We all remember when the song was that Obama was the most liberal legislator - ever and it's fun to remember it and more fun to listen to people try to reconcile that idiocy with the likelihood that he will imitate Bush in giving the 1% who own it all another tax break like the one instrumental in causing the First Great Depression and the more recent Bush
But wait, there's more. Sarah's now slinging the one where Obama is the most pro-abortion president to occupy the White House and slinging it with the same, soggy, snickering spite and scorn for reality. "Obamacare" of course will fund abortions, said she yesterday at a half-full old Texas Vaudeville house, even though it won't, any more than there are death panels trying to kill your grandmother or that the President's trade mission to the far east is using up half the Navy and will cost billions. Behold the power of rumor over a willing audience.
But bullshit in motion tends to stay in motion despite any friction caused by the truth and maybe it's that strange "dark energy" but these days it seems actually to expand at an increasing rate.
"People do not process information in a neutral way. Their preconceptions affect their reactions. Biased assimilation refers to the fact that people assimilate new information in a biased fashion; those who have accepted false rumors do not easily give up their beliefs, especially when they have a strong emotional commitment to those beliefs. It can be exceedingly hard to dislodge what people think, even by presenting them with the facts."Cass Sunstein, "On Rumors"
Exceedingly hard? Understated humor is so refreshing these days.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteYes, reminds me of the philosophical precedents about the issue -- Plato and Nietzsche on truth, lying, and the realm of representation. "Truth" is at least as much about belonging, about power, about obtaining satisfaction and certitude, as it is about anything else.
Now here's an example all here will be able to appreciate: even though Sister Sarah's fellow religionists (with their magnificent Creation Museums and other such exempla) are clearly correct about human/dinosaur coexistence, you can't get anyone to accept the fact, no matter how hard you try. No, they're too biased by all that talk about mass extinction events, eee-vo-loo-shun, and I don't know what-all else the scientists are pushing these days. I give up, I really do.
"Truth" is at least as much about belonging, about power, about obtaining satisfaction and certitude, as it is about anything else."
ReplyDeleteQuid est veritas? Is it the man who stands before you or the one you create for the purpose?
Headpiece filled with straw
Alas
The MSM gives her a free pass with all of her nonsense yet the far right still tags them as liberal MSM...
ReplyDeleteThat myth has been so useful to them, but no amount of reality ever counteracts faith. It all may be though up by sane but evil people, but it's maintained by insanity.
ReplyDeleteWonkette is very good at snark:
ReplyDelete"It’s okay to mention these comical facts, as long as you don’t have anything to do with the Republican Party or its special-education outreach unit, the Tea Party. But Louisiana GOP Congressman Spencer Bachus is a Republican, and apparently wants to continue his political career without the modern-day equivalent of finding a racehorse head in your sheets.
So to avoid Palin’s Twitter Terrorism, Rep. Spencer Bachus has put out a half-assed apology for blaming the Alaska grifter for costing the GOP the Senate. Last week, Bachus told a gathering of Republicans what anybody who can read already knew: That Palin’s dingbat endorsements and campaign circus act cost the Republicans utterly safe seats such as the one Mike Castle was expected to easily win in Delaware.
Questioned by the Associated Press Tuesday following his anti-Palin comments, a spokesperson for Bachus, Tim Johnson, downplayed the remark, saying it had been taken out of context …. Johnson added that Rep. Bachus was “extremely complimentary” of both Palin and the Tea Party, according to the AP."
Regarding the tax cuts for the top 1%...Although the president has veto power, the office doesn't have line item veto authority. The president may accept a bill in totality or reject it in totality.
ReplyDeleteThe current tax cuts for everyone, including the middle class, expire on December 31. Congress' bill includes extension of the tax cuts for everyone. If the president vetoes that bill, then he will have to renege on the promise of not raising taxes on those who earn less than $250,000 annually. The president does not control the content of proposed legislation; congress drafts bills. Separation of powers gives Congress the sole authority to make laws, the executive branch is to enforce laws, and the judicial branch interprets laws. Sometimes those lines get a bit blurred mostly when actions of the courts find that law passed by congress is unconstitutional and attempt to remedy the situation via declaring a course of action to be followed by the defendants in order to rectify the harm to the plaintiffs. The most famous example is the 1954 and 1955 decisions in Brown in which the court ordered busing as a mode of integration after its ruling that separate was inherently unequal.
Obama is caufght between a rock and a hard place. He can hold fast and veto any bill that maintains the tax cut for the uber wealthy and at the same time, deny tax cuts for those earning less than $250,000 or he can allow the bill and maintain the tax cut for all. He can declare that he will not sign a bill that includes tax cuts for the wealthy. It would be a nice gesture but it doesn't stand much chance of altering the content of the bill. If the president vetoes such a bill, then the republicans will gleefully point out that he lied about not raising taxes for those eaqrning less than $250,000. This accusation will certainly fly with the public who presently already is blaming Obama for being a sell out who is supporting a tax break for the wealthy. The Republicans are full aware that they have him in an untenable position.
The president does have the use of the "pocket veto" in which he simply sits on a bill and takes no action. The bill dies when congress adjourns for that session. However, the pocket veto won't help under these circumstances. If he does nothing with the new legislation, the current tax breaks will still expire as of December 31 and no one will have any tax cuts.
The best possibility is instead of the public assuming that the president is merely weak and willing to capitulate to maintaining the tax break for the wealthy is for the public to shift into high gear and bombard their reprentatives and senators with emails and phone calls demanding that they eliminate tax breaks for the 1% from the bill.
But the Republicans will squelch that - wouldn't they? Since they want him to fail and have promised to make him fail.
ReplyDeleteBut again, Obama couldn't be much of a liberal if he wanted to be and the people who have been telling us tax cuts increase revenue and create jobs -- that debt doesn't matter and wars are free will win once again. The Republicans aren't afraid of Obama. They just want us to be.
Why does the news media continue to give Palin legitimacy by giving her an ongoing forum? She holds no political office and yet she is constantly in the news.
ReplyDeleteMore over, NOBODY seems to remember that she QUIT as governor. There is talk of having her run for president in 2010. If there is a presidential her opponent should simply repeat back to her over and over, "Yeah, but you quit!" to any of her professed positions.
I hope she does run. If she's a third party candidate, she'll split the vote in our favor. If she's a Republican she'll either destroy the GOP, or if elected, screw things up so bad they'll have a hard time arguing that it was Obama's fault.
ReplyDelete