91%
In 1976, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 70%
Today, millionaires have a top marginal tax rate of 35%
The group of about 50 original signers of the petition contains some of the usual suspects, like ambient musician Moby, and Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s fame. Less well-known are Peter Norvig, an artificial intelligence and computer scientist; Rochelle Kaplan, former president of the National Council of Jewish Women Utah Section; and Robert S. Bowditch Jr., a real estate property manager.
You don’t have to be a millionaire to sign the letter.
Why Palin Shouldn’t Run, as Told by a Conservative
Like many of you, we have been a bit dispirited since the midterm elections. But one thing cheers us, and that’s the thought of, as my Facebook friend put it, conservatives eating their own kind.
At the right-wing blog, TownHall, columnist Mona Charen lays out her reasons why Sarah Palin should not run for president, and by extension, why no one should vote for her.
The Republican nominee should be someone with vast and impressive experience in government and the private sector — and a proven record.
Charen: ‘Palin compares herself to Reagan. But Reagan didn’t mud wrestle with the press.’After the 2008 campaign revealed her weaknesses on substance, Palin was advised by those who admire her natural gifts to bone up on policy and devote herself to governing Alaska successfully. Instead, she quit her job as governor after two and a half years, published a book (another is due next week), and seemed to chase money and empty celebrity. Now, rather than being able to highlight the accomplishments of Sarah Palin’s Alaska, we get “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” another cheesy entrant in the reality show genre. She’d so much rather be out dog sledding than in some “dull political office,” she tells the audience. File that.
Limbaugh Annihilated for Lying, Cluelessness, Being Un-American by an Unusual Source: Motor Trend Magazine
When you consider that Republicans in the Senate are set to kill the START treaty — which would, among other things, enable tracking down and securing of loose nukes and thus make the world a safer place — not on principle but solely for the partisan political purpose of denying a diplomatic success for Pres. Obama, it is not surprising that Rush Limbaugh went to great lengths to try to undercut an honor recently given GM’s new Chevrolet Volt.
What sticks in the craw of Republicans like Limbaugh is the fact that the Obama administration’s bailout of GM has been a resounding success. They can’t stand the fact that just this month, GM — which Limbaugh and his ilk sneered at as “Government Motors” after the bailout was announced — marketed its first IPO since the federal government saved it from extinction.
(And it must kill them to know that at least one of their party’s foreign funders couldn’t resist buying into the IPO. Muslim Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, who owns a $2.3 billion stake in News Corp., the parent company of the GOP Fox channel, invested $500 million in GM to buy a 1 percent share of its stock, according to the Wall St. Journal, which he and News Corp. also own.)
But what really has Limbaugh freaking out is the fact that the Volt has been named Motor Trend’s 2011 Car of the Year, a prestigious award from a reputable, nonpartisan and unassailable authority. In Limbaugh’s dark world, nothing that reflects well on the president can be permitted to stand. Even if the honor otherwise celebrates American ingenuity and know-how, if it benefits Barack Obama, no matter how indirectly, it can not be allowed to go untarnished.
So it is not a surprise that upon learning about the Motortrend award, Limbaugh rushed to his microphone and unleashed a particularly vile screed, smearing GM, the Volt, energy conservation, Motor Trend and, of course, the president with lies, disinformation and Republican propaganda.
What is surprising is how vigorously and aggressively Motor Trend has responded to Limbaugh’s lies and spin. Here’s a perhaps too-lengthy excerpt from the column by Todd Lassa titled, Rush to Judgment:
Dr. Democrat on the Post-Midterm Blues
Dear Dr. Democrat:
I find that since the election I am just really feeling defeated. Reading the news is so painful right now.
Things in Florida are beyond bad. The legislature has no brakes and is loaded with everyone aboard and steering right over the side of the mountain. They have two priorities right now: overriding all Crist’s vetoes, including the ultrasound and education bills; and challenging the recently passed redistricting amendments. The money flowing toward that particular pursuit blocks out the sun.
Nationally, I am disgusted and disheartened as well. I am so ashamed of the Republican women in Congress who joined the filibuster against the Paycheck Fairness Act, and I get sick to my stomach at the thought of people who quote Genesis to dispute climate change chairing the House energy committee.
And if I see one more thing about Sarah Palin or her redneck mean girl children, I will scream.
Will I get past all this? Right now things seem catastrophic and it’s hard to see them as manageable.
Gobsmacked in Gainesville
Dear Gobsmacked:
I don’t mean to trivialize a good catch phrase but I promise you: It gets better. Or, more accurately, for the GOP, it’s gonna get worse, much worse.
Muslim Co-Owner of GOP’s Fox ‘News’ Buys 1% Share of Socialist Government Motors’ IPO
$500 Million
Amount invested in General Motors by Muslim billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, as reported by the Wall St. Journal. The Muslim prince also owns “at least a 7 percent, $2.3 billion stake in Fox’s parent company News Corp.,” according to the right-wing extremist propaganda website World Net Daily. Other sources say Alawaleed is the fourth largest investor in News Corp., along with Australia native Rupert Murdoch and the Murdoch family. News Corp. owns both the Wall St. Journal and the GOP-operated Fox “News” channel. What makes the purchase of 1 percent of GM by this foreign owner of Republican Party media outlets is the fact that GOP propagandists used his media empire to rail against the Obama administration’s bailout of GM, sneering at it as “Government Motors” and loudly, repeatedly — and wrongly — predicting it would fail.
Palin Says ‘No’ to Another Couric Interview
Sarah Palin pooh-poohed the notion of having another sit-down with news anchor Katie Couric because, well, she asks really hard questions. Actually, here’s Palin’s comment:
I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism … And I have a communications degree. I studied journalism, who, what, where, when, and why of reporting. I will speak to reporters who still understand that cornerstone of our democracy, that expectation that the public has for truth to be reported … And then we get to decide our own opinion based on the facts reported to us.” She added: “So a journalist, a reporter who is so biased and will, no doubt, spin and gin up whatever it is that I have to say to create controversy, I swear to you, I will not my waste my time with her. Or him.
That last bit was a low blow, casting doubt on Katie Couric’s gender. Looks like Palin is honing her campaign tactics for the 2012s. We can see it now — James Carville has already cast doubt on the number of testicles Barack Obama has, leaving an opening for Palin to assert the president is on the down-low, if you know what I mean.
One last thought: A communications degree is a terrible thing to waste …
