Editing of the Day

Via Andrew Sullivan comes James Fallows' quick look at how closely Obama goes over his speeches. I suppose you would expect such things from a snooty elitist constitutional law professor.

Dirty, dirty, dirty

You know, I really thought we were done knocking George W. Bush. OK, that's a lie. I really thought we were done directly knocking the man on a personal level. Oh sure, we'd savage his policies, the consequences of those policies, and the members of the conservative established who were part of his administration and now won't go away, but we thought we were done with G-Dub himself.

Why? Because he's mostly done with politics, content just to earn money on the truck show and motivational speaker circuit. Plus he made himself part of a genuinely good thing; palling up with Bubba to raise money, awareness, and humanitarian aid for the people of Haiti. Oh sure, you could knock him for supporting the Aristide coup, which looks poor in hindsight. But it's not like that was what made building code regulation non-existent. Then... well, then he went and did this:



Yeah, he did just shake hands with a dirty poor person and then immediately wipe his hand off -- in that demonstratively unsubtle Bush way we all came to know and love -- on Bill Clinton. Clinton seems to have a slight reaction of "Did he just do what I think he just did? Did he just try to wipe a double dose of the black and the poor off of his hands?" Yeah Bill, he did.

George, we've heard you're an obsessive hand-sanitizing germophobe. But the next time... could you wait just a few seconds before you recoil in horror, your body contorts itself into an "Ewwwwww" posture, and you immediately try to cleanse yourself of dirty Haitian on the shirt of the nearest dignitary? Just hold it in, subsume your revulsion towards everything that surrounds you, and at the end of the day have the staffers prepare you a nice, hot bath of Purell.

Otherwise this sort of thing makes you look like... well, George W. Bush. But you ought to be used to that by now.

The Gilded Age

It's tough out there for rich people. Us poors and our tenement shacks are sometimes within full view of their well moneyed eyes, there's a slight possibility that they might have to pay taxes at the same rate they did in the late nineties, and while we in the hobo underclass are poorly educated (or at least massively debt ridden for the education we were able to cobble together out of twigs and $200 textbooks) we are not so uneducated as to be unable to realize the massive inequality in income distribution that has only increased over the past decade. Plus they also have all those additional rich guy problems like an unclean mansion, road salt stains on their Bentley, and constant fear of a peasant uprising.

But good news is still out there for our beleaguered riches. It's that whole income disparity thing I mentioned. It's truly staggering how good the news is for them.

The figures for 2007, the last year of an economic expansion, show that average income reported by the top 400 earners more than doubled from $131.1 million in 2001. That year, Congress adopted tax cuts urged by then-President George W. Bush that Democrats say disproportionately benefits the wealthy.

Each household in the top 400 of earners paid an average tax rate of 16.6 percent, the lowest since the agency began tracking the data in 1992, the statistics show. Their average effective tax rate was about half the 29.4 percent in 1993, the first year of President Bill Clinton’s administration, when taxes were increased.
...
The top 400 earners received a total $138 billion in 2007, up from $105.3 billion a year earlier. On an inflation-adjusted basis, their average income grew almost fivefold since 1992, the data show.

$138 billion for 400 families. On the other hand, the bottom fifth of this country, 24 million people, are worth a collective $247 billion. If they just pooled their money, they could out fancy pants our financial elite. So, you know, poor people win again.

I'm just thankful all those Bush tax cuts went through. Sure it might have added $1.8 trillion to the deficit and put income inequality at 1920's robber baron levels, but thankfully all the jobs and economic growth that these rich people have been able to provide because of the tax cuts they received have been able to stave off drastic job losses because of the financial crisis they also caused. It's great that it was able to work out that way.

Broken In Brief: After questioning the "warming" and "science" behind global warming science, skeptics question the "global" part

COPENHAGEN—After spending the better part of the last few decades attacking the validity of scientific reports on carbon emissions and temperature trends, not to mention the basic assumption that the planet was warming, today climate change skeptics declared war on the very concept that this problem was happening worldwide.

“Yeah, so, like, if we don’t go after the ‘global’ part of ‘global warming science’, we’re conceding a full one-third of the argument,” argued Cal Hennings, spokesman for the Association of Climate Skeptics Who Are Only Partially Funded by Energy Conglomerates.

“I’m not sure how we’re going to do it, but it did take us years to hone in on the right argument to discredit warming temperature trends. Who can forget the majesty of ‘But it’s cold out right now, how can things be warming’? Maybe something like ‘It’s cold out right now at this particular geographic location, so how could this be happening globally’? We’ll hash it out later.”

They were also quick to note that if the environmental community persisted in its commitment to the phrase “climate change” that they were already committed to trying to discredit the basic meaning of the word climate.

“What does ‘climate’ even mean, anyway?” snorted Hennings. “Hmmph. Elitist scientific classifications.”

Let them get jobs in cake factories!

Perino Confirms White House Won’t Extend Jobless Benefits, Says People Should Just Find A Job

During today’s press briefing, White House press secretary Dana Perino suggested the Bush administration would oppose any effort to extend jobless benefits — a stance the White House has taken before. She explained their position by saying, “we want people to be able to return to the workplace as soon as possible.” The suggestion was that extending benefits somehow prevents people from returning to work.

She concluded by saying that “the best way to help” the economy and unemployed people is for unemployed people to simply “get back to work.”

Well that's good. Get off your asses lazy workers and go find jobs. Extending you benefits will only keep you from finding work and the only thing keeping you from working is your own blinkered incompetence, not some economic collapse thingy dingy. At least Perino didn't tell them to eat cake or Irish babies or find a magic lamp and wish themselves jobs. Still, maybe it would seem, I don't know, a touch in tune with the needs of the peasants if you could knock a few crusts of bread onto the floor while you and Wall Street go back for seconds at the extra fancy $700 billion buffet you're currently eating at.

Shit, I forgot. Giving workers benefits and safety nets for unemployment is socialism. Nay, communism. Doing it for the financial sector is capitalism. The free market. Ah well. They would have told you to eat cake, but cake is kind of expensive and you don't deserve frosted treats when you can't find work. So....let them eat stale saltine crackers! You poor wretches, find jobs already. Bush is tired of putting up with your unemployed shenanigans.

gilded tears

I guess this is the point where we start to cry:

Luxury retailers, long-thought immune to the economic crises affecting other retail segments, could be in for a big fall now that the very shoppers they cater to—the affluent Wall Street banker—are suffering severe financial shock.

“This is the next big boot dropping,” said Candace Corlett, president of WSL Strategic Retail of weakening luxury spending. “People who were considering extravagant purchases—the designer handbag for the fall season or the diamond earrings for a special birthday—everybody is going to take that cautious pause.”

That "cautious pause" is elsewhere known as classy restraint, Ms. Corlett. I realize you and yours aren't accustomed to contemplating where the next tank of gas or box of dried spaghetti is going to come from but... you know what? Nevermind. I shouldn't even have to explain this. Fuck you and everyone who looks like you.

Elitist thinks Obama is an elitist

Obama is going to have to fend off that elitism charge yet again. The devastating wielder of the charge this time? Lynn Forester de Rothschild of the rich ass, old old old old money, banking and finance Rothschild's.

“This is a hard decision for me personally because frankly I don't like him,” she said of Obama in an interview with CNN’s Joe Johns. “I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.”

Of course Barack Obama suffers from not being Hillary Clinton. Rothschild is one of the tragically named Hillraisers, rich people who raise massive sums of money for Hillary Clinton. I guess she would know, having married into one of the names quintessentially linked to rich elitism in world history. Were the Rockefellers all hitched up?

Listen I know you're still bitter that Hill-Dawg went down. And Obama is going to raise your taxes, what with you being massively rich and all. But get over it, you aren't helping her, helping McCain, or hurting Obama. Your name is de Rothschild, the joke writes itself. This isn't even funny or original satire and we should know, we traffic in it up to five times a week.

McMansion

Honest John's roots are showing. Fresh off claiming that around $5 million is where you can be defined as rich, now he's having a bit of trouble remembering how many houses he owns. Now for most of America that's an easy question: none or one. More recently: was one, until the bank foreclosed. John has too many for him to count: 10. It seems 10 is too many for him to remember. But not for the group Progressive Accountability and smug liberal fascists like me.

John and Cindy McCain own a plethora of houses spread throughout the United States, including: two beachfront condos in Coronado, California, condo in La Jolla, California, a two-unit condominium complex in Phoenix, Arizona, three ranch houses located outside of Sedona, Arizona, a high-rise condo in Arlington, Virginia, a rental loft, and, according to GQ, a loft they bought for their daughter, Meghan.

Now for the guy who's going around calling the guy who rose out of poverty an elitist, celebrity, star wanna be, who'll tax your ball hair so he can surrender in Iraq quicker and pay for mandatory abortions from illegal immigrant socialized doctors, this might seem like a kind of disconnect. Most people don't get to jet around in their own private plane, wearing $500 loafers, not remembering if he owns 10 houses, enacting massive tax giveaways to the top 1% and other massively rich corporations, while going around calling the other guy an elitist. Unless the other guy is Bill Gates. Or if you're John McCain. He is John McCain, so I'll bet this never really gains any traction. He is a man of the people after all, the gardening staff at 4 of his houses agree.

Actually the question was kind of unfair. John really doesn't own any houses, his sugar momma does. The liberal media strikes again. Cindy owns 10 houses, John owns an AARP discount card, a meat smoker, and some shoe trees. So shit, maybe John is just like us. One 'trollop' remark away from being out on the means streets of one of the 10 gated communities they reside in. An everyman. NOT AN ELITIST.