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Tag: politics

  • There’s a hole in your boat!

    There’s a hole in your boat!

    This is good news for Republicans, supply-siders, and those who like to stick their ideological economic heads in the sand: the rich are getting richer. The top 0.1 percent of the population (those making about $1.7 million or more) now have an average income of $5.6 million per year. This is a 385% increase since 1970 (inflation adjusted).
    Think of all the jobs the rich people must create! Think of the rising tide, which raises all boats! You do understand how the tide works, right? Except for the fact it’s a pretty shitty analogy when applied to the economy.

    The bottom 90%? The 137 million rest of us (my income happens to be in the 89th percentile–personally, I’m doing just fine)? Our income decreased1% since 1970. The average income for 90% of Americans: $31,244.

    You might think this is fair. Capitalism at its finest. But it’s not. You see, it’s easier to make money when you have money. Because then you can charge rent (literally and figuratively). Because then you can lobby (ie: bribe) politicians to have the system give you more money. Because you can create virtual monopolies. Just cause it’s (barely) legal doesn’t make it right.

    You see, the system? It ain’t on the level. I think of Paddy “Chicago Ain’t Ready For Reform” Bauler’s other line: “Them guys in the black suits and narrow ties, them Ivy-League types, them goo-goos – they think the whole thing is on the square.” Except these days it’s not the Ivy-League types who think that. It’s too many of the rest of us who have been deceived. It’s people who, despite all the evidence to the contrary, buy the crazy idea that tax breaks for the rich benefit the rest of us.

    It’s no surprise that the rich look out for their own self-interests. But the rest of us don’t have to help them! For starters, we have to put words and concepts like “income redistribution” are taboo. There is nothing “communist” about progressive taxation. And there is much evidence to support the idea higher taxes on the rich benefits all of society. And that even benefits the rich.

  • Anti-Union B.S.

    Thanks to the good people at Target for the video explaining just how bad unions would be for their “team members.”

    [You know, if Target really considers me their “guest,” how come nobody ever offers me a drink? They’re not being a very good host.]

    You should watch the video. It’s shocking the way those “union businesses” exploit their workers! “With a union, you no longer have your own voice…. Somebody else will do your talking for you.” The horrors! (yes, I’m being sarcastic)

    Starting salary at Target comes out to around $25,000 a year. But don’t worry, if you have a family, you make so little the government will have to kick in some earned income tax credit!

    I remember when I went through waiter job training with Lettuce Entertain You in Chicago (Papagus on State Street, which did have excellent food). This was back in maybe 1993.

    I remember being told, “At Lettuce Entertain You restaurants, youdon’t needa union.” That was awfully nice of management to tell me. I would think how great my union-free life was whenever I was cut at lunch after doing a few hours of opening sidework and tipping out money I never made. (What? Was I not going to give the hard-working Mexican coffee guy his $2 just because I didn’t make any?) And then, if I still had any money in my pocket, on my hour-long L ride home, I could celebrate my union-free freedom!

    Seriously, though, who can put a monetary value on the ability to flambé a delicious saganikiwhile yelling, “Opa!”?

    [Update: There was a unionization vote at a Target store in New York State. The workers voted against the union.]

  • Just for the record…

    I never liked Anthony “I’m going to tear our your f*cking bike lanes” Weiner. Normally I try and save my schadenfreude for hypocritical Republicans… but I’m happy Weiner won’t be my mayor. (Though I do hope Democrats keep his seat.)

    Why is it too much to ask politicians to have the common sense of, say, me? Honestly, that’s not setting the bar too high.

    And this just in: his wife is pregnant. And this, supposedly, is how that works.

  • Ribbit!

    “We are witnessing the bipartisan normalization and legitimization of a national surveillance state!” As told to us by a cartoon (“This Modern World” by Tom Tomorrow).

  • Corporations are people too!

    Explain something to me.

    Campaign donations aren’t supposed to buy politicians, right? Because that would be bribery. But corporations give money for “access” or some other BS like that, right? And you can’t limit the money they give to politicians, because, say the courts, corporations are people too.

    And corporations are usually legally bound to maximize profits for their shareholders, right? So any donation from corporation to politician must therefore be shown to increase the corporation’s profits. Corporations don’t spend millions on lobbyist because they want to do a public good through tax reform. So say a company gives a million dollars. Then they must get more than million dollars back in legislative action or inaction. If not, they wouldn’t be fulfilling their legal obligations to their shareholders.

    You give politicians money, they do something, and you get your money back and then some. This is just bribery, right? Except it’s legal. Hell, it’s more than legal: it’s constitutionally protected.

    I am missing something?

  • Drug Legalization Gets Republican Cheers

    Al Sharpton and Ron Paul are the two people I can’t imagine ever voting for, and yet… God bless ’em for their contributions to presidential debates! They both liven things up, buck the Party Line, and sometimes just make plain sense (though, alas, not all the time).

    Here’s Paul talking about drug legalization. He makes it sound like a common-sense mainstream conservative issue. Which of course it should be. Maybe soon it will be.

    Making drug legalization a debateable issue (which, honestly, ten years ago it wasn’t) is half the battle. I like to think that organizations like LEAP (which I’m a member of) have helped this happen. Merely considering that the War on Drugs might be, I don’t know, misguided, used to be taboo in polite company. Now a call for heroin legalization gets raucous cheers in Republican debates. It’s great to see this shift because when it comes down to honest debate, the prohibitionists simply can’t win.

    [–Peter Moskos]

  • “But is it good for the Jews?”

    In a shameful move, the trustees of the City University of New York voted not to allow my college to give an honorary degree to Pulitzer Prize-winning playing Tony Kushner. It’s the first time this has happened since 1961. Why? Because one of the trustees did some research on the interwebs and found some statements he says are anti-Israeli:

    “I think it’s up to all of us to look at fairness and consider these things,” Mr. Wiesenfeld said. “Especially when the State of Israel, which is our sole democratic ally in the area, sits in the neighborhood which is almost universally dominated by administrations which are almost universally misogynist, antigay, anti-Christian.”

    Kushner, according to his own accounts, has criticized policies and actions by Israel in the past, but is a strong supporter of Israel’s right to exist, has never supported a boycott of the country, and shares views held by many Jews and supporters of Israel:

    “This has been an incredibly ugly experience,” Mr. Kushner said, “that a great public university would make a decision based on slanderous mischaracterizations without giving the person in question a chance to be heard.”

    You can a letter from Kushner here.

  • Correspondents’ Dinner

    I mention this only because I’ve known Seth Meyers for years, from his days at Boom Chicago, my brother’s comedy club in Amsterdam. But I thought he did a great job. And there’s a nice cut away to my brother at 1:25 of Part 2. They actually wanted to show Seth’s parents but instead got Andrew with Seth’s brother Josh and their mom in the background.

    And can’t Donald Trump even fake having a sense of humor? I predict Trump attempts a hostile takeover of NBC just so he can fire Seth.

  • Sitting at the Schadenfreude Cafe

    I don’t quite know how else to describe my perusal of right-wing blogs responding to the shocker than Obama was born in Hawaii.

    What’s funny, though not surprising, is I haven’t heard a single person say, “gosh, I guess… I was wrong.” I guess it’s all about that “conviction” thing.

    “Why does it say Barrack and not Barry,” is a good one. And “Why does it say ‘African’ for his father? The term back then was black.” Of course the term back then wasn’t black (the race would have been “colored” or “negro”). And his father wasAfrican.

    And “Why did he wait so long,” is being said a lot. I don’t know, maybe because stupid fridge groups often show their true colors and discredit their cause. And there’s something undignified about the President (seems like “respect the office” only applies when Republicans are in power) getting down in the fray. I mean, it’s like if they said he wasn’t a man, would he have to whip out his presidential schlong?

    Now Trump taking credit? That’s silly. I mean, Trump did push the issue and it may have pushed Obama to say enough is enough. But it’s hardly something to brag about, especially if you were wrong.

    The grandmother video wasn’t convincing. What grandmother wouldn’t remember when her grandson was born, here, where she was when she heard the news? What quashed my doubts was the birth announcement in the local paper. What kind of parents would put a false birth announcement in the papers, in 1961, to help their black son because President of the United States one day?

    Now of course we stillcan’t know for sure. I mean, we didn’t see the birth ourselves. As a Twitter feed said, “Yeah, but where’s the placenta?!”

  • William Schaefer (1921-2011)

    He was as through-back to another time, a less politically correct time. I liked his moxie, even if I have mixed feelings about his urban vision. He was a one-man political institution, and certainly Baltimore would have been worse off without him.

    His obit in the Baltimore Sun and the New York Times.