Sunday, February 09, 2014

NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about the CBO finding that, since Obamacare lets Americans quit jobs they no longer need for insurance, 2.3 million of them might do so, and the outrage this engenders among rightbloggers. Yes, freedom's just another word for -- actually, at this point, who knows?

UPDATE. Related to the brethren's highly negative reaction, noted in my column, to Nancy Pelosi's old quote about Obamacare's effect on musicians and writers -- which they elide to "poets" cuz poets iz faggy  -- National Review's David French, after raving about how liberals win all the Grammys, turns his inchoate rage on Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, in part because she's "a social worker and pro-abortion activist," which naturally leads him to this:
Ah well, if Iran gets a nuke, she can probably win a poetry award lamenting the fears of the children of Tel Aviv. Not that she’s written poetry, but EMILY’s List prepares one for anything.
In French's imagining, the evil of abortion leads naturally to poetry! I think French is mad all the time because, in schools across America, literary magazines and drama clubs are getting the respect he thinks rightfully belongs to bullies.

198 comments:

  1. M. Krebs10:55 PM

    It really is amazing how they so quickly seized this morsel and ran with it. It's almost as if they think people are too stupid to understand their own circumstances.

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  2. hellslittlestangel11:06 PM

    I wonder how long it will take Ross Douthat to complete his transformation from smarmy dipshit to snarling dipshit. He really is taking his sweet time about it, perhaps thinking if he goes slow, no one will notice. Or it could be his part-time job at the Times has made him lazy.

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  3. Gromet11:08 PM

    So the GOP case against Obamacare is coming down to a kind of reverse Wizard of Oz. Except they've trained Toto to pull the curtain shut instead of pulling it open, while they intone through the pipes of the system, "Pay no attention to reality you can see! Fear what the man behind the curtain might be doing! Is he writing poems in French while staying alive thanks to a small government subsidy? Derp! Derrrrrrrrp!"

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  4. Yeah, yeah, we get it, conservatives, poor people don't suffer enough.

    No link. There are too many examples.

    by Atrios at 17:08
    ~

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  5. JennOfArk11:18 PM

    "In essence, it pits those who believe in the sanctity of work against those who believe in penalizing wealth and redistributing its fruits."



    Yes, it's the guys who drone on endlessly both about how "some workers/jobs aren't worth even the current minimum wage" and "giving food stamps - or any other assistance - to people who don't make enough money to buy food/housing/medical care is a disincentive to work and move up the ladder of success to higher-paying jobs that are rapidly disappearing" who are the true believers in the "sanctity of work."


    They piss on constantly about the "dignity of work" without ever once stopping to ask themselves how a worker is supposed to feel "dignified" by work that doesn't pay him enough to care for his basic needs. Here's a hint: "you're not even worth $7.35 an hour" translates into "you're a piece of shit, suck it serf," not "you are the admirable worker who has powered the mighty US economy for generations."

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  6. JennOfArk11:21 PM

    It's almost as if they think people are too stupid to understand their own circumstances.



    The people they're speaking to really are. "Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?" has been working for them for decades.

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  7. AGoodQuestion11:25 PM

    "Using Kessler's logic," said Harsanyi, "each time some clueless reporter mentions the word 'jobs' in any story about the labor force participation rate -- or the unemployment rate, for that matter -- he or she may be lying to the public."


    How to put this? Yes. And not just reporters either. Jobs are a hot-button issue in a slow economy, so everyone with any kind of soapbox touts their pet cause with job talk - job creators, job killing this and that, what have you. It's pretty necessary to take into account the possibility that this talk about jobs is meant to deceive, or at least manipulate.

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  8. M. Krebs11:26 PM

    Okay, alright! I confess to being a health insurance slave who has continued, after 22 years (starting at the age of 33), to work at a public sector job that I hate, in spite of having saved enough of a pittance to hold the household consisting only of me and my cat over until I can (a) draw from a modest retirement account and then (b) draw social security. If anyone wants to call me a moocher, I'd be happy to punch them in the fucking neck.

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  9. BadExampleMan11:28 PM

    You may have the causative link backwards but I'm too lazy to research it. Thanks, Obama!

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  10. hellslittlestangel11:37 PM

    It's not that their crowd is too stupid to understand their own circumstances, but that they haven't been fucked over brutally enough to understand their own circumstances. They haven't yet, at least.

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  11. hellslittlestangel11:38 PM

    I weep to realize that the above is what passes for optimism with me.

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  12. AGoodQuestion11:44 PM

    The election's in November, so that's the kind of timeframe I think we're looking at.

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  13. philadelphialawyer11:44 PM

    Pubic schools "kill jobs" too. As do truancy laws. Why, without them, plenty of kids would be working instead. Same with scholarships, student loans and financial aid, state universities and colleges and ju cos....think of all the jobs killed by those programs. Social Security "kills jobs" too. Because, without it, lots of old people would be working instead of retiring. Even Medicare has the same effect, for, like Obamacare , it subsidizes health care costs, and, without it, plenty of those same oldsters would have to work to keep their health insurance.
    OK, but maybe conservatives would say, yeah, you're right.
    Well then, how about lotteries? Don't they kill jobs?
    And, even in the conservatives are still on board, what do they say to this...
    IRAs, 401ks and pensions kill jobs too. And wait, doesn't inherited money kill jobs too? And trust funds? And simple gifts from parents to children, especially adult children? Capital gains kill jobs. As do dividends, and the rise in value of stocks, bonds, real estate, precious metals, and other assets. Even simple interest payments on savings kill jobs. Where are all the conservatives mourning those jobs? Think of all the rich adults who got that way because of anything but work. All of those dead jobs.....And think of the "dependency" too!
    Think of Meghan Janey Galt, going back to live with her parents when things went bad. Without those parents, she would have had to take some job, even if it meant minimum wage. That job was killed, I tell you, by her parents, the dependency-inducing no goodniks!
    Doesn't getting married and becoming a stay at home mom, or dad, mean that a job has been killed too? Who weeps for that job? No conservatives that I know.
    Indeed, anything that allows a person to live as good or better than working kill jobs, especially the crappier ones. And I fail to see why that isn't a good thing.

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  14. Spaghetti Lee11:46 PM

    "We don't need labor protections! If people don't like their jobs, they can leave and find a better one!...just not right now!"

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  15. Gromet11:47 PM

    But in fairness, we do all sit at our desks every day thinking "What I do here -- this work -- is sacred." That is a perfectly normal way to think. Also, every time I get home I look at my apartment and think "This is a fruit." And as I pour the whiskey that I need after the sanctitude: "Ah, another fruit of my sanctified work as a saint at Sacred Corp., blessed be the economy." We all think this way. In terms of sanctity and fruits. In essence. It's normal.

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  16. montag211:47 PM

    Good fucking grief, Doughy (the friggin' king of nepotistic wingnut welfare) is way, way out past the Oort Cloud on this one. French literature, my, oh, my, the sins of the hippies these days.

    Now, whatever happened to all the conservatoid libertarians nattering on about entrepreneurial spirit and the sanctity of the small businessman and the freedom of choice that's essential to a healthy economy. The CBO says, umm, yes, the ACA will promote precisely some of that mobility of which they were previously so enamored. Now, of course, with that reality proposed officially, they're leaping to the defense of the megacorps and the fatcats by condemning the ACA for diminishing the power of bad corporate pollicy to continue the modern equivalent of indentured slavery.

    For people who have been screaming about freedom for gawd knows how many decades now, they don't much like it in practice, which is what a whole lotta lefties have been saying ever since McCarthy reared his fat, sweaty head.

    Their whole argument now has devolved to: "oh, yes, corporations do too have the right to entrap workers and keep the balance of power firmly in the hands of capital. It's their gawd-given right!"

    Not even a nice try, assholes.

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  17. BadExampleMan11:48 PM

    Baruch atah ha-shuk, ha-dayan emet!

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  18. Spaghetti Lee11:50 PM

    When I think of the 'sanctity of work', I think of the idea that the working class, given all the time and energy they put into jobs that are often quite shitty and that lots of them would rather not be doing, the least society can do is pay them well enough that they can have some personal freedom and time for rest, and that they can tell the difference between that and work.

    When conservatives think of it, it's more like "You're a useful cog in a machine that offers you nothing in return. Keep it up!"

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  19. Jonah fucking Goldberg. I know that doesn't narrow things down much.


    I noticed that quite a few of the brethren are having fun with a quote from Nancy Pelosi about artists having health care, and blar har subsidizing poets blaargh. It's an easily mockable concept, unless you realize where it's coming from. The fact of the matter is, it's becoming harder and harder for entertainers (a term that would probably produce less argle bargle) to make a living from their craft.


    And I can anticipate the argument: "Well, that doesn't affect me." Oh, doesn't it? People these days expect to be able to snap their fingers and summon entertainment whenever they want it, and at a bare minimum of price. Unless you're an off-the-grid, back-to-nature type who can entertain himself - and I'm guessing that's not Goldberg, nor most of the bloggers or commenters who latched on to it - it definitely affects you. Those people who entertain you (or inform you - journalists are in a similar but even leakier boat) need to live on something.


    Any time this comes up, everyone tries to make it about piracy, but that's such a small part of it that it's often a red herring. The real problem is in the distributors, companies that treat entertainment as product stamped out in a factory. They pay their artists fuck-all, and are constantly lobbying Congress for the right to pay even less. As it stands, if you want to make money, you either have to be world famous already or you need to live in one of a handful of communities where you can actually be independent.


    So that's the situation, Jonah. The last few years, there have been any number of alternative ways for artists to monetize their content, but most of them either fail outright or prove to be effective only for a select few. Look, when I heard China Mieville rambling on about subsidizing creatives, I didn't think it was all that practical, either. But given the situation as it stands, don't just mock. You don't like that idea? Fart out a better one - or get one of your readers to do it for you, I know how you work.


    Oh, and for God's sake, stop trying to be Oscar Wilde. You're not witty, no matter what your mother tells you.

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  20. That's the thing. You've got social cons rambling on and on about small business owners, not to mention their boosters in the Thomas Friedman "yay globalism" crowd arguing that startups are the way out of the recession. So it turns out that the Dreaded Obamacare has provisions that encourage that sort of thinking...and now it's bad? You know, it's a lot easier to encourage people to make that jump if there's a net below them.

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  21. Well, it's a lot easier to crow about the "dignity of work" when you're being paid more than most people to do things that a lot of us do for free.

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  22. Usually, the path to punditry is to act like a crazy asshole to get attention then, once you have a foothold, slowly temper yourself so that you get in good with the elites. You think Ross is going to run that in reverse?

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  23. Spaghetti Lee11:59 PM

    Or, the longer, less-laughy-more-shouty version: To the extent that you can get anything remotely coherent out of a discussion of economics with a right-winger, it usually boils down to swearing up and down that big box and fast food jobs may not pay well, but they're not supposed to: they're supposed to be a step up for people who will move on to something better. Even when you point out that the average fast food worker is over 30 and is raising children (often as a single parent), or that income mobility in the U.S. is measurably lower than any other first world country, or that the jobs they're supposed to move up to are vanishing, they stick to the party line: shitty jobs are just part of the great Economic Circle of Life. Deal with it.

    Now, apparently, the one saving grace, the one thing that, taken at face value, the one thing that a conservative could defensibly point to and say "we're not monsters": apparently they don't even believe that anymore. As soon as the hivemind required it, they went from 'people are supposed to leave crap jobs for better jobs when they have the chance' to 'people leaving crap jobs for better jobs is THE WORST THING EVER!'

    This is not news to anyone here, but it amazes me how these guys have no principles, not a single one, except maybe 'hate the weak.' Crafty conservatives can bullshit their way into sounding reasonable with those explanations, so it doesn't surprise me that some people get bamboozled. What I wish those people would notice is that those explanations seem to change on a daily basis.

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  24. Spaghetti Lee12:04 AM

    One reason I don't like kickstarter and similar sites, even though they have good intentions, is that it normalizes the notion that artists should have to beg for income. In Conservative World, we should have kickstarter for everyone: If I raise $2,000, I'll be able to pay rent and gas and feed my kids this month! Please help! And then every dystopian sci-fi novel about daily life turning into a perverted game show for the amusement of the elites will come true. It's like conservatives read that stuff (ha, ha, 'read') and then actively try to make it reality. Soon we'll be seeing thoughtful, serious op-eds in the WaPo and WSJ in favor of Soylent Green, the Long Walk, and the Hunger Games.

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  25. JennOfArk12:05 AM

    It's even worse than that. When they have been fucked over brutally enough to understand their own circumstances, they will turn not on those responsible for the circumstances but those who are less powerful than they are.

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  26. Spaghetti Lee12:05 AM

    You know, it's a lot easier to encourage people to make that jump if there's a net below them.


    Yes, but conservatives mostly want to watch people miss the net and go kersplat. We're working at cross-purposes, one might say.

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  27. BigHank5312:09 AM

    Oh, all the "small businessman" bullshit was bullshit from the get-go. The right wants an aristocracy. I don't know if they want a hereditary structure or a simple fiscal one where you can buy your way in, but they truly, truly believe that some people are better than others, that the better ones should have more rights than their lessers, and perhaps those lessers should have no rights at all. I mean, it's not like you're raping and killing a person.

    Some focus on a racial division, some look at wealth, or religion, and others try to find a way to make ideology serve, but the goal never changes: to elevate a ruling class beyond law and make the rest of the citizenry subject to whim. Why else has the word freedom become such a token, a fetish waved by witch-doctors to ward off the evil spirits of liberty and equality?

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  28. montag212:12 AM

    Well, according to the wingers, there is (and ought to be) a naturally severe shortage of nets, because a lot of the "entrepreneurs" I see succeeding had the benefit of entrenched wealth behind them from the get-go. Umm, call it an "aristocracy of wealth" if you like (Jefferson and Madison did).


    These are the same people nodding knowingly and approvingly when Lloyd Blankfein says he's "doing God's work."


    It's amazing how entrenched Social Darwinism and Calvinism have become in this society, especially in those most negatively affected by those philosophies.

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  29. BigHank5312:13 AM

    What will turn Ross into a snarling dipshit? Finally meeting His Holiness and having the pontiff see right through his shitty three-card monte.

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  30. philadelphialawyer12:13 AM

    While I agree with Harry Hopkins, the New Deal administrator who said "Hell, they've got to eat too" when asked to justify Federal subsidies to artists, writers, actors, etc, I'm not sure I would want to characterize universal health care as specifically subsidizing artists or "creatives."
    Rather, universal health care should be like police and fire protection, streets and sidewalks, public education, public parks and beaches, libraries, municipal concerts and firework shows and so on. As a member of society, you get to have these things, without paying for them, except through taxes (which, ideally, would be on wealth and income, and highly graduated), whether you are a "creative" or not, and whether you spend your time writing poems or doing nothing. Of course, if this had the side benefit of helping artistic creation, as well as inventors and other would be entrepreneurs, all to the good.
    One should certainly not be punished for trying to create works of art, on the other hand, one need not try to do so to be included within the distribution of goods and services determined to be better provided by government than by the market. Just like when I go to the park, and am allowed in without having to pretend to be writing a poem or painting a picture, universal health care should be provided to all, whether they are, or claim to be, artists or "creatives" or not.

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  31. JennOfArk12:14 AM

    So it's like "Right to Life" except it's "Right to be Stuck for Life in a Crappy Job."


    But wait....pregnancies kill jobs, too! So abortions keep people in the workforce, which is good...my head, it feels all asplodey...

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  32. M. Krebs12:14 AM

    Big up vote for "kersplat."

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  33. Formerly_Nom_De_Plume12:18 AM

    Goldberg advanced..."everyone should have a job if they want one, but nobody should have to take a job they don't like. From design your major to design your life."


    Yes, only manor-born legacies such as Goldberg should be entitled to pick the job they want. Shit, the people who "design their lives" are already doing a fuck-ton more work than he ever did. He would have told some intern to do it for him, in between belching up bits of underdone potato.

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  34. philadelphialawyer12:22 AM

    Some "real" conservatives, as in not merely actually classical "liberals" (in the sense of the Am Rev and US Const being "liberal") who don't want change, DO want an aristocracy. Some also want monarchy and an established church too. Basically, they want to go back to 1775 (US version) or 1788 (Euro version).
    And, I guess to be fair, the more honest of these reactionary conservatives actually admit that "freedom" is NOT their preferred value or aim.

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  35. Spaghetti Lee12:24 AM

    Look, when I heard China Mieville rambling on about subsidizing creatives, I didn't think it was all that practical, either.


    I think the reason people who are not necessarily conservatives can feel a little leery about this is the idea of the government giving or pulling funding based on content*, which I'd like to think we're over in the 21st century so many years after the fall of fascism and communism and their shared obsession with controlling art. But who knows? I don't think anyone with a brain fears that kind of dystopia, but I think at least the idea of some artistic ideas having the implicit weight of the government behind them ahead of others** isn't the worst thing to be worried about.


    *-The irony of course is that lots of conservatives would jump at the chance. Just find one of them who rants about Hollywood and prod him until he admits that if he was in charge he'd put a stop to all that sin and decadence.


    **-Of course, we already make some media companies play fair through Net Neutrality, and that seems to have worked pretty well so far. I'm sure conservatives want it done away with because Comcast's board of directors need new yachts and it's our duty as citizens to pony up.

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  36. Spaghetti Lee12:27 AM

    God was the original Job-killer.

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  37. True, and I should have been more clear on this point: The "subsidies" thing came from Mieville, and it was Jonah et al who suggested that this was similar. I don't believe that.

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  38. Sophronia12:30 AM

    It decreases the surplus population, as a certain noted conservative economic thinker once said.

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  39. philadelphialawyer12:30 AM

    Cool. That's what I figured anyway.

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  40. montag212:32 AM

    Der Pantload will never, ever have to consider hanging onto the back end of a garbage truck to keep him in Cheetos, so he's nicely, conveniently excluded from the argument he (badly) makes.


    It's a strong measure of conservatism that a) hard work is valued by those who have no familiarity with it, and b) grifting is the same as honest work.

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  41. Spaghetti Lee12:34 AM

    And what's the big deal about design your major, anyway? You'd think Jonah would at least act happy about it because it shows students taking initiative in a capitalist world, synergize the paradigms, etc. and bollocks to all those liberals who want to make History of Gay Marxist theory a required course. It's one of the only good trends in higher education these days. But it's slightly at odds with established tradition, so it just won't do.


    Odd metaphor there, too: "Design your life". "This is what your liberal overlords have in store for you, America: A future where you may not be stuck in a shitty dead-end job to pay the bills, and can try new things and live a more varied life without worrying that you'll be ruined! Terrible! Horrifying!" It's always so beautiful when conservatives accidentally stumble into something that actually sounds pretty nice and then proceed to argue strenuously against it.

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  42. My concern over "crowdfunding" (God, do I hate that buzzphrase) kinda runs the other way. I didn't mind it so much when it was people who had no other means of getting exposure - the entertainment industry being what it is, anything that allows someone without connections to get a shot is welcome, no matter how overhyped. Hell, I had a friend who cut an album that way. But as soon as it became trendy, you got all these industry insiders doing it to "go independent," and naturally those were the people who dominate the coverage now. Seriously, Zack Braff has to have a hundred ways to fund his projects - he has to do it by shaking down his audience? It's one thing when it's an up-and-comer with an underrepresented idea, and we support them because We Are All In This Together. It's another when it's an already established person throwing trinkets at his audience in exchange for money that's going God-knows-where.


    Anyway, my off-topic rant for the day.

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  43. Spaghetti Lee12:44 AM

    It occurred to me at one point that if big-time theatrical releases and such start getting regularly funded by kickstarter, people will be paying to make the movies and to see them, and everyone will hail it as a new business model, because trendy buzzwords apparently melt people's brains.

    As for the rich-get-richer stuff, I can name two big-name creators who I'd be willing to kick in a few bucks for only because the system has screwed them over so much: Don Bluth (in my imaginary fantasy world where he comes out of retirement and reminds everyone what good cartoons look like) and Terry Gilliam. Other famous people, piss off. You're on your own.

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  44. JennOfArk12:47 AM

    To be fair, he didn't kill him; he only made him wish he were dead.

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  45. montag212:48 AM

    Maybe that's what Blankfein meant by doing Gawd's work....

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  46. Spaghetti Lee12:49 AM

    I know how the story goes, but the NEA will yank my funding if I don't make at least 20 puns this month, so I have to take my chances.

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  47. philadelphialawyer12:52 AM

    Not at all. The things I learn here are incredible....Do people actually just give money to a guy like Braff who has already had a film produced, and a fairly successful one at that, just so he can get another film produced? Without getting anything, really, in return?
    Huh? Why can't Braff, if no studio will back him, raise money by seeking folks who are willing to venture capital with a chance of return? Maybe I'm strange, or cheap, or whatever, but it would be a cold day in hell before I would just give money to some guy to make a film. I was not a huge fan of "Garden State" to begin with, but, even if I was, why should I be expected to fund more such films, for "free?"

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  48. Wrangler1:10 AM

    Heh, I've occasionally thought that an intellectually honest conservative would look at the world and think the following:


    "I look around and what do I notice: there are no trillionaires. Why is that? Does this fact dispute the ability of job creators? Is it mostly just unsustainable luck? Perhaps, but our philosophy assumes that ability exists so we move on for the moment.


    Is it that we have not helped the job creators enough? But that is absurd. Their rightful claim to superiority is established by the fact that they do not need help, that their will and initiative and intelligence is sufficient to recreate the world and improve the common lot of humanity.


    It seems logical that the contrary is true, that once a man has made a billion dollars his ambition and intelligence become as starved as his body becomes soft and pampered. If we believe that exigency is the mother of invention (and our other policy stances suggest we do), and that the greatest inventors are our wealthy job creators, then it follows that we have let these men down by not sustaining a productive condition for them. We must tax them harshly, not to feed the bloated government beast, but by negation to feed the best engine of productive economic activity we know of.


    Where then is their incentive to work if they are taxed so severely? The incentive is to finally achieve a state where even the word "plenty" loses all meaning. This is the state of the billionaire. We should not make it impossible for someone to become a billionaire, but the fact that none of our billionaires have become trillionaires tells us that things have been too easy for them up till now."

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  49. DocAmazing1:12 AM

    Kind of funny that the National Review, with its constant begging, and the Koch whores at Reason ululate so wildly against subsidizing writing and other creative activity.


    Well, actually, what they do isn't particularly creative, so I can see their point.

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  50. montag21:17 AM

    It should be noted that Conservatism's rising star (recently burnt out to white dwarf status), Ah-nold Schwarzenegger, was allowed to design his own major in "sports marketing" at Superior State in Duluth, MN. Of course, given that he was a conservative, he managed to use the media to blow that little balloon of a major into the dirigible of a "degree in economics."


    Apparently, what is good for conservatives is not good for the rest of us, yet more evidence that the aristocracy has some very strict rules for membership....

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  51. mortimer20002:09 AM

    Roy, you provided the gas mask but you neglected to tell us about all the jokes Goldberg cracked in his little fartfest. Here's just one gem -- warning, put that coffee down before you read it:
    [After some long-winded pedantry involving Shaw’s play Back to Methuselah]
    Mel Brooks could do a yidishkeit musical adaptation of Breaking Bad called “Back to Meth-Use-Bubela”)

    Ha ha. There's gotta be a dozen primo jokes (and a few dozen unintentional ones) just as good as this one. Even freshman high school essays aren't this funny. Move over Shecky, Jonah G is in da house!

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  52. How many of these people will become entrepreneurs? Shouldn't the wingnuts be happy?

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  53. I didn't know he was bilingual, even though he talks out of both ends.

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  54. You ain't heard nothing yet, just wait until Mann's lawsuit hits the courts.

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  55. PersonaAuGratin2:28 AM

    I'll just leave this here:

    http://goo.gl/hCtb8S

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  56. Hang on to the back end of a garbage truck? He is the back end of a garbage truck!

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  57. PersonaAuGratin2:33 AM

    Given the large amount of methane in the Oort cloud, it's unsurprising it may provide a clue to his whereabouts. .

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  58. smut clyde3:22 AM

    as I pour the whiskey
    That is a Clyde worship word!!

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  59. And shouldn't the proper interpretation of the CBO report be "potentially, 2.3 million jobs will now be available to those who most need them"?

    Too obvious? Not enough Obama-hate?

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  60. William Miller5:41 AM

    The problem with conservative logic here is that once those lazy-ass quitters quit, those jobs don't go away; they're still there, only it's those people who aren't holding them anymore. Meaning that maybe some unemployed people can now get them, or they can get the jobs that employed people gave up to take the newly open slot that the slacker just gave up. Sounds like a win-win to me.


    I gave up my full-time position and took a part-time job with the same company when my Social Security kicked in. My full-time position didn't disappear; somebody else is working in it now.

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  61. smut clyde6:27 AM

    Goldberg:

    And now, at a time when millions want work that doesn’t exist,
    Democrats are claiming victory by trimming the amount of work actually
    being done.




    Am I alone in imagining that in a Homer Simpson voice?
    “First you complain that there are too many people looking for work.
    Then you introduce legislation which reduces the number of people
    looking for work. Make up your mind!”

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  62. smut clyde6:31 AM

    When I read any reference to "the sanctity of work", it usually emanates from people on Wingnut Welfare, who in their majestic altruism have decided to leave the opportunity to worship available for someone else.

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  63. smut clyde6:36 AM

    the friggin' king of nepotistic wingnut welfare

    Welcome to Oortocracy, the governmental system of the future.

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  64. Tom M6:52 AM

    Tim Pat Coogan would tell you (The Famine Plot and England's Role) this approach is quite old. Ever since people needed to justify their wealth, sycophants have been eager to explain it to them, for a fee, of course.

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  65. Tom M7:01 AM

    John Sayles has raised money for his films that way for decades but he admits it has become too difficult.

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  66. Matt Jones7:07 AM

    In space, no one can hear you FAAAAAAAAAAART

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  67. Derelict7:08 AM

    Much like the conservative proposition that life begins at conception and ends at birth, "working class" begins with an annual income of $1 million and goes up from there. Those making less than a million a year are, for the most part, moochers, socialists, parasites, and "those people."

    ReplyDelete
  68. Dont you think he'll convert to the church of rod dreher? Whatever that is by that time? Something something the church of smarmy mammon in the fields?

    ReplyDelete
  69. This is exactly what is going to happen (has already happened time and again through history).

    These people are somewhat naturally stupid, sure, but they have also been psychologically conditioned for generations. Their self-identity has been wholly subsumed by the tribe, which is by definition Right in All Things.

    ReplyDelete
  70. Well, anyone paying attention knows that they don't give a fuck for "small businesses." It's corporations all the way down.

    However, I would imagine their public stand would be that if there are no shit-shovellers, no one can start a small shit-shovelling business, and so on. QED

    ReplyDelete
  71. It's about Culture, too. Something the modern conservatoids are absolutely ignorant of, and hostile too, is anything promoted as The Common Weal.



    They have built a "philosophy" around the exact opposite, that self-serving greed will somehow magically provide for society's best interests.

    ReplyDelete
  72. More like Max Brooks, if you add some zombies.

    ReplyDelete
  73. JennOfArk7:59 AM

    Don't make us post the Naked Lunch clip about the guy with the talking asshole.

    ReplyDelete
  74. BigHank538:33 AM

    I am seriously considering laying in popcorn; Mark Steyn and his lawyers have parted ways and he is representing himself.

    ReplyDelete
  75. glennisw9:12 AM

    "You should have chosen a major that was more practical, like business or law!"

    Oh, wait, yeah, all the business majors and baby lawyers are in the unemployment line just like the English major, arts majors and performance theory majors, because there aren't any fucking jobs for anyone!

    ReplyDelete
  76. hey, that's my thing, job killer.

    ReplyDelete
  77. redoubtagain10:08 AM

    Arbeit Macht Freimarkt

    ReplyDelete
  78. coozledad10:15 AM

    Hallowed be Laphroaig, its peat as it is in heaven.
    And give us this day its triple wood
    As it removes wood, both evening and morning.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Al Swearengen10:17 AM

    Freedom's just another word for something that only "job creators" get.

    ReplyDelete
  80. redoubtagain10:20 AM

    Hate to disagree even so slightly, but as someone who spent a summer hanging onto the back end of a garbage truck--Derp Pantload isn't even that useful.

    ReplyDelete
  81. Christ, these people! Now it's the CBO report, but just about a month ago a few wingers, notably Chuckie Krauthammer, were yammering on about the Risk Corridors being a "Gummint Bailout For The Insurance Companies!!!", even though a: the Feds are more likely to MAKE money from insurance companies paying into the re-insurance fund, and b: these batbrains seem unfamiliar with government insurance backstops for farmers, people looking for flood insurance in coastal areas, people with savings accounts, and the entire nuclear power industry, among others. It was hilarious watching Paul Ryan having the CBO report explained to him by Douglass Elmendorf... the look on Ryan's face made me think for a moment that Elmendorf had just shot his dog.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Maybe his big reveal will be to throw himself on the mercy of the court as an idiot.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Clip? But it has to be short. I can't watch Ryan for more than a few minutes without wanting to smash something.

    ReplyDelete
  84. philadelphialawyer10:31 AM

    "Too much" as compared to what? Does Braff have some kind of right or entitlement to other folks' money to make "his" film, while they get little or no return on their investment or creative input?
    Let him borrow money personally. Or let him make the film on a shoestring, if the traditional funding sources are too onerous for him. At least, that's how I look at it.
    Like I said, I'll be damned if I am going to back him, as a sort of charity. There are a lot worthier causes than that, IMHO.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Ellis_Weiner10:34 AM

    Ask these "sanctity of work" nitwits how they react when they read of a blue-collar type winning a lottery and announcing (at least at first) that, in spite of his imminent acquisition of 75 million dollars, he plans "to go back to work on Monday." Do they think, "As would I, had I your sacred job"? Or is it, "Hot damn! Maui here I come!"

    But then, these are the same moral defectives who are first in line to urge war, to declaim in solemn tones the glory of service and combat, and to dislocate a shoulder patting themselves on the back for their "admiration" of the troops--while, for some reason, they just can't manage to enlist and join in the triumph.

    ReplyDelete
  86. Jon Hendry10:39 AM

    Um, nobody's forcing you to. Nobody's forcing *anyone* to. Some people are willing to pay, I'm happy for them to do so. No skin off my nose. I'm not interested in the end product.

    ReplyDelete
  87. Sorry... I saw video of it on a couple of network news shows, but can't find clips of it. Maybe later.

    ReplyDelete
  88. Daniel Björkman10:46 AM

    See, this is why, even though I can't really get along with any political direction, I will vote progressive to the bitter end.


    Because liberals may annoy me, and I them. But I can avoid them, most of the time. I can shut myself in my office or my apartment and only expose myself to them when I feel strong enough. It's an arrangement that more or less works.



    Conservatives, on the other hand, insist on coming to me if I won't come to them. They will not be satisfied until I work 16-hour days in suicide-inducing conditions, just to properly make me feel like I've earned the pittance they might grant me. Forget having an office - I got that due to my handicap, and they hate anyone getting special treatment. Forget having an apartment, for that matter - with what they think I should earn, I'd have to live with my mom until either matricide or filiocide occurred. If they had their way, I'd have no way of escaping people, liberal or conservative, at all.


    So yeah. I may end up in flame wars in liberal forums all the time, but I'm a liberal all the same. Because this is the alternative.


    Unless someone starts a Cranky Misanthropic Urban Hermit Party, of course. Then I'm outta here. But I don't see that happening, somehow. :P

    ReplyDelete
  89. Does anyone think they might have jumped the shark with this one--not because the confusion between labor supply and labor demand is so absurd but just because the people who are going to avail themselves of the chance to ratchet back work under Obamacare are simply...well, everybody? Does it really matter whether Grandma and Grandpa old fart watching Fox News gets all harrumphy about this when their children and their children's children are simply jumping at the chance and the knock on effect of their scaling back work they don't want to do is that job creators have to offer those jobs to new people who are seeking work just for the (you should excuse the expression) actual financial rewards?


    People are actually looking for jobs right now--are Fox News and the Republican party under the impression that job seekers are going to reject those four extra hours Betty refused to work, or that extra shift that Bob no longer has to pick up, because those hours/shifts were freed up by Obamacare?


    Our corporate masters have always assured us that as workers we are basically fungible, a commodity, like pork bellies. One's identical to the other. If you don't want that job someone else will come along and take it, ya moocher. So what is the problem here, exactly--won't those jobs get filled instantly?

    ReplyDelete
  90. Jon Hendry10:46 AM

    I think film/video-oriented kick starters often also include the funders getting to see the finished product, either in person (for high-$ funders) or as a DVD/Blue Ray.

    ReplyDelete
  91. There is such a party but they wouldn't let you join, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  92. XeckyGilchrist11:00 AM

    Huh what?


    Oh, Shecky. Pardon.

    ReplyDelete
  93. philadelphialawyer11:01 AM

    I didn't say anyone, myself included, was "forced" to pay. I just find the sense of entitlement to be rather large, and the rationale you provided rather small. I guess I also find the notion of "I am an artist, so you, who may be poorer than me, should give me free money," to be a little bit absurd, and a little bit obscene, and a lot self indulgent. And, according to Wiki, there has been more than one recipient who has just taken the money and not produced anything.
    Its no skin off my nose either, I just find it hard to believe (even though I realize its true).

    ReplyDelete
  94. XeckyGilchrist11:02 AM

    so beautiful when conservatives accidentally stumble into something that actually sounds pretty nice and then proceed to argue strenuously against it.


    I keep thinking this is exactly why Obama chooses the issues he does to discuss.

    ReplyDelete
  95. philadelphialawyer11:02 AM

    Yeah, I know that. I was talking about what rationales those of us who are not wingnuts should highlight.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Halloween_Jack11:03 AM

    Guys, guys! If people aren't chained to their jobs, how will the neo-Lannisters revive feudalism? Will no one think of how hard it is to find good help these days?

    ReplyDelete
  97. Dr. Hunky Jimpjorps11:05 AM

    It's a sort of "there are starving children in Africa" mindset, I think: how dare you even think about cutting your hours or leaving that job, when there are all these desperate job seekers out there! It doesn't matter if those jobs are misallocated in the first place; it's clearly a moral failing to ever want to do less work.

    ReplyDelete
  98. Howlin Wolfe11:17 AM

    Will it be on Court TV? Unless it's live streamed somewher, I may have to get cable *shudder*

    ReplyDelete
  99. j_bird11:19 AM

    I want to take to the streets to sing songs of solidarity with this comment.

    ReplyDelete
  100. mortimer200011:48 AM

    First off, Jonah "Got Something Else To Do" Goldberg complaining about "trimming the amount of work actually being done" desecrates the grave of poor dead irony. Here's what the CBO report Goopers blatantly lied about says:

    The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise rather than as an increase in unemployment (that is, more workers seeking but not finding jobs) or underemployment (such as part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours per week).
    ---
    The ACA’s subsidies for health insurance will both stimulate demand for health care services and allow low-income households to redirect some of the funds that they would have spent on that care toward the purchase of other goods and services — thereby increasing overall demand. That increase in overall demand while the economy remains somewhat weak will induce some employers to hire more workers or to increase the hours of current employees during that period.

    So, even if employers oddly don't replace a worker who is free to leave to open a business, the CBO predicts that the ACA will actually create jobs. Either way, none of this translates into reducing "the amount of work actually being done," something these fucks never complain about when a corporation downsizes their work force to increase owners' profit.

    ReplyDelete
  101. LittlePig11:56 AM

    "In examining the newly discovered assteroid 2014Q Goldberg, astronomers found in addition to an extraordinary effusion of methane, plumes of an as-yet unidentified orange-colored dust are regularly emitted in its wake..."

    ReplyDelete
  102. glennisw11:58 AM

    Even so, I just heard Nice Polite Republican tool Cokie Roberts saying on the radio this morning how this isn't good for Democrats, because lost jobs.

    ReplyDelete
  103. Halloween_Jack12:04 PM

    I'm pretty sure it's the Church of Shut Up And Make Me A Sammich.

    ReplyDelete
  104. Unless someone starts a Cranky Misanthropic Urban Hermit Party, of course.


    "Let's be hermits together!"

    ReplyDelete
  105. LittlePig12:13 PM

    Every time I hear Cokie Roberts on NPR, I reach for my Luger.

    ReplyDelete
  106. Magatha12:17 PM

    Mmm. If only I were capable of sanctified yet remunerative work, maybe someday I could afford a bottle of lovely, lovely Laphroig. Last time I bought one (well, I bought three), I was making more money, plus a local renegade liquor store used to have fun advertising low low prices without having much in stock. So when I went there and they'd run out, I went to another store that advertised how they'd match anyone's price. I swear I was only trying to buy the Laphroig - I didn't realize I was exploiting a scam till the liquor store owner courteously sold me the bottles while cursing out his shady competitor, thereby enlightening me to the practice. Yes, I bought the stuff, but no, I didn't do anything similar again. I wasn't wrong, but ya don't want to treat your local businesses like that. I think this means I am dumb.

    But oh, yum. Hey, I heard about this place where there's a lake of stew and of whiskey too, and you can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe. I should check it out.

    ReplyDelete
  107. Pay no attention to the man behind the cretin!

    ReplyDelete
  108. More like a "three persons" monte...

    ReplyDelete
  109. Magatha12:28 PM

    Excellent comment and point of view. But honest to god, I think most companies these days are happy to make that full-time position disappear (often before the employee gets to retire). They parcel out the work to existing employees and tell them they just need to work smarter. At least that's my experience in smaller non-governmental, non-union workplaces. It's not horrific like chimneysweeps, miners, or mill workers, but they are still willing to work you till you break, then they just go get fresh ones.

    I'm glad your situation is different. It's how it should work.

    ReplyDelete
  110. Spaghetti Lee12:33 PM

    in spite of his imminent acquisition of 75 million dollars, he plans "to go back to work on Monday."


    Agh, those people drive me crazy. Buddy, if you just don't know what you'd do with all that money, I'd be happy to help.

    ReplyDelete
  111. tigrismus1:46 PM

    Admit I'm not annoying *poke* Admit I'm not annoying *poke* Admit I'm not annoying *poke* Admit I'm not annoying *poke* Admit I'm not annoying *poke* Admit I'm not annoying *poke* Admit I'm not annoying *poke*

    ReplyDelete
  112. BG, dismayed leftie1:50 PM

    So I was walking in my now-hepster neighborhood a few days ago and was passed by four twenty-something men on their way to the upscale Japanese restaurant, which was going to set them back $30 each, without alcohol. I overheard one of them say:


    "My accountant was able to keep my income under $14,000 so that I qualify for free health care. That's the way you do it."


    He sounded rather proud of himself.


    I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, fuck him. On the other hand, who can blame him?


    And, of course, if we just gave health care to people for life, then they wouldn't be as tempted to game the system like this.


    Bottom line: the system is corrupt and it therefore breeds corruption.

    ReplyDelete
  113. smut clyde1:58 PM

    Perhaps we can Kickstart a movie about the case.

    ReplyDelete
  114. smut clyde2:05 PM

    big box and fast food jobs may not pay well, but they're not supposed to: they're supposed to be a step up for people who will move on to something better.

    Recall the argument that it would be immoral to pay a living wage for such jobs, because that would rob people of the motivation to keep looking for the next step up. The boredom and the conditions not being sufficient motivation in themselves.
    Of course if you do manage the next step, you will find that job to have also been stripped of its wages and conditions, in order to motivate people to take yet another step further up.

    ReplyDelete
  115. tigrismus2:06 PM

    So how DO you pronounce it? Because I just learned I've been doing it wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  116. KatWillow2:08 PM

    Remember, these stories are also aimed at the vewy vewy RICH, who really do believe people would rather starve on the street than work at McDonalds.

    ReplyDelete
  117. I was thinking more along these lines.


    Also, RIP Arthur Rankin, Jr.

    ReplyDelete
  118. I always pronouced it "Shecky", thinking the "X" was the equivalent of the "Mayan X", as in "Xibalba".

    ReplyDelete
  119. How could they get through basic training with a dislocated shoulder?

    ReplyDelete
  120. JennOfArk2:18 PM

    Hmmm. I'm not even sure I could pronounce aloud the way I've "pronounced" it in my mind, with the X. Something like Eggs-ecky but not exactly - more like with a glottal stop in the middle.

    ReplyDelete
  121. satch2:25 PM

    I'm still not clear... are we supposed to want to see "job creators" relieved of the burden of having to provide health care to their employees, thereby freeing up money to create more jobs, or are we supposed to applaud employer-provided health insurance as a means to encourage mooching bums to get busy climbing the ol' "Ladder of Life"? Oh, wait, I see now... we're all supposed to work for whatever wages the Job Creators deign to pay us AND to stop our infernal whining about wanting them to provide health insurance. It's a simple matter of increasing our gratitude to our betters while lowering our expectations.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Mooser2:42 PM

    Got a link?

    ReplyDelete
  123. XeckyGilchrist2:43 PM

    This works. I either use this pronunciation or the International Phonetic Alphabet interpretation of "x" (voiceless velar fricative, as in the final sound of the Scots word "loch.")

    ReplyDelete
  124. Batter my heart, three person monte.

    ReplyDelete
  125. To her recorded overheard conversation?

    ReplyDelete
  126. Well, but part of the logic was that they could rest assured that the rest of the work force, because they were tied in by health insurance needs, wasn't going to walk. So people like you had to keep accepting more and more work without demanding more and more remuneration. Now I'm not so sure that this old calculation will hold. Between the companies shedding worker hours to keep from having to pay for health care, and the companies whose workers are leaving because they don't need to purchase health care through their employers, I don't think anyone knows what will happen to the market for labor in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  127. Velar Fricative was my favorite character in Deep Space Nine.

    ReplyDelete
  128. I was thinking about this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gglhv-aGCag

    ReplyDelete
  129. smut clyde3:38 PM

    I assumed the 'X' was silent, and pronounced it "Throatwarbler-Mangrove".

    ReplyDelete
  130. smut clyde3:40 PM

    Velar Fricative was my favorite character
    The appearance of a character who communicated only in Sign was a major step forward for the speechless community.

    ReplyDelete
  131. You have to wonder where these bastards would draw the line on their logic about fear of poverty and privation as a key economic motivator. I get the feeling many of them would be perfectly content to live in a society in which a significant majority are reduced to living under bridges, roasting rats on sticks and dreaming of the day they'll join Kevin O'Leary and the Elite 85 at the pinnacle of success and power. That'll get them off their duffs and pushing those brooms with a little spring in their step.

    ReplyDelete
  132. realinterrobang4:31 PM

    My mother definitely seems to believe opting to work less is a moral failing, so yeah, they're out there.

    ReplyDelete
  133. I think they're just trying to muddy the waters in the short term. Right now a lot of people are still unemployed, so "THE ACA KILLS JOBS!" is a scary message; it doesn't have to make sense, it just has to be scary. One would hope it'll be disproved eventually by reality, but the water-muddiers are hoping to derail things before we get that far.

    ReplyDelete
  134. marindenver4:56 PM

    Not to go all D. Johnston on y'all but I am really sick and tired of this line of garbage. ObamaCare has let me retire a year earlier than I thought I could because I got my youngest daughter and myself a plan on the exchange which will nicely tide me over until I qualify for Medicare. And for the record I have worked for 44 fkin' years, put myself through college and grad school and raised 4 kids (with the assistance of my dear late husband I will say). So don't tell me about work muthafkers!! Thanks to ObamaCare I can spend more time on my volunteer activities, spend time in the mountains and help raise my granddaughter. "Sanctity of work" my ass.

    ReplyDelete
  135. TGuerrant5:07 PM

    Dear Diary,

    Today, as I was reading À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs and drinking Montrachet with abandon before my usual afternoon of abundant sex, my eschaton began to itch.


    After a few hints and nods, I realized I was sliding toward the cowardice of conformity and, summoning the subversiveness in my braveheart, simply took off one of my lace gloves and immanentized my eschaton right there in front of everybody.



    It seemed to go unnoticed, but I feared others had seen and judged. I hinted as much to Cary Tennis, who was having lunch at the next table with Charlie Sheen, but didn't have the courage to state it openly.


    Have I betrayed liberalism?

    ReplyDelete
  136. I am soooo stealing that.

    ReplyDelete
  137. XeckyGilchrist5:47 PM

    It might be an Ortocracy, government by leftover scraps of food.

    ReplyDelete
  138. TGuerrant5:53 PM

    Jonah's B.A. is in political science, a credential known to be an immanentizing trebuchet to riches and glory as long as your mom serves up the eschaton.

    ReplyDelete
  139. Gromet6:00 PM

    Whoa, that David French is crazy. He is very upset that "you have to look long and hard to find Republicans celebrated in academia or pop culture as experts in much of anything." I guess he expected the Miley Cyrus song "Wrecking Ball" to be a celebration of the 40+ expert votes to repeal the ACA. Imagine how crushed he felt when it was about love, or sex, or dancing or something. That's not what the people want! The fix is in!


    As for academia, here's a dime. Call someone who cares when your team mascot isn't Jesus riding a dinosaur.

    ReplyDelete
  140. But its already gone too far. I mean--people have already signed up. TPM is full of little stories from their readers about people who have quit their employment and started their own businesses on the strength of being able to buy affordable healthcare on the new exchanges. Its not going away. I get that the objective is to scare people going into the midterm elections but I think the people who get insurance on the exchanges are probably not regular voters--so keeping the insurance issue front and center and continuing to threaten to repeal it seems like it could backfire, big time. OK: old white people on medicare who watch Fox might be still angry enough to turn out to vote republican at the midterm but what about young people who got insurance on the exchanges? They really aren't interested in the "kills jobs" argument--if they get out to vote (which would be unlike them) they are more likely to get out to vote to try to preserve their health care subsidies than not. (Of course there is going to be a rate shock for young men in the fall so that may work against us, but perhaps it will have worked itself out by the midterm. And young families? they are benefitting.)

    ReplyDelete
  141. "Emily's List leads to poetry?" Next you'll say that sex leads to dancing. You old baptist, you.

    ReplyDelete
  142. The last thing the "job creators" want is a work force that is actually motivated to improve their position in a genuinely competitive economy. What they really want is a work force that is utterly defeated and demoralized and prepared to accept their miserable, wretched lot, womb to grave.

    ReplyDelete
  143. randomworker6:38 PM

    As an enemy combatant during NROs Great Patriotic Troll War let me just say David French is a complete tool. He's supposedly a libertarian but not any brand of libertarian I've ever known. Though I have mostly known the kind that would be good Republican foot soldiers if not for the internet porn. But I don't think he even likes the internet porn.

    ReplyDelete
  144. randomworker6:43 PM

    Close, but no cigar. Actually stating the $14,000 gives it away. Go with words like "...my accountant was able to reduce my income to maximize my subsidy. That's the way you do it..." then they think in their heads it must be $100,000 or something.

    ReplyDelete
  145. Ellis_Weiner6:49 PM

    I went to high school with Wendy Sherman. She played the queen in her class's production of Once Upon a Mattress. Her sister is one of my sister's best friends.

    That is all.

    ReplyDelete
  146. smut clyde6:50 PM

    you have to look long and hard to find Republicans celebrated in academia or pop culture as experts in much of anything

    I am SHOCKED to find a conservative demanding quotas and Affirmative Action.

    ReplyDelete
  147. I think you're just supposed to hate Obamacare.

    ReplyDelete
  148. smut clyde7:00 PM

    You have definitely blotted your escutcheon.

    [metaphorical use of "escutcheon" stolen from John Barth, in "Giles Goat-Boy"]

    ReplyDelete
  149. JennOfArk7:16 PM

    I'd like to see Judge Judy sink her teeth into this.

    ReplyDelete
  150. JennOfArk7:20 PM

    Is he any relation to the Goat Man?

    ReplyDelete
  151. tigrismus7:29 PM

    Iran got a nuke!
    Tel Aviv children tremble.
    Thanks, EMILY's List!

    ReplyDelete
  152. I think the scare tactics are directed more at the fairly large group of voters who aren't seeing any direct benefit nor any direct harm at the moment, because their current insurance is OK and they're not trying to change jobs (or would like to, but don't see any realistic chance of doing so). The idea is to convince them that even if the ACA is working well for some people early on, it's bound to tank the economy even worse somehow.

    ReplyDelete
  153. She sounds cool. I went to highschool with Nina Pillard, who just squeaked onto the DC circuit after Obama and Reid busted the filibuster. There are some cool people who finally made it into the administration and (gasp) they are proabortionists to the bone.

    ReplyDelete
  154. M. Krebs7:31 PM

    Take my job. Please.

    ReplyDelete
  155. Yeah. I think you are right. But I'm wondering whether there is more churn and drang in the system than we all thought. Originally the argument was that 45 million people had no health insurance but that other people were basically covered through their employers, or Medicare, or Medicaid. But one thing that has come out is how many people were fully employed but uninsurable prior to the ACA--those people weren't really outside the social circle of the upper class or the employed. Plus people have lost their jobs and fallen down the ladder in record numbers. I guess what I'm arguing is that I think there are, in reality, very few people who haven't been touched by the ACA or who aren't related to someone who has been or will be touched by the ACA.

    ReplyDelete
  156. glennisw7:43 PM

    Good for you! I'd be with you, except I've gotta put in one or two more years into the retirement account.

    ReplyDelete
  157. M. Krebs7:44 PM

    If it can be done legitimately, there's no problem. If it's fraud, it's fraud.

    ReplyDelete
  158. Ah, but no season is mentioned or implied, so... judges?

    ReplyDelete
  159. MikeJ8:39 PM

    Strike Tel Aviv Children tremble.
    Replace with: No candy this Purim, oy!

    ReplyDelete
  160. tigrismus8:40 PM

    It's called "Abortion Season"

    ReplyDelete
  161. ADHDJ8:46 PM

    Early Money Is Like Yeats

    ReplyDelete
  162. M. Krebs8:49 PM

    I keep thinking hoping this is exactly why Obama chooses the issues he does to discuss.

    ReplyDelete
  163. M. Krebs9:11 PM

    It is especially interesting to me that apparently no one has brought up this particular wrinkle before now. I had looked into my own options a several months ago and thought that there just had to be a catch. Now it seems that there isn't a catch and that a couple of million other people are in the same boat.


    That so many people are being set free in this way is almost too much to process.

    ReplyDelete
  164. redoubtagain9:30 PM

    (Here I always thought Velar Fricative was the Danish-born soccer-style kicker for the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.)

    ReplyDelete
  165. Better than the standard stream of bat piss.

    ReplyDelete
  166. Spaghetti Lee9:41 PM

    They'll need a big ol' disability check for that, definitely. What? They've earned it!

    ReplyDelete
  167. Mooser10:08 PM

    Sometimes the Invisible Hand of the Free Market simply hits the 'off' button.

    ReplyDelete
  168. Mooser10:12 PM

    "It's a first-class tragic trauma,
    To hear you've humped your Momma.
    And further hear you've murthered Dear Old Dad!
    "

    ReplyDelete
  169. Mooser10:13 PM

    And, if I am not mistaken, Barth used "escutcheon" in "The Sot-Weed Factor" too.

    ReplyDelete
  170. Mooser10:18 PM

    It's too bad, those are the best kind.

    ReplyDelete
  171. AngryWarthogBreath10:34 PM

    Ah, with the neo- bit being how they've got rid of that inconvenient "a Lannister always pays his debts" business.


    Maybe in version 3.0 they can leave out the child violence. Baby steps, you know. Only they don't step, because they're paralysed now.

    ReplyDelete
  172. AngryWarthogBreath10:37 PM

    I don't know what a kireji is, so I give it five and a half Shigeru Miyamotos out of Barack Obama.

    ReplyDelete
  173. smut clyde11:15 PM

    You're thinking of Glo Tal-Stopp.

    ReplyDelete
  174. smut clyde11:16 PM

    Goggle Book Search says you are mistaken.

    ReplyDelete
  175. freq flag11:53 PM

    "hate the weak" a/k/a "say, do, and/or believe anything so long as it pisses off liberals."

    Manifests itself in a wide variety of ways: god, guns, gays, conservanomics, culture war, pop psych, pop sociology, pop medicine, pop morality, pop history, pop foreign policy, pop domestic policy, etc.

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  176. DocAmazing12:01 AM

    I read a story once, about a man who did very skilled work in the Fisher Body Plant in Michigan. He worked four days a week; management wanted to increase his output. A group of management types went to interview him. They asked him why he worked only four days a wee, and he replied, "Because I can't live on what I'd make working three!" The managerial types were reportedly perplexed by this man who had chosen leisure over money.

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  177. freq flag12:02 AM

    Of course, there's always a big heaping helping of ye olde "freedom for ME but not for THEE" (e.g. Citizens United vs. Voting Rights Act)

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  178. I'm pretty happy with Kickstarter making Wasteland 2 and a new Torment game possible. Things that wouldn't be possible otherwise. But Zack Braff? That douche can crawl away and cry in a corner.

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  179. smut clyde12:13 AM

    From design your major to design your life."
    Next thing you know, people will be claiming that they have the right to pursue happiness!

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  180. freq flag12:20 AM

    Isn't there some kind of "internet law" about first mention of Jonah Goldberg's momma in a discussion thread? Something about body orifices and gaseous emissions?

    I dunno, maybe I'm thinking about something else...

    (Oscar Wilde?! I can't even begin to imagine the olfactory horror that that could possibly refer to, and I'm definitely not leaving the boat to find out.)

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  181. freq flag12:24 AM

    Bug Jack Barron is another one that might strike their fancy.

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  182. Spaghetti Lee12:36 AM

    Tonight, Immanentizing Trebuchet plays their chart-topping hit "Your Mom Serves Up The Education" live in concert!

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  183. I work for some serious Obamacare haters - and that's as far as I'll go 'cause you never know who needs what - and they're astounded that I'd rather not have to work the five days a week I currently work. They simply cannot wrap their heads around the idea that someone would rather spend his days reading philosophy to his dog instead of getting overtime when I don't have to.

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  184. AGoodQuestion1:33 AM

    As long as no one thinks he represents me.

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  185. PorlockJunior3:31 AM

    Some years ago, my wife and I hosted a wake, of sorts, a tame sort not fit for Finnegan, for a recently departed colleague and friend. For the occasion, I got a bottle of Laphroaig, a great favorite of the departed, and my first in years, since I've long been under orders not to kill my liver with drink. When we had served the lapsang souchong tea, another favorite -- you may see a pattern here -- I offered a spot of the whisky for anyone who wanted to drink a toast; which was respectfully taken by all.

    After the toast, I commented that I had forgotten just how good Laphroaig was. One of the women looked rather quizzically at me and asked, "In just what sense do you mean *good* ?" De gustibus and all that.

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  186. PorlockJunior3:35 AM

    Yeah, but the devil made him do it.

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  187. Excellent point! The Republican view is certainly overrepresented an the Sunday talk shows.


    Now that I think about it, those talk shows can't really be considered to be part of academia or pop culture; they seem to exist in some no-man's-land between the two realms.


    They're not educational enough to be part of academia, and they're not entertaining enough to be pop culture.

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  188. Halloween_Jack9:45 AM

    As it is, Tim Armstrong of AOL is about yea close to saying, hey, if you want to keep that 401k, sometimes a kid has to be tossed out the window.

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  189. JennOfArk9:54 AM

    Not to mention, but if the reporters are really "clueless," then they can hardly be lying about that of which they have no clue.

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  190. There is one basic question that all of a sudden the wingers tying themselves in knots over and are wishing would go away: In what rational world is employer provided health insurance a good idea? It's a left over, rancid remnant of the need to skirt WWII wage and price controls, it's a drag on both corporations trying to maximize profit and would-be entrepreneurs trying to find workers for their start-ups, and it puts U.S. corporations at a competitive disadvantage when competing with foreigners--- Christ, that's why American auto manufacturers set up plants across the river in Windsor, Ontario. It SHOULD have been the biggest selling point for progressive Dems in a push for single payer, and only their cowardice prevented them from using it.

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  191. XeckyGilchrist10:18 AM

    If he does, he'll get it wrong and say that the court is an idiot.

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  192. XeckyGilchrist10:21 AM

    You're right, but the little guys are still in there, and they're the ones I give to.

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  193. thorstein veblen10:33 AM

    Perhaps I'm missing something, but isn't it a good thing that people who are working solely for health coverage would leave the work force? Doesn't that mean that at least some of the jobs they're holding will then be available to folks who are looking for work?

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  194. Magatha10:45 AM

    Ooh, and like that other guy once said on a somewhat different but not unrelated topic, the kersplat decrease inevitably increases employment for the survivors, as long as we have enough shovels. So I guess we'd better start importing some cheap shovels, stat.

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  195. Magatha11:10 AM

    Maybe he was born mad. After all, couldn't his parents at least have changed their surname before he was conceived? Would he be the same unhappy tool if he'd grown up as, say, David Peoria?

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  196. witlesschum5:09 PM

    French's enemies list is weird because Emily's List is to be angrily shunned, but another organization is in favor of legal abortion, the government of Israel, is to be praised and must be favored at all times over a third organization, the government of Iran, that agrees with Crazy Dave French and his pals about abortion, though it allow exceptions for the life of the mother and certain fetal abnormalities that would make the Mullahocrats of Iran wets on the issue per the Republican Party. Choose life?

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