gdp's Comments

Big Government : Rep. Jan Schakowsky Admits #Occupy Movement Is Aimless, Denies It's Class Warfare

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:46:52 +0000

I notice that once again, banks are being blamed for the economic crisis ("The perpetrators, the banks, no one’s going to jail"). Since the only role any bank had in the crisis was loaning money to people who should not have qualified (which was actually driven by government policy), one can only surmise that she thinks bankers ought to go to jail for making such loans. Pretty standard stuff from this mob. (Yeah, I said it.) It's not always, however, that the contradiction appears in the same sentence ("and now they don’t want to lend any money."). Well (at the risk of sounding childish), DUH Representative Schakowsky! You and and your party, who happen to control the White House and the Senate, and who have amply demonstrated that you'll not be constrained by the bounds of law or constitution, are calling almost daily for the jailing of these people for the money they DID lend. Why in the world would they want to lend more? And how can you ask them to in the same sentence in which you call for them to be JAILED for having done so in the past???

Big Hollywood : Boycott Suggested: Tea Party Zombie Game Creator Also Ad Agency for Pepsi, NASCAR, Others...

Thu, 8 Sep 2011 19:54:17 +0000

Sorry, I'm as annoyed at this as the next person. I'm not a "member" of the Tea Party, but the more I hear them bashed, the more I want to join. They are perhaps the only group in the country whose agenda is not driven by individual self-interest. Their proposals are such that it's not possible for them to be driven by anything but a sincere interest in the good of the country. As for the proposed boycott though - that's exactly the kind of maneuver I'd expect out of the likes of the buffoons who put together this stupid game. It is well beneath us. Particularly given that the game isn't even alleged to have been produce with the knowledge of, let alone on behalf of, Pepsi, NASCAR, or any other of their clients. If you want to write angry letters to these clients, feel free. But they, their employees, and their shareholders do NOT deserve to be harmed by the actions of a few freaks - freaks by the way who, if they hate the Tea Party, must necessarily also hate most of these clients who live and breathe the free market principles the Tea Party exists to defend.

Big Hollywood : 'Friends with Benefits': Partial Victory for Conservative Values

Tue, 2 Aug 2011 15:59:00 +0000

I guess the delivery matters, but the conversation you relate about the doctor and God sounds like something intended to skewer someone so arrogant as to discount God's role in the healing process. The first clue that this wasn't the intent was the "I've date a lot of..." line. In other words, the "me and God" part doesn't reflect arrogance. The "of course I don't believe that, God has nothing to do with it, it's all me" part does, and not just arrogance but arrogance to a comical degree. It seems like the kind of line that could only be delivered satirically by the clueless type character ordinarily portrayed by Steve Carell.

The Heritage Foundry : Obama Blasts Private Jet Tax Breaks Included in His Own Stimulus

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:43:10 +0000

To be honest, I think it's worse than you suspect. It seems to me as though the president's intent, having already reaped whatever benefit the breaks offered to the economy by encouraging the purchase of corporate jets with the promise of the accelerated depreciation benefit, would now like to pull that benefit back before the intended beneficiaries have had a chance to fully utilize it. He's double-dealing.

The Heritage Foundry : Obama Blasts Private Jet Tax Breaks Included in His Own Stimulus

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:40:02 +0000

The Heritage Foundry : More Americans Using HSAs—Under Threat from Obamacare

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:22:52 +0000

I sense a little confusion here. The article talks about HSAs. HSAs are health savings accounts. These are accounts that can be funded by the insured, the insurer or employer, or both, and are tax advantaged. Eligible medical expenses, such as pre-deductible expenses and copays can be paid for out of this account. The balance of such an account rolls over year to year. The accounts are usually coupled with a high-deductible catastrophic plan. It balances exposure of the insured to medical costs to allow the market to function with protection against being wiped out by a catastrophic illness. I don't believe HSAs can be used to pay for OTC drugs at all, with some exceptions - my company's RX plan covers a select group of OTC drugs, with a doctor's prescription, as if they were RX drugs, and copayments on those drugs are paid from my HSA balance. Not that it much matters all that much, because Obamacare criminalizes the high-deductible plans with which HSAs are generally paired, which will effectively eliminate the HSA once it phases all the way in in 2014. What you describe with respect to requiring a doctor's RX to get coverage for certain OTC products applies to Flexible Spending Accounts, or FSAs. These are different from HSAs. They are always entirely funded by contributions from the insured. They are tax advantaged like HSAs, but they don't roll over year to year - whatever you don't use by 12/31, you lose. And as far as I know, except for the degradation already imposed by the Affordable Care Act, these accounts are not going anywhere. They will remain legal, just a little less valuable. Both HSAs and FSAs are damaged by the Affordable Care Act, ironically in ways that will make care less affordable for all. But I felt that the distinction was important. An HSA was made available to me this year for the first time ever, and I love it, and would hate to see it - along with my accumulated balance - vanish in 2014.

Big Hollywood : Sarah Silverman: 'Obama Has the Body of a Thoroughbred' and Other Hollywood Myths

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:53:25 +0000

or make some second-string comedian like Sarah Silverman tell him she’s going to be naked in her next film.

Naked? Hmm. And what do you mean by her "next" film? Has she been in one already, naked or otherwise?

Big Hollywood : ...In Which I Defend a Congressman Who Called Me a 'Nazi' from Jon Stewart

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 19:04:00 +0000

"Sure, it’s fun to watch Stewart go after the other side. But it’s also a trap. If I don’t defend Cohen, what defense will I have when Stewart trains his fire on us and declares other references off-limits?" That's not the only way in which it is a trap. "Republicans are liars and therefore Nazis" "Don't be ridiculous, they're not Nazis" Not that he left unchallenged the fallacy that we are liars.

Big Government : Private Citizen Subjected to Smear Campaign by Government Officials

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 22:14:09 +0000

I feel for Joe the Plumber, but I don't think any civil case should be initiated until all the criminal trials are done with. There ARE going to be criminal trials, aren't there? I mean, if a government employee can't go to jail for wrongly accessing confidential data to smear a private citizen based on his political beliefs, then why are we even bothering to pretend to have a criminal justice system?

Big Hollywood : Wrong Guy Executed? I Don't Care.

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:30:03 +0000

No one has even implied that in this case.

Big Hollywood : ObamaTV on NBC: 'Law & Order: Soda Police'

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:01:37 +0000

As much as L&O's political slant irritates me, I have to give them props for balance of some form after seeing them skewer their own kind in a recent SVU. The episode was about human trafficking of children, and they presented a decidedly disapproving depiction of not only trafficking itself, but also slavery, forced prostitution, and murder of children. It was a refreshingly self-critical and introspective piece of work that cannot have been popular with their peers in Hollywood...

Big Government : Fox Guarding the Hen House: Trial Lawyer Who Repeatedly Sued Food Companies Now Regulating Them

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:59:16 +0000

More of the same. Didn't Obama appoint some former labor bigwig to head the NRLB last year?

Big Government : Schools Won’t Improve Without Labor Reform

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:18:19 +0000

Evidently not proud of their grammar skills.

Big Government : Obama's New Stimulus Schemes: Same Bad Song

Wed, 8 Sep 2010 19:53:37 +0000

I think you may be misreading me. You say the president is a liar. I said that he has "reversed himself" on EG immigration. Both mean the same thing. I did not suggest that he somehow meant what he said on immigration and then changed his mind. I said that he reversed himself - IE he said one thing, but meant (and ultimately did) another - he lied, and that lie manifested itself in a reversal of his stated public position. I also did not mean to imply that his "mistakes" have been unintentional, or that his proposals have "morphed" on their own against his will. These are all just examples of him lying and pursuing flawed policy - in each case, as far as I can tell, quite intentionally. Like I said, I'm not naive. I don't believe for a second that the infrastructure spending is going to be as he has described it (IE without union set-asides), or that the tax credit isn't going to be crippled with caveats informed by poor policy. But that is the lure he uses to get the uninformed on his side. He says he wants to invest in infrastructure, makes a perfectly reasonable proposal to use some taxpayer dollars to keep people employed and get something worthwhile for the taxpayer out of the deal. It would have helped the economy if the original stimulus bill had taken this form. What he hopes to do is to get his political opponents to oppose the reasonable sounding version of what he SAYS he wants to do, in order to isolate us from the less informed or more trusting. It's a trap, and we walk into it time after time. My point is that when he (dishonestly) proposes something easily recognizable as good, which he has done in this and other cases (the broad proposals that he's discusses publicly, without the fatal flaws that will invariably be added later) we should cheer them. Be enthusiastic and specific about what we like and why we like it. It gives us the standing to hold him to what he originally promised - an infrastructure bill with no union set-asides; a R&D tax credit with no carve-outs for favored industries - as well as more credibility when the enacting legislation must eventually be opposed for the reasons I outlined above. By publicly supporting the proposals in their popular form, we then get to explain our opposition to legislation by illustrating how it differs from what was initially proposed - from what the president said that we and the American people liked: "We continue to support the president's proposed $50B in infrastructure spending to help boost jobs and get the taxpayer a benefit in return. We call on the president and his party, who control all branches of government, to support our efforts to enact legislation that will realize his stated goals, rather than the current form of the legislation which due to influence of union special-interests excludes most Americans from being allowed to work on the projects and does not result in any actual benefit to taxpayers". I think we're largely on the same page. I'm not saying we should take what he says at face value, or assume he means well. I am saying we should not let him take control of the debate by looking like the only one who wants good things for America. Make it clear that we want what he says that he wants, and then allow the American people to join us in our outrage when what he tries to do is diametrically opposite of what he said he wanted.

Big Government : Obama's New Stimulus Schemes: Same Bad Song

Wed, 8 Sep 2010 17:13:17 +0000

I have to weigh in here and say beware a knee-jerk opposition to anything the president proposes. The R&D tax credit, for example, is not a bad idea if implemented properly. Even the infrastructure spending could provide a short-term boost, again if done correctly. It's true that the last one didn't do a single thing, but there was a specific reason for that - the union set-asides it contained essentially excluded the entire American workforce from any of the benefits of the spending in favor of union members. Now, I agree that there is virtually no chance of the president not making the same mistake. But his proposals so far have been to spend money on infrastructure to stimulate jobs, which is a good idea. If and when he reverses himself and turns it into an initiative to spend money on union patronage with no chance of stimulating jobs, then we criticize it for what it is. I imagine many Republicans are thinking of his immigration speech, where he proposed doing exactly what Republicans have been pushing for for years - enhanced border security, and a path to citizenship for those already here that involves as a prerequisite satisfying any criminal sanctions and then going home and starting the immigration process from the beginning, behind those who have been waiting to do it legally. This is what we on the right have always wanted, it's what the president said in his speech he wanted, and he got praise from conservatives for it. I'll admit that I, like everyone else, felt "taken" when he reversed himself, sued Arizona for pursuing his stated policy, and began maneuvering to effectively offer amnesty by declining to follow existing law. And it irritated me that our opposition to the president's adoption of the opposite of what he said he favored was portrayed as a flip-flop on my part rather than his. Nevertheless, being consistent is the right thing to do. If the president proposes something that's a good idea, which I think he did in this case, I'm willing to get behind it. If (when?) it morphs into something sinister or ill-advised (like if the infrastructure spending gets union set-asides, or the investment credit is limited to politically favored industries, technologies, or companies), then I'll criticize.

Big Hollywood : Obama's Too Cool for Comedic Ridicule?

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:47:18 +0000

I've got to say that while I get where you're coming from, I'm a bit on the fence myself about just how funny this president is. To turn around your own observations, the buffoonery of Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be funny to the world in general, but I doubt there's anything funny to a North Korean or an Iranian about their respective national leaders. Ditto for Venezuelans or Cubans.

Big Hollywood : Obama Can't Snooker Snooki

Mon, 2 Aug 2010 20:44:11 +0000

Ugh! Some of us are eating! OK, not right now, but I had planned to eventually! Thanks alot!

Big Government : Sherrod Plans to Sue Breitbart

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:03:19 +0000

I think you may be wrong about a liberal judge allowing the case to proceed farther than the merits warrant, if only because this is one of those cases where attention does not serve the interests of Sherrod or her defenders.

Big Government : Sherrod Plans to Sue Breitbart

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:56:40 +0000

He edited nothing. He published excerpts from the video. Completely different than editing. Editing would have required cutting things apart and putting them back together either out of order, or so that things appeared other than how they were. Most importantly, what he is being accused of is essentially causing an impression to be portrayed that is different from the reality, and that's simply not the case. The complete, unedited video leaves the viewer with no different an impression - certainly no better an impression - of Sherrod than the clips Breitbart posted. Also he published two clips, not one; they included the exculpatory portion of her comments. The stuff that was missing from Breitbart's original post all just made it worse. And her own public comments in just the past week or so since this happened makes it worse still.

Big Government : President Obama Addresses Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Legal or Just Illegal?

Thu, 1 Jul 2010 20:55:38 +0000

Interestingly, I just read (OK, skimmed) the speech as posted on RCP, and am very cautiously optimistic. He got a couple of basic facts wrong. He's saying something like 11M instead of 30M illegals in the country, and skirted around the idea that he and his party have been fighting for reform for years and been thwarted by the right, as opposed to reality which is the diametric opposite. But for the most part, he articulated what we've supported forever. He said we need to secure the border. It also seemed clear to me that he recognized the fact that the chief victims of illegal immigration are legal would-be immigrants who are not allowed to come here as a direct result. And while he stopped just a hair short of saying that any path to citizenship must include admission of guilt, payment of fines or other penalties, and most importantly that the alien go back where they came from and follow the legal process correctly, from the back of the line. At the very least, he absolutely articulated core conservative principles on the issue that cannot be considered satisfied without deportation of illegals before they can be documented. Of course I'm still a skeptic, and I firmly expect to see legislation that completely contradicts everything good that he said. But I was expecting the speech itself to call for amnesty and turn reform upside down, and as far as I can tell it did not. The clearest sign of this is his allusion to Bush's proposals, which had some republican support and much opposition, but which also involve amnesty and was not reform in any sense of the word. Though he was chastising Republican supporters of that proposal for changing their minds, he did register opposition of his own in the speech by explicitly condemning amnesty. So I guess to some extent there is indeed the beginnings of a contradiction. But I remain a supporter of the specifics Obama called for in his speech - IE securing of the borders, reforming of the legal immigration process, and the ability for illegals to become legal immigrants ONLY after admitting their guilt, paying the piper, and going home to start the legal process from the beginning and to get at the end of the line.