The New Republic: Jonathan Cohn: Tax Day 2014: 'More Taxes Would Make For a Better Society'

Source:The New Democrat

Well, I guess it is official now, with this piece from Jonathan Cohn, The New Republic (his link is  above)  the classic American liberal magazine is dead.  Or perhaps, it has just been taken over by Socialists or Communists and the Liberals there are now forced to write pieces endorsing big government and critiquing the Right.  Or perhaps the Liberals at TNR were simply kicked out and sent away.  Maybe the TNR Liberals were kidnapped by the new TNR big government statists.

Jonathan Cohn calls tax day a time to celebrate. What's next?  He and the other big government statists are going to call for making tax day a national holiday or something?  Here's some helpful information. If you believe middle class Americans are under taxed, which apparently Mr. Cohn does, arguing in his piece today that all Americans except for the working poor should be taxed more, you are not a Liberal. 

People who believe that middle class Americans, auto mechanics, law enforcement workers, teachers, nurses, bus drivers, government workers in general (not including politicians, but Representative Jim Moran disagrees with that) and military personal are under-taxed are, simply, wrong.  These are workers who generally make 40-70 thousand dollars in a good year serving their fellow citizens and their country.  Mr. Cohn, playing the role of Uncle Sam, says,  "I have all of this new government that I want to create at your expense and I need your money. I'm the government and I'm a socialist, its my money to begin with and I'm just nice enough to let you have some of it!"

People who believe that hard-working middle class Americans are under taxed are not liberal and, I  argue, not progressive either.  You don't hear socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders or progressive senators Tom Harkin and Sherrod Brown calling for increased taxes on middle class Americans.

People who believe that hard working middle class Americans, who technically aren't poor but who live paycheck to paycheck and will need Social Security to have any type of solid retirement income, are under taxed are socialist, big government, statists.

Slate Magazine: Jamelle Bouie: Jim DeMint, Abolitionism & Constitutional Conservatives

Source:The New Democrat 

Representative Michelle Bachmann announced she was running for president in, I believe, August of 2011.  Her  presidential campaign lasted all of four months.  It was one of the shortest presidential campaigns in American history.  When she announced that she was running for president, she called herself a constitutional conservative.  In the same speech, she came out in favor of amending the U.S. Constitution to prohibit pornography and same-sex-marriage. I remember this well because I wrote a blog, then, about her presidential campaign announcement.

At the risk of stating the obvious, it seems to me that if you call yourself a constitutional conservative,  you believe in conserving the U.S. Constitution.  The fundamental meaning of conservatism is the minimization of change. 

When I heard Representative Bachmann describe her politics as constitutionally conservative and then suggest two new constitutional restrictions on personal behavior, I was thinking, "Could this radical and conservative be the same person?"  The U.S. Constitution is one of the most radical liberal documents ever written on the subject of individual rights.  I would expect that a constitutional conservative would want to conserve and protect the constitution, not amend it to curtail individual rights.  It is very clear that Representative Bachmann understands neither the U..S. Constitution nor conservatism.

The real constitutional conservatives of the past were Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater, and Ron Reagan. Those of today are Ron and Rand Paul, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and  Reason Magazine.   The love the United States Constitution for what it is and are not trying to amend or change it.  They want it observed as it is.  They, especially, do not want to give more power to government to control the behavior of individual citizens. 

The New America Foundation: Reniqua Allen: Civil Rights in Present Day

Source:The New Democrat

The 1968 Fair Housing Law was one of the best acts of the civil rights era of the 1960s.  It said that if you serve the public selling and renting homes, the public is the public and it includes everyone.  People can't be denied housing in the United States simply because of their race.  This followed the 1964 Civil Rights Act that banned racial discrimination and the 1965 Voting Rights Act that banned racial discrimination in voting, as well.

The lack of adequate housing for African-Americans today is not about race but about education and good jobs. Too many African-Americans do not have them compared, with the rest of the country.   Poor, rural, Caucasian-Americans and American-Indians also lack them.  These things are due to the lack of quality education and economic development in these communities.  People in these communities are not denied quality housing because of their race.

If you want to close the housing gap between low-income Americans of any race or ethnicity and middle class and wealthy Americans, you have to close the education and achievement gap and provide better schools and educational opportunities for low-income Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity. Kids who are in school now and their low-skilled, low-income parents need better education and opportunity.

The Onion: Landmark Supreme Court Decision Lets Americans Cram Cash Directly Into Politicians Throat

Source:The Onion- I guess food prices are so expensive in Washington for Senator Mark Warner (Democrat, Virginia) that he has mistaken money for vegetables.

Source:The New Democrat

What the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance did last week was, essentially, to make bribery legal so that members of Congress will no longer have to feel guilty about taking money for voting for this or voting for that.  Or in the case of the U.S. Senate, voting to not vote,  if you are familiar with the Senate cloture rule.  If you are familiar with the Senate cloture rule, you are probably qualified to teach Greek or ancient Mongolian history because the cloture rule is just as complicated.

Free speech? Give me a break, we are now talking about paid speech. The people with the most money have the most influence, which has always been the case in Congress.  The only thing these Supreme Court decisions have done is to make that legal. Congressional influence will be sold to the highest bidder.  Policy luncheons and committee hearings will be replaced by fundraisers and get togethers in private clubs and junkets where only the members of Congress who are the best boys and girls at delivering what special interests want are invited.

I wonder if I can get out of paying taxes at all if I just stuff a thousand dollars down my representative's or senator's throat.  Or, say that I owe this much in taxes.  How about I just give it to you, Senator Smith or Representative Jones, and write it off of my taxes. I get out of paying income taxes and you get the money you need to get reelected and we can do the same thing again in a couple of years. This might sound like an exaggeration but Americans politics is now at the point where public service, whatever the hell that is anymore, is now private service to the highest bidder.

We now have a Representative from Virginia, Jim Moran, a Democrat for whom I have a lot of respect  and like politically. No joke, I really do, (with only one finger behind my back).  He has the balls to say that members of Congress are underpaid.  No, seriously, he actually said that.  This guy only works half the year, lives full-time in Alexandria and gets to go home every night.  Only a handful of members of Congress get to do that.  Congressman Moran makes $174K per year as a part-time worker.

$174K a year is the average salary for an associate lawyer. What does he do with the rest of his time and spend all of his money on?  Wait, I've got it, he needs more money to pay for more fundraisers or, perhaps, to hire people to stuff money down his throat so he can keep getting reelected. Yeah, thats it. Guess what, that is not what the people who live in his district, who can't afford to make big political contributions, are paying him to do.

Drew Carey: Whose Line Weird Newscasters: Not Necessarily the News

Source:The New Democrat

"Whose Line is it Anyway?" for anyone who's interested in the full title of the show and, if you are,  you probably keep score at home when you are watching bowling on TV.  This is a show that is almost completely off the cuff.  Four comedians or comedic actors on stage are given scenes to act out. Sounds simple enough, right?  The trick is that they have to act out these scenes as strange characters.

Weird Newscasters is a perfect example.  Two comedians are pretending to be news anchors but they have to play these anchors as weird characters.  One is an alcoholic who won't let the bar close down before he gets at least one more drink. One is a weatherman who's doing the weather as a construction worker who gets turned on every time he sees a woman walk by.  Another is a sportscaster who lets out big belches every time he talks about sports.

That's what you see in this scene.  This is a show that I would love to do myself or, at least, play the game.  I could give myself my own character to play or take what is given to me.  I would love to play the anchor of the 3 am news and call it the Insomniac News Hour, or something like that.  There would be breaking news about Lindsay Lohan being pulled over for speeding and then a cut to "The Insomniac Classic Movie, "Attack of the Killer Lettuce," or something stupid like that.

This is my favorite game on Whose Line because it doesn't look a lot different from what actually passes as news today.  They go on for days about things that should be one day stories or only be given brief mentions.  Instead, they're still being covered a week later by the same people and shows.  News about Justin Bieber replaces really important issues like government spying on Americans and privacy. Today if you watch The Onion or Whose Line you might get the same amount of real information as you get from CNN, MSNBC or FNC.

Drew Carey: 'Whose Line Super Heros'

Source:Drew Carey- comedian Colin Mocherie on Whose Line.

Source:The New Democrat

"This is my first Superheroes upload. This is from late season 3."

From Drew Carey

Who's Line is it Anyway had a segment called Superheros in which several comedian contestants played made up, non-existent (even in Hollywood), SuperHeros.  To begin, one contestant would be given the beginning of a scenario about some made up crisis.  For example: "Oh no, we are all out of Starbucks coffee, what am I going to do?  I'd better call my SuperHero friends to help me out!"

The first actor would make up a SuperHero name and play a role that the host, Drew Carey, would pick from many suggestions given by the audience.  An additional actor would join the ensemble every thirty seconds or so. The first actor would give the second actor a made up SuperHero name and the second actor would give the third actor a made up SuperHero name.  The plot would be improvised in real time until all of the actors were involved.

So you would see four actors with these crazy SuperHero names and let's say the crisis is no more Starbucks coffee in the entire world. The first SuperHero would be Caffeine Addict Boy (or something like that) and he would bring in Latte Girl and she would bring in Alcoholic Man telling them that the situation is okay because he has a ten year supply of scotch and bourbon so no one will go thirsty. And somehow all of these clowns would save the day and things would go back to normal for them.

Tony Baretta: Myra Breckinridge (1970) Starring Raquel Welch

Source:The New Democrat

Myra Breckinridge may be the best movie that ever flopped at the box office.  It lost more than the 1962 New York Mets who lost something like 120 games that season.  I don't believe the movie made a dime.  It was too far ahead of its time.  If it were made today with the right cast, it would probably be a huge success.

Raquel Welch plays Myra Breckinridge and really makes the movie worth watching all by herself. Watching her, it is very difficult to look at anyone or anything else.  She is at her hottest, sexiest, cutest and funniest.  She shows the world that she is much more than a hot and sexy babe.  She has great wit and stage presence.

Myra is a former gay man who is now a transgender woman.  She goes to Hollywood to claim what she believes to be her inheritance.  Her uncle,  Buck Loner (John Huston), an over-sexed horny bastard, runs an acting school that he inherited from his parents.  Myra thinks that he owes her half of it.

Buck has no idea that his nephew, his sister Gertrude's son, is now a women calling herself Myra Breckinridge.  She tells her uncle to pay up or she's going to a get a lawyer to get what she believes is hers.

To buy time, Buck gives Myra a job on the school faculty.  He tries  to prove that Myra never married his nephew and that he doesn't owe her anything.  He's right that she never married his nephew.  She is his nephew and she's now a woman.  She has a fake marriage license that keeps her in the game  until she can get what she really wants, the five-hundred-thousand dollars that she believes her uncle owes her.

While Myra is trying to get her money, she uses her time at the school to do research on modern young straight men with the goal of dominating them, one day.  This movie is hysterical.  It has all sorts of funny characters including a gay man  who plays the part of the queen perfectly.  There's also  a very young, baby-faced, Farah Fawcett who's actually cuter than Raquel, but not as sexy.