Month: August 2014

Face to Face With an Angry One Percenter

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This was hilarious, sort of, if it weren’t depressing. I met one of the one percenters who sees himself as a victim.

I was at a party Friday night, and probably the only progressive there. This guy starts railing at me after I let it be known I think Obama is too far to the right. I don’t know a lot about the guy, but I’d heard from enough people how well he does that his membership in the top one percent was a safe assumption. He easily  could be in the top point one percent.

His chief complaint? The “top one percent pay 47% of the income tax in America.”

So, I asked him: “What percent of the income flows to the top one percent?” After an uncomfortable five seconds or so, another person chimed in with what he thought was the answer. The few seconds of silence, however, was long enough to make clear what I suspected. He had worked himself into a lather over the share of the income tax paid by the top one percent, without even knowing their income share.  My guess is that he heard the statistic on Fox News, from an anchor who expressed anger similar to his own. It’s one of their favorite talking points.

Of course, his anger made as much sense as being angry at your kid for getting a 50 on her math test before bothering to find out that there only were 50 points possible and the kid with the second highest grade scored a 44.

I didn’t have enough control of the discussion to do so then, but here’s what I hoped to explain to this angry one percenter, who clearly felt victimized by Obama:

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Legendary Teacher Stories: “How to Catch a Swamp Frog”

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Just heard about this new book written by retired Flowing Well Superintendent Dr. Nicholas Clement, about the legendary teachers he knew in his career. From his website (www.legendaryteacher.com), a copy of the book cover and explanation about why this title is about swamp frogs: Go to the website for reviews, and info on how to … Read more

Virginia is for Lovers: Chief Justice John Roberts holds the fate of marriage equality in Virginia in his hands

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An update from Equality on Trial. Supreme Court to decide whether to stay same-sex marriages in Virginia:

EqualThe Supreme Court will decide this week whether to halt same-sex marriage in Virginia. Couples will be able to marry on Thursday unless the Court stays the mandate, or formal judgment, in the Fourth Circuit case, Bostic v. Schaefer.

The request for a stay has been filed with Chief Justice John Roberts in his capacity as Circuit Justice for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Chief Justice Roberts has called for responses by 5 PM Monday. Responses are expected from the Bostic plaintiffs, Virginia’s attorney general, and Lambda Legal and the ACLU on behalf of the Harris intervenors.

UPDATE: All three responses have now been filed. Chief Justice Roberts could rule on the request at any time, or he could refer the matter to the full Court to decide whether to grant the stay. Notably, all three responses ask the Court to treat the application for a stay as a petition for certiorari. Clerk McQuigg has noted that she intends to file a cert petition requesting that the Court review the Fourth Circuit decision on the merits, but she hasn’t filed one yet.

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The Arizona Daily Star publishes propaganda, abuses its readers

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Back in September 2011, I posted this piece, Please, just stop the ridiculous point/counterpoint opinions in the Star:

ScreenshotIn recent weeks the Arizona Daily Star has taken to publishing a point/counterpoint series of opinions on Monday from McClatchy News. These opinions are invariably written by think tanks or politicians with
an agenda and a partisan axe to grind. There is very little factual content and even less credible analysis. This is supposed to inform readers how exactly?

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Please,  just stop the ridiculous point/counterpoint opinions. They are as useless and uninformative as the old 60 Minutes point/counterpoint segment back in the 1970s with James Kilpatrick and Shana Alexander spewing partisan invectives at one another. The media villagers find this entertaining, but it is not informative.

Almost three years later, the lazy editors of the Arizona Daily Star are still running the ridiculous point/counterpoint opinions from McClatchy on Monday. The editors are doing a great disservice to readers when they publish propaganda, misinformation and disinformation from partisan think tanks masquerading as “opinion” on its editorial page.

Today’s outrageous example comes from Grace-Marie Turner, founder and president of a Scaifie Foundation “think tank,” the Galen institute, which is funded in part by the pharmaceutical and medical industries. See Unfashionable Sentiments: Who is Grace-Marie Turner? In 2003, Galen established the Center for Consumer Driven Health Care.

This propagandist from the Galen Institute, who is not a lawyer and possesses no expertise in constitutional law or statutory interpretation, argues in favor of the “textual literalism” of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in the recent case of Halbig v. Sebelius. Health law clearly states position on subsidies.

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‘Krush the Kochtopus’ – Harry Reid’s plan shows signs it is working in Michigan

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One of my favorite bloggers, Jon Perr, describes the Washington Post’s media villager Chris Cillizza, the lead writer for the Post’s “The Fix” column (a Washington insiders barometer of “conventional wisdom”) this way:  “When it comes to political commentary and analysis, the only thing worse than conventional wisdom is no wisdom at all. But each day, Washington Post writer and MSNBC regular Chris Cillizza walks that fine line between the banal and the inane.” Chris Cillizza, conventional wisdom regurgitator.

Earlier this year when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was taking to the floor of the Senate to deliver an almost daily speech to attack the Koch brothers for their “Kochtopus” dark money network undermining our electoral system and democracy, media villager Cillizza wrote this “conventional wisdom” piece. Koch Zero?:

KochBrothersHalf the country has no idea who the Koch Brothers are.

To be precise, 52 percent of people said they didn’t know who Charles and David Koch were in a new GW Battleground poll conducted by Republican pollster Ed Goeas and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. If you combine the 52 percent of people who didn’t know their names with the 11 percent of respondents who had no opinion about the duo, you get more than six in 10 Americans who are entirely unmoved/unaffected by the recent focus by Democrats on villainizing the Kochs.

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