coatesd's picture

    Republican Truth and Real Truth: GSEs and the Housing Bubble

     

    In any wars of words in an election season, truth is often an early casualty. The war of words between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich is no exception. The two Republican front-runners are currently telling each other carefully fabricated stories about their own pasts that cover tracks and reinvent reputations.[1] But in the end that is less damaging to the entire democratic process than the accidental and less contrived stories that, in passing, they are also telling us. Right now, as they attack each other with increasing venom, the four remaining Republican presidential candidates are collectively rewriting a critical part of our immediate past – and in the process are seriously misleading us as they battle with each other.

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Happy 20th Anniversary, Agenda 21! (Rio+20 or Bust)

    Has it really been 20 years?  Well, 2012 minus 1992 equals 20, so I guess it has been.

    In case you didn't know, twenty years ago the UN convened in Rio the Earth Summit officially known as the Conference on Environment and Development. 

    Can I get a tax accountant up in here, please?

    I know you guys are having a fine time over there deciding whether Mitt Romney's religion should/does matter, and that is awesome.

    But when there's a break in the action, I'd love it if some of you more economic-smart folks would be interested in figuring out the following:

    (Or if you've seen anyone else share these numbers it would be great.)

    1. How much would Romney have paid in taxes if the "Cayman Capitalist" loophole were closed? (i.e. no offshore accounts)

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Architects on the Edge

    We as a nation can begin a meaningful march

    toward a sustainable and just society. 

    A national paradigm shift, however,

    will be a necessary prerequisite.

    And it will be the architects who will show us the way forward.

     

    jollyroger's picture

    Giuliani&Kerik, Bloomberg&Kelly. NY Mayors, unlucky in their top cops.

    We are being priveleged to witness, once again, the down-in-flames destruction of a creepy New York Police Commissioner. (ed note: the last non-creepy one wasTeddy Roosevelt...)

    tmccarthy0's picture

    Reforming K-12: Scarborough Blames Teachers Unions

    Today on Morning Joe, Joe went crazy accusing Howard Dean of being a liar when it comes to education reform and blaming Democrats and Teachers unions for the state of our k-12 system. Public schools just like reproductive rights attract Republican attacks often.

     

     

    Take their money, lose my vote

    The article about referees "blowing the whistle" on oil companies was quite energizing.  (Heh heh.) So I'm recycling this comment from 2010.

    Important parts bolded--the rest included for context. Main point is that Progressives, "True" Conservatives and Economic Tea Partiers have reason to agree on the issue of big money in politics.

    GotToBeMe's picture

    Cartoon: “The Newtinator”

    The Newt-inator is enforcing his brand of compassionate politics.

    tmccarthy0's picture

    Below the Beltway: a Mockumentary of the Anatomy of a Political Scandal

    I saw this movie the other morning on Showtimes Movie Channel. It is the perfect movie to see this political season, it not only brings on the big belly laughs but the story has a edge of the "real"  and as a viewer I became pretty convinced this could easily happen to any politician.

    But what did Lady Gaga think of the SOTU speech?

    I had the feeling that ordinary Americans might have liked the President's speech tonight more than Congress did--even, in some spots, than Democratic members of Congress did.

    Is it possible that Spring has come to Narnia, and Washington will be the last to know?

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Born Rich: Romney and the Taboo Topic

     

    Why is Romney having so much trouble talking about his taxes and his wealth?  It isn't so that he is uncomfortable with talking about it (which he is); it is (in my opinion) that he is literally not used to talking about it. 

    Richard Day's picture

    RYAN LIZZA'S NEW YORKER ESSAY ON OBAMA & POLEMICS

    Herbert Hoover

    I wonder sometimes if we are not really fighting the old arguments present during WWII and even prior to that war!

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Raging Newt

    In the thread on Articleman’s latest blog, he responded to one of my comments with comment about Mitt:

    You can't offload muscularity to your superPAC.  Mitt has a glass jaw…. Mitt lacks that gear, which works if you lack any plausible alternative who does. The problem is, Newt is back to plausible and cannot be eradicated with superPAC drones.

    I was just musing that we might want to replace muscularity to rage.  And the difference between Newt and lot of other politicians is that he doesn’t have to work to get into that rage (muscularity) gear.  He is already there.  His rage isn’t an act that other politicians put on to appease the base.

    That invisible hand's not holding a bandage

    Sunday’s Times editorial page for the zillionth time puzzles over  why the US health care system is exceptional: exceptionally expensive without caring for us exceptionally well.

    jollyroger's picture

    Mitt's tithe tax fax-Many Millions to the Mormons

    We are left with only a few hours within which to exercise unrestrained speculation as to "the (tax) horror which dare not speak its name".

     

    Level of income, of course, has been bruited as cause for embarassment.

     

    Obvious high roller lifestyle deductions will cause the odd blush.

     

    But, quaere:

    Might the annual act of self-denial represented by parting with many millions of dollars be regarded as so extreme as to make you potentially seen to be a cult-addled and superstition-ridden nutjob?

     

    Cayman Capitalism is Dead! Long Live Legitimate Commerce!

    Okay, so maybe we're not quite there yet, but a girl can dream, right?

    Watching the veil of the Mitt Romney temple break in twain, not over Mitt's religion but from the godless way he actually makes his money--what a pleasant surprise. It's kind of comforting to know that when finally confronted with Cayman Capitalism in all its Reptilian glory...

    Richard Day's picture

    THE DAYLY WEB LINES OF THE YEAR (SO FAR!)

    MILLER'S GRIZZLED LANGUARS

    I recently came upon some strange strange lines on the internet; from Huffpo to National Geographic to Alternet to...!

    There is no reason; no logic in this presentation.

    acanuck's picture

    Weighing whether to wait a second, scientists put off decision for three years

    I’m sure you are all as relieved as I am that Thursday’s meeting of the International Telecommunications Union postponed its scheduled vote on whether to drop the leap second:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16625614

    The next planned one-second adjustment to Universal Time, at the end of June, will go ahead. And delegates will return home for consultations before the issue arises again at the World Radio Conference in 2015.

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Our Political Ecotone Dilemma

    Ann Pendleton-Jullian in Design Education and Innovation Ecotones writes [emphasis mine]:

    Ecotones are typologically unique ecosystems connecting two distinctly different plant and animal communities and the physical characteristics that support those communities.

    But these zones are more than just zones of transition. They are areas of disturbance, catalyzed by the differences in the two ecosystems, and they are often zones of conflict as well. The word’s etymology derives from a combination of two Greek words: eco(logy) and—tone, from tonos or tension; ecologies in tension. Ecotones are not merely the blending of two habitats and their characteristics, but actually a third thing. “Although ecotones share some characteristics and species with the habitats on either side of them, ecotones also have their own distinct characteristics and species.”

    Richard Day's picture

    THE NEWT AND CICERO

    Marcus Tullius Cicero
    Elusive Trope's picture

    Envisioning Small...or Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd

    A recent IBM commercial had a man opening a office door to an empty room save for a group of people lying on the floor. The man asks, “what are you doing?” One the people on the floor answers, “We’re ideating.”  “Well,” the man responds, “good luck with that” and closes the closes the door, leaving the group to their ideation activities. 

    jollyroger's picture

    Gingrich:New, improved.More nimble (Ten years to flip on mandate, less than a week on Ryan)

    Newt Gingrich, like Tide and Coke is new and  improved.

    We learn, inter alia, from this evening's debate that he has raised his performance as a health care policy analyst.

    Viz:

    When jacked up by Santorum over his decade of support for an individual mandate to buy insurance, Newt credited (and tacitly solicited credit for) the onset of new wisdom.

    jollyroger's picture

    Would you park your assets in the Cayman Islands if you had nothing to hide?

    By now you will have heard that included in the tumble of new disclosures (I pay close to (how close? Are you missing above or below?) 15%) from Romney's cabinet of plutocrat horrors, is the tidbit that his tax planning relies heavily on Cayman Island accounts.

    (I fear being tarred forensically with those enemies of freedom who hector those who complain about warrantless surveillance, but, here goes).  I ask Romney (as will we all with one voice),

    What have you got to hide?

    Ronnie Whitelaw's Utopia

    A SHORT ESSAY ON UTOPIANISM.

     

    Ruby was standing outside the trailer yelling at Ronnie. They had been having lots of fights over Ronnie not getting a regular job and Ruby finally told him to pack up and get out. It was Ruby's trailer that she'd bought for $1500 and moved into a park where, in Paris, Texas, the rate was $50 a week.

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