Month: April 2011

World Net Daily's Jack Cashill, best known for claiming that Bill Ayers ghost-authored Obama's book, is promoting a new conspiracy theory. Cashill says that the picture on the left, of Obama with his grandparents, is a forgery. Unfortunately for Cashill, what he describes as the original photograph (right) still contains the president's knee. Pareene bait:

What was Barack Obama's knee doing in New York, while the rest of him was in Pakistan, and Indonesia? Dealing drugs? Why are mainstream journalists afraid to ask tough questions about the president's detachable knee? The people have a right to know!

Michelle Cottle sympathizes with John Boehner:

Boehner’s choice, increasingly, seems to be between shutting down the government—and, in all likelihood, inflicting serious damage on his party—and cutting a deal that would put him on the outs with a big chunk of his members and possibly endanger his leadership position. It’s a choice between two immensely unappetizing options. And no one knows the risks better than Boehner, who is in the unique position of having already suffered through both outcomes.

Harlingen, Netherlands, 8.07 am

The rebels are painting their trucks a different color. How long before Qaddafi repaints his the same? And no, this is not a story from the Onion. It's our crazy reality.

Giancarlo DiTrapano provides a primer. The climax:

It’s just sex. It’s just a stranger. You have a flesh that demands of you the flesh of another man. It was a bit of a process lining this up, but now that’s all in the past and you’re on your way. As of this moment, you are in a taxi hurtling towards the home of someone who wants you there. Maybe things looked better on the screen, and the evening doesn’t turn out as pleasant as you imagined. It’s possible. It’s likely. Or maybe you’ll physically click, quench each other, then go your separate ways never to cross dicks again.

Maybe you’ll get knocked out. Maybe you’ll be brutally murdered after all. Maybe you’re hurtling towards a man who will knock you out not with a crow-bar, but with how he addresses you by your full name, then you’ll become all his and he’ll become all yours. You could be heading towards the best sex you’ll ever have in your life. You could be on your way to suck the most beautiful dick in this city. You could be heading towards a fake address. You could be on your way to a man who’s been waiting for years on you.

Robert J. Samuelson gets a prescription from three economists:

We should lower the tax on corporations. That would make the United States more attractive to U.S. and foreign multinationals. We should then raise taxes on the people who receive the benefits of corporate profits.

The economists suggest cutting the corporate rate to 26 percent and increasing the capital-gains rate to 28 percent; dividends would be taxed as ordinary income. If done properly, this switch would create jobs, lower tax avoidance, and cut budget deficits. Eliminating unwarranted business tax breaks could raise extra revenues. The scandal is not that GE is paying no U.S. taxes in 2010; that will be temporary. The scandal is that we’re not facing the realities of globalized business.

Stan Collender looks ahead:

No matter what happens today with the government shutdown, the situation is going to be even more difficult this September when the House, Senate, and White House fight over the 2012 appropriations.  The House GOP is likely to propose even larger appropriations reductions in next year's budget than it did for fiscal 2011 and the battle will be far more intense. 

So how do you double-plus shut down the government? It seems to me that for the GOP to put all their eggs in this relatively trivial basket rather than saving their fire for the big one … is tactically loopy. To shut down the government to make a point about Planned Parenthood – which many women support – is near suicidal. But that's what happens when a political party becomes a religious one. How do you make a compromise with God's will?

A reader writes:

You're post on Donald Trump got me thinking about him and his role in the USFL (United States Football League) in the mid '80s. If you're not familiar, The USFL was a spring football league that was meant to be a compliment to the NFL. After one season and the popularity increasing, Donald bought the NY team (partly because the NFL wanted nothing to do with him). He immediately began pushing the league, eventually suing the NFL for anti-trust violations because he wanted to move the season to the fall to compete with the NFL. He won the lawsuit, but was awarded $1 in damages, and effectively bankrupted the USFL, which folded soon after the lawsuit ended. (Here is a link to a short segment from an ESPN documentary. Here is a web story on the ESPN site.)

While I am too young to remember this happening, my (and others') conclusion is that he killed the USFL due to greed and his own megalomania. If he somehow get the GOP nomination, he will do the same thing to the Republican party. I'm a card carrying Republican who would vote for most anyone other than Obama (Palin included). But The Donald must be stopped.

A reader snarls:

What one never reads in the Dish: Hamas fires an anti-tank missile at a yellow school bus – yes, a school bus.  But, hey, they were just Jews, neocons, wapo editorial page readers on the bus, so no worries.

Oh, please.  JPost has details:

IDF officers said that the attack – the first time an anti-tank missile was fired deep into Israel, and, officers believe, deliberately targeting the school bus – “crossed all red lines” and that Hamas would pay dearly.

(Photo: Soft toys are left in the interior of the bus where an Israeli teenager was critically wounded when a projectile from Gaza slammed into it as it took children home from school on April 7, 2011 near the southern Israeli Kibbutz of Nahal Oz, Israel. Israeli forces struck Gaza in return, bombing a compound in nothern Gaza belonging to Hamas. By Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)