Hey, how’s that opposition party going?

By Dan Brooks in Birthers, conservatism, conservative liars, health care, Obama citizenship, oppositional culture, Reactionary Populism, representative democracy, the crank factor 2 Comments
A billboard sponsored by the in Lafayette County, Missouri, Republican Party, suggesting that citizens prepare themselves for war against the United States government.

A billboard sponsored by the in Lafayette County, Missouri, Republican Party, suggesting that citizens prepare themselves for war against the United States government.

Thinkprogress.org reports that the Lafayette County Republican Central Committee has taken out the billboard advertisement at right, urging local citizens to rebel against the US government. Mad props to Big Game James Horak for the link. First of all, hey Amanda Terkel of Thinkprogress.org: You know what your internet news article needs? Some indication of where Lafayette County, Missouri is, or when the billboard went up, or a quote from someone at the Lafayette County RCC, or any additional information at all besides two links, one of which doesn’t work. Let’s hope the New York Times stays in business a little while longer. Second of all: JESUS CHRIST—THIS IS SEDITION, RIGHT? I mean, I didn’t go to law school, but telling people to not pay their taxes and “prepare for war” against the government is pretty much the definition of the term. Meanwhile, in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, local businessman Phil Wolf has erected a slightly more not-treason billboard asking the serious political question, “President…or Jihad?” It features a cartoon of Barack Obama in a turban and urges us to “remember Fort Hood.” It’s also emblazoned with the legend “BIRTH CERTIFICATE…PROVE IT!” Phil Wolf, I hope you’re reading this, because here you go. Wolf is not operating in the capacity of official representative of the Republican Party—although I think it’s safe to assume he’s not a registered Democrat—so his actions aren’t quite as damning as those of the Lafayette County RCC. Still, it’s hard not to see his behavior as partly consequent of a Republican Party whose elected representatives are actively fomenting mistrust of the federal government. At this point, the assessment that the GOP has settled into the role of opposition party is old news. What’s weird and mildly terrifying, though, is their emerging willingness to be a deliberate obstacle to American democracy.

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CBO report about to make health care debate a lot uglier

By Dan Brooks in conservative liars, health care, health insurance reform, representative democracy, snake that operates sarah palin, spin 0 Comment
Let's see...which shirt will ensure that my views are taken seriously?

Let's see...which shirt will ensure that my views are taken seriously?

First of all, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Newt Gingrich is a big Skynyrd fan. Second of all, get ready to have a lot more completely unproductive arguments over facts with guys like this, because the Congressional Budget Office has released a report projecting that the proposed health care reform bill will have little impact on insurance premiums. Kind of. It turns out that the math on this one was really hard—so hard that the CBO initially refused to make an estimate. On the insistence of Senators Max Baucus and Evan Bayh, though, they’ve been crunching numbers for weeks now, pausing only to drink Mountain Dew and watch Buffy on Netflix, and they have concluded that, um, a bunch of stuff will change. But not really. The upshot of the CBO report is that premiums for individuals in large-group employer plans—that is, those in pools of 50 or more—would see a +1% to -2% change by 2016, while those in small-group employer plans would see their premiums drop by zero to 3%. Individuals who purchase policies for themselves—my unemployable ass, for example—will see the largest difference, with a projected 10 to 13% increase in premiums. Yes, increase. That’s a little misleading, though, because A) the cheapest policies currently offered to individuals fall below proposed minimum standards, so people paying higher premiums will also get better coverage and B) federal subsidies will reduce the actual cost to individuals by about 50%. Are you confused yet? The health care debate just got a little more complex, and that’s a boon to Republicans.

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Yes: Sarah Palin drops out of 5k Turkey Trot

By Dan Brooks in conservative liars, help me kill zombies, obesity, representative democracy, sarah palin, snake that operates sarah palin 5 Comments
Sarah Palin, a couple of babies, a death panel interview and a kid who really needs to start running immediately

Sarah Palin, a couple of babies, a death panel interview and a kid who really needs to start running immediately

Last Thursday, while the rest of us were eating stuffing and probably violating the Constitution, Sarah Palin was participating in a 5k Turkey Trot in Kennewick, Washington. As is often the case with Palin, though, the word “participating” does not mean what you want it to mean. It turns out that the former Alaska governor dropped out of the race midway through, ostensibly to avoid the crowd of onlookers waiting for her at the finish line. See, she just wanted to run in the race and meet some Real Americans, not turn the Red Cross charity event into some sort of Going Rogue publicity spectacle. That’s why she announced her participation only two days before on her Twitter feed, and why her team was called the Rogue Runners. And shame on you for finding some cruel poetry in Palin’s decision to quit a charity race she had time to enter because she quit the governorship of Alaska. You try operating the complex assemblage of touch-screens and levers required to synchronize the Palin II‘s legs for 3.1 miles.

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Happy continued fundamental themes of Thanksgiving!

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 0 Comment

aftermath

For much of America, the Thanksgiving holiday and the brief interlude of cooking at home, gathering to converse with friends and loved ones, and savoring of simple material comforts it induced are over. Now it’s time to use the internet and buy shit. Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is historically the biggest shopping day of the year. That’s because most Americans work so much that they really need to seize any day off they get, in order to have enough time to buy stuff. It’s a damn near flawless system, and we must defend it. Here in Los Angeles, our woefully diseconomic Thanksgiving continues in spirit if not in calendar, and all consume leftover turkey and pirated DVDs. Perhaps we shall not get the last Nintendo Wii. We will live one more day as free men, however, and if you are reading this at home, Combat! thanks you and reminds you that it is still not to late to skip the store. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

Mark Cuban inadvertently reveals massive Twitter conspiracy

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 1 Comment
So, what, it's like a TV Guide or something?

So, what, it's like a TV Guide or something?

The big news in news that covers the news is that robber baron of the DeBordian Spectacle Rupert Murdoch has threatened to opt out of Google, walling off all News Corp  properties from the search engine’s webcrawlers and generally ensuring that nobody gets anything he makes for free. That’s cool. If Murdoch really thinks that the traffic driven to his various internet properties—which include WSJ.com, FoxNews.com and the purchased-in-a-manner-analogous-to-getting-wasted-and-going-home-with-a-fat-girl Myspace—isn’t worth the irritation of knowing that Google is indexing them for free, he’s welcome to hitch his wagon to Bing. As Weston Kosova of Newsweek sarcastically points out, people are totally going to search for “Sarah Palin teeth vagina” on Google, see what comes up, and then head on over to Bing to see if maybe News Corp has anything else. It’s a terrible idea if you intend to use the internet as a tool to disseminate your news reporting, but if you only see the internet as a way to advertise the other media outlets through which you disseminate your et cetera, it’s great. Murdoch’s problem with Google is that it doesn’t tell anyone about his products without also giving them a way to access them for free. His frustration captures the irony of the internet’s relationship to newspapers and television; it increases their circulation exponentially, while simultaneously making increased circulation almost valueless. It’s a real pickle, and it explains why, six months ago, every conventional news outlet in America couldn’t wait to tell us about Twitter.

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