When egos collide.

First thing this morning: Editing an intern’s story for the website. What a joy to handle copy that doesn’t require major surgery. Give me a kid whose only story notes are “learn the difference between citizens and residents,” and I can teach that one something.

My online dictionary has them as virtual synonyms, but my online dictionary is full of shit. Citizens carry passports, residents only a driver’s license. Do not make this mistake in your daily writing again. Tomorrow we’ll tackle “convince” and “persuade.”

Kate’s been having a grind of it lately, between school and track and having a spring cold. But she’s holding up her end with more aplomb than I would have mustered at her age, so I was looking for some little reward I could offer her for the homestretch of the year. Tickets to the Movement festival downtown over Memorial Day weekend? Better ask first; kids her age have strong ideas about what’s cool and what’s lame, and for all I know, techno and electronica is the latter. This would be one of those affairs where we’d go along; no way am I turning my kid loose in the middle of something like this without at least one adult within shouting distance. What would I say as she left the car? “No ecstasy, honey!”

But as I said: Better ask first. She and her friends have complicated flow charts of the various sects of youth culture; you should hear them expound on the difference between hipsters and scenesters, both of which they disapprove of and neither of which I could confidently identify. The last time I asked what a scenester was, it involved “some girl, and she takes a picture of herself with her webcam, and she’s like holding up her hand like a claw, and underneath it says dinosaurs go rawr.” OK, whatever.

Maybe I should put it this way: I’d like to go to Movement. Maybe she’d like to come along.

Would you?

I have Russian homework to do, so let’s skip to the bloggage:

Hungover owls. To fill the gap left by Fuck You, Penguin, I guess. (Forget electronic music; this is what I should be schooling my kid in — coming up with one amusing idea broad enough to sustain a single quickie book sold at Urban Outfitters and hello, University of Michigan B-school! We’d spend her college fund on a boat.)

To give the oft-abused Mitch Albom his due, I will admit that of all his media personae, he plays best on the radio. In that universe of outsize jerkoffs, his regular-guy act, false though it may be, resembles something approaching normalcy. So I’m sure that if I’d heard this on-air confrontation with local right-wing host Frank Beckmann, I’d have been on Team Mitch. Beckmann, a Limbaugh manqué whose act I caught once (lasted about three minutes, snapped it off, never went back) has been claiming Albom’s staunch defense of the Michigan film incentives constitute some sort of journalistic conflict of interest, because one of his books is a movie-in-progress. Albom has stated before that he gets paid — has already been paid, in fact — no matter where the project shoots, and his interest is strictly for the local people who will work on it.

Can I get it on the record? I agree with Mitch Albom. Yes, I AGREE WITH MITCH ALBOM. He’s right about this. “Have a Little Faith” could shoot in Cleveland or Toronto or Timbuktu, and it won’t make no never-mind to his end. He’s already moved on to shuffling headshots of who will be his next on-air portrayer, having already used up Hank Azaria and Michael Imperioli. (I’ve got five bucks on Shia LaBeouf, although this is a — snicker — Hallmark production, so they will probably go a little cheaper.) I’m sure I still would have laughed at this exchange:

Albom’s tenor went airborne a few times, and when he commented that Beckmann “wasn’t knowledgeable” about the issue, Beckmann’s baritone boomed out, “Oh, so I’m stupid?”

Then: “Of course, you’re knowledgeable, Mitch. It must be a burden to carry that around.”

I wouldn’t have been able to resist that fat soft one up the middle. Yes, you’re stupid, Frank. This isn’t a hard one to figure out. Ultimately, though, this is like a war between two people you can’t stand. Whoever wins, you win.

Gene Weingarten Twittered this under his “should be convicted on mugshot alone” series. I’d call it: Forceps babies, the later chapters.

Better get out of here before lightning strikes. On a day when I can find something nice to say about Mitch, anything can happen.

Happy Wednesday, all.

Posted at 10:03 am in Media, Same ol' same ol' |
 

58 responses to “When egos collide.”

  1. coozledad said on May 18, 2011 at 10:11 am

    Christ. That mugshot looks like someone out of a Reid Fleming strip made flesh and blood.
    EDIT: Is that DJ Squarepusher in that video?

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  2. ROGirl said on May 18, 2011 at 10:32 am

    Best sneer ever.

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  3. Julie Robinson said on May 18, 2011 at 10:35 am

    My son would go to Movement in a heartbeat. Techno/electronica/synthesized all sounds cold and detached to me.

    I hear that self-published ebooks are where the money is now.

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  4. brian stouder said on May 18, 2011 at 10:46 am

    Maybe I should put it this way: I’d like to go to Movement. Maybe she’d like to come along. Would you?

    With you? Absolutely!

    …he plays best on the radio. In that universe of outsize jerkoffs, his regular-guy act, false though it may be, resembles something approaching normalcy.

    Superb. That metaphor (which I intend to steal, btw) is so precise that it just about ceases to be a metaphor, and is instead a plain staement of fact. (It must be strange when your whole job is to sit in a sound-proof room and talk to yourself for 3 hours)

    And let me say one thing about Newt Gingrich: His security sucks, if a guy can approach him with a container, and then stand there and open it and methodically dump a substance onto him.

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  5. alex said on May 18, 2011 at 10:50 am

    Speaking of being convicted on mugshot alone, it’s not outside the realm of possibility if the Indiana Supreme Court has anything to say about it. Here’s a good editorial on the new police powers granted by the court in its latest ruling.

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  6. Kim said on May 18, 2011 at 10:56 am

    The mugshot guy looks like a glammed-up Herman Munster.

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  7. Peter said on May 18, 2011 at 11:13 am

    I think the mugshot guy, with a little work, could be part of a Lyle Lovett tribute band

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  8. Mark P. said on May 18, 2011 at 11:13 am

    “Oh, so I’m stupid?”

    Perfect learning moment: “I didn’t say you’re stupid. I said you’re ignorant.”

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  9. LAMary said on May 18, 2011 at 11:16 am

    Cooz, you say Reid Fleming. I was thinking some secondary player in Zippy the Pinhead. You’re closer. The circumstances seem more R. Crumb. It’s an underground comix trifecta.

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  10. Suzanne said on May 18, 2011 at 11:23 am

    As to Newt and the glitter guy…Where was the security? I thought the same thing and then wondered if Newt wasn’t somehow behind the “attack” with the thought that, well, you know, all publicity is good publicity. (Unless you are the Donald, and then maybe it isn’t.)

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  11. moe99 said on May 18, 2011 at 11:25 am

    More owl stuff:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iqmba7npY8g

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  12. prospero said on May 18, 2011 at 11:33 am

    Closest I’d get to electronica is the new Caahs album. They do excel with synths, but you’ve always got Elliot Easton on guitar, so it remains rock ‘n’ roll, And nobody ever heard Rik Ocasek resort to auto-tune.

    Re: yesterday’s 3rd base conversation. Takes lightning reflexes as in Evan Longoria: Pretty good contemporary 3rd baseman.

    As far as conviction on mugshot. Well Scalia and the activist medieval Supremes say that absolute proof of innocence is insufficient to get a conviction reversed, so , sure. And when was the last time anybody heard Republics whining about judicial activism? They’re keeping it on the downlow now that it’s actually serving their nefarious ends.

    I get the point about citizens and residents, and the striking insight on the part of your intern, but according to the Canadian Tourism Commission, which has a pretty clear reason to know, only 34% of Americans over 18 own passports. (Can’t find US gov. statistic.) Then there is shit students write. Georgia administers HS graduation exams in math, science and writing. I once worked for a company that scores the writing exams, and I kept a list of very imaginative poortmanteau words these kids produced by apparent accident. One summer the 2nd Amendment was a topic, and the combinations of beararms and bare arms and that sort of thing were astounding. I remember one essay in particular that tied its arguments together by discussing drivebys and other violins in “the Broncs”. I parted ways with that job because I figure some kid in Hahira that could exhibit that sort of thinking and actually knew about the Bronx did not deserve to get slagged for confusing it with the Wild West.

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  13. prospero said on May 18, 2011 at 11:43 am

    Mugshot guy’s chronicler needs a lesson in “lie” and “lay”.

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  14. Jeff Borden said on May 18, 2011 at 11:52 am

    I think when this week ends, the dousing with glittery confetti will be the highpoint of Newt’s week. He’s vermin, of course, and deserves every awful thing that happens to him because that’s the way karma rolls, but I’ve never seen someone crash and burn so spectacularly so quickly in a presidential race. Christ, at least Trump had a few weeks going there. . .but Newt shot himself in the ass with his comments on Ryan’s draconian budget proposals, the YouTube of the angry Republican calling him an embarrassment is viral sensation, his race-baiting is getting him lots of negative publicity, the story about the ludicrously huge Tiffany’s bill is part of the narrative. . .it’s been a helluva lousy week for a helluva lousy guy.

    This makes me smile.

    He is one of the more loathesome creatures to have emerged on the American political scene and is one of the architects of the angry, confrontational, fact-free dialogue that passes for political conversation these days. So, yeah, you keep on standing there like a walking pinata, Newtie. It’s great fun to see you getting whacked.

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  15. alex said on May 18, 2011 at 11:53 am

    I kept a list of very imaginative portmanteau words these kids produced by apparent accident

    I saw an example recently where some dimwit used the phrase, “On the other end of the speculum, …”

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  16. prospero said on May 18, 2011 at 12:25 pm

    My NP mom was in a University Helath Service examining room with a doctor and a UGA Tri-Delt one time. The doctor delivered the bad news to the patient: “You have acute vaginitis.” Tri-Delt: “Why thank you, doctor.”

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  17. brian stouder said on May 18, 2011 at 12:32 pm

    Jeff, I don’t disagree with the sentiment that Newtie is simply reaping the whirlwind that his crowd has been busily sowing; still, I have no stomache for actual attacks on public officials.

    That said – I am genuinely puzzled by the political “thinking” behind the Ryan plan. I was actually AT one of those surprisingly angry “town hall meetings” (held by our disgraced former member of congress, who lost his dick inside one of his staffers, but we digress).

    And those spittle-flecked, white-haired, white-hot shouters were the MOST animated whenever the specter of Obama grabbing their Medicare popped up, which was approximately 5 times per minute.

    Did the R’s simply forget this?

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  18. nancy said on May 18, 2011 at 12:46 pm

    And those spittle-flecked, white-haired, white-hot shouters were the MOST animated whenever the specter of Obama grabbing their Medicare popped up, which was approximately 5 times per minute.

    Did the R’s simply forget this?

    No. Remember, the Ryan plan would leave current oldsters alone. It’s the people our age who would be screwed. Generational warfare, not the class kind, aka divide and conquer.

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  19. Bob (not Greene) said on May 18, 2011 at 12:56 pm

    Alex, I’m glad I wasn’t drinking something when I read that one! And Nance, you, as always, have your finger on the pulse of the young crowd’s lingo. Not a half hour after I read the post, one of the young bucks comes in here and states apropos of nothing, “You know what word I really hate? Scenester.”

    Also, Alex, I read that editorial and agree with it. I still maintain that the ruling is an abomination. Police already can gain access without a warrant if they have probable cause. That should be good enough.

    People wonder how on earth seemingly rational nations devolve into police states and this is how. It happens slowly, with individual rights chipped away bit by bit. And one day you get someone in power who doesn’t abide the the gentleman’s code and says, “Hey, I can use actually this power for whatever end I want.”

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  20. Jeff Borden said on May 18, 2011 at 12:56 pm

    Brian,

    I certainly don’t advocate actual attacks on anyone. I abhor violence. But sprinkling the creep with glittery confetti doesn’t bother me. . .and given the ugliness of the GOP toward gays and Newtie’s embrace of it. . .it is a pretty low-key response. Also, I wonder if the perpetrator used glittery confetti because of Newt’s hefty revolving charge account at Tiffany & Co.?

    Doesn’t Gingrich have a lesbian sister? Are they estranged?

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  21. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 18, 2011 at 1:30 pm

    Longoria may not have saved the reporter’s life, Gillette did:
    http://mashable.com/2011/05/16/evan-longoria-gillette-2/

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  22. paddyo' said on May 18, 2011 at 1:34 pm

    Mug Shot Guy kind of reminds me of the Flattop character in the movie version of Dick Tracy — minus the natty suit and bow tie, of course. (Scroll to cast photo; he’s in lower left corner, next to Madonna)

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  23. Jolene said on May 18, 2011 at 1:47 pm

    The glitter was definitely about gay rights, Jeff. Gingrich was in town to speak at a meeting of a family values group that is pushing an amendment to the state constitution prohibiting gay marriage, and the protester (or the photographer) said, “Welcome to the rainbow!” after the glitter was thrown. (I was a little disappointed, actually, that he dumped so much on the table rather than on, say, Calista’s perfect coiffure.)

    As for Newt’s sister, I haven’t heard anything recently, but they have acknowledged each other in a more or less friendly way in the past.

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  24. Dexter said on May 18, 2011 at 2:04 pm

    Oh boy…nance, I heard the argument with Albom on Beckmann’s show. I have listened to Frank , who replaced legendary M man Bob Ufer as Michigan football’s network radio voice , for thirty five years or so, but I cannot listen to his mid-morning WJR show unless he has a guest on who is non-political.
    Unlike the pontificating Limbaugh, Frank will speak to people, always taking a hardcore repug-conservative stance, of course.
    Frank is really good at phoner-interviewing , as he did last year regarding the Kalamazoo River pipeline leak that polluted the river and environs. Frank was all over that, and he did a good job.
    Frank is also a great football announcer, but Frank is insufferable when he gets into politics and he always carried the water for whatever crackpot ideas on, oh, say fiscal responsibility of “Lansing…”.
    I had a lathered face , razor in hand and I was talking to the radio…”Frank, just STFU !”
    I quit being a regular “Frank listener” soon after he got the gig, and I was listening to Mike McConnell on WLW-AM, Cincinnati while I shaved, but he went to WGN-AM Chicago last year, and the guy WLW replaced him with, “Doc” , is also a Limbaugh echo machine. That’s why I happened to have Albom v. Beckmann on that day. Yes, I do have XM radio, just not by my shaving sink. XM is so much better than any terrestrial shows. Stephanie Miller rocks, for example.
    http://www.stephaniemiller.com/listen-live/

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  25. Dexter said on May 18, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    Remember when eminem trashed Moby a few years back? That hurt.
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article861397.ece
    Moby called MM a closeted homosexual, or something like that. That must have hurt, too. I was talking about how it pained me, though, because, believe it or not, I have actually spent hard cash to buy a few Moby CDs. It surely is easy to listen to.
    Anyway, I love both their art.
    Electronica festival? A grand way to spend a weekend.

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  26. Jolene said on May 18, 2011 at 2:20 pm

    Detroit in the News: Mark Bittman has an upbeat piece in today’s NYT re Detroit’s urban farms, gardens, and markets.

    Also, NBC had a piece a couple of weeks ago on a volunteer group called Detroit Dog Rescue that is trying to reduce the size of the stray dog population by rescuing, treating, and placing them. After the piece ran, they received more than $80,000 in donations from viewers to support their work. Not nearly enough to achieve their goal of building a no-kill shelter, but enough to buy quite a bit of veterinary care.

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  27. Mark P. said on May 18, 2011 at 2:26 pm

    Newt is considered a true deep thinker among Republicans. Maybe he is, among Republicans.

    Nancy, you’re right about Ryan’s attempt to dismantle Medicare. It’s truly despicable, calculated to avoid offending the old, angry white base that Republicans count on these days while appealing to the ignorant younger people who think they will never need a social safety net.

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  28. brian stouder said on May 18, 2011 at 3:08 pm

    And speaking of colliding egos, let me just say –

    the clock keeps ticking, and the calendar keeps advancing, and the Congress of the US keeps toying with the debt ceiling extension, leveraging the full faith and credit of the United States for…what end?

    It is almost not an exaggeration to say that we – the United States – are approaching a latter-day Fort Sumter moment. The plain question before our elected officials will be whether the financial health and well-being of our nation trumps ideological purity, or not.

    I suspect that the “real” temptation for the Republican majority in the House, with regard to the debt ceiling, is that if they trigger a calamitous financial crash, it might destroy President Obama’s re-election efforts, and tar his place in history; but it still ultimately amounts to a fundamentally unpatriotic, anti-American impulse.

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  29. Suzanne said on May 18, 2011 at 3:20 pm

    “I suspect that the “real” temptation for the Republican majority in the House, with regard to the debt ceiling, is that if they trigger a calamitous financial crash, it might destroy President Obama’s re-election efforts, and tar his place in history…” Or it might unlease something quite worse (but maybe the complete breakdown of society is in my thoughts since I’ve been reading a Marie Antoinette bio). People that have nothing have nothing to lose.

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  30. prospero said on May 18, 2011 at 3:50 pm

    Scenesters.

    Hipsters.

    Oh, and I’m pretty sure that hipsters think it’s cool to drink PBR, which is like those weird Oriental religious essene things about drinking your own urine. Good God why, by choice? And as I understand it, Scenesters would have to get a hipster to by PBR for them before they could damage their tweener livers. Seems sort of like a farm team and the Show relationship, with Bieber haircuts for Clark Kent glasses for uniforms.

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  31. mark said on May 18, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    Yes, Brian, it is reprehensible that our elected officials seem to prefer creating a technical default on our obligations by refusing to extend the debt limit, if extending the debt limit requires a maningful reduction in deficit spending. The party in power refuses to reduce the borrowing from the current 125 billion/month and are willing to risk a degree of financial disruption to continue the profligate spending.

    It has been more than two years since the Senate has even PROPOSED, let alone passed, a budget. The new House has passed a budget, which is hugely imperfect but has meaningful reductions in spending. The President, not unreasonably, told the Republicans to “go first” on the issue of deficit reduction. They did. The Democrats seem quite willing to stop there, and score political points from the deficiencies in the Republican plan until the next election. Obama gave a budget speech with no specifics and the Democrats in the Senate have no plans to offer a budget for a vote.

    I’ll venture that a large majority of Rs/conservatives/tea party types will go along with a return to Clinton era tax rates IF they are accompanied with large budget cuts- sufficient to take us off the path to insolvency. I think most even view that as necessary. But this conservative suspects that tax increases alone will only be used to further increase spending and borrowing. Better a crises now than after we are a few trillion more in debt.

    If a failure to extend the debt ceiling is financial suicide, then Democrats are willing pll the trigger rather than propose a budget that significantly reduces spending. Of course there is some reason to think the urgency of the debt limit issue is itself, a bit manipulated. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/17/us-usa-debt-deadline-idUSTRE74G72R20110517

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  32. alex said on May 18, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    The debt ceiling brinksmanship is just that. It’s all for the benefit of the teabaggers. The GOP is the party of Wall Street and knows which side its bread is buttered on and there’s no way it’ll allow default to occur.

    I hope Obama doesn’t flinch. The debate should be about returning to the appropriate level of taxation.

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  33. Bob (not Greene) said on May 18, 2011 at 4:58 pm

    Mark, I don’t know how you can say that the majority of R’s would go along with returning to Clinton-era tax breaks as long as there are large budget cuts. The R’s are the ones who cut the taxes and drove up spending in the first place. It’s just too funny that R’s are calling for fiscal restraint after eight years of spending the nation into this position.

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  34. brian stouder said on May 18, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    If I pointed to one Big thing I learned from the book Too Big to Fail, it would be the scarey way that events and consequences begin to cascade, once these macro-financial plates begin to shift. (and indeed, a United States defaulting – or even the increasing perception that such a turn of events is NOT impossible – is most definitely a major plate-shift. It will exert major gravitational pull on capital all around the world, and all sorts of unitended consequences will unwind. These things are easier to avoid than to fix)

    As for our mounting national debt, it is interesting to me that the Republican party didn’t give two figs about that issue until January 20, 2009….and in fact, looking back to the 1990’s and US budgets in the black, Newtie Gingerich, who has at least a semi-plausible claim to some political dividend from those surpluses, has been practically ex-communicated from the teabag-ican party by Uncle Rush and Cardinal Ryan (et al)

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  35. mark said on May 18, 2011 at 5:30 pm

    Bob NG-

    You are right about republicans cutting taxes and increasing spending under Bush. That’s a big part of why there is a “tea party” movement today. But so what? Even correctly putting a big chunk of the blame on them doesn’t change the reality we face today or address the substantive issue of what we do about it. I could criticize whatever Obama wants to do today in the Middle East by pointing to something he said earlier, on the campaign trail, but doing so doesn’t adress the merits of his current position- it’s a distraction to avoid the issue.

    We borrow 50 cents of every dollar we spend. That has to stop. Dismissing out of hand any idea from anybody involved in creating the problem means we do nothing at all, since few are immune from that criticism.

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  36. Bob (not Greene) said on May 18, 2011 at 5:50 pm

    No, Mark, I understand what you’re saying and there is, of course, criticism aplenty to go around. My point is just that I don’t think that the tea party types, especially, would go for raising taxes for any reason at all. Part of the problem is that there’s no negotiating with them. It’s rule or ruin. And as of now, it appears to me that the Republican Party is scared to death of those voters and is doing everything it can to simply accommodate them. That’s why we’re getting this debt ceiling game of chicken.

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  37. Mark P. said on May 18, 2011 at 5:51 pm

    Mark (not myself), deficit spending is a strawman, along with most of the other arguments of “deficit hawks” and Republicans. No one is really interested in reducing the deficit. Ask anyone what programs should be cut, and it will always be the one that doesn’t involve them. And no one will even consider raising tax rates on the super wealthy. Republicans will tell you that increasing the marginal tax rate on the wealthy will mean fewer jobs, less spending or something like that. In fact, that’s simply not true and never has been, at least to any real extent.

    And, besides all that, the deficit is not the real problem today. The real problem today is unemployment and a bogged-down economy, and the federal deficit didn’t cause that. The only way to help fix that problem is for the only entity that has sufficient money to spend that money, and that entity is the federal government. Once the economy recovers, that’s the time to work on the deficit.

    The deficit is a blunt instrument wielded by the Republicans to try to regain power so that they can resume their feeding frenzy at the government hog trough. Here’s my prediction: if the Republicans regain power, talk of the deficit will magically disappear and the deficit itself will grow like Jack’s beanstalk.

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  38. Jeff Borden said on May 18, 2011 at 6:17 pm

    Mark P. hits the nail on the head. Your pork is my vitally important project and vice-versa. Our politicians have no appetite for this kind of cutting. Lindsey Graham got a case of the vapors over the threat of cutting an amount far less than $1 million for a study of deepening Charleston harbor in his home state of South Carolina, for example, and the defense contractors are masters of spreading production around so that ending one weapons program will affect, say, 10 states, so they have 20 senators and scores of representatives howling if any cuts are proposed.

    And, of course, many of the governors who shout the loudest about federal spending govern in states that receive far more than they pay in federal tax revenues. Check out what Mississippi, for example, gets back for every $1 paid.

    We all know the most expensive items in the federal budget are Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and the Defense Department. I wish we could get someone with real credibility among the military and defense establishments to lead a panel or committee to identify all the waste in the Pentagon and beyond. I doubt this will happen, but damn, we are spending something like 10 times what the next 10 nations spend on defense. I can’t be the only person who is tiring of the U.S. being the world’s beat cop.

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  39. moe99 said on May 18, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    the utterly indispensable deficit chart:

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/the-chart-that-should-accompany-every-discussion-of-deficits/238786/

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  40. Julie Robinson said on May 18, 2011 at 7:11 pm

    In the same vein as the chart, a reminder from fictional President Jimmy Smit that liberal is really not a dirty word:
    http://front.moveon.org/whats-the-difference-between-liberal-and-conservative/?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dd434a1514edb5c,0

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  41. beb said on May 18, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    Moe, I was thinking of that exact same chart as I was reading my way to the bottom, and here you’ve posted a link to it just before I would have. It is a striking chart. It shows that if we get out of Afghanistan and Iraq and let the Bush cuts expire the deficit comes really close to being closed.

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  42. MichaelG said on May 18, 2011 at 7:30 pm

    Are these the same deficit hawks who just voted down an attempt to cut billions in subsidies to oil companies who are charging us $4.00 plus for gas and making further billions every quarter doing it?

    That’s quite a chart, Moe.

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  43. Dexter said on May 18, 2011 at 8:25 pm

    Jolene, that’s why I am loyal to Brian Williams and NBC Nightly News. Their “Making a Difference” segs at broadcasts’ ends really do change situations for the better. Brian is a dog lover…he has final say over content of his newscasts…and he featured the Detroit Dog Rescue three times in a ten day span,the first full-length story generated $37,000 and the rest of the cash was raised with the ensuing segments.
    It was reported that there are 50,000 dogs needing attention on the streets of Detroit.

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  44. prospero said on May 18, 2011 at 10:14 pm

    YPU HAVE NOTHING BUT WHAT WHAT I THINK SO. MO SHIT? NO WAY WE CARE? NANCY, ARE WE SO FUCKING DUMB? O A, A MORON AND THIS IS MY LIFE. WE ARE ABSURD, AND WE ARE TALKING ABOUT FRANK SAPPA. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT MY BULLLSHIT. WE ARE JUST TALKING ABOUR WHACKJOBS.

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  45. prospero said on May 18, 2011 at 10:36 pm

    KICW NY JEESI, . hes AO FWurivul. //RwLLY WM. ew qw kidding> Rhar is a perfecr Bbt, Hw ua ayxg OWEDWXR XGUKS. //AGR WCWE U XIYKS RGUBJ, TIY bs NRR Gcw OWEDWXR XGUKSM /RGW ANW Qt tiy;ew nin BS U Gs OWEFWXRT AHIKS, RHWEW UA BI Qt qw sib;r knoq, Qw xiyks bir gCW UNfubws NIEW OWEDWXE JUS, TIY YBSWEARbs qgR U NWb> Toy EW RGW OWEDWXR AGUKS bs egE;A Duekt ivcioua. NS NYVIDT RGr aYA IRGWEQIAW IA b usuir.

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  46. nancy said on May 18, 2011 at 10:38 pm

    Um. Time for bed, Pros.

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  47. Deborah said on May 18, 2011 at 11:11 pm

    I’m back home in Chicago and saw Detroit in the light of day today. Again I will say that it has a lovely center city, there’s a ring of a certain radius that looks bombed out to be sure but that ring with the squat buildings doesn’t look like it ever had much to offer. I’m sure reams have been written about this, by people who know way more than I do. I was just very relieved to see a city that has some good bones and hopefully will find a way to realize its potential to recover.

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  48. prospero said on May 18, 2011 at 11:31 pm

    Y’all are full of it. Whatever I say, I make shit up. I made that shit up about Julian Bond. Well, know, I didn;t. I never made up the remotest thing I ever said about shit that;s happened to me, I have to say, I;d be amaxed if I was able to make that shit up. But I was called on this, I made up standing on the balcony in utrouw. You got me, bud, I nade that shit up. It never happened, abd UI just made thir shit up out of whole cloth, Sure I did. For a facr asshole. I don;t mind being second=guessed, but I guarantee this shit happened. I’m not about to argue, but I stood on the Balconey outside of a room when a rooting insane Sergeant Major uprooted his daughter;s room. I never made them look bad. On the ledge seemed like the sensible thing. Whatever anybody thinks was sensible. I can hear folks here that question my veracity. I don’t care. What I did, What I thought made sense.. If you think I made some shit up? Whatever. I’ve had more than enough of assholes that figured some other way. What do you think od Atew, chris There was a rime I thought he was my he was my werewolb defender, and that nothing could ever damage me if Stu was pprsent. I know you thought the sane thing. He was ridiculous, I kbiw he was your best friend, I’d say it’s faair to say I would have fone to the mats for you. Here;s the deal Chrus, I went to jail for you. I listened to that bullshit, I have to say, When we sat in the stockade, I meant I thoyfht you qwew my brotherm and Chriss, I loved you and I thoyfgr thhiS WAS HORSESHIT. YOU ARE MY BROTHER. I WILL CONSIDER EVERYTHING THAT WAS FOREVER.
    WHAT IS WRONG WITH ASSHOLE? WHAT IS WRONG WITH MAGS? WNAT IS WRONG WITH SOME LYING SHIT? MAGS AND SOME SORT OF SHIT? THESE PEOPLE ARE THE MOST ASSHOLESS IN HISTORY THESE ARE SHITHELS

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  49. del said on May 18, 2011 at 11:40 pm

    Go to Movement Nancy. It’s great fun.

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  50. Little Bird said on May 18, 2011 at 11:41 pm

    I don’t even… I can’t… WHAT?

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  51. Crazycatlady said on May 19, 2011 at 1:55 am

    Went to Movement the last two years with my Daughter Sarah. We both loved it! The beats are heart pounding and the crowds are young and dressed in colorful outfits. The sky’s the limit! There is so much to hear and see we stayed all day and into the night. It’s an absolute blast!

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  52. moe99 said on May 19, 2011 at 2:51 am

    Why is it when I read prospero after he’s either gone off the meds or sauced up, I think of Psychotic Reaction by the Count Five?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsLMuH82us0

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  53. prospero said on May 19, 2011 at 3:40 am

    I’m not standing up for a rapist, but it is entirely likely Sarkoxy is trying to smear a political opponent I think its fairly obvious that thei character is entirely obvious. Please accuse me of blaming the victim. Sarkozy has been guilty so many tines, He;s a multiple rapist, He;s Grancesanswer to Betlusvonbi, He s an asshole, One inexcusable shit like some Brit, What is wrong with these assholes> .

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  54. prospero said on May 19, 2011 at 5:28 am

    Say what you like, Moe, but would somebody put this past Sarkozy? He seems to think he’s Berlusconi, He’s an idiot loose cannon. Once the Republics pulled the Swift Boat shit, why would anybody believe there is anything too disgraceful for shitheels to stoop to? W was without a doubt, a premium draft sodger and moving to Bama just made it clearer. Kerry served in VietNam, and he had the balls to realixe he’d been sent to Laos. Way to go Tricjy. Later, when Kerry became a member of the Senate, he had the cojones to point out Iran-Contra. But that was Saint Ronald Raygun and the holy folks like Ollie North, and they had to perpetuate the Chebey-Rummy plan, and keep the hostages hostages. if somebody sees how this wasn;t treason. I’d like to hear it. and this sort of political blackmail is right up his alley. And I sure as shit don’t take meds, much less go off them. I may toss a few back, but that doesn’t make me less acute when PNAC type assholes try to fuck over the human race. Like Netanyahu, sitting on Dimona and whining about Iran. Are these eople kidding> That;s the nuclear threat. Who do these assholes think they ate. They stole fissionable material from the US. They made deals with South Africa to buy secrets from AQ Kahn. israel is not a friend of the UAA. They spy on us. They run spies, regulatly while we ship them money, If you don’t see this, you are a moron. If there is an unmitigating force in the Middle East, it has nothing to do with potential Irani nukes, it is the nuke threat sitting in DiMona, Israeli behavior suggests they’d use it on the USA, if they got the chance. I mean, they spy ob us regularly. They stole fissionable material to make nukes and destabilixe the entire Middle East. Great allies. With friends like those….Moe No meds, though maybe I should consider it based on your expert opinion. A little alcohol. Absolute assholes in the Republican Congress are destroyong th future for my grandshild and I USED TO THINK I COULD do something about that. So now, people are idiots and think GOpers stand for people and not corporate interests. And they vite for them. Newt wants poll tests? I’m all for it. Anybody that listens to Michelle Bachmann and doesn’t understand she’s insane, well don’t let that asshole vote again.

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  55. prospero said on May 19, 2011 at 7:02 am

    I know I must be loaded, and I couldn’t have an opinion that wawn’t tainted. But you have a wtraight-ass guy that goe berserk. The eviedence points straight at we RW

    sarkoxy. = asshole. big duxking sdeal. Who doesn-t think h thinks he’s Putin We arw moument assholersl

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  56. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 19, 2011 at 7:05 am

    Jet — was your father as bold as a Sergeant Major?
    How come he told you that you were hardly old enough yet?
    And Jet, I thought the Major . . . was a lady suffragette.

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  57. Fearguth said on May 19, 2011 at 7:48 am

    I go to electronica shows and festivals frequently, and I’m 69 years old. The kids are always amazed that Grandpa digs their music.

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  58. coozledad said on May 19, 2011 at 9:52 am

    Great article, insofar as it repeats the one from SPY many years ago. What’s hilarious is an unreconstructed Nazi was a little too far left for most of today’s Republican party.
    http://gawker.com/5803201/an-encyclopedia-of-every-other-awful-thing-arnold-schwarzenegger-has-done

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