Herr Doktor Professor

The Threat Within

In 2005, the de facto Democratic leader was Nancy Pelosi. And she never bought into either the crisis-mongering or the Beltway desire to prove oneself “serious” by courageously agreeing to hurt ordinary Americans to make the nation safe for high-end tax cuts. She maintained a steely resolve: this privatization shall not pass.

Pelosi is still there. But Barack Obama is now the party’s leader. And let’s be frank: Obama still, after all that has happened, seems devoted to the dream of transcending partisanship, a dream he tries to serve by being nice to Republican ideas no matter how terrible those ideas are.

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The great danger now is that Obama – with the help of a fair number of Senate Democrats – will kill Medicare in the name of civility and outreach.

Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
• Muse in the Morning by Robyn
• Six In The Morning by mishima

Featured Essays for April 4, 2011-

• Social Security: Are You Ready For A Congressional "Video Staycation"? by fake consultant
• Need a Reason for "We Are One" today-60min’s Report by jimstaro
• S02E09: Overturning EPA by Main Street Insider
• Cartnoon by ek hornbeck
• Caught Between Syphilis and Chlamydia – Enabling the Corporate State by Diane G
• The Town (movie): by mplo
• Rant Rip by ek hornbeck

DocuDharma

No upsets.

Saturday’s Results

So this is it.  If you like rooting for the underdog Butler is your pick (BTW Dad- Indianapolis, Indiana).  Their Bulldog mascot got a special pass from the NCAA to be at tonight’s game and the Husky didn’t (I don’t even think they have a real live Husky mascot, it’s not like ‘Handsome Dan’ or ‘Lassie’ so it’s really no big deal).

On the other hand Connecticut has little enough to be proud about unless you think taking a piece of wood and selling it as Nutmeg is cool.  Or the Slave Trade and Cotton Gin.  Or Sewing Machine Sweat Shops.  Or Guns.

I do think the Connecticut Compromise was a good idea even though the Senate has become disfunctional.  It’s their own damn fault, there is no Constitutional basis for the filibuster other than allowing each house to set its own rules.

So I’ll be rooting for the team with the deeply stupid fight song again-

The Final

Follow the 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on The Stars Hollow Gazette.

If you don’t like squeeky shoes you can look for alternate programming here-

• Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

For a more traditional bracket try CBS Sports.

Why We Must Raise Taxes on the Rich

Robert Reich

Monday, April 4, 2011

The vast majority of Americans can’t afford to pay more. Despite an economy that’s twice as large as it was thirty years ago, the bottom 90 percent are still stuck in the mud. If they’re employed they’re earning on average only about $280 more a year than thirty years ago, adjusted for inflation. That’s less than a 1 percent gain over more than a third of a century.

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Yet even as their share of the nation’s total income has withered, the tax burden on the middle has grown. Today’s working and middle-class taxpayers are shelling out a bigger chunk of income in payroll taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes than thirty years ago.

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The top 1 percent’s share of national income has doubled over the past three decades (from 10 percent in 1981 to well over 20 percent now). The richest one-tenth of 1 percent’s share has tripled.

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Yet, remarkably, taxes on the top have plummeted. From the 1940s until 1980, the top tax income tax rate on the highest earners in America was at least 70 percent. In the 1950s, it was 91 percent. Now it’s 35 percent. Even if you include deductions and credits, the rich are now paying a far lower share of their incomes in taxes than at any time since World War II.

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If the rich were taxed at the same rates they were half a century ago, they’d be paying in over $350 billion more this year alone, which translates into trillions over the next decade. That’s enough to accomplish everything the nation needs while also reducing future deficits.

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Yes, the rich will find ways to avoid paying more taxes courtesy of clever accountants and tax attorneys. But this has always been the case regardless of where the tax rate is set. That’s why the government should aim high.

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And yes, some of the super rich will move their money to the Cayman Islands and other tax shelters. But paying taxes is a central obligation of citizenship, and those who take their money abroad in an effort to avoid paying American taxes should lose their American citizenship.

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(T)he reason we have a Democrat in the White House – indeed, the reason we have a Democratic Party at all – is to try to rebalance the economy exactly this way.

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This shouldn’t be difficult. Most Americans are on the receiving end. By now they know trickle-down economics is a lie. And they sense the dice are loaded in favor of the multi-millionaires and billionaires, and their corporations, now paying a relative pittance in taxes.

Monday Business Edition is an Open Thread

1 Japan business confidence dives after quake: BoJ

AFP

Mon Apr 4, 1:20 am ET

Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
• Six In The Morning by mishima
• Gha! by RiaD

Featured Essays for April 2, 2011-

• My Little Town 20110331: Etta and Roy Chandler by Translator
• School House Rock: "I’m Just A Bill" by TheMomCat
• Obamabots by ek hornbeck
• Pique the Geek 20110403: How Nuclear Reactors Work. Part the Third by Translator

DocuDharma

NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament 2011

The Aggies extract their revenge.  UConn cruises.

Tuesday’s Results

All too easy.

Notre Dame is just another Big East meeting, but they are the second best team in the Big East and it’s never an upset when a 2 seed beats a 1 seed.

What it looks like (and all the vapid emptyheaded announcers want, watch the bias or better yet turn off the sound) is that we’re going to have a Stanford/UConn rematch in the final.

Sadly I must agree since a large part of the Aggies’ motivation over Baylor was revenge, but you never know and that’s why you play the games.  Aggies would certainly be an easier matchup.

Current Matchups

Follow the 2011 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament on The Stars Hollow Gazette.

If you don’t like squeeky shoes you can look for alternate programming here-

• Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

If you like a more traditional bracket try this NCAA one, they also have a TV schedule.

Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
• Six In The Morning by mishima
• Gha! by RiaD

Featured Essays for April 2, 2011-

• Obama Ain’t No “LibruL” by TheMomCat
• April Fools by ek hornbeck
• Jobs by jimstaro
• Don’t Try This At Home by Edger
• Popular Culture ("Music") 20110401. "Pat" Boone by Translator

DocuDharma

“Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.”

—Britney Spears, September 3, 2003

“So what should I think about [the war in Libya]? If it had been my call, I wouldn’t have gone into Libya. But the reason I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I’d literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he’s smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted.”

—Kevin Drum, Friday, in Mother Jones

As part of his consulting work my father comes in contact with law enforcement officials from around the country and one time he chanced to meet up with the CHP officer assigned to teach Britney how to use a child’s car seat.

She’s a moron.

So what should I think about Kevin Drum?

Citizenship duties

by Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

Saturday, Apr 2, 2011 12:03 ET

(D)eciding that — once they’re in power — you’re going to relinquish your own critical faculties and judgment to them as a superior being, which is exactly what Drum (and Spears) announced they were doing. That form of submission is a definitively religious act, not a political one (Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding“). Venerating a superior being and blindly following its will is a natural human impulse, as it frees one of the heavy burden of decision-making and moral and intellectual judgment, and it also creates a feeling of safety and protection (hence the cross-cultural and sustained strength of religion, as well as the potent appeal of both political authoritarianism and personality cults).

But “thinking” that way is an absolute abdication of the duties of citizenship, which compel holding leaders accountable and making informed judgment about their actions (it’s a particularly bizarre mindset for someone who seeks out a platform and comments on politics for a living). It’s also dangerous, as it creates a climate of unchecked leaders who bask in uncritical adoration. I honestly don’t understand why someone who thinks like Drum — whose commentary I’ve usually found worthwhile — would even bother writing about politics; why not just turn over his blog to the White House to disseminate Obama’s inherently superior commentary? And what basis does Drum have for demanding that Obama inform him or the nation of the rationale for his decisions, such as going to war in Libya; since Drum is going to trust Obama’s decisions as intrinsically more worthwhile, wouldn’t such presidential discussions be a superfluous act?

It’s truly difficult to overstate just how antithetical this uncritical trust is to what the Founders assumed — and hoped — would be the cornerstone of the republic. Jefferson wrote in 1798: “in questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” Adams, in 1772, put it this way: “The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.” Four years later, his wife Abigail memorably echoed the same sentiment in a letter to him: “remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.”

Even the most magnanimous leaders — perhaps especially them, given their belief in their own Goodness — are likely to veer into serious error, corruption and worse if they are liberated from a critical citizenry. Mindlessly cheering for a politician — or placing trust in their decision-making — is understandable a couple of months before an election when you’ve decided their re-election is important. But it’s wildly inappropriate any other time. And subordinating your own critical faculties to a leader’s is, at all times, warped, self-destructive and dangerous.

Perhaps too charitably some have suggested it’s all an elaborate April Fools (h/t Corrente).

Sunday was a great day for upsets.  As a matter of fact not a single #1 seed is left in it and the highest seed is Connecticut at a 3.  Of course your Cinderella story is Virginia Commonwealth which played it’s way in and has won 4 games since then.

Sunday’s Results

Tonight we’ll see all 4 men’s teams.  I’ll of course be rooting for the representative from The Big East, the one with the deeply stupid fight song-

We’ll start out with the matchup of the underdogs, Butler and Virginia Commonwealth.  Though Commonwealth out Cinderella’s Butler this year, Butler is no favorite and was last year’s shocker going down in the finals to Duke by a mere 2 points.

As for Connecticut it’s never a shock when a 4 takes out a 3 but I think they match up well against Kentucky and despite what the idiot commentators say The Big East is the deepest, toughest conference in College Basketball and has been for years.

Current Matchups

Follow the 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on The Stars Hollow Gazette.

If you don’t like squeeky shoes you can look for alternate programming here-

• Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

For a more traditional bracket try CBS Sports.