I understand that conservatives view returning the highest tax brackets to Clinton-Reagan levels as “wealth redistribution.” What I don’t understand is why slashing taxes for the upper-class, which puts more burden on everyone else, isn’t also considered wealth redistribution; i.e. Obama proposes wealth redistribution, but Bush didn’t. I ask this question honestly, assuming there is some attempt at an intellectually honest distinction.

You can now follow my twitter feed in the sidebar column. While I don’t mean to downplay the awesomeness of this, my Twitter updates are not what I was referring to when I alluded to my best idea ever.

My best idea EVER.

Girls Aloud won the 2009 Brit Award for Best British Single last night with “The Promise.”

I put it at #2 in my Top 50 of 2008. I could’ve easily made it #1. I don’t see myself ever getting tired of that song. It’s amazing.

George Will had a funny way of arguing against global warming in his Sunday column. I agree with Nate Silver at 538 that Will is usually “fairly intellectually honest,” and he’s probably my favorite conservative columnist, but when you go around spouting stuff that’s verifiably not true in a flimsy self-serving logical construction, you’re going to run into problems.

Silver tackled that right away in George F. Will Takes on Science, Loses Credibility, pointing out the factual problems with Will’s claims. Turns out, it’s worse than that — Will flat out misquoted an article from Science magazine that essentially argued the exact opposite of which Will claimed it did.

Talking Points Memo added “…it took us about ten minutes — longer, it appears, than the Post’s editors spent — to figure out that Will … was essentially making stuff up. Both of Will’s major “data points” fall apart after a moment’s scrutiny.” They are awaiting return calls from Will and the Post.

The Cato institute’s decision to hop on the anti-reality Will bandwagon prompted Matthew Yglesias to elaborate on the difference between classical liberalism with modern libertarianism: Continue reading →

In a post titled As the World Turns, with obviously no awareness of the extra level of irony that carries here in Nebraska, a Dish reader in Kansas City pointed out the local paper’s inclusion of a same-sex couple:

I glanced at the newspaper laying on our office conference table, and it was open to the traditional Valentine section highlighting local couples and their stories. This particular paper was the Sun Tribune, which is a local weekly based in North Kansas City, a typical inner-ring, old suburb of Kansas City, Missouri.

It’s not the “hip” section of town, or a trendy place. This is where people live when they want to save money and don’t really want to be in the middle of the city. This paper is not the “alternative” paper in metro Kansas City, it’s normally read for its coverage of local high school sports.

One of the couples highlighted was a gay couple, but there was no focus on the fact they were gay. Their status simply said “married”, just like some of the other couples, and they discussed their wedding in Vancouver as part of their story. Apparently, a section of Missouri that voted narrowly for John McCain thinks gay marriage is no big deal. The fight may be over sooner than you think.

But to the World-Herald, acknowledging the existence of these couples is offensive.

from the Daily Dish:

This much is now clear. Their clear and open intent is to do all they can, however they can, to sabotage the new administration (and the economy to boot). They want failure. Even now. Even after the last eight years. Even in a recession as steeply dangerous as this one. There are legitimate debates to be had; and then there is the cynicism and surrealism of total political war. We now should have even less doubt about what kind of people they are. And the mountain of partisan vitriol Obama will have to climb every day of the next four or eight years.

It’s worth remembering where Ben Nelson and Mike Johanns fell in the battle between legitimate debates and political opportunism.

In response to news that Ben Nelson won’t vote for a stimulus package that differs much from the “compromise” he brokered:

The House bill, in addition to being more stimulative, is also cheaper. So if Pelosi wins in conference, and Arlen Specter drops out, the question is whether Snowe and Collins and, I suppose, Nelson, will accept a slightly higher spending to tax cut ratio (about two-thirds vs the current 55-or-so percent) in exchange for a stimulus bill that’s even leaner than their peculiarly stitched together plan.

If not, that pretty much obviates their main pretense for their “compromise”–that the Senate bill had become too expensive–and demonstrates, for all intents and purposes, that they were only ever concerned with a). showboating, and b). making the legislation more regressive. This is what I’ve suspected all along, of course, and I also suspect that the media will continue to fawn over them, even if their once-veiled opportunism becomes totally naked.

Ben Nelson seems quite content playing the fool. Via Ezra Klein at American Prospect:

$800 billion, I joked, was calculated using the famed Nelson output theorem, which is not at all reliant on symbolism or a preference for achievable round numbers. Rather, it’s reliant on old-fashioned Nebraska values.

The joke, it turns out, is on me. Or more precisely, all of us.
[…]
“Well, y’know, I don’t know where he’s from, but I’ll tell you, in Nebraska, $60 billion for education on top of $40 billion, that’s a pretty big commitment to education nationwide.”

And thus life imitates snark: Ben Nelson’s economic theory is based on a survey that Nelson has not conducted on Nebraskan attitudes towards education funding. Meanwhile, this is, as you’ll note, utterly non-responsive to the question at hand.
[…]
Confronted with Krugman’s argument that Nelson’s cuts did not display “any coherent economic argument,” Nelson offered no coherent argument — economic or otherwise — in response. And this is the guy deciding the size of the stimulus package. He’s cutting 500,000 jobs from the stimulus based on some fake poll he mentally conducted of Nebraskan preferences. He doesn’t even bother to justify his actions on the merits. It’s appalling.