If deficits matter at all....

... (and I believe they do, though not in the way the deficit peacocks proclaim), then those concerned about government deficits will let the Bush tax cuts lapse. End of discussion.


If they don't, then they are fucking hypocrites and have zero credibility. We should not listen to them. I would go so far as to invoke Miss Manners and apply the harshest social judgment and give them the cut direct. No op-eds, no time on the Sunday talk shows, no interviews, no citing their opinions. Anything they have to say on the topic is demonstrable bullshit. Why pay any attention to them whatsoever?

I mean, what part of that big swath of butterscotch in the chart above is unclear?


--the BB

On the scandal du jour

A friend asks (regarding Sen. Ensign):
For Godde's sake, could we please be like the French and admit that almost everyone has affairs once in a while and leave it at that?

I reply:
I quite agree that we need to stop obsessing on this sort of thing. Then again, since Sen. Ensign wanted to amend the constitution to protect marriage and wanted Clinton to resign for having an extramarital affair, I think he needs to be pilloried. It's not screwing around, its hypocritical abuse of power impinging on other lives.

--the BB

Pork Barrel Palin

Kagro X informs us:

It's been 652 days since Earmark Queen Sarah Palin took office as Governor of Alaska.

In that time, she's hustled for $453,000,000 in federal lipstick pork.

That's $694,785.28 a day. Six hundred ninetey-four thousand, seven hundred and eight five dollars and twenty-eight cents. Every day. Even Sundays!

That's some fiscal responsibility and momentum for change there!

Granted, it's only marginally higher than the pork for Senator Obama's state of Illinois, though one might say that Illinois has a higher population and being one of two senators is not the same as being the only governor. In any case, she can hardly posture righteously in this area - though she is trying her damnedest to do so.

Let's call her on her bullshit, shall we?

And no, the pig portrayed is not an attack on her gender - it's an attack on her politics and, admittedly, her greedy, ambitious person.

The gall of these people!
--the BB

McPhony - campaign law violation

The only way John McCain can have so much "credibility" with the media is if they have conspired to give him a pass on damn near everything.

I am proud to say I was one of the signatories on the petition urging the FEC to do something about his breaking the campaign laws.



As Jane Hamsher says at Firedoglake:

This morning at a McCain event in Alexandria, McCain was introduced as a "hero" because of his work in campaign finance reform. Right. The guy who helped to write the law now doesn't want to obey it, just because there's nobody around to enforce it (thank you George W. Bush for gutting the FEC). The McCain campaign's defense is "Obama did the same thing," but that's a crock. John McCain applied for public financing. Obama never did. John McCain was accepted into the public financing system. Obama never was. The chairman of the FEC, David Mason, says McCain is therefore still in the system and bound by its limitations, but McCain is just ignoring him.

It goes to McCain's character. He believes the law is for someone else, not for him. He's chiding Obama for not agreeing to public financing, even as he's 4 million dollars over the $54 million spending cap imposed by the public financing system.

For Thee But Not For Me. The John McCain story.

If you feel like joining in, click here.
--the BB

May we discuss disappointment?

I do not usually include here comments by the Rude Pundit because his tirades are so, well, rude. Which is why I love them. Some folks have a gift for saying what we're all thinking. The Rude One has a gift for saying what I am feeling. The language is unbridled (= obscene, blasphemous, creative, colorful, and highly offensive) and I love reading it.

Today I am going to share two paragraphs because they are informative and capture well the hypocrisy of the weasel in the Oval Office:

This year, though, Bush said, "I am disappointed in the way the Congress compiled this legislation, including abandoning the goal I set early this year to reduce the number and cost of earmarks by half. Instead, the Congress dropped into the bill nearly 9,800 earmarks that total more than $10 billion. These projects are not funded through a merit-based process and provide a vehicle for wasteful Government spending." You got that? See, finally, after years of winking and letting the Republican-led Congress tear through money like a Blackwater Humvee through the streets of Kirkuk, Bush made it a "goal" to cut earmarks in half.
...
By the way, the Bush administration considers FY 2005 as the "benchmark" for cutting earmarks by that magical 50%. As they were at least a little frightened of losing power in the upcoming election, in 2004, the Republican-led Congress acted like meth-addicted looters after an earthquake: "In fiscal year 2005, there were 13,492 earmarks totaling $18,944,327,000 for appropriations accounts." This year, in the first budget under the new Democratic-led Congress, there were, as Bush said, "nearly 9,800 earmarks" that came in at a little more than $10 billion. By any measure, that's a big damn cut. So, really and truly, George W. Bush and the bags of douche, who wander around like lamed bitch chihuahuas whining about "earmarks," can go eat a bowl of fuck.

I couldn't say it any better myself.
--the BB

Cutting through the crap

We don't torture, says Bush.
I am Marie of Romania, says the BB.