The (Bi-Partisan) IRS Blues

For the Dumbos, the nightingale's song is "Tax Cuts." The manta of voodoo economics is cut taxes and cut spending and the devil take the hindmost. On the other side of the tax spectrum, the POTUS needed to hire H&R Block, not the Transition Team, to vet his Cabinet appointees. Further, why aren't the Donkey tax scofflaws subject to the draconian fines that afflicted Joe Louis and Willie Nelson? If it's fine for The Brown Bomber and the Blue-Eyed Stranger to pay and pay, it ought to be fine for all of the sorry chiselers tabbed as the "best and the brightest" by the Gang Who Couldn't Appoint Straight (aka the Obama Transition Team). If this is (fair & balanced) taxation idiocy and incompetence, so be it.

[x Boulder (CO) Fishwrap]
Broken Record
By John Sherffius

Click on the fine print to enlarge. ♥

[John Sherffius began drawing editorial cartoons for the Daily Bruin, the campus newspaper at UCLA. After two years of working as a freelance artist, after graduation, he was hired by the Ventura County Star in Southern California as a graphic artist and gradually worked his way into editorial cartooning for the paper. In 1998, he was hired by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as the newspaper's editorial cartoonist, a job he held until 2003 when he quit the paper over editorial differences. Sherffius bridled at editorial insistence that he tone down cartoons attacking Republicans. Sherffius then went to work for the Boulder Daily Camera where his cartoons appear regularly and are syndicated nationally by the Copley News Service. Sherffius won the 2008 Herblock Prize for Editorial Cartooning.]

Copyright © 2008 John Sherffius/Boulder Daily Camera

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Copyright © 2009 Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves

If You're Ridin' To The River, Take Douglas Moran Along For The Ride

Welcome to the new, improved (and ever-improving) Rants & Raves. Look to the left and a new widget has been installed in the sidebar. If it gets any better, this blogger won't be able to stand it. In the meantime, a little snark from another blogger here in Austin, TX. If this is (fair & balanced) biting wit, so be it.

[x Open Salon]
Random Blather: At Last, Straight Talk
By Douglas Moran

Tag Cloud of the following article

accusations ad-hominem annual better bush changing crushed cut debt deficit democrats designated economic economy election energy fantasies folks going halt health hope idea inhofe judgment light manure obvious powerful recurring rendered republican role smoky sort sounds spade special state straight taken talk tested tone triple-speak usual weapons wild won wonder

created at TagCrowd.com

One of my recurring (non-sexual) fantasies is that the inside-the-beltway folks will be forced, all of them, to be fisked in person. And the designated fisker cannot be denied; he will get to hammer on Sen. Inhofe about global warming; Justic Scalia about his moronic Bush v. Gore decision; Bush about why he really invaded Iraq, and so on.

(I have more violent fantasies involving torture and the Bush regime, but I'm not going to go there.)

Barring that, I've often wondered why Democrats didn't just state and/or do the obvious about the Republicans obvious manure. You know: "Your way didn't work, raised the deficit and the debt, and crushed the economy. Why should we listen to you?" Or even better: "You want to filibuster? Go for it! Let's see how long you last, Cornyn, you weenie!"

Well, I guess the President feels sort of the same way. Sounds like he's tired of all the Republican manure as well:

• "Are these folks serious? Is it any wonder that we haven't had a real energy policy in this country?"


• "[Republican proposals are] rooted in the idea that tax cuts alone can solve all our problems; that government doesn't have a role to play; that half-measures and tinkering are somehow enough; that we can afford to ignore our most fundamental economic challenges — the crushing cost of health care, the inadequate state of so many of our schools, our dangerous dependence on foreign oil. So let me be clear: Those ideas have been tested, and they have failed. They've taken us from surpluses to an annual deficit of over a trillion dollars, and they've brought our economy to a halt. And that's precisely what the election we just had was all about. The American people have rendered their judgment."


• "I won."

It's like a shot of oxygen in a smoky room, isn't it?

This is such a simple thing to do, and I have been wondering since the election of 2006 why the Democrats haven't done it. It's not like calling a spade a spade takes any kind of special skill.

So maybe this is what Obama meant when he was talking about changing the tone in Washington; he's going to try to cut through the usual governmental triple-speak and talk straight. Let's hope he keeps it up, because in the face of Republican lies, smoke-screens, ad-hominem attacks, and wild accusations, light, truth, and straight talk can be powerful weapons. ♥

[From his blog profile, we learn that Douglas Moran made his way to Austin, TX via Connecticut, New Hampshire, Long Island, northern Virginia, and Santa Cruz, CA. Armed with a computer science degree in his hot little hands and a modicum of writing ability, Moran somehow fell into a career as a technical writer in the computer biz, which allows him to work from his current home in Austin, TX.]

Copyright © 2009 Salon Media Group, Inc.

Get the Google Reader at no cost from Google. Click on this link to go on a tour of the Google Reader. If you read a lot of blogs, load Reader with your regular sites, then check them all on one page. The Reader's share function lets you publicize your favorite posts.

Copyright © 2009 Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves