Political Ruminations

Morning Quote: Charles Pierce

I admit, I  just love Charlie Pierce, and he damn well nailed it in his reaction to this Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) quote:

“Jesus, I mean, really, get the net.”

Quote of the Day (Updated)

Esquire’s Charles Pierce on Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wi), author of the infamous Ryan Plan, Mitt Romney’s choice for vice president:

“Paul Ryan is an authentically dangerous zealot. He does not want to reform entitlements. He wants to eliminate them. He wants to eliminate them because he doesn't believe they are a legitimate function of government. He is a smiling, aw-shucks murderer of opportunity, a creator of dystopias in which he never will have to live. This now is an argument not over what kind of political commonwealth we will have, but rather whether or not we will have one at all, because Paul Ryan does not believe in the most primary institution of that commonwealth: our government. The first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution make a lie out of every speech he's ever given. He looks at the country and sees its government as something alien that is holding down the individual entrepreneurial genius of 200 million people, and not as their creation, and the vehicle through which that genius can be channeled for the general welfare.”

Morning Quote: Charles Pierce

Esquire’s Charles Pierce goes off on MSNBC’s Conservative pundit (so-called), S.E. Cupp when she stupidly calls the president’s tax proposal “collectivist”:

“ Talking about the president's tax proposal, Ms. Cupp rather loosely termed the president's tax policy "collectivist." (And, yes, both Mao and Stalin laughed uproariously as their spits turned over the flames of hell.) Kornacki gently reminded her that an increase in the marginal income tax tax rate is a lot of things — including, to my mind, a pretty good idea, but no matter — but it is in no way "collectivist," if English words have any meaning in, you know, English. Kornacki asked, quite reasonably, whether Ms. Cup believed the country was in the grip of a collectvist regime when Dwight Eisenhower was president and the marginal rate was in the 70's. He then asked her if she thought Bill Clinton, who got passed the rates to which the current president is trying to return, was a "collectivist." She then said, "No." This caused Kornacki to take on the general mien of a man who has spent five minutes arguing tax policy with a marmoset. Ms. Cupp then started flapping her gums about this president's "political" philosophy of taking your salary and making it belong to everyone, or somebody or something. I lost a few minutes because I heard a high whistle and everything went black. ”

One has to wonder if Republicans are  all collectively brain damaged.

Morning Quote: Charles Pierce

Charles Pierce on what he terms the “unbridled liberty to be a dick” handed to us all by Republicans:

“In case you haven’t noticed, the Republicans seem to be on a crusade to free Americans to be as dicky as possible to their fellow Americans. It is now okay to be a dick to immigrants. It’s now okay to be a dick to your letter carrier. It’s now okay to be a dick to firefighters and schoolteachers. (Thanks, Scott Walker!) And have I mentioned recently what a colossal dick Rick Santorum is? And he’ll be at the GOP convention this summer. And it’s even okay to be a dick to the president of the United States on his own lawn. The unbridled liberty [to] be a dick is sweeping this great nation.

FREEEEDOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!”

Translation of Jamie Dimon’s Capitol Hill Testimony

Jamie Dimon, the current chairman, president, and chief executive officer of JPMorgan, is on Capitol Hill today giving his excuses for the recent JPMorgan meltdown to our do-nothing 112th Congress. This is, I remind you, the same Congress that fought to weaken the Dodd-Frank Act, and blankly refused any other protective measures for our economy after the enormous worldwide financial catastrophe caused by Republicans in 2008.

Charles P. Pierce with a translation of Dimon’s testimony today:

Translation from the original Ass-Coverish:

1) The people who worked for me didn't know what they were doing.

2) The people who worked for me didn't know what to do when things went bad because they didn't know what they were doing in the first place.

3) The people who worked for me didn't know how to manage the things that went bad because they didn't know what they were doing in the first place.

4) We were replacing some of the people who didn't know what they were doing in the first place with some new people who didn't know what they were doing in the first place, either.

And, 5) Jesus Christ On My Private Jet, I hired me some meatheads.