Month: October 2011

They died holding hands:

At 3:38 pm last Wednesday, Gordon's breathing stopped. Though he was no longer alive, his heart monitor continued to register a beat. The nurse told Gordon and Norma's son, Dennis Yeager, that the monitor was beeping "because they're holding hands, and [Norma's heart beat] is going through them," Dennis recalled in an interview with Des Moines' KCCI news station. "Her heart was beating through him." Norma died at 4:38 pm, exactly one hour later.

They had been married for 72 years. My thoughts immediately went to these lines from this amazing poem, An Arundel Tomb. Such moments, such gestures prove

Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

Perry is backing a flat tax, but, true to form, hasn't yet released many details of his plan. Alex Altman claims that Perry is "the highest-profile presidential contender in history to hook his Oval Office hopes to the flat tax":

The flat tax has multiple variations, but the basic idea is to replace the progressive scale presently in use with a single, fixed rate and jettison deductions, credits and taxes on income accrued through investment. Since being popularized by a pair of Stanford economists in the early 1980s, the flat tax has intermittently surfaced in presidential campaigns, often as a way for second-tier candidates to capitalize on frustration with the byzantine tax structure by urging an uncluttered fix.

Steve Forbes’ 1996 presidential bid is a famous example of this phenomenon, but not all the candidates who used the flat or fair tax as a springboard have been conservative — as Steve Kornacki notes, Jerry Brown harnessed its appeal to great effect in the 1992 Democratic primary, and in the Senate Arlen Specter was a recent proponent.

And my sympathy for it lies primarily in its simplicity. There is a direct relationship between the complexity of the tax code and corruption. The rich can afford accountants to keep their taxes low – shifting money and valuables around in myriad ways. The people doing that kind of work could actually be doing something productive. I'm leerier today of that kind of flatness because of its regressivity in an era of spiraling inequality. But a progressive tax system can also be far, far, far simpler than what we have today.

I remain baffled by the Obama administration's inability to seize tax simplification as an issue. Until they do, the GOP will retain an edge. And the lobbyist hordes will keep feasting.

Watching a Korean animation of Qaddafi's capture and killing, I noticed the following from a commenter. Obviously, it's just a troll, but I've learned that the trolls end up pioneering messaging from the Ailes propaganda factory, so here it is, as a preview of how the far right (i.e. the right) will spin the democratic revolutions that Bush wanted but that Obama presided over:

Oh goodie another country handed over to the Muslim Brotherhood by Barry Soetoro! When can they have the USA?

It's coming, I tell you.

Heh.

"Muammer Qaddafi, the dictator of Libya, declared that 'we'd be content and happy if Obama can stay president forever.' Such lavish praise…tells you much of what [Obama's] approach to foreign policy is and the audience to which he is playing," – Mitt Romney, in his book No Apology.

Yesterday he came under attack for his views on abortion. Cue backpedaling:

I understood the thrust of the question to ask whether that I, as president, would simply "order" people to not seek an abortion. My answer was focused on the role of the President. The President has no constitutional authority to order any such action by anyone. That was the point I was trying to convey.

It seems to me, based on his interview with Morgan, that he's obviously pro-choice, as that position is usually understood in our current culture. He didn't just reference the president having power to permit abortions. He cites "politicians" and "bureaucrats" and insists that the choice to have a child or not must be left up the individual family or woman. I fail to see how this isn't, in fact, the Cuomo position: moral opposition to abortion in all cases, but criminalization only after the first trimester. Allahpundit makes a similar point:

No one on either side is arguing that the president has a constitutional power to issue executive orders barring women from having abortions. I’ve never heard even a diehard pro-lifer suggest that, so in essence, he wants you to believe here that he was responding with a point that no one disputes to a question that no one ever asks. Which means either he’s lying about what he understood Morgan’s question to mean or he’s so unacquainted with the most basic terms of the abortion debate that he genuinely felt obliged to reassure Americans that he won’t be sending the FBI to pregnant women’s homes to make sure they carry to term. Bad, bad news either way.

Worse news: the way in which Cain simply ends the controversy by absurd explanations and tweet fiats: "End of story." No, Mr Cain. It's the end of the story when we say it is – not you. Democracy is not like corporate life. You can't fire the voters or the journalists.

Question? askandrew@thedailybeast.com

Sadly, I won’t be sitting next to Rachel Maddow and Tom Friedman tonight. And yes, I’ve probably offended both of them at some point.

"I was totally embarrassed – completely embarrassed by the lack of seriousness, the lack of focus on the issues that really matter to the American people – issues about reviving our economy and addressing joblessness were given short shrift. Our role in the world and securing our position of pre-eminence were given short-shrift. It was more game-show-like than anything else," – Jon Huntsman, asked about this week's GOP debate, which he boycotted to pander to New Hampshire.

A preview of Obama's attack:

I'm a little taken aback by the personal brazenness of this. It's far more populist than Obama's previous campaign. In fact, it reminds me of the kind of brutal ads Republicans tend to deploy. Greg Sargent expects the millionaire tax rate will be central to the campaign:

You’d think the fact that Romney himself is one of the “millionaires and billionaires” who pays lower tax rates would render him a less than ideal messenger to make the case against Obama’s push for tax fairness. After all, Obama — or his outside allies — can respond by pointing out that Romney himself personally profits from the system Obama is trying to reform. Indeed, that’s what they’re now officially doing. Republicans will argue that Obama risks looking like too much of a class warrior who’s looking to penalize wealth and success if he runs with this line. And indeed, his campaign has not yet picked it up yet. But Dems view this as a way to exploit Romney’s vulnerabilities without being tarred as anti-success: They are merely arguing that Romney should pay the same tax rate as middle class taxpayers.