7thriv

The Plague Years: The Sickness In the Souls of the Left

Bill Maher has taken the Left's practice of degrading conservatives to a new low. On Friday's edition of Real Time, he and his guests discussed having violent "hate sex" with Michelle Bachmann and ... Rick Santorum?!

DAN SAVAGE, SEX ADVICE COLUMNIST: They're grifters and scumbags, the Bachmanns.

[Applause]

BILL MAHER, HOST: Grifters and scumbags.

SAVAGE: Yes

MAHER: Not just one or the other.

SAVAGE: They're not charming grifters like in the movie.

MAHER: No, no.

MARC MARON, COMEDIAN: I don't want to be crass but I just hope that Marcus Bachmann takes all that, you know, rage that comes from repression and denial and brings it into the bedroom with her. I hope he f--ks her angrily because, because that's how I would. And I've thought about it. I just…

[Laughter and applause]

MARON: …It's a political statement I'm trying to make.

SAVAGE: Just so we get, just so you don’t get charges of sexism, because only Michele Bachmann was involved, I sometimes think about f--king the s--t out of Rick Santorum.

[Laughter and applause]

SAVAGE: Because I think…

MARON: I’m with you.

SAVAGE: …he needs it. So, it’s not, it's not just women we’re talking about f--king. Like, let's bone that Santorum boy.

MARON: Alright. Let’s video it.

SAVAGE: I’m up for whipping up some santorum in Santorum

We don't indulge in too much evangelical finger-wagging around here, but that whole sequence is disgusting. Indeed, the above conversation is as pure a display of troubled diseased souls at work as you are likely to see. Jim Hoft isn't kidding when he says this is straight out of Satan's playbook. (you also have to love how "sex positive" types like Savage demand tolerance for their proclivities, yet use those same proclivities to demean their opponents. almost like they think there's something shameful about non-marital sex).

It goes without saying that the Left isn't targeting Michelle Bachmann with crass sex talk because of her stance on gay rights. It's because she is an effective critic of the president and his fiscal policies, and much more the "adult in the room" when it comes to trying to protect the country from further harm. If America's welfare state survives this latest bout with an ascendant conservative moment, they will probably need a long shower to wash off the stain of their victory.

Catch Me

Will the world supply of obscure first-wave punk singles ever run dry?

The Truth, Inadvertently

People have been slowly catching on to the fact that Obama's threat to withhold Social Security checks contains an unexpected admission against Democrat interests: if there isn't enough money to write SS checks, doesn't that mean the sacrosanct "trust fund" is empty? Verum Serum picked up on it first (actually, they credit Say Anything with being earlier). Now Investors Business Daily and Forbes are bringing the story closer to the mainstream.

Social Security status-quo defenders have assured us for the past 25 years that Social Security is fully funded—for the next 25 years, or 2036. So if there are real assets in the Social Security Trust Fund—$2.6 trillion allegedly—then how could failure to reach a debt-ceiling agreement possibly threaten seniors’ Social Security checks?
The answer is that the federal government has borrowed all of that trust fund money and spent it, exactly as Krauthammer asserted. And the only way the trust fund can get some cash to pay Social Security benefits is if the federal government draws it from general revenues or borrows the money—which, of course, it can’t do because of the debt ceiling.
Thus, the answer to my initial question is that the president is telling the truth now in the sense that he is conceding there’s no money in the trust fund to pay benefits; but he and other Social Security status-quo defenders have been deceiving the public for decades.
And here’s the real irony: Anytime someone has proposed personal Social Security retirement accounts as a way to ensure that people have real assets in their own account without bankrupting the government or future generations, defenders of the status quo would pounce, calling such a reform, in Al Gore’s words, a “risky scheme.” They have vociferously claimed that those trust fund assets are real and that only by having the government manage and control the accounts would seniors be guaranteed to get their retirement checks.
Well, we have the status quo and seniors may not get their checks.

The crazy thing is that it's really not that unusual for Social Security checks to be threatened during times when serious budget cuts are under discussion. Yet, everyone has so totally bought into the idea of a Social Security "lock box" on the one hand, and the "Republicans want to kill Grandma" on the other, that the president can go on television and make these sort of reality-challenged claims without anyone batting an eye. Scott Pelley, who was interviewing Obama when he threatened the elderly - talk about throwing Grandma off a cliff! - didn't say a word, of course. But even Republicans can be slow on the uptake on this sort of thing.

Democrats will say this is no problem because it's "just politics." But, politics is the only reason we have Social Security and a million other drains on the federal coffers. Moreover, the MSM is always happy to provide Democrats with friendly coverage that elides the basic contradictions in their rhetoric. No Republican is allowed to get away with the sort of facile double talk with which Democrats "protect" The Elderly, The Poor, The Children, The Workers, and Anyone Else you could name. That's why serious reform is virtually impossible until liberals can't rely on predictable MSM narratives about brave liberals "holding the line" against "intransigent Republicans."

Marco Rubio Seizes The Day

One of the benefits of the Obama era has been the ascent of a new breed of Republican officeholder. Call them Tea Partiers, if you want, but 3 years ago you wouldn't have seen people like Rand Paul, Mike Lee, or Rob Johnson in the Senate or Michelle Bachman ascending into the first tier of GOP presidential contenders. But, the guy with the most potential is Marco Rubio, and he has been on fire. If you ever get frustrated with the namby-pamby "collegiality" of DC Republicans, check out this blast from an interview Rubio did with Hugh Hewitt the other day:

HH: Senator Rubio, you represent a lot of senior citizens in Florida. The country knows that. I think it’s despicable to scare them this way. What’s your reaction to the President’s threat to hold their Social Security checks hostage?
MR: Well, if they don’t get their Social Security checks, it’s because the President’s decided to do that, because we still have revenue coming in. Here’s the other thing I would say. If in fact the President holds up their checks for Social Security, and Medicare, and whatever else he wants to hold up to make his point, isn’t he admitting that all these programs are funded by deficit spending? Isn’t he admitting that all these programs are dependant upon borrowed money? And I think the folks who are on Social Security, people like my mom, would be shocked to learn the truth that the money that they’re receiving in Social Security isn’t the money they worked hard for all these years to put away, the government was going to give back to them in their retirement. The government spent all that money already. They spent it long ago on other things. This is borrowed money. This is money that we’re borrowing from our children and our grandchildren. And I think people are going to, if that happens, I think people are going to be shocked to learn the real truth about what the government’s done with their Social Security money.

Honestly, why doesn't every Republican talk like that? I also liked his line - in a speech on the Senate Floor, no less - about how Obama should stop acting like the leader of a banana republic.

The other Tea Party Republicans have taken turns in the media crosshairs, having to defend stupid gaffes (Bachmann) or disconcertingly outside-the-box statements about the Civil Rights Act (Paul). Rubio has escaped this, partly because he has kept a relatively low profile, and partly because his communication skills are so disciplined and refined that his mouth doesn't get him into the sort of trouble that Sarah Palin - God love 'er - steps into every few weeks. Read the Hewitt transcript all the way through: it's one great line after another, simultaneously attacking the president in (well-deserved) harsh terms while also laying out an alternative to endless government spending.

I think Reagan comparisons are absurd at this point. For one thing Rubio is a year younger than I am. But the guy can convey a message very well. To think that, under normal conditions, he would have never left Florida, and Charlie Crist would be in the Senate.

No Gratitude: Liberals To CA Business - Love It Or Leave It

You may have heard about the latest plan to split CA into two states. Such proposals are hardy perennials among back bencher types in state politics. This time, a Riverside Republican has proposed splitting off CA's 13 most conservative counties, and let the rest of us drown in welfare checks, crack vials, and gay wedding detritus.

Frankly, proposals like this are little more than an excuse for a press release and a goofy story in the newspaper, but someone from the obliging LA Times actually contacted the governor's office to find out what the Zen Master thinks of this GOP plot to escape the land of fruits and nuts. Here is his spokesman's priceless response (h/t Baseball Crank)

"If you want to live in a Republican state with very conservative right-wing laws, then there's a place called Arizona," Brown spokesman Gil Duran said.

Honestly, you can practically hear Duran's prissy exasperation. ("Prissy exasperation" being the default vocal tone for CA liberals). Don't you think there are already a lot of Californians who have left for Arizona? And Oregon? And Nevada? And Colorado? And 45 other states besides? Not only that, they seem to have taken all the jobs with them and replaced them with an underclass that receives over 30% of the welfare paid out in the United States. That's not what most of us consider to be a fair trade.

Duran is also known for calling GOP legislators "basically moronic" during the last round of budget negotiations. Oddly enough, Republicans decided they didn't need to play along with progressive demands for more taxes and debt as the "solution" to our problems. In the classic way of these things, Duran finds praise for "just calling it like he sees it." Too bad a GOP spokesman who dared to be so forthright about perfidious Democrats would be hounded as a hot-headed radical who wants to kill Grandma.

Duran is not a loose cannon, of course. He's the governor's official spokesman. So his crass insults can only reflect his boss's attitude. It's almost as if all that New Civility talk of earlier this was a bunch of hooey.

Yesterday & Today: The LP Comes Back (Again)

Forbes takes a look at an unexpected phenomenon in the music biz. While gadflies have perpetually declared vinyl LP's to be on the verge of a come-back, last year actually did see a significant increase of LP sales, with many indie music stores receiving a significant amount of income from yesterday's sound system.

Much has been made of the decline of recorded music, and indeed, much has declined. According to Nielsen SoundScan, total album sales dipped from 373.9 million to 326.2 million last year, a drop of 12.7%. The 2010 sum is less than half the 2004 total of 666.7 million. But vinyl sales rose a healthy 14% — the third straight year of gains for the format — and this year’s 2.8 million total was the highest in the post-1991 SoundScan era.
“Vinyl will always be there,” says David Shebiro, owner of Rebel Rebel Records in Manhattan’s West Village. “It’s the way artists intend music to be.”
Shebiro has sold both LPs and CDs since opening the store in 1988. In the early days, LPs made up 90% of his sales. By 1998, the ratio had flipped, with CDs accounting for 90%. Today, he reckons, 60% of his sales are of the vinyl variety. He believes the main reason behind vinyl’s comeback is a desire to re-conjure the magic of buying music lost in the era of immediate gratification offered by Apple and Amazon.
“There used to be this anticipation when you bought a record,” he says. “You’d take it back with you on the subway and rip open the packaging, and you couldn’t wait to get home and play it. That magic of anticipation has gone with downloading, and that’s what people want to regain.”

I had actually noticed an increase in vinyl-only releases starting last year. I guess there's some kind of purist impulse at work, but I think there's an economic angle, too, one that Forbes didn't look too closely at. Where, five years ago every band and its dog was putting out a CD (even Psota put out an album), now you're much more likely to see an indie band with a 45, or an EP as their first release. Simply put, it's cheaper to record three really good songs, rather than try to fill up an album with material. In the Little Depression music scene, the "less is more" arises as much out of limited budgets, as out of aesthetics.

Incredibly, there are a lot of bands that put out cassettes. One of the music blogs I follow is Terminal Escape, which is dedicated entirely to tapes, and which never runs out of material to post on. Now, these are mostly DIY-style punk bands, so there's no doubt some crabby Luddite anti-corporatism at work, but still, it's been surprising to hear some of the best new music of the year on a cassette-only release.

The proponents of LP's are still pushing the "vinyl sounds better" line, about which I am agnostic. I'll agree that a lot of early CD reissues were poorly done, but the only album I regretted disposing of in favor of a disc was Blonde On Blonde, which really did sound better on vinyl. Even if LPs do sound better, you need some damn good equipment to bring out the best from the format. Forbes helpfully includes a list of the best current record players, which range up to $150,000. Not exactly the People's Choice. Not so with CD's where near-audiophile sound quality is available at a budget price. Music snobs are advised to give it a rest.