June 08, 2004
"...AND TAKE BONZO WITH YOU!!"
by the Sandwichman
The Guardian's Steve Bell. Classic.
EAT YOUR CHILDREN WELL
by the Sandwichman
In Iraq, the Job Opportunity of a Lifetime: Managing a $13 Billion Budget With No Experience, WaPo, May 22: Occupied Iraq was just as Simone Ledeen had imagined -- ornate mosques, soldiers in formation, sand blowing everywhere, "just like on TV." The 28-year-old daughter of neoconservative pundit Michael Ledeen and a recently minted MBA, she had arrived on a military transport plane with the others and was eager to get to work....
Ledeen's journey to Baghdad began two weeks earlier when she received an e-mail out of the blue from the Pentagon's White House liaison office....
Others from across the District responded affirmatively to the same e-mail, for different reasons....
For months they wondered what they had in common, how their names had come to the attention of the Pentagon, until one day they figured it out: They had all posted their resumes at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank....
When Ledeen's group showed up at the palace -- with their North Face camping gear, Abercrombie & Fitch camouflage and digital cameras -- they were quite the spectacle....
You gotta read the whole thing. You just gotta.
As Smedley Butler said so eloquently, "War is a racket. It always has been."
CONSTRUCTION AHEAD
If you hadn't noticed, we're doing a site redesign. It isn't quite working yet, so please bear with us. One burning issue is that some code change is blocking the Blogads. Advice and feedback would be welcome.
June 06, 2004
THE GOVERNMENT THAT GOVERNS LEAST USES CONTRACTORS
One interesting tidbit from the IRS conference was a remark made in passing. The IRS contracts out to a firm called ChoicePoint to obtain personal information on individuals. Besides residential addresses, this includes financial information. I think it is slightly mind-boggling that the IRS knows less about this stuff than a corporation.
This plays to an axe I like to grind here, that a vacuum of public authority opens the way to predators in the private sector. In this case, your privacy is compromised less by the Government than by a corporation.
A libertarian might say, sure but the private firm doesn't have the power to tax you or otherwise constrain your own decisions. Not necessarily. Information could be used to deny you a job, mortgage, business loan, or insurance, for instance. Oh and the right to vote. It can also be used to harrass you with advertising, which implies some time cost (i.e. deleting spam).
The only thing worse than government that leaves you at the mercy of predators in the private sector is one that is in league with them. Like now.
THIS IS YOUR JOURNALIST ON DRUGS
Possibly the most bizarre thing I will read today, by Glen Kessler in the Post:
"Reagan's predecessor, Jimmy Carter, may have ushered in deregulation or set in motion a big defense buildup. But it was Reagan who took those policies to heart. Former president Bill Clinton may have declared "the era of big government is over" or finally balanced the budget. But it was Reagan who set those goals and inspired the Republican Congress that worked with Clinton.
Reagan also placed tax cuts firmly at the center of the Republican agenda. Before Reagan, Republicans disliked government and abhorred deficits. After Reagan, tax cuts became a crusade that one day would -- maybe, possibly -- lead toward smaller government and the end of deficits. Reagan preached that lower taxes would lead to greater economic growth, a theme that still echoes in the House and the Senate and whenever President Bush steps up to give an economic speech."
Reagan set the goal of balancing the budget? The Republicans in Congress were inspired to work with Bill Clinton on balancing the budget? The most decisive act towards budget balance -- Clinton's first budget in 1993 -- passed without a single Republican vote.
Then in the second graph, tax cuts will lead to the end of deficits.
Call me crazy, but I think articles on economics in the Washington Post should rise above the analytic level of Doonesbury cartoons.
REAGAN
I won't be mourning. I disliked him a lot, but gloating would be stupid and obnoxious, and expressions of homage insincere. He doesn't need any pity. He was a lucky man, he had a pretty good life, and in his own right he was successful. You can't beat him because he has already won. Fortunately the game has more innings.
Respect is due the bereaved, as well as to those who have a good feeling about him. It's just the decent thing to do.
June 05, 2004
EVIL JEW FINANCIER WATCH
Kevin Drum understated the case. The Hannity and Colmes segment with Tony Blankly just oozes anti-semitism. Blankly takes the lead, Hannity joins in, and Alan Colmes is reduced to saying "Let me get my question out."
Here's the relevant portion, straight from the Fox web site (as of 11:11 pm, Saturday nite):
BLANKLEY: Yes, Americans have all rejected those photos. But let's get back to Soros.
This a man who blamed the Jews for anti-Semitism, getting Abe Fluxman [he means Abe Foxman -- mbs] -- excuse me -- head of the Anti-Defamation League to call it an obscene statement.
This is a man who, when he was plundering the world's currencies in England in '92, he caused a Southeastern Asian financial crises in '97.
ABORN: Please, come on. Wait a second. You're so far beyond the facts. Hold on.
BLANKLEY: He said that he has no moral responsibility for the consequences of his financial actions. He is a self-admitted atheist. He was a Jew who figured out a way to survive the holocaust.
COLMES: Religious beliefs have nothing to do with...
ABORN: Are you going to do a background check on every single Republican contributor to the Republican Party?
COLMES: What I don't understand, Tony...
BLANKLEY: When a man with this kind -- when a man is with this kind of money, and he's spending it on trying to influence the American public in an election -- trying to buy the election; he is not going to -- we have a right to know what kind of an unscrupulous man he is.
COLMES: Here's how he spent his ... Tony. This is a man who paid for water filtration system in Sarajevo. He supported democratic movements in Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, Serbia...
BLANKLEY: I know. He supported the abortion movement.
COLMES: And elucidation for everybody here, the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. He's -- that's where he's actually put his money, to help democratize the rest of the word.
I would think -- Let me get my question out.
BLANKLEY: He's a robber baron, a pirate capitalist and he's -- he is a reckless man.
COLMES: Let me get my question out. Let me get my question out, Tony.
I would think that conservatives who favor privatization and favor democratization of other countries would favor a guy using his billions to democratize privately, put his money where his mouth is, the same thing that Bush is trying to do militarily around the globe. Why wouldn't you support what Soros is doing.
BLANKLEY: He supported abortion in Eastern Europe in a country that's losing population. He's a self-admitted atheist, I think he's a very bad influence in the world.
He's entitled to spend his money, and the public is entitled to know what kind of a man he is.
ABORN: Tony, he's also supporting gun control which every police organization in this country supports. That's hardly...
BLANKLEY: And he's in favor of legalizing drugs, which every police department is against.
HANNITY: Tony, I think you're right. He is trying to buy the election. We have a right to know who he is, and the Democrats that support him are only doing it for money.
Good to see you, Tony. Thank you.
This is so rich in Nazi filth one hardly knows where to begin, so let's begin at the beginning.
1. "He blamed the Jews for anti-semitism" is a lie. The implication is that Soros made a general statement to that effect. This is impossible to believe. What is likely is that at worst Soros pointed to some set of circumstances where some Jews provoked some kind of negative reaction. Not the same thing. It gets worse.
2. Plundering currencies, causing the Asian financial crisis. Lies combined with galloping ignorance. What is interesting here is that in this remark Blankly solidarizes with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who blamed the Jews in a similar fashion. Paul Krugman made some flaky remarks explaining Mohamad's crass political motivations without condemning him in the same paragraph, and Donald Luskin accused Krugman of anti-semitism. That didn't stop Luskin from later accusing Robert Rubin and Soros of plotting to bring down the stock market in order to throw the election to the Democrats in November.
3. He's an athiest/he's a Jew. In other words, Jews are distinguished by a false religion.
4. He's a Jew who figured out how to survive the Holocaust. 'Atheist' is conflated with Soros' Judaism -- presumably both are bad -- and then with surviving the Holocaust -- presumably also bad. The good Jews are the ones whose virtuous qualities gave them the moral strength to forego surviving the Holocaust.
The segment goes on from there to Soros using his money in U.S. politics, wholly unlike Republicans, who never use their money to advance their political designs. Sean the Punk joins in at the end, little Alan is his customary whimpering, ineffectual self.
It's time to start keeping score. Those who forfeit any right to pontificate about anti-semitism. I'm starting a list . . .
1. The Anti-Defamation League. Greasing Italian neo-fascist Silvio Berlusconi as "our flawed friend."
2. Glenn Reynolds and other bloggers, taking a nonchalant attitude towards the blatant anti-semitism of The Passion of the Christ.
3. Tony Blankly, Sean Hannity, and Donald Luskin -- propagating the Jew financier plotting speculative shenanigans for the sake of manipulating world politics.
4. Fox News, for not cancelling Hannity and Colmes.
5. Political collaborators of Sun Myung Moon, meaning stooges in both parties who attend his bullshit conferences. Note that Moon's fake newspaper based an article on the Luskin musings.
6. Pat Robertson and defenders thereof. Obvious.
Add your entries below. This is not a contest. Please document with links if possible.
UPDATE: More on Soros is here from Ben Affleck Matt Welch.
THE LIES THE LYING LIARS ARE TELLING
This goes on for a bit, so you might want to get a cup of coffee before you start in.
I missed this week's conference of the Campaign for America's Future for one held by the Internal Revenue Service, so you know right off the bat how twisted my priorities are. Instead of putting the moves on Arianna Huffington, I listened to talks on the details of tax administration in New Zealand and the UK's Working Family Tax Credit (a fine thing, by the way).
The news about this conference properly speaking is the quasi-unity now among Democrats, something I generally applaud, if not without some mixed feelings. For the Bush Campaign and fabulists at National Review Online, it was more treason from one of their worst nightmares -- a very rich, very smart, very partisan Democrat, Mr. George Soros. (Full disclosure: Soros' foundation financed an EPI project a few years ago.)
You may think the jingoists' stock in trade is celebration of American power abroad. I disagree. Rather, it is hate speech directed at your own friends and neighbors. What do you hate the most? Somebody who is out to kill you! What's the next worst thing? Somebody who supports the people out to kill you. This is not a sophisticated doctrine, but it is powerful. Just ask Herman Goering.
Is there hate speech on the left? Of course there is. In fact, Insty notes a pretty good example today. What's different is that in the U.S., right-wing hate speech conduces to persecution by Government. The current poster child for persecution is alleged Al Queda member and American citizen Jose Padilla. Whatever Padilla has done, or would do, he had rights that have been summarily taken away. There is little or no analog on the left; maybe the IRS audits of right-wingers during the Clinton Administration.
There is also extra-legal persecution, in the form of vigilante-style violence of the sort we see routinely advocated by, for instance, bloggers on Glenn Reynolds' blogroll.
Isn't there the same sort of thing from the left? Sure. In fact, there was a comment to that effect right here that I removed as soon as I saw it. We are now conducting an experiment as to whether there are more left-types advocating violence against the right, or vice versa, in the confined category of bloggers. So far there is no contest.
Anyway, getting back to NRO and Soros, the NRO smear headline by the lying Byron York is "Soros: Abu Ghraib = September 11." The text of Soros' remarks is here. In passing I want to take note of the question of whether Soros conforms to the jingoists' caricature of the left. I am excerpting, so you can judge for yourself if I am distorting out of context. Soros is in italics; my comments are interspersed.
It's [Bush's foreign policy.--mbs] built on two pillars. One, that the United States must maintain its absolute military superiority in every part of the world and, second, that the United States has the right for preemptive action. Now, both these propositions taken on their own are quite valid propositions. . .
Here we are a long way from Noam Chomsky.
Here is York, quoting Soros:
The picture of torture in Saddam's prison was a moment of truth for us," Soros said Thursday morning in Washington at a meeting of the liberal activist group Campaign for America's Future."
Here is what Soros actually said:
I think that the picture of torture in Abu Ghraib, in Saddam's prison, was the moment of truth for us, because this is not what this nation stands for.
Doesn't exactly come off the same, does it? That excuse for a newspaper, Washington Times, similarly omitted the underlined words. York continues to quote, accurately:
"I think that those pictures hit us the same way as the terrorist attack itself," Soros continued, "not quite with the same force, because in the terrorist attack, we were the victims. In the pictures, we were the perpetrators and others were the victims."
"But there is, I'm afraid, a direct connection between those two events, because the way President Bush conducted the war on terror converted us from victims into perpetrators."
The words "equivalent" or "equivalence," much less "moral equivalence" do not appear in his remarks. There is no language saying the prison scandal is the equal of 9-11. There is no excusing the terrorism against the U.S., described as nothing less than an attack on us. What there is is criticism of Bush. The jingoists and the Bushists mean to package all criticism of Bush as hatred of America. Imputing an equation of the prison scandal to 9-11 dovetails with their campaign to trivialize the prison offenses, which by the way entail current investigations of ten possible murders.
Interestingly, Soros does say that in the war on terror in the large, more innocents have died at the hands of the U.S. than died on 9-11. This is a pretty hard thing to say too, but the jingoists haven't raised it. There is some possibility of empirical validation, after all, so I imagine they don't want to go there. The moral question -- causing the deaths of innocents to get some bad guys who would otherwise kill other innocents in the future -- doesn't necessarily disfavor the pro-war position, but that would admit of too much ambiguity for the jingoist mind.
Soros incidentally has done (and spent) tons for democracy in the ex-Soviet countries, enough to get him and his groups shut down in some places.
The speech is pretty good. Read the whole thing.
June 04, 2004
EVERYTHING ABOUT INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAXATION
I stumbled onto the 2nd edition of Taxing Ourselves by Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija of the Office for Tax Policy Research at the University of Michigan. I would say it sets a new standard for the first book you'd want to read about taxes, were you so inclined. The first edition was a nice but slim overview. The second has been bulked up to be a reference on the individual income tax, as well as a comprehensive, accessible introduction to the debate over taxing income v. consumption.
The big holes are very little attention to the corporate income tax or payroll tax.
There's a third edition I haven't seen yet.
The traditional standard was Joseph Pechman's Federal Tax Policy. This is now dated -- Pechman died 14 years ago -- but it is still useful and covers topics neglected by Slemrod & Bakija.
THE SUM OF ALL BEERS
Caught a bit of Tom Clancy and General Anthony Zinni on (figuratively speaking) Deborah Norville last nite. Zinni was persuasive, but why is Clancy being asked to analyze intelligence policy? Because he writes spy novels? He should go back to driving his tank around his estate.
When asked to render their opinions of some Administration figures, Clancy responded to the name of Paul Wolfowitz with "Is he on our side?" Ouch. Oy.
CONTEST NOTES
I'll be closing the voting on the Vicious InstaPundit Blogroll Contest on Sunday, 6 pm.
Many think they have voted, but they haven't. For the third time, to vote you have to find the front page of this blog, then scroll down all the way to the bottom where you will see two Lycos Polling Gear thingies. That's where you vote. You are welcome to announce and/or explain your vote in the comments, but it won't be counted.
Some latecomers have criticized the lack of partisan balance, but they haven't done proper investigation. We have a counterpart contest for vicious remarks made by bloggers on my own blogroll (including ourselves), and it has a cash first (and only) prize of $50.
So far the response has been pathetic -- three or so entries. In an effort at getting a fair contest, I am extending the timeframe on the Vicious MaxSpeak Blogroll Contest through June 15th. Post your entries in comments to this post. Those few who have already entered, please do me a favor and repost here so I'll have all the entries in one place. (As contest administrator, I can make it worth your while, if you know what I mean.)
The rules are the same: statements by bloggers, either in their blog entries or their own comments; link must be provided. (I've dropped the word length rule, but understand the more brief and concentrated the viciousness, the greater the impact.) Entries must predate May 15, lest some enterprising soul compose a new screed and enter it. You must have a PayPal account to receive your prize (you need not post your email, you can send it to me at max-at-maxspeak-dot-org).
My other contest, the Rummy Death Watch Pool, is still running. The Tenet resignation spices up the possibility of further departures from Bush, Inc. Thus far there has been only one entry, so your chances of winning are excellent, but there isn't much money to recoup at this point.
ALL THE PRESIDENT'S JOBS:
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
Good employment numbers for May. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.6, including this guy, still much higher than we know it needs to be. If we continue at the current pace, eventually that rate should decline.
From my colleagues:
The Economic Policy Institute’s JobWatch reports that in the 11 months since the “jobs and growth” tax cut went into effect in July 2003, the economy has added 1,365,000 jobs. The administration promised that that tax cut would lead to 3,366,000 jobs over those 11 months. Thus, the tax cut is running more two million jobs below the administration’s promise.
UPDATE: More here.
FRIDAY BUG BLOGGING:
TORA BORA
Osama Bin Cicadin is in there somewhere.
BUG TERROR ALERT UPDATE: Bush buzzed. (Thanx, Barry.)
June 02, 2004
THE VICIOUS INSTAPUNDIT BLOGROLL CONTEST
We are now moving into phase two of the contest. The deal was to nominate the most vicious posts by a blogger who can be found on the InstaPundit blogroll. Nominations are now closed. Sorry, no comments eligible, unless by a blogger. The posts must still be up with a working link.
There are three cash prizes of $50, $35, and $15. You need to provide me with a working email address and PayPal account to get an award, if you win. (You need not post it -- just send it to max-at-maxspeak-dot-org.
I've winnowed the entries somewhat. I expect the voting for this will be thoroughly corrupt and inaccurate, but I don't have the wherewithal to do much better. Sort of like the State of Florida, which still isn't ready for self-government. To vote, scroll all the way down the bottom of the front page. Check the number of the post you find the most vicious.
I remind conservatarians that there is a parallel contest for my own blogroll, about which more in a day or so.
UPDATE: Remember, to VOTE you have to scroll down to the bottom of this page and click on the Lycos Polling Gear thingy.
Posting phone numbers or other info here for the purpose of encouraging the harrassment of anyone is strictly forbiden.
MORE UPDATES: Some corrections to the entries. #9 is gone because it was not on the InstaPundit blogroll. #11 & 12 have been removed because they were written by a commenter, not the LGF author.
