Captain Zero Greets CPAC in Alaska
‘Tis the season!
No, not the moose rut.
No, not the last run of silvers.
‘Tis the season that conservatives emerge from the sea and make their landfall on the arctic shores of Alaska. We’ve talked before about the “Tea Party at Sea” ship on The Mudflats. And now, there seems to have been yet another starboard leaning vessel that has docked in Juneau.
Rather than heading for the misty hills of that fair city screaming when the invaders arrived, Governor Sean “Captain Zero” Parnell did the political equivalent of throwing flowers and candy. Yes, he greeted CPAC as liberators.
Parnell told the Conservative Political Action Conference Monday that the state’s automatic assumption has been to use its own money to cover any funding gaps. But he said the state needs to ask itself whether it’s worth putting its own money toward certain programs if the federal government doesn’t deem them worth funding.
Just absorb that statement, and then think of Parnell’s constant fiscal squeakings and moanings about the feds for a minute. Then realize the totality of what he is saying:
1) “We don’t need any money from the damn feds! The states can do it!”
2) “If the feds aren’t even going to pay for it, why should we?”
Sooo… nobody pays for anything. And we all live happily ever after. What could go wrong?
Parnell’s Fish and Game administration dosen’t blink an eye soaking up CDQ funds to operate the fish counting projects in the Norton Sound. Ironic to the max – CDQ, pollock fishery, salmon ByCatch culprits buying favors with CDQ funds to count the few thousand salmon that managed to escape their peril in the sea.
MFI – You are right of course. The harder one tries to keep things from changing the faster they change, and usually for the worst. It turns out there is a clear cut and very efficacious way to deal with things that change. It has been applied by humans for the past 200 to 300 years and had great effect. Without it we would live in a world of famine, pestilence, war (well we still have a lot of that) and poverty, (well we have that too in spades). But we have managed to accomplish some things.
BB – Point taken, but you omit all the other taxes that are paid by that whopping 50% of the population who does not make enough to OWE income taxes. Bear in mind, since all of them are living pay check to pay check those taxes are still deducted and they have to file a tax return to get the money they did not owe back after a year long free loan to the government that pays exactly zero interest. Then there is the remaining 1% who pay no taxes at all but who make billions of dollars. Hedge fund managers anyone. Carried interest? Then consider that the employment tax is levied on all income up to something like $106,000. That probably includes 90% of the population.
That tax alone is some 14% of total income. It matters a lot to someone making $30,000 a year, but
it does not even register next to the cost of yacht maintenance for billionaires. Then there are property taxes, as if the noble gesture of indenturing yourself for 30 years to the outrageous demands of a bank entitled you to then have to tithe to the great god of supporting basic survival in an urban social context. But with layered costs on that as well. Health care anyone?
Yes indeed, half the population doesn’t pay any income taxes because they are too poor to owe it.
But they still pay plenty of other really regressive taxes which are utterly insignificant to the ultra rich. So BB, it seems as if you are either an apologist for the rich, presumably looking after your own best interests, or you are just another of the fools who buy the con that you too will be rich if you just believe! Good luck with that.
Take a minute and think about my first sentence in the last paragraph, too poor to owe income tax. Doesn’t that resonate a little with anyone here?
Sooo… nobody pays for anything. And we all live happily ever after. What could go wrong?
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A minority of people in America are burdened with paying federal income taxes (49 percent) so that a majority of Americans who aren’t paying for anything (the 51 percent paying no federal income taxes) can live happily ever after… Of course the majority really isn’t happy because there is so much MORE they want their Government (the 49 percent) to pay for…
about 200 well off korporations pay their CEO’s more than they pay in korporate taxes each year and some are getting billions in refunds. I’d certainly like to receive billions and only pay an average of 18%. What do these greedy bastards have to complain about? I get taxed on my disability for virtually everything except income(I have none) and some food items. Can I afford to pay 8 cents sales tax? Does it matter? I can’t do anything about it. I wish I can spend a little of my income and buy me a politician or four and m,aybe an election or two. Again,I ask,what do these greedy bastards have to complain abiut?
Captain zero. Be a something and support McAdams. If you can’t think right- at least vote right.
*waving to dreamgirl*
In my experience the plural of moose is moose MFI just for reference. I’d be willing to argue the point with Bullwinkle if he came out against it.
On a lighter note, when did it become tacitly acceptable that any politician elected on the basis of some partisan platform had a blank check to implement that platform without regard for or in spite of the rest of the electorate? When did it change from having the responsibility to represent all of the constituents to this utterly absurd, my way or the highway exclusionary garbage. Was it wen George the younger declared that if you are not with us you are dung? Did no one realize that he applied that to bona fide US citizens, as well as the awesomely fearful ‘other’, people with strange names with more than four letters, people with skin color that doesn’t depend on how much time they spend in tanning salons or on golf courses, people who can speak more than one language, people who do not share the unshakeable certainty that the great patriarchal mythological power in the sky is not only the only thing that can save us, but that it/he/she is willing to do so, despite the compelling evidence to the contrary.
There is an old joke that the prostitutes of Rome would have iconographs carved into the heels of their feet so their clients could follow their foot prints. That makes advertising the second oldest profession in the world. But that joke overlooks a key tid bit of reality. Magic is actually the oldest of all professions. Take the term literally, to profess to know what the future holds, based upon no evidence and no process of trial and error, just the shiney object of imperturbable certainty.
The great and inescapable weakness of a socialistic world view is that it includes those who are its implacable and ruthless enemies. It is a classically ironic conundrum. Game theorists the world over should tackle this problem, because it would be useful to have some sense of whether the probabilities or a particular outcome are within the scope of common place behavior or whether without radical resistance, everyone worth less than a few hundred million will become a slave to the oligarchs.
Thinking like this makes my teeth ache.
Dunb^ss Dubya declared he had a mandate to ruin America although he was appointed Potus by one,single vote-5/4. He wasn’t the first to shift America far to the right,but he certainly was persistent. It seems to me that tricky Dick Nixon was the first Potus to shift America’s prorities away from governing for all to aiding special interests. I could be wrong,but I feel it was Nixon’s paranoid insecurities that lead to clandestine spying and domestic surveillance of citizens,especially the “Enemies List” that was compiled. IMHO,Nixon was just the first rethuglican Potus that should have been impeached and the next four rethugs should have been impeached as well. If Dems would have went ahead and impeached Nixon,actually showed that they had convictions they were willing to fight for,we would not have had Raygun and the two Bushes wipe their feet on the Constitution and declare themselves above the law. Very few Dems have the courage to uphold the traditions of this country and hold the thugs responsible. Until we breed pols with backbones,nothing much will change. Rethugs still control the issues of the day and they define the political rhetoric.
The very nature of the republican party – conservative- ie, no change, maintain the status quo lends itself to the tactic that they use so well – fear. fear that things will change for the worse, fear that those who have less than you will take ” IT” away from you. When FDR was able to reassure a economically devastated nation that “We have nothing to fear , except Fear itself”, he effectively was able to pull the rug from under the Republican’s main selling point of Conservativism, and the nation moved forward socially. IMHO, until we as a Nation, regain that self confidence, that Change is not to be feared, the Republicans will have a death grip on us econonomically and socially.
You are correct. Things have changed from the point where deficits don’t matter to deficits do matter to go ahead and default,we’ll just blame Obama. Things have changed,they’ve gotten progressively worse,let me restate that,things have gotten worse in a conservative,predictable manner. No offense to my progressive friends.
I assume that the “flowers and candy” were privately-funded?
Baby moose playing in a sprinkler… sent to me by a friend. Really cute.
http://www.wimp.com/babymoose…. reminded me of AKM’s twin baby moose….
my computer says that webpage can’t be found. I wish Alaska would or could export more mooses and less nutjob pols. Mooses can’t help being cute and lovable,pols of the nutty persuasion can only dream of being as such,if they had dreams.
Sorry…. try this….
http://www.wimp.com/babymoose
worked like a charm and so cute. Muchas Gracias.
I’ve seen that before, but it never fails to bring smiles. Can’t see it often enough. Thanks for the treat!
I, too, have seen it before. It’s well worth revisiting.
Ohh… the baby moose-playing in sprinkler is epic BrianLove_ projection, for me at least. Passed this on to loved ones as well. Love it still.
Much like our own teabagging governor…
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2011/08/30/rep-cantor-start-acting-like-a-mensch-and-stop-being-a-putz-special-comment-by-my-72-year-old-friend/
Well, if Prevo has his way, Private Zero (I refuse to call him Captain) will be reelected. AK Dems, get your act together and choose one great candidate who can win the state.
Governor McAdams
seconded!
Thirded!
Quadrupled.
Being from one of those evul librul states on the soggy east coast, I don’t know too much about McAdams, but I was extremely impressed with what I saw during the Senate race.
Me likee him!
What a delightful change that would be for Alaskans…to have a governor you could actually be proud of!
That fake grin of his makes my skin crawl. He is an evil man.
The last time a Right-leaning cruise docked in Juneau, it bought Sarah a slot on the Republican ticket as V.P.
Remember: $41,000 in State monies to pay for Sarah ‘s efforts to brand her ‘energy’ expertise and reformer image with the MSM really paid off.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/27/081027fa_fact_mayer
Captain Zero? He’s so bland and forgettable, except his faith leadership style is nothing to take for granted.
How can an entire national political party become so completely insane so quickly? I know the roots of Republican idiocy are deep but the vines have sure been flourishing since George Bush (II) became president in 2000. Maybe it’s the century?
Ick.
Parnell creeps me out.
I shield the 5yr olds eyes and ears when he is in local news stories.
Ya gotta wonder, while running for gov, he didn’t campaign too much in rural Alaska.
Like my auntie said “it must be uncomfortable to visit a village seeped in 10 thousand yr old traditions, when you think the world is 6 thousand yrs. old…”
I think I’d get along very well with your auntie, tallimat! She sounds like a peach (as does her niece).
I like Aunties comment!
VernD
Would your auntie let us draft her for gov?
We wouldn’t know what to do with a wise soul in that office for a bit, because it’s been awhile, but we would get used to it pretty fast, I think.
I live a few blocks from the gov’s mansion. I could visit and show her where the biggest patches of nagoonberries are around here 🙂 if that would help her decide.
Alaska Pi, please tell me when the nagoonberry harvest season occurs. I’ll make sure that’s when I visit Juneau. I’ve heard legends of their deliciousness, but was in northern Canada way too early (I did see them in flower), and have never visited Scandinavia.
I think I’d like to try my nagoonberries where I can inquire about them in English. 😉
see open thread 🙂
You got a boatload of Vampires coming next year from Vancouver,I think. I hope Parnell doesn’t bleed everybody dry. You have no idea how pissy distraught Vampires can get. I read this somewhere last week. Feel free to kill the messenger. What possible harm could it do? Sorry that this is slightly off topic. feel free to off me again.
No one would want to do that, Mike from Iowa. Your comments are too valuable — we wouldn’t want to lose them.
But they are a little corny.
Sorry about that, could not resist.
I’m from Ioway-where did the “corny” thing come from?
Word is that this cruise was on the ship being picketed by Longshoremen yesterday…!
I heard it was that ship too! I hope so!
Go union!
Pffft Parnell!
Or, as a governor who is Mr. States’ Rights, he can’t make up his mind what’s important for his state. If the Feds don’t designate it for him, he can’t decide whether to fund it. Sad. I hope he has someone at home who picks out his clothes for him, because that can be a difficult decision too.
Excellent conclusion at the end. The obvious assumption is 3) more money for junkets, parties and gold faucets!