If the economy was too weak to absorb a tax hike last December – when the White House and Congress agreed to extend all the Bush tax cuts for two more years – its health is even worse today. The economy grew at just a 1.9 percent pace in the first quarter, and many economists now think it might grow just 2.0 percent in the second quarter – or even less. This should be a red flag to Washington. New research from the Federal Reserve finds that that since 1947, when two-quarter annualized real GDP growth falls below 2 percent, recession follows within a year 48 percent of the time. (And when year-over-year real GDP growth falls below 2 percent, recession follows within a year 70 percent of the time.)
Yeah, yeah, whatever.
Obama has an answer: cut defense. Anything else would mean cutting the weather service, cutting scholarships, and killing women and autistic children — all so guys who fly corporate jets can enjoy their spats and their monocles without paying their fair share. When they aren’t busy lighting cigars with trillion dollar bills and not paying their fair share, that is.
GE excluded of course.
Honestly. Is there anyone left in America who actually believes this maudlin garbage?
“Is there anyone left in America who actually believes this maudlin garbage?”
Unfortunately, yes…
At least if one is to believe the polls. I still cannot figure out why his approval rating remains about 50%
Anyone? Sure, there’s bound to be a few, if only the sorts of fool we’ve seen visit today, fools who revel in their foolishness by going so far as to display it abroad in the daylight.
But Obama? Doomed. Doomed. Doomed.
They shouldn’t. But they will. In some grand compromise. It’s as predictable as Bullwinkle reaching into that top hat for a rabbit and pulling up a lion.
from the same article:
“The business community is always complaining about regulations,” he (Obama)sighed. “Because frankly they want to be able to do whatever they think is going to maximize their profits.”
Bastards!
“Is there anyone left in America who actually believes this maudlin garbage?”
Let’s see:
Keith Olberman
Chris Matthews
Rachel Maddow
Lawrence O’Donnel
Kelly O’Donnel
Nora O’Donnel
Nina Totenburg
Howard Fineman
Paul Krugman
Bob Herbert
Katie Couric
Brian Williams
Ed Schultz
Juan Williams
Christine Amananpour
David Gregory
Chuck Todd
Bob Scheiffer
Charlie Gibson
Maureen Dowd
AJ Dione
Alan Combs
George Soros
Ted Turner
100% of the faculty at virtually every single university in America
The editorial staff of virtually every major newspaper (ex-WSJ)
Ok, that’s all I got for now…..feel free to pick up the ball and run with it yourself.
I said actually, pvrwc. Not pretends to.
Oh, I’m sorry.
Was Jeff asking a rhetorical question there?
Jeff,
You give them much too much credit.
The actually DO believe this stuff.
They’re not pretending to believe it.
Trust me, they really do.
Sad, but true.
I read “maudlin” as “midget’s”.
What?!
People who still believe this garbage include the 50+% of people who are just terrified that Sarah Palin might become President, because she smells all moosey and will do terrible things to our economy and world status.
Thomas Sowell looks at possible reasons for pessimism as regards the polity even under circumstances presumed to have been rid of Obama. His question “Is Democracy Viable?” is only answered in the events it seems. So long as it stands, the tacit answer has been yes. When it falls the definitive answer will become no.
Skimming, i.e, not close reading, he appears to believe, in other words, that it is possible to aggregate too many foolish or careless voters, voters who can bring about their own demise as such.
“Careless voters may be easily swayed by charisma and rhetoric,” says Mr. Sowell.
And me I believe him.
“liblaw posted on6/29 @ 11:38 am
“Is there anyone left in America who actually believes this maudlin garbage?”
Unfortunately, yes…
At least if one is to believe the polls. I still cannot figure out why his approval rating remains about 50%”
I happen to think that the media is (gasp!) full of shit. I don’t know ANYONE who thinks that Obama isn’t the stone cold asshat that he appears to be.
Seriously. NO ONE!
The difficulty is to persuade these very same foolish and careless voters that they should recognize their own foolishness and carelessness, and that in consequence of that persuasion, should renounce their own lately acquire rights to ruin themselves. That’s not going to be easy.
not without a for reals media it’s not
Actually, I suspect we’ll be in need of something more than a media can bring to the argument. Like, an argument.
I’m not sure it’s necessary to convince the feeders that it’s in their interest to back away from the trough. Just stop filling the trough.
Doesn’t that beg the question Squid? At least, I thought that was what Sowell was suggesting.
Is there anyone left in America who actually believes this maudlin garbage?
I would bet that 90% of the 200+ Ivy League educated lawyers in the firm where I work believe it. And this being Philadelphia, I’d bet 80% of the local population believe it. They have to believe it. Such beliefs must be held to validate who they pretend to be: caring, sensitive, altruistic, hard-working, standing up for the “little guy” and the “working man”, defender of women’s rights, protector of “the children”, and smart. So very very smart.
What I took from Sowell is that half the electorate supports redistribution. He makes the point that the rich can shelter their wealth, meaning that the redistributionists are selling out everybody’s freedom and not getting anything in return.
I guess my point is that the middle class is where the money is, and we’re quickly doing everything we can to shelter our wealth the way the rich do. Once that happens, it won’t matter how many voters support redistribution, nor how loudly they support it; there simply won’t be anything for the government to redistribute.
If there were another Whiskey Rebellion today, what would be the outcome?
This whole class warfare thing is disgusting, but the usual and customary tripe.
And let’s not talk about defense right now. I’m still stewing over the GOP’s “willingness” to consider further cuts to DOD, above and beyond what Gates identified as the maximum prudent level, in order to prove their sincerity on the debt ceiling negotiations.
Between this and the BS that Romney’s and that nut-job Paul have been saying as candidates I fear it’ll be the 30s all over again, with China as the ascending near-peer adversary we’re choosing not to concern ourselves with.
Hells’ bells, they still believe that Rove should be frog-marched to jail in handcuffs for blowing the cover of Valerie Plume. They still believe Bush Lied, People Died. They still believe Katrina was Bush’s fault. They still believe Sarah Palin said she can see Russia from her house. They still believe Reagan was wrong to fire striking air traffic controllers. They believe any number of things, despite evidence to the contrary.
To paraphase John Malkovich and Ann Coulter: Often the level of their instinctive idiocy is so exalted that it’s impossible to comprehend.
The harsh reality is that in order to maintain the welfare state as Obama and the commucrats want it to be, they’ll be forced to start looting the middle-class’ pockets real soon. One of the challenges now, and in the 2012 campaign, will be to get the low-information, low-involvement, emotion voters to understand this inconvenient truth.
Sorry Squid, I took you to mean by “stop filling the trough” the action of the sovereign, the state, in filling the trough, so my misunderstanding there. But as Bob points out, the state can, at the direction of the “people”, take further measures to seize the hidden wealth of those you see attempting to escape the redistributive impulse. This of course obviously isn’t truly good for anyone (but then the question remains how to persuade the fool in possession of the right to harm his own self interests not to do so), destructive as it is of the existing order, i.e. those seeking to escape the redistributive impulse either flee or are killed (kulaks?) and as you point out, the whole collapses within its own non-productivity.
Rather than stop filling the trough, treat it as a bait feeder.
Isn’t Air Force One a corporate jet?