Just saw it in the comments. Dead at 77.

I am not going to pretend I care much about this guy. Which isn't the same as dancing on his grave. I'm just not going to overcompensate and pretend I'm praying for him or whatnot.

The only reason I'm mentioning this guy is because he occupied a seat I'd like to have.

And that seat is now open.

Murtha's death couldn't come at a worse time for Congressional Democrats.

Or, for that matter, for John Murtha, but I think that's obvious.

To Win the Seat... A Republican will probably have to express a greater interest in earmarks than we'd generally be comfortable with -- Murtha's little fiefdom basically ran on tax money siphoned off from the rest of the country.

This is one of those cases where we might have to bend to local politics on one issue to have a Representative who's with us on most other matters.

But, you know, that will be one guy arguing for earmarks for Allentown, and without Murtha's seniority and heft. (Correction: It's Johnstown, not Allentown.)

William T. Russell, You're Our Only Hope: Will he run again?

Posted by: Ace at 10:47 AM | Comments (595)
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The only plan which actually saves our entitlement programs.

To make the economy -- on which all else hinges -- hum, Ryan proposes tax reform. Masochists would be permitted to continue paying income taxes under the current system. Others could use a radically simplified code, filing a form that fits on a postcard. It would have just two rates: 10 percent on incomes up to $100,000 for joint filers and $50,000 for single filers; 25 percent on higher incomes. There would be no deductions, credits or exclusions, other than the health-care tax credit (see below).

The whole thing is good. Entitlements can be saved by acknowledging the obvious -- that people live longer, and have longer productive careers -- than they did in the 30's, when most people would die before or shortly after hitting age 65. The plan keeps entitlements untouched for current retirees, and those retiring over the next ten years, but then slowly escalates the age at which benefits can be taxed over a number of years, until it finally hits 70.

And that right there fixes it all -- politically, there's no fallout, or very little, because current and soon-to-be seniors see absolutely no changes at all, and the rest of us, depending on our age cohort, will get those benefits at 66, or 67, or, for very young people who will probably end up living until 100, age 70.

Since younger people are mostly concerned these benefits won't exist for them at all, so they're basically having money extracted from them only for other people, I think they'd respond well to a system that guaranteed their benefits... just later than age 65. Later than age 65 is better than "never."

My only quibble is with dropping the cap-gains tax to 0%. I know this is something of a conservative Holy Grail, but I disagree with it on policy grounds and political grounds.

Politically, it's awful, especially with the current populist/bash the fat-cats mood of the country. I don't think people like the idea that their busting-my-ass-for-the-man income gets taxed while a wealthy investor's investment income doesn't. You can make a lot of arguments about a 0% tax rate spurring the economy and so on, but I don't think most of the public goes in for such indirect-benefits arguments; I think they focus on the immediate. And in the immediate, their labor is being taxed, and someone's investment income isn't, and they don't like that.

On policy grounds, making such a sharp distinction between cap gains and ordinary income, with huge tax consequences flowing from the act of categorization, will prompt, as it always does, a lot of tax avoidance schemes wherein straight income can be kinda-sorta argued to be some kind of capital gains income. (It's not always clear which is which, or at least it wasn't always clear to me when I took Federal Tax Policy in law school -- but then, maybe I just didn't study that section hard enough.) Which then prompts more and more rules and regulations to properly categorize the two, which is precisely what a system going for streamlined simplicity doesn't need.

I see this more as an initial bargaining position to make the cap gains tax lower, but not actually at 0%.

And then there's all this great stuff:

Universal access to affordable health care would be guaranteed by refundable tax credits ($2,300 for individuals, $5,700 for families) for purchasing portable coverage in any state. As persons younger than 55 became Medicare-eligible, they would receive payments averaging $11,000 a year, indexed to inflation and pegged to income, with low-income people receiving more support.

Ryan's plan would fund medical savings accounts from which low-income people would pay minor out-of-pocket expenses. All Americans, regardless of income, would be allowed to establish MSAs -- tax-preferred accounts for paying such expenses.

Ryan's plan would allow workers younger than 55 the choice of investing more than one-third of their current Social Security taxes in personal retirement accounts similar to the Thrift Savings Plan long available to, and immensely popular with, federal employees. This investment would be inheritable property, guaranteeing that individuals will never lose the ability to dispose of every dollar they put into these accounts.

Thanks to Dave @ Garfield Ridge.

Posted by: Ace at 09:55 AM | Comments (248)
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Actually Amanda Marcotte advocates violence against women. Ike Turner just emailed me to say, "Now you get it."

Here's her idiotic tweet.

Ed Morrissey predicted that.

I didn't see the ad until today, myself. I DVR'd the game and then fast forwarded through all in-between-plays stuff and commercials. Apparently either CBS forbade them to offer an anti-abortion message, and they had to cut that, or they chose to have no message in the ad at all, and just let word of mouth let everyone know what they were talking about. If you didn't hear about the controversy, you'd just think Pam Tebow was saying how happy she is since she almost "lost" her son, but didn't.

I suspect the former: CBS forced them to cut anything with a message at all. But, thanks to the controversy, most people know what the message was.

Posted by: Ace at 09:22 AM | Comments (113)
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All models... I think.

Some of these have such perfect backgrounds I suspect p-shopping, but in some shots he reveals that how he did it -- basically just a table with the model cars on the model street in foreground, with the real background in background, making it look like real cars before a real background.

Some really cool photography here.

Is it all real single-shot in-camera trickery, or is he faking it with p-shopping or something like that?

Thanks to EdwardR.

Posted by: Ace at 08:51 AM | Comments (54)
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Although we're always told our problems were due to The Fiend Bush, seems that a lot of European countries are similarly situated. A lot of money is tied up in bad Spanish property.

The poorer European countries have a lot of debt they can't pay, and they can't use the typical means to avoid paying (printing money, borrowing even more money they can't pay) because they're in the Euro system, with their finances significantly controlled by German deficit/inflation super-hawks.

So basically they're just being told by Europe's central banks to lay off a significant fraction of government workers, stop safety net payments, etc. Bite the bullet, in other words.

Most of these countries will have to repudiate the Euro and drop out of that system.

But even if they do -- their situations are becoming more dire.

Flow data shows an abrupt withdrawal of German and Asian capital from Club Med debt markets. The EU's refusal to offer Greece anything beyond stern words and a one-month deadline for harsher austerity – while admirable in one sense – is to misjudge how fast confidence is ebbing. Greece's drama has already metastasised into a wider systemic crisis. The world risks a replay of the Lehman collapse if this runs unchecked, this time involving sovereign dominoes.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Posted by: Ace at 08:29 AM | Comments (127)
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Late start today. Picked up a hella cold in Vegas.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:00 AM | Comments (52)
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Please Share Your Romantic Suggestions Here

It really is a silly idea for a holiday, but no amount of eye-rolling and snark will change it.

Because any day devoted mostly to women getting their asses kissed is permanent. S'truth.
Ah well, why not? Men are more romantic than women, anyway. Less sappy-sentimental, but ultimately more romantic.

There are still six days to get the job done. Maybe you have better than a box of chocolate or flowers up your sleeves.*

Any of you Morons or Moronettes ever do anything totally cool that went over real well on a Valentine's Day? Got some nifty ideas or unusual traditions to share?

Put us some knowledge.

*Yeah, I'm trolling for ideas here, myself. I don't usually observe the day but this is kind of a special one, this year.

Posted by: LauraW at 07:54 AM | Comments (283)
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Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan doesn't like that Republicans are attacking the administration for giving the Christmas Day bomber full Miranda rights. Yesterday he pushed back by saying he talked to 4 top congressional Republicans the night of the attack and none of them complained about it.

Problem is (and there's always a problem with the story of this gang) that by Brennan's own admission he didn't say anything about Mirandizing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

"On Christmas night, I called a number of senior members of Congress," Brennan said on NBC, specifically identifying Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, as well as the ranking Republicans on the Senate and House intelligence committees, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.

"I explained to them that he was in FBI custody, that Mr. Abdulmutallab was, in fact, talking, that he was cooperating at that point," Brennan said. "They knew that 'in FBI custody' means that there's a process then you follow as far as Mirandizing and presenting him in front of a magistrate. None of those individuals raised any concerns with me at that point. They didn't say, 'Is he going into military custody?' 'Is he going to be Mirandized?'"

So according to Brennan, a courtesy call on Christmas night is the one and only chance these four had to speak up. It was incumbent upon them to realize that 'FBI custody' meant 'Full legal rights' and that since they didn't instantly make that connection, they just need to shut the hell up now and forever.

Aside from the ridiculousness of that theory, it's just plain wrong. Writing at The Corner, Marc Thiessen demonstrates there was no reason for anyone to believe "FBI custody" automatically meant full Miranda rights because the Obama administration said it wouldn't.

just a few months earlier, the Obama administration announced that its new FBI-led “High-Value Interrogation Group” (HIG) would not necessarily Mirandize suspects it was questioning.

In its story on the announcement, the Washington Post reported:

Interrogators will not necessarily read detainees their rights before questioning, instead making that decision on a case-by-case basis, officials said. . . . "ItÂ’s not going to, certainly, be automatic in any regard that they are going to be Mirandized," one official said, referring to the practice of reading defendants their rights. "Nor will it be automatic that they are not Mirandized."

In other words, Republicans were assured by the Obama administration that the decision on reading Miranda rights to captured terrorists would be made a on “case-by-case” basis.

You remember the HIG, don't you? First Director of National Intelligence Blair told a Senate panel that it should have been activated in this case but then later that night he had to release a statement admitting the team was not operational.

I'd love to ask Brennan that even if we took his reasoning as sound (which no one possibly can) what difference would it have made if they complained then? It's not like you can un-Mirandize a suspect. The criticisms of the law enforcement approach came out in the course of oversight hearings and a national debate on this administration's approach to these matters. The idea that 4 congressional leaders not bringing this up on the spot somehow preempts this debate for everyone else is simply idiotic.

I just wanted to get that on the record lest Brennan tell me I had my chance and by passing it up, I forfeited any right to ever critique him again.

CORRECTION:
*I confused Brennan with DNI Blair in the original post. I've changed the headline and the references from Blair to Brennan in the body. I also removed a paragraph about Blair and his Navy service since it's no longer applicable.

Thanks to notropis for spotting the error. My apologies to all for the mistake.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:59 AM | Comments (84)
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Doesn't want to jeopardize (however that's spelled) the Dem ticket.

Announcing his decision at a Chicago bar packed with patrons watching the Super Bowl, a tearful Scott Lee Cohen said the Democrats were not certain they could win with him on the ticket. He said he was stepping down because he did not want to jeopardize the Democratic Party ticket.

It's that middle name thing. Just tweaks you wrong.

via HotAirpundit via comment by newser

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:09 PM | Comments (235)
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Alrighty let's get the post-SB ONT party started.

Best game snark - DrewM on twitter: "I stand by my prediction from October...Obama will be named MVP of this game."

And how about that Census commercial?
I'm an optimist so when I see the government waste $2.5 million on a crappy useless commercial, I just tell myself well at least it didn't go directly to the SIEU.

From the Know-Your-Correctional-Facilities Dept: Inside a Scandi Prison
Well damn I've lived in school dorms that were more prison-like than this. An acquaintance of mine who lived for a couple of years in Scandinavia tells me that the scandis are very naive about crime which is why you're always hearing about capers like this and this and this. So maybe it's time to gather up some morons and go do some crimes in scandi-land.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:03 PM | Comments (769)
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