Somewhere there is an America that finds this Lexus commercial heartwarming

By Dan Brooks in advertising 4 Comments

A new Lexus owner experiences a brief, nameless feeling that he quickly disregards.

Those of you who watched last night’s exhibition match between the New England Patriots and a children’s football team dressed as the New York Jets were reminded, maybe fifty times, of the Lexus “December to Remember” Sales Event. That the good people advertising for Lexus revive this campaign every year and still insist on calling it a “sales event” should give you an idea of how well they understand the humans. They have studied our culture and our Lexus-buying habits, and they have determined that we like two things:

1) Christmas

2) Luxury

Now remains only to combine the two. Props to Ben “Bang” Gabriel for the tip, and don’t click “More…” unless you’re ready to watch a commercial that is just opulent as shit.

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Friday links! Willing to do what others will not edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment

Julius Caesar wrote that out of any 100 soldiers, ten will be utterly fearless, ten will panic and become useless at the first clash of swords, and 80 could go either way. Success in battle, says Caesar, depends on those 80 percent. At the risk of both paraphrasing one of history’s greatest generals and underestimating the value of numbers, victory belongs to those willing to do what others will not. This week’s link roundup is chock full of people who have not necessarily succeeded because of the merit of what they are doing. In many cases, they’re getting what they want in spite of that. But they’re doing things that their competitors won’t try, or that our various forebears and lawgivers just sort of assumed nobody would do. They’re the bold pioneers in the field of human decency, striking out into frontier lands of douche, and they are handsomely rewarded. The rest of us can chastise them for it, sure, but our disapproval will be ever undermined by our jealousy. Sort of.

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McConnell says he’ll block any tax package without cut for top 2%

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 1 Comment

Mmmmmgyea.

Shortly after House Republican leader/medium-market weatherman John Boehner signaled his willingness to consider an extension of the Bush tax cuts that excludes the wealthiest 2% of Americans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he’ll block any such package. Speaking on the floor Monday, he opined that “only in Washington could someone propose a tax hike as an antidote to a recession.” Like much of what the senator from Kentucky says, that statement is technically honest. Under current law, the Bush tax cuts will expire in 2010. Letting them lapse—either by not voting to extend them, voting to extend them for everyone but households making over $250,000 a year or, say, filibustering the vote to extend them—would therefore constitute a tax hike, in that some or all taxes would become higher than they are now. Of course, by that reasoning, McConnell is proposing a tax hike as an antidote to the possibility that his party might compromise with a Democratic President. Only in Washington, indeed.

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Obama to oppose tax cuts for rich, psychic suicide of Democratic Party

By Dan Brooks in Invective 6 Comments

President Obama with various Democratic lawmakers, all poised to run out of the room and say they never met him if a scary poll comes out.

According to the Times, President Obama will officially come out against extending the Bush tax cuts for households making over $250,000 a year, offering instead to extend cuts for the 98% of Americans who earn less than that. He’s also presented a package of deductions and capital incentives for small businesses, plus infrastructure spending designed to boost the economy and encourage hiring. It’s not a stimulus, though, because people don’t like that word. That a government plan to stimulate the economy must never again be called a stimulus is one of the few things that Democratic lawmakers can agree on lately. The other is that not giving a tax cut to the the richest 2% of the country is politically risky, and maybe they should just do it anyway so Republicans will stop being mean to them.

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Biden uses n-word in speech to Cub Scouts

By Dan Brooks in Plutocracy 4 Comments

Okay, I have abused your trust. Joe Biden did not say the n-word to Cub Scouts, and today’s Combat! blog is about taxes. In addition to being an unpopular topic for which no interesting visual images exist whatsoever, the federal income tax happens to be at the center of present political debate. It’s smack in the middle there on the micro level, as Congress will decide whether to extend the Bush tax cuts when it returns from its August recess. It’s also central on the macro level, since fear of deficits—whether founded or not, and I think it is—is the animating force behind the Tea Party* and pretty much all of contemporary conservative rhetoric.

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